Abstract
C
This work offers an index to the English translations of Akkadian words found in The Assyrian Dictionary of the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago, A Concise Dictionary of Akkadian, and the Assyrian-English-Assyrian Dictionary, along with translations from a number of special studies. Synonyms and related words have been grouped together, so that, for example, the entry for ‘every’ has subheadings for ‘everybody, everyone’, ‘everybody who’, ‘everyday’, ‘everything’, ‘everything that’, and ‘everywhere’, whilst terms for different bones are all listed under the main entry ‘skeleton’. There are also some other, more particular arrangements of material: the entry ‘official’, for instance, includes a list of titles organized by period. General contextual information is not provided, however, and the user will need to turn to the source dictionaries for a proper understanding of nuances and distinctions between terms. In his preface, accordingly, C. stresses that this book is a ‘companion’, intended to be used in conjunction with those works. A short introduction by Erle V. Leichty, which sketches the history of Akkadian lexicography, says that it is intended to replace the partial glossary circulated privately by Jack Sasson, and C. describes that glossary as his inspiration. This is not, then, a full-blown dictionary in its own right, but it is a valuable tool, and perhaps especially useful for its detailed coverage of animal, plant, and other technical terms.
S.D.E. W
C
The aim of this revised Hebrew University PhD (supervisors S. Fassberg and A. Hurvitz) is a synchronic structural description of the verbal ‘tense system’ of Late Biblical Hebrew, which is compared diachronically with Biblical Hebrew (of the First Temple period) and the Dead Sea Scrolls. More than 4000 verbal forms from the body of chosen texts (Esther, Daniel, Ezra–Nehemiah, and the non-synoptic parts of Chronicles) are analysed. The first part of the study examines the history of study of the Hebrew verbal system and discusses the theoretical linguistic terms and concepts, with illustrations from Biblical Hebrew. The second part then describes the verbal system of Late Biblical Hebrew, noting its differences from First Temple Hebrew and (sometimes) later Hebrew. These are some of the main conclusions: On the whole qatal, yiqtol and weqatal forms only moderately changed their classical usages, while wayyiqtol and volitive forms (imperative, etc.) were quite stable. There were two major changes, however; first, a sharp reduction in the traditional system of consecutive usages to designate succession; secondly, a vast increase in predicative use of the participle, the infinitive construct, and the infinitive absolute (i.e. they come to be used in place of finite verbs and thus become a part of the verbal system). On the other hand, the use of the infinitive absolute to intensify a main verb diminishes drastically. This is a significant study, and its firm base in linguistic theory is a major strength. However, the rather opaque linguistic terminology is likely to put off many biblical scholars who could benefit from the data here. It is a shame that the author—or his translator—did not provide a summary aimed at non-linguists who nevertheless know Hebrew and for whom the concepts would be perfectly understandable.
L.L. G
C
One suspects that when Qoheleth wearily observed that ‘of the making of books there is no end’, he might have had the Biblical Hebrew verbal system (BHVS) in mind. Despite the centuries, and the myriad translations of the Hebrew Bible, debate continues. C.'s monograph falls into two main parts. Chapters 1–2 (pp. 1–175) provide the theoretical base, first reviewing relevant literature from linguistics on tense, aspect, and modality (TAM), before moving on to assess the major milestones in relating these concepts to the BHVS. Upon that foundation, C. builds his own analysis in chs. 3–4 (pp. 176–338), explicating first the ‘semantics’ of the system—eschewing examination of particular forms in favour of attempting a description of the interrelationships within the whole—and finally applying his theory to some worked examples. C.'s contribution to the debate is welcome. His lengthy selective review of previous scholarship is illuminating; to call it richly detailed would be an understatement. The clear organization allows C. to incorporate a welter of examples without the discussion getting bogged down. His commitment to an ‘aspect-prominent’ view of the BHVS contributes an initial dissonance to his adoption of ‘time’ as the central organizing feature of his theory. However, his development of a’ “default” temporal interpretation’ is an appealing hypothesis. C.'s proposals have numerous implications for the ‘traditional’ view of the BHVS, the pedagogical level included. While his work will of course be subjected to the same detailed scrutiny he has given others, the study of Biblical Hebrew has already been enriched by it.
D.J. R
D
This volume brings together the major writings of D. Winton Thomas on the subject of Hebrew lexicography. D. presents a brief outline of the career and major interests of Winton Thomas, Regius Professor of Hebrew in Cambridge from 1938–68, who was distinguished by his cautious advocacy of the method of comparative philology. The subject necessarily covers a wide field of research focused on the compilation of a new dictionary of Classical Hebrew to replace earlier volumes based on the work of Wilhelm Gesenius. The essays include one from 1938 covering contemporary developments in Hebrew lexicography and an inaugural lecture published in 1939 introducing the method and aims of Comparative Philology in linguistic study. Five full-length essays cover broad themes of lexicography and usage, including one on ways of expressing the superlative and possible derivative word-formations from the verbal root yd‘. D. gives a general summary of Thomas's work, which owes its origin in British Hebrew studies to the pioneering work of the Arabist William Wright, defending its value as a method in the wake of the cautionary strictures of James Barr. The main body of this collection consists of 84 short notes on specific passages, words and textual problems, reprinted from their original location in journals and Festschrifts. Altogether this is an invaluable reprint of work which honours the contribution of a great scholar to a complex area of research and provides a supplement to contemporary Classical Hebrew dictionaries. It explains the tools, resources and methodology by which this ancient language can be understood in the present day.
R.E. C
F
This volume collects essays from the Twelfth Orion Symposium, which was also the Fifth International Symposium of the Hebrew of the Dead Sea Scrolls and Ben Sira, held in 2008. This well-edited collection provides numerous studies that will be of interest to the readers of the B.L. The shift between Classical Biblical Hebrew and Late Biblical Hebrew is a concern for a number of essayists (Dihi, Eskhult, Fassberg, Hurvitz, Joosten, Zewi). Other essayists give particular attention to the Hebrew of the Dead Sea Scrolls (Geiger, Van Hecke, Kratz, Mizrahi, Rey, Schattner-Rieser, Tov, Yuditsky, Zanella, Zewi). The essays are as follows: Gary A. Anderson, ‘How Does Almsgiving Purge Sins?’; Moshe Bar-Asher, ‘Mistaken Repetitions or Double Readings?’; Haim Dihi, ‘Linguistic Innovations in Ben Sira Manuscript F’; Mats Eskhult, ‘Relative ha-: A Late Biblical Hebrew Phenomenon?’; Steven Fassberg, ‘Shifts in Word Order in the Hebrew of the Second Temple Period’; Gregor Geiger, ‘Plene Writing of the Qōţēl Pattern in the Dead Sea Scrolls’; Pierre Van Hecke, ‘Constituent Order in היה Clauses in the Hebrew of the Dead Sea Scrolls’; Avi Hurvitz, ‘Terminological Modifications in Biblical Genealogical Records and their Potential Chronological Implications’; Jan Joosten, ‘Imperative Clauses Containing a Temporal Phrase, and the Study of Diachronic Syntax in Ancient Hebrew’; Reinhard Kratz, ‘Laws of Wisdom: Sapiential Traits in the Rule of the Community (1QS 5–7)’; Noam Mizrahi, ‘Aspects of Poetic Stylization in Second Temple Hebrew: A Linguistic Comparison of the Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice with Ancient Piyyuţ’; Matthew Morgenstern, ‘The Literary Use of Biblical Language in the Works of the Tannaim’; Elisha Qimron, ‘The Third Personal Masculine Plural Pronoun and Pronominal Suffix in Early Hebrew’; Jean-Sébastien Rey, ‘On the Prepositional Object with bet in Qumran Hebrew’; Ursula Schattner-Rieser, ‘From the “Foundation” of the Temple to the “Foundation” of a Community: On the Semantic Evolution of ∗ ʾUŠ (שוא) in the Dead Sea Scrolls’; David Talshir, ‘Syndetic Binomials in Second Temple Period Hebrew’; Emanuel Tov, ‘Scribal Features of Two Qumran Scrolls’; Alexey (Eliyahu) Yuditsky, ‘The NonConstruct לכ/לכה in the Dead Sea Scrolls’; Francesco Zanella, ‘Between “Righteousness” and “Alms”: A Semantic Study of the Lexeme הקדצ in the Dead Sea Scrolls’; Tamar Zewi, ‘Content Clauses in the Dead Sea Scrolls’. There is no introduction, only a brief preface, but comprehensive indexes (words and phrases; subject; ancient texts) have been provided.
N. M
F
The articles published here cover Hebrew grammar and literature from antiquity to the present. Articles of potential interest to B.L. readers (all with abstracts) are future values of the qatal and their conceptual and diachronic logic (A. Andrason), understanding the locative alternation in swarm-drip verbs in Hebrew (R. Halevy), a new methodology for ascertaining the semantic potential of Biblical Hebrew prepositions (K.A. Lyle), two philological notes on Hag. 2.15–29 (M. Rogland), the diachronic order of Pss. 134–136 (D. Emanuel), unsavoury personalities in the book of Proverbs in light of Mesopotamian writings (V.A. Hurowitz), the meaning of the Shiur Qomah in Jewish mysticism, liturgy, and rabbinic thought (M.A. Sweeney), Hasidic myth on the death of Moses and its metamorphosis (A. Wineman). There are also a number of essays on mediaeval and modern Hebrew language and literature. Two review essays include one (by S. Frolov) on P. Wajdenbaum, Argonauts of the Desert: Structural Analysis of the Hebrew Bible (B.L. 2013, p. 97), and another (by N. Pat-El and A. Wilson-Wright) on R.C. Vern, Dating Archaic Biblical Poetry: Critique of the Linguistic Arguments. There are 25 pages of short reviews, and also ten pages giving the contents of some major journals and volumes of collected essays.
L.L. G
H
This teaching grammar seems to be published for the first time, though in the Preface H. mentions that it was written a quarter of a century ago and has been periodically revised. Thus a good deal of teaching experience lies behind it. The Introduction covers much useful background on the Ugaritic language, including various ‘tools and resources’. The traditional presentation is then followed: orthography, phonology, morphology, and syntax (2–5), but then follows a chapter (6) on features of poetic texts. After this is a chapter (7) on basic vocabulary and practice exercises, one (8) containing a selection of texts in transliteration, and a glossary (9). Appendix A (by John L. Ellison) discusses the Ugaritic alphabetic script. Appendix B provides a key to the practice exercises and the selection of texts, while Appendix C consists of paradigms. This should serve pretty well as a primer. It assumes knowledge of Biblical Hebrew and often provides illustrations from that language. An important plus is that words and forms are often given in vocalized form. But to see texts in the actual Ugaritic cuneiform script (apart from a number of illustrations and photographs), which most teachers would regard as essential, the student will have to go elsewhere.
L.L. G
K
K.'s book proposes a new argument in the debate about the possibility of dating Biblical Hebrew texts on linguistic grounds. The differences found in Biblical Hebrew concerning vocabulary, syntax and morphology have traditionally been interpreted as reflecting chronological development between (pre-exilic) Early Biblical Hebrew (EBH) and (postexilic) Late Biblical Hebrew (LBH). Recently, this position has been challenged, and EBH and LBH were interpreted as coexisting styles of literary Hebrew throughout the biblical period. As the typical features of EBH and LBH are only rarely neatly distributed, the chronological theory has to argue that a certain accumulation of LBH features is necessary to classify a text as belonging to LBH. K. uses the variation analysis of historical sociolinguistics to explain the variability of several diagnostic features. Its basic presupposition is that language change proceeds through a stadium of linguistic variability, in which variant forms occur in statistically relevant patterns. K. dates the biblical books or blocks of material according to their contents. He also divides them into two text-types: recorded speech (closer to oral text-types), and narration (as literate text-type). In the following correlation of eight diagnostic features of variability between EBH and LBH with time and text-type, these are indeed shown to be relevant conditioning factors. K.'s book gives a detailed analysis of the problem and a meticulous study of the diagnostic features. The book applies an innovative methodology. Some presuppositions of the analysis, however, especially the classification of text-types and their association with orality and literacy, might be challenged.
A.E. Z
L
This teaching and learning aid first appeared in 2002. For the second edition after a decade, the author has revised it comprehensively based on feedback of students and colleagues. The book answers to the need of students for some assistance with understanding the language of grammar when they start learning Biblical Hebrew. It complements existing Hebrew textbooks which usually assume familiarity with grammatical terms and concepts. It can be used by students independently to brush up their knowledge, or it can form part of class sessions. It also includes material that can be used for discussion in class, such as the section on translation. Concepts are explained with numerous clear examples. Usually a concept is first explained with English examples, and subsequently applied to Biblical Hebrew. Some of the concepts that feature are sound production, syllable, gender, number, article, noun, pronoun, adjective, adverb, participle, infinitive, gerund, verb, tense and aspect, mood, clause, subject, semantics, and discourse analysis. Cross references are provided, as well as an index and a brief bibliography. Some aspects of this book may be too basic for some, while other parts are too challenging for others. As a guide that can be used selectively according to need, it is a very useful aid for the teaching and learning of Biblical Hebrew.
M. H
M
This volume contains the papers presented at four sessions of ‘Diachrony in Biblical Hebrew’ at the National Association of Professors of Hebrew, as well as a few invited articles. It is an impressive collection, including articles written by the leading international experts in the field. All the articles are in English and are of a consistently high quality. The editor Cynthia L. Miller-Naudé opens the volume with an introductory study: ‘Diachrony in Biblical Hebrew: Linguistic Perspectives on Change and Variation’. The articles fall into three main parts. Part 1 focuses on theoretical and methodological perspectives on diachrony: B. Elan Dresher, ‘Methodological Issues in the Dating of Linguistic Forms: Considerations from the Perspective of Contemporary Linguistic Theory’; T. Givón, ‘Biblical Hebrew as a Diachronic Continuum’; Jacobus A. Naudé, ‘Diachrony in Biblical Hebrew and a Theory of Language Change and Diffusion’; John A. Cook, ‘Detecting Development in Biblical Hebrew Using Diachronic Typology’; and Robert D. Holmstedt, ‘Historical Linguistics and Biblical Hebrew’. Part 2 examines diachrony in Biblical Hebrew, with focus on orthographic, morphological, syntactic, lexical, sociological, dialectal and text-critical features: A. Dean Forbes and Francis I. Andersen, ‘Dwelling on Spelling’; Yigal Bloch, ‘The Third Person Masculine Plural Suffixed Pronoun -mw and its Implications for the Dating of Biblical Hebrew Poetry’; Steven E. Fassberg, ‘The Kethiv/Qere אוהִ, Diachrony, and Dialectology’; Martin Ehrensvärd, ‘Discerning Diachronic Change in the Biblical Hebrew Verbal System’; Tania Notarius, ‘The Archaic System of Verbal Tenses in “Archaic” Biblical Poetry’; Elitzur A. Bar-Asher Siegal, ‘Diachronic Syntactic Studies in Hebrew Pronominal Reciprocal Constructions’; Na‘ama Pat-El, ‘Syntactic Aramaisms as a Tool for the Internal Chronology of Biblical Hebrew’; Avi Hurvitz, ‘The “Linguistic Dating of Biblical Texts”: Comments on Methodological Guidelines and Philological Procedures’; Jan Joosten, ‘The Evolution of Literary Hebrew in Biblical Times: The Evidence of Pseudo-classicisms’; Shalom M. Paul, ‘Signs of Late Biblical Hebrew in Isaiah 40–66’; Frank H. Polak, ‘Language Variation, Discourse Typology, and the Sociocultural Background of Biblical Narrative’; Gary A. Rendsburg, ‘Northern Hebrew through Time: From the Song of Deborah to the Mishnah’; and Chaim Cohen, ‘Diachrony in Biblical Hebrew Lexicography and its Ramifications for Textual Analysis’. Part 3 is centred on comparative Semitic perspectives on diachrony: Michael Sokoloff, ‘Outline of Aramaic Diachrony’; Joseph Lam and Dennis Pardee, ‘Diachrony in Ugarit’; and N.J.C. Kouwenberg, ‘Diachrony in Akkadian and the Dating of Literary Texts’. The second editor Ziony Zevit concludes with an afterword: ‘Not-So-Random Thoughts Concerning Linguistic Dating and Diachrony in Biblical Hebrew’. The book contains five indexes (Authors, Ancient Sources, Scripture, Hebrew Words, and Subjects). To be recommended.
L.-S. T
M
This volume contains most of the papers delivered at the Fifth Meeting of the International Association for Comparative Semitics (IACS) in Cordoba, June 2012. It contains 13 papers, all in English: M. Bulakh, ‘The Diachronic Background of the Verbs wīda and gerōb “to know” in Mehri’; F. Corriente, ‘Again on the Classification of South Semitic’; M. Kalinin and S. Loesov, ‘Encoding of the Direct Object throughout the History of Aramaic (Part 1)’; O. Kapeliuk, ‘Innovation within Archaism in Modern Ethio-Semitic’; J. Martínez-Delgado, ‘On the Phonology of Hebrew in Alandalus as Reflected by the Adaptation of Arabic Grammar and Poetry’; A. Militarev, ‘The Importance of External Lexical Comparison for Today's Comparative Semitics and the Main Problems and Immediate Tasks of Afrasian Comparative Linguistics’; J.P. Monferrer-Sala, ‘A King among Kings: On the Term mlk in the Context of the North Arabian Aramaic Inscriptions’; G. del Olmo Lete, ‘The Linguistic Continuum of Syria-Palestine in the Late II Millennium BC: Retention and Innovation’; F. del Río Sánchez, ‘Influences of Aramaic on Dialectal Arabic’; G. Takács, ‘Archaisms and Innovations in the Semitic Consonantal Inventory’; E. Vernet, ‘New Considerations on the Historical Existence of a West Semitic “yaqattal” Form’; W.G.E. Watson, ‘Indo-European and Semitic: Two-way Traffic’; and A. Zaborski, ‘Towards a Reconstruction of Verbal Derivation in Afroasiatic/Hamitosemitic: R3/D3 or iqtalla Class’. While much of this discussion might be regarded as essentially marginal for Alttestamentlers, it is salutary to recollect that Hebrew, whether God's own language or not, did not develop in a vacuum, but was part of a large extended family. This in turn has a bearing on broader questions of cultural interaction. The book unfortunately has no indexes.
N. W
N
Although later editors of the OT altered the actual divine names, they left the theophoric names unchanged, and their presence can be indicative of the history of worship. In 1986, N. wrote a monograph (Sein Name allein ist Hoch; see B.L. 1987, p. 124) on the relationship between names ending in -yhw or -yh as indicators of how the OT was edited. The present work extends his research to personal and place names incorporating either ’El or Bacal. Unlike similar studies by other scholars, N. also includes the Qumran scrolls and much of the non-biblical material—the Amarna Letters, ostraca, seals—although Ugaritic personal names are not considered. He charts the occurrences of Bacal, ’El(ohîm) and Yahweh and of names with ’El and Bacal, and provides tables and graphs for their distribution in the various documents and in the OT books. Using this information, he draws conclusions concerning the worship of these deities, Israelite religion and even the origin of the Pentateuch. A summary in English is provided as well as maps, a bibliography and indexes of texts, place names and personal names. The statistics compiled here make interesting reading, showing for example that Bacal was not widely worshipped (p. 112), and as they are objective, provide a solid basis for study of the history of religious worship in the areas in question.
W.G.E. W
R
In 1967, E. Masson published her book Recherches sur les plus anciens emprunts sémitiques en grec (Paris), a thorough examination of previous proposals. Since then, numerous related studies have appeared, and it is time for another reappraisal. Like Masson, R. also re-examines very critically suggestions that have already been made, but proposes none of his own. In the introduction, he sets out his criteria quite briefly (pp. 15–19). He accepts 65 Greek words (ch. 2), as well as the names of 17 Greek letters (ch. 3), as originally Semitic. The next three chapters list loans from Egyptian and Iranian via Semitic, and loans of unknown origin. Next, two Semitic–Indo-European isoglosses (the words for ‘bull’ and ‘horn’) are discussed (ch. 7) and then over 310 suggested Semitic loans in Greek, several already obsolete, are rejected, often merely with a cross-reference to his criteria. Of particular interest are his conclusions on semantic classification, phonology and morphology. Good indexes and an extensive bibliography help to make this a very useful reference work for anyone working with Greek and Hebrew.
W.G.E. W