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Ziony Zevit - What A Difference A Year Makes - Can Biblical Texts Be Dated Linguistically
Ziony Zevit - What A Difference A Year Makes - Can Biblical Texts Be Dated Linguistically
Linguistically?
Ziony Zevit
Ziony Zevit
University of Judaism
*
These introductory remarks were delivered at the NAPH session that met during the 2005 SBL meeting.
The collection of articles from the first symposium may be found in HS 46 (2005), pp. 321–376.
Hebrew Studies 47 (2006) 84 Zevit: What a Difference
Hebrew remained a spoken language and mother tongue until the second
century C.E.
In 2005, historians of Hebrew were aware that in addition to the Hebrew
of the Iron Age, Neo-Babylonian, Persian, and early Hellenistic periods at-
tested in the Bible and inscriptions, there was Hebrew of the Greco-Roman
periods, described variously as Mishnaic or Tannaitic Hebrew, within which
dialects have been discerned that are classified both diachronically and re-
gionally. The dialect of the sectarian Qumran scrolls belongs to this broad
chronological horizon as does that of the Samaritan Pentateuch. From later
periods we have Medieval Hebrew in various dialects characterized both by
date (early, middle, late) and geography (Palestine, Babylon, Syria and
Egypt, and Europe), Enlightenment (Haskalah) Hebrew, and Modern Israeli
Hebrew. Viewed diachronically, each definable later stage emerged from an
earlier stage, preserving much and changing some of the inherited features
as well as innovating on the basis of inner-Hebrew catalysts and external
linguistic factors. But what of pre-Mishnaic-Tannaitic-Dead Sea Scroll
Hebrew?
Proto-Hebrew evolved from one or more of the West-Semitic Canaanite
dialects of the late fourteenth century B.C.E. described by Anson Rainey in
his four-volume, 1996 study of the dialects underlying the Amarna tablets,
and may be of Transjordanian origin.1 Rainey’s work, provides us only
with a terminus ante quem. Randy Garr’s 1985 work helps locate and define
individuated Hebrew dialects within the Syria-Palestine dialect continuum
of the tenth-sixth centuries.2 Garr’s discussion of phonology may be ex-
panded somewhat in the light of Robert Woodhouse’s 2003 study of sibi-
lants and of Richard C. Steiner’s innovative 2005 study dating how
phonemes represented by the graphemes fiayin and h.et were rendered in
various Hebrew dialects of the Greco-Roman period.3
Dating biblical books is not quite the same as dating the Hebrew of the
biblical period in which these books, or parts thereof, were written. Early-
on, scholars learned that the books from Samuel through Kings were repre-
1
A. F. Rainey, Canaanite in the Amarna Tablets: A Linguistic Analysis of the Mixed Dialect Used by the
Scribes from Canaan (Leiden: Brill, 1996). See in particular vol. 2.
2
W. R. Garr, Dialect Geography of Syria-Palestine 1000–586 B.C.E. (Pennsylvania: University of
Pennsylvania Press, 1985. Repr., Winona Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns, 2004), pp. 205–240. See also, B.
Halpern, “Dialect Distribution in Canaan and the Deir Alla Inscriptions,” in Working With No Data:
Semitic and Egyptian Studies Presented to Thomas O. Lambdin, ed. D. M. Golomb (Winona Lake, Ind.:
Eisenbrauns, 1987), pp. 119–139.
3
R. Woodhouse, “The Biblical Shibboleth Story in the Light of Late Egyptian Perceptions of Semitic
Sibilants: Reconciling Divergent Views,” JAOS 123 (2003): 271–289; R. C. Steiner, “On the Dating of
Hebrew Sound Changes… and Greek Translations…,” JBL 124:2 (2005): 229–267.
Hebrew Studies 47 (2006) 85 Zevit: What a Difference
ticles came when he used years of accumulated data to demonstrate that the
Hebrew in Ezekiel, a book dated internally to the early sixth century B.C.E.,
was transitional and that the Hebrew of P was earlier than that of Ezekiel.
This latter conclusion had literary support in that Ezekiel 40–48 polemicises
against many of P’s cultic prescriptions.
Complementing Hurvitz’s early lexicographical work was a single, am-
bitious study by Robert Polzin. Polzin proposed a profile of Late Biblical
Hebrew in narrative prose consisting of nineteen phonological, morphologi-
cal, and syntactic features of Chronicles, absent in Classical Pre-exilic
Hebrew, most of which could not be attributed to Aramaic influence.
Consequently, he concluded, they were manifestations of inner Hebrew de-
velopment. By comparing the frequency of these features in P, Ezra, and
Nehemiah, Polzin created a scale along which these different compositions
could be placed in terms of how congruent and incongruent they were with
Chronicles and with each other. Decreasing congruency was the mark of an
earlier text. He discovered that JE, Dtr, and the Court History, what he
called “Classical Hebrew,” were relatively congruent with each other but
distinctively different from Chronicles. Chronicles, Ezra, and one part of
Nehemiah were relatively free of archaisms while a different part of
Nehemiah, along with Esther and Daniel, were characterized by many
archaisms and deemed later than Chronicles. Pg, the basic P corpus minus
secondary additions (labeled by him Ps), was later than Classical Hebrew
but earlier than that of Chronicles.4
Although Polzin’s basic profile required corrections—a not insignificant
matter since it is used to translate degrees of congruence/incongruence into
degrees of relative chronological separation—it has proven useful.5
Whereas Haggai and Zechariah self-present as post-Exilic texts of the early
Persian period, about 520 B .C .E., Hurvitz’s method, with its focus on lexi-
con, seems unable to demonstrate their lateness. Applying Polzin’s method-
ology and a slightly adjusted profile, A. E. Hill argued that Haggai,
Zechariah 1–8, Zechariah 10–14, and Malachi are congruent statistically
with Polzin’s figures for the Pg corpus, but not with his figures for
Chronicles and Ezra.6
4
R. Polzin, Late Biblical Hebrew: Toward an Historical Typology of Biblical Hebrew Prose (Missoula,
Mont.: Scholars, 1976).
5
See the corrections introduced in Z. Zevit, “Converging Lines of Evidence Bearing on the Date of P,”
ZAW 94 (1982): 494–501. For the convergence of an analysis combining Hurvitz and Polzin (as corrected
by Zevit), see p. 501.
6
A. E. Hill, “Dating Second Zechariah: A Linguistic Reexamination,” HAR 6 (1982): 105–134. For the
chart, see p. 131; for the qualifications, see p. 114; A. E. Hill, “Dating the Book of Malachi: A Linguistic
Hebrew Studies 47 (2006) 87 Zevit: What a Difference
Ultimately, what should result from work conducted along the lines de-
veloped by Hurvitz and Polzin is a diachronic grammar and lexicon of the
Hebrew language during the Iron Age, Neo-Babylonian period, and Persian
Periods. But scholarship is far from there.
There are a few problems with this approach that have not been ad-
dressed in the past. One is reflected in Richard M. Wright’s recent study,
Linguistic Evidence for the Pre-Exilic Date of the Yahwistic Source, 2005.7
The book’s forthright methodology is based on Hurvitz’s work. It is prob-
lematic in that it sets out to argue for a pre-exilic J on linguistic grounds
when the data in J have always been reckoned as pre-exilic in earlier stud-
ies. Consequently, Wright, worked with conclusions from studies that as-
sumed exactly what he claimed to be proving.8 Although he studied new
data, his major argument was largely circular and his conclusions were
foreordained by his methodological and historical assumptions.
While Polzin’s work has been largely ignored, many students of the
history of Hebrew have attempted to tie loose ends in the Hebrew data not
addressed by Hurvitz that pose apparent, though not necessarily real prob-
lems to his conclusions. These have dealt with problems for diachronic
studies posed by (1) residues from regional dialects that might be repre-
sented in narratives, cited speech, or certain poems, (2) the deployment of
different linguistic registers and narrative styles in different compositions,
and (3) the linguistic conventions of particular genres. Each of these topics
has been the focus of both synchronic and diachronic investigation, some by
members of our panel today: Frank Polak and Gary Rendsberg.
Studies addressing these problems were edited by Ian Young in an im-
portant collection, Biblical Hebrew: Studies in Chronology and Typology,
2003.9 They pose theoretical and practical problems for the enterprise of
dating that must be addressed.
Other students have questioned both the interpretations of data examined
by Hurvitz and Polzin and their a priori assumption of what may be consid-
Reexamination,” in The Word of the Lord Shall Go Forth: Essays in Honor of David Noel Freedman in
Celebration of His Sixtieth Birthday, ed. C. L. Meyers and M. O’Connor (Winona Lake, Ind.:
Eisenbrauns, 1983), pp. 77–89. For the chart, see p. 85.
7
R. M. Wright, Linguistic Evidence for the Pre-Exilic Date of the Yahwistic Source (London: T & T
Clark, 2005).
8
An additional minor problem is that he accepts Third Isaiah, i.e., Isaiah 56–66, and Jonah as post-exilic
texts on non-linguistic grounds even though the books do not self-identify themselves as such (R. M.
Wright, Linguistic Evidence, pp. 11–12).
9
I. Young, ed., Biblical Hebrew: Studies in Chronology and Typology (JSOTSup 369; Edinburgh: T & T
Clark, 2003).
Hebrew Studies 47 (2006) 88 Zevit: What a Difference
ered pre-exilic, Iron Age. Studies along these lines were also published by
Young in his volume, including one by panel member Martin Ehrensvärd.
Much of the material and most of the ideas in Young’s volume have en-
joyed two major evaluations. One in my review of the book published in
both the online and print versions of RBL in 2004; and another by panelist
Jens Kofoed, in the third chapter of his Text & History, published in 2005.10
Despite the date of publication, Kofoed’s book was written before Young’s
book came out, but it engages all key issues on the basis of articles that
appeared earlier.
My review of Young’s book concluded with a positive assessment of the
challenges to the type of work carried on under the methodologies advanced
by Hurvitz and Polzin because they were probing not only methodologies,
but also criticizing many specific instances of their application and claiming
to have discerned errors. In my estimation, although the critiques did un-
dermine some specific conclusions, they did not undermine the historical
conclusions of the research.
Kofoed’s conclusions regarding the possibility of dating are the
following:
4) Many of the lexical items used to date texts on the basis of Hebrew
vocabulary “have proved inconclusive” though some appear
reliable.
10
J. B. Kofoed, Text and History: Historiography and the Study of the Biblical Text (Winona Lake, Ind.:
Eisenbrauns, 2005), pp. 113–163. See also pp. 79–80.
Hebrew Studies 47 (2006) 89 Zevit: What a Difference
transition from one to the other during the Persian period has not
been established.
11
J. B. Kofoed, Text & History, pp. 162–163.
12
S. Levin, “The Hebrew of the Pentateuch,” in Fucus: A Semitic Afrasian Gathering in Remembrance of
Albert Ehrman, ed. Y. Arbeitman (Philadelphia: J. Benjamins Publishing, 1988), pp. 291–323. His data
have to be reviewed in light of F. I. Andersen and A. Dean Forbes, Spelling in the Hebrew Bible (Rome:
PBI, 1986). Levin was unaware of L. A. Bange’s A Study in the Use of Vowel-Letters in Alphabetic
Consonantal Writing (Munich: Uni-Druk, 1971) which also worked with the notion of off-glides.
Hebrew Studies 47 (2006) 90 Zevit: What a Difference
4) And last, but not least, Ian Young and Robert Rezetko are writing
a book entitled Linguistic Dating of Biblical Texts: An Introduc-
tion to Approaches and Problems, that will be published by Equi-
nox Publishing in 2007. As described to me by Ian Young in an
email on August 23, 2005, this will be a forceful marshalling of
both theoretical arguments and case studies advancing the idea that
conventional linguistic dating is incorrect. It will attempt to coor-
dinate the different arguments of the various scholars assuming the
contra position. Furthermore, by the time of its publication, this
book will engage the strictures and objections raised against this
position by some of the authors in the Young volume, by some of
those who reviewed the book and found it wanting, by the lecturers
in this program last year, by this years’ panel, and by recent
articles that have appeared in scholarly journals.