NT Greek meets Semitic

Stephen Carlson
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Re: NT Greek meets Linguistics

Post by Stephen Carlson »

Sorry about touching off a nerve on which Semitic language was spoken in first century Judea. It's not really the point of the article (which downplays the role of Semitic interference in Koine Greek anyway), and I'm tempted to split off that part of the thread.
Stephen C. Carlson, Ph.D.
Melbourne, Australia
RandallButh
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Re: NT Greek meets Linguistics

Post by RandallButh »

the article mentioned in the Catholic Biblical Quarterly 74–2 (April 2012), 263–280 is way ahead of the discussions on b-Hebrew and a better place for starting discussions.

As mentioned, of course, people need to control the data in original languages. There is even a caution for quoting published sources, especially if one finds out that those sources didn't fully control the data. Here is a diplomatically worded, yet provocative quote from the CBQ article:

"Some scholars of the NT and of Second Temple- period Judaism, however, have been somewhat selective about the Judean Desert material they consider to be linguistically important. They have generally attached great weight to the data from the Aramaic Dead Sea Scrolls but have viewed with suspicion what is attested in the Hebrew Dead Sea Scrolls and the Hebrew documents from other Judean Desert sites. The low estimation in which the Hebrew material is held manifests itself in the tendency to ignore modem linguistic research into the Hebrew documents from Qumran, Wadi Murabba'at, Nahal Hever, Ketef Jericho, and Masada. Moreover, there are scholars who seem unaware of the tremendous strides made in the past few decades in the study of Tannaitic Hebrew and its relevance for the use of Hebrew in the first two centuries of the Common Era."
Stephen Hughes
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Background info on Jerusalem at the time of Christ

Post by Stephen Hughes »

Dr Buth has given a list of questions for us to consider. I have some others on this topic, which I'm actually ignorant of the answers to them, but would help me imagine the situation if anyone has answers to them:

Population and society.
  • Was Jerusalem at the time of Christ a city like it is today with a mixed population?
  • How many were Resident Jews, Romans, Greeks, Diaspora Jews, neighbouring peoples?
  • What proportion of the Jewish population were from Hebrew heritage?
  • What sort of percentages of the Jewish population belonged to what persuations of the Jewish society?
Cultural institutions:
  • Did Yeshivot / Midrashot structure their teaching around the Hebrew language at that time?
  • What language(s) are the inscriptions on the walls or synagogues from that period?
  • What language did the Sanhedrion conduct business in?
Evidence from the Greek:
  • Are the forms of names in the New Testament transliterations of Hebrew or Aramaic forms of the names?
  • Were the saying on the Cross in Biblical Hebrew, late Hebrew or some form of Aramaic?
Γελᾷ δ' ὁ μωρός, κἄν τι μὴ γέλοιον ᾖ
(Menander, Γνῶμαι μονόστιχοι 108)
Hefin J. Jones
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Re: NT Greek meets Semitic

Post by Hefin J. Jones »

The CBQ article that Randall Buth has pointed to answers (or gives its reasoned opinions on) a fair number of the questions you raise Stephen. You might not be able to get easy access to the article. As you know it is Australia Day today so (you having a barbie Stephen?) I might get an opportunity to skim over the article once more once mid/late afternoon lethargy kicks in at the Jones household.
Hefin Jones

instructor in New Testament - Koinonia Theological Seminary, Davao
Hefin J. Jones
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Re: NT Greek meets Semitic

Post by Hefin J. Jones »

Some quotes for you Stephen

"Based on the epigraphic material, Naveh has maintained that Aramaic was more common than Hebrew in daily life in the Second Temple period, yet Hebrew was still widely spoken.67 Bernard Spolsky, building on the work of others, suggests that the lan­\guages spoken by community and in the region were the following in descending order of frequency:68

Jews:
Judean villages - Hebrew
Galilee - Aramaic, Hebrew, Greek
Coastal cities - Greek, Aramaic, Hebrew
Jerusalem, upper class - Greek, Aramaic, Hebrew
Jerusalem, lower class - Aramaic, Hebrew, Greek

Non-Jews in Palestine:
Government officials - Greek and some Latin
Coastal cities (Greek colonies) - Greek
Elsewhere - Aramaic

Willem F. Smelik has aptly summarized current thinking among those who deal with Hebrew and Aramaic: "All recent treatments suppose bi- or multi-
lingualism and usually Aramaic as the principal spoken language." 69

All from pp276-77


From the conclusion:

"There is no denying that Jesus spoke Aramaic: the transliterated words attributed to him in the NT are Aramaic. As a Jew from the Galilee, he must have spoken some form of Galilean Aramaic that antedates the Galilean Aramaic we know from the Late Aramaic period. But as a Jew living in Palestine, he must also have spoken Hebrew, since Hebrew was still alive during this period and even later. The vernacular evidence in the Judean Desert documents, both the earlier (Hebrew Dead Sea Scrolls) and later documents (such as the Bar Kosiba letters) from different Judean Desert sites, demonstrates that Hebrew continued to be used, not only in writing and prayer but also in speech. Moreover, manuscripts and oral traditions of Tannaitic Hebrew demonstrate that Hebrew was a vital, developing, and multifaceted language with dialects that was spoken until at least the end of the second century C.E. In the light of this evidence, it seems most unlikely that Jesus would not have known Hebrew in addition to Aramaic. Not only would he have been able to read from the Torah, but he would have been able also to converse naturally in Hebrew." p.280
Hefin Jones

instructor in New Testament - Koinonia Theological Seminary, Davao
Stephen Hughes
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Re: NT Greek meets Semitic

Post by Stephen Hughes »

Hefin J. Jones wrote:it is Australia Day today so
Happy make-up public holiday to you too.
Hefin J. Jones wrote:(you having a barbie Stephen?)
Nah, quiet one at home with the heat-wave coming and all - just going down the Royal for a mixed grill or something in a bit.
Hefin J. Jones wrote:yet Hebrew was still widely spoken.
Basically, that adds an extra "Hebrew" dimension to my thinking on everyday communication. By way of self-criticism, I had previously over-read something like what I imagined with Latin in late middle ages - Latin [Hebrew] for some literature and religion, an overarching venacular for inter-community commerce and local languages [Aramaic dialects] for every day / household use. What you've related re-orientates my thinking somewhat.
Γελᾷ δ' ὁ μωρός, κἄν τι μὴ γέλοιον ᾖ
(Menander, Γνῶμαι μονόστιχοι 108)
RandallButh
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Re: NT Greek meets Semitic

Post by RandallButh »

Evidence from the Greek:

Are the forms of names in the New Testament transliterations of Hebrew or Aramaic forms of the names?
Were the saying on the Cross in Biblical Hebrew, late Hebrew or some form of Aramaic?
Stephen, your questions are good ones and part of a picture that must be addressed, but they have also led scholars down wrong roads.

For example,
πασχα in the LXX is an Aramaic citation form in Greek (this is verified by the syllable structure not the final alpha) and it was used in the LXX when transcribing Hebrew pesaH. It is a citation form that reflects the interaction of Aramaic and Greek in Alexandria and, FTR, is a specific form of Aramaic 'pesaH' that is not attested in later dialects.

Josephus is often alleged to confuse Hebrew and Aramaic because he called the word σαββατα Hebrew and said that it meant 'rest, cessation'. What the allegers are seemingly unaware of is that the common Aramaic form of shabbat was shabba [yes, shabba], and more importantly, shabat only means 'rest,cessation' in Hebrew, the Aramaic verb is naH. What that means is that Josephus was correct (in fact he never confuses Hebrew or Aramaic in his writings and was highly knowledgable of all three Greek, Hebrew and Aramaic, as Grintz pointed out 50 years ago on this and other examples), but scholars have confused citation forms of foreign words for actual language data and then applied them into contexts for which the citation forms were not given. (As an example to illustrate the obvious, where the modern era precludes a logical misapplication: if a preacher says that "Jesus" is a Hebrew name that means "salvation", a scholar cannot come along and say: " 'Hebrew' must mean English, because 'Jesus' is an English form of the name.") Aramaic citation forms were available in Greek for many, but by no means all, of the cultural terms in Judaism, and those forms were used in Greek when available, because Aramaic and Greek had a long interface in Alexandria and throughout the whole Middle East, from the Indus Valley, to Anatolia, to Egypt. When common citation forms were not available Josephus reverts to direct transliteration, like with εσσα for 'woman', since there was no εθθα/ιθθα/ιθθαθα loanword in Greek from Aramaic. I can confirm Grintz' conclusion that Josephus was always correct on Hebrew and Aramaic. In fact, for Josephus the 'patriarchal language' was demonstrably Hebrew and not Aramaic, which turns the common reading of his introduction to War on its head: he most probably wrote a history of the War in Hebrew, just like the Maccabees before him chose Hebrew for their history (1Maccabees).

Your question on the words from the cross is complicated, more so than appears in commentaries. Be aware that the form in Matthew was probably different from the form in Mark. It is an ironic case where the NA/UBS texts follow the BYZantine traditions on the foreign words from the cross, though they cover over the spellings and use atomistic text criticism instead of looking at the whole textual tradition for the Matthean and Markan forms together. All the non-Byz traditions ASSIMILATED the texts and are less than independent testimonies for either Mark or Matthew. What do the sayings mean? In a nutshell: the form in Mark was first received as a pre-Markan story and then Aramaicized into ελωι ελωι ... (avoiding the ambiguous transcription ελαϊ ελαϊ for אלָהִי [the ambiguity is missed by Erasmian :o , so think 'Koine' on this]). For Mark this functioned as a 'word from heaven': note the centurion's response. Matthew has corrected Mark and restored the pre-Markan form ηλει ηλει λαμα σαβαχθανει. That was not a poor correction to Hebrew Ps 22 (Bezae made that very correction, and it did as expected), but a mishnaic colloquialism that intended to draw attention to the meaning of the whole psalm, while adding divorce coloring in passing. Unfortunately, I will not have time to unpack this and document this on list, but can only refer to a forthcoming article in the Brill volume listed. In any case, Matthew and Mark have recorded different versions of this fascinating text and that difference needs delicate, nuanced consideration within a framework that is cognizant of the linguistic and cultural options of the time. Currently, typical NT scholarship does not demand or produce the training that is necessary. But maybe that is changing. May the CBQ article, and the forthcoming Brill volume, be taken to heart.
RandallButh
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Re: NT Greek meets Semitic

Post by RandallButh »

By way of self-criticism, I had previously over-read something like what I imagined with Latin in late middle ages - Latin [Hebrew] for some literature and religion
Actually, the Latin parallel is very helpful, but it is usually (mis)applied by people without a knowledge of mishnaic Hebrew. Move the point of comparison back to the earlier middle ages and things will start to come into focus.

There was a time when Latin had two registers, a high Latin and a low Latin. The low Latin eventually developed into mutually unintellegible languages. However, the important point is that low Latin and high Latin first diverged BY USING LATIN IN COMMON SPEECH. The exact same thing happened with Hebrew during the Second Temple period. High Hebrew and Low Hebrew gradually developed and diverged from each other. By the end of the Second Temple the forms were quite distinctive and obvious to anyone using either. Low Hebrew became what we now call Mishnaic Hebrew(s). The dramatic change in thinking that is needed by many in NT studies, is that Low Hebrew did NOT develop by people trying to use High Hebrew and doing a poor job (the common 19th century viewpoint, linguistically indefensible today). Low Hebrew developed by common usage among the populace. When people wanted to use high Hebrew, they did. That is what is seen in the majority of the Judean Desert documents. The same is true for the rabbis, who were very concious of the difference between the written, classicial, scriptural form of the language and the common, low, popular form that they used in their discussions. Low Hebrew had remained in use throughout the Second Temple period. That is how and why there was a mishnaic Hebrew in existence for the rabbis to use up to the Islamic period and beyond. In other words, the very existence of Mishnaic Hebrew points to a linguistic low language and vitality that is missed by those who simply say "Hebrew was like medieval Latin." Mishnaic Hebrew was like vulgar Latin.

Of course, there is a difference between the Hebrew and Latin comparison. As low Hebrew died out from common speech and became restricted to religious use and small community pockets (3-6th centuries CommonEra, post-Second Temple) it was later preserved in rabbinic writings and the low language became a new high language. Later, in medieval times (post-Islamic conquest) the two registers, the high and the low register (or High-1 and High-2, as they had become) were collapsed into a new high language, the written Hebrew of the middle ages. That new language was passed on as a second language for close to a millenium and became the basis for modern Hebrew in the 19th century.

Hopefully, this post on vulgar Latin and mishnaic Hebrew will not distract from the previous post on other topics on the overall issue.
Ken M. Penner
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Re: NT Greek meets Semitic

Post by Ken M. Penner »

Thanks for this very helpful post on vulgar Latin and mishnaic Hebrew.
Ken M. Penner
Professor and Chair of Religious Studies, St. Francis Xavier University
Editor, Digital Biblical Studies
General Editor, Lexham English Septuagint
Co-Editor, Online Critical Pseudepigrapha pseudepigrapha.org
Stephen Hughes
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Just how different are Hebrew and Aramaic?

Post by Stephen Hughes »

Thanks for the reply to those more relevent of my questions. It is interesting to see how different words derive from different sources. It is also good to be reminded that the linguistic situation of the Jewery in the late 4th century BCE in Ptolmaic Alexandria was different to the situation that existed in the first half of the 1st century CE in Roman Palestine.

If you have time, I have another question that I forgot to raise, and which still seems relevent:
  • How different are the various forms of Aramaic and Hebrew that they would have a discernibly different effect on the Greek?
    Are their word-orders, grammars or syntaxes so different that it might affect the Greek differently?
With regard to features of the Greek other than loan words;
  • Are you making an academic point about how scholarly debate on the NT should be posited with regard to the language situation in Palestine at that time? OR
  • Should we be aiming to look to find recognisably "Aramaic influenced Greek" in one place, "Mishnaic Hebrewly influenced Greek" in another place, and so on for other semitic dialects...?
With regard to accent;
  • Should we be looking at reading Greek with accents (here "accents" means προφοραί not τόνοι)?
    Will that make a difference in our understanding or appreciation of the Greek?
  • Should we consider how accent influenced pronunciation and understanding (at the time composition) - in addition to the language wide coalescence of vocalic pronunciations and the consonantalisation of upsilon in the Imperial Koine pronunciation - when discussing at how Greek was spoken and/or heard?
    Is it significant enough to worry about?
[What prompts me to this question is that I have had Arabic speaking friends and acquaintences from Algier, Egypt, the Sudan, Lebanon and Iraq - they speak different dialects of Arabic and have different accents when speaking Arabic. Despite their differeneces in Arabic, their mistakes in English are similar ("which we are eating it" structures). What does seems to me significant is that that their educational level and the number of years spent studying English, and the number of years spent living in Australia make their English syntax better or worse, rather than which background dialect of Arabic they speak. Their English is very different to the English of friends and acquaintences from South America or Italy ("inexact" about syntax), and they in turn are very different from the French (freely "borrow" words), and speakers from other backgrounds have various features too. Within those three groups, their accent overlays are broadly recognisable to some degree, but beyond that the quality of their English has more to do with their learning English and length of time living in English speaking country than with their speaking such and so other languages.]
Γελᾷ δ' ὁ μωρός, κἄν τι μὴ γέλοιον ᾖ
(Menander, Γνῶμαι μονόστιχοι 108)
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