Ancient Hebrew

DNA and other evidence suggests the early history of the Hebrew Old Testament concerns two entirely separate people united by monotheism and military conquest. The first, taking the name of Israelites from Israel (Jacob), the grandson of the Patriarch Jacob, had a brief stay in the Egyptian Eastern Delta before falling out of favour and eventually fleeing to West Arabia in the chaos of Bronze Age collapse ca.1200 BC. There they were overwhelmed in a lengthy campaign by a black Nubian Cushitic-speaking people called the Hebrew, recently converted to the cult of YHWH. The two peoples intermarried but the Nubian priesthood dominated thereafter and eventually reinvented itself as part of the Semitic Abrahamic tradition. Cut off through Babylonian exile from its gene pool in West Arabia, the Nubian high priesthood identified the present-day area of Israel and Palestine as the Promised Land of Moses and portrayed themselves as a special Middle East people who had escaped slavery in the Delta, not as a black Nubian enslaved gold mining force that had fled to Yemen during a time of ecological disaster characterised by severe earthquake and volcanic activity.

[April 2024: See now the Accepted-Manuscript version: https://www.academia.edu/117750386/The_Situating_Noun_in_Ancient_Hebrew_A_New_Understanding_of_א%D6%B4יש%D7%81_Accepted_Manuscript_version_ ]

This paper integrates insights from cognitive psychology, psycholinguistics, various linguistics disciplines, and biblical studies to answer the questions “What did ancient Hebrew speakers/writers mean by using the noun אִישׁ (including אִשָּׁה and their plurals)? How and when did they use it?” | Answer: Prototypically, this noun profiles its referent as an essential participant in the depicted situation, when the speaker is depicting that situation schematically. Therefore אִישׁ deserves to be called “the situational noun.” Its use made communication more efficient. | This communication-based view of אִישׁ yields a more coherent and informative text of the Hebrew Bible than the conventional one. It also explains several ways in which אִישׁ differs from other general human nouns. | The original paper for the Biblical Lexicography section of the 2021 annual meeting of the Society for Biblical Literature summarized and updated the author’s 2020 dissertation and two previous articles. This 2023 version includes further updates, including changing the main term used from “situational noun” to “situating noun.”

Hebrew philologists disagree on how to describe the biblical Hebrew verbal system. We especially disagree about the difference in meaning between the main verb forms: yiqtol and qatal, wayyiqtol, weyiqtol, weqatal: is it tense, taxis, aspect, modality, or something else that prompts the use of one form rather than the other?
In this paper I clarify the semantic value of the finite verb forms in biblical Hebrew by identifying a model that accounts for the selection of verb forms in a limited corpus: the narrative beginning in 1 Samuel.
This study contributes to the resolution of the question of Biblical Hebrew verb form semantics by using the same method I applied to Qumran Hebrew: analyzing all the verbs in this narrative, using an empirical method of statistical correlation between form and meaning. I first produced a computer database of all the verbs in this corpus, tagged for formal features such as morphology, situation aspect, and word order on one hand, and semantic functions such as time reference, viewpoint aspect, and modality on the other. I then determined the strength of an association between each form and each function. Finally, I used the patterns found in these correlations to (1) evaluate conflicting proposed interpretations, and (2) construct a model that accounts for the ancient Hebrew author’s choice of verb forms in this corpus.
In this paper I first introduce the problem of Hebrew tense and aspect, then very briefly outline the basics of relevant theoretical linguistics, significant methodological issues, and previous attempts to explain the Hebrew verbs, synthesize statistical trends from the database into hypotheses, and describe the results of applying these hypotheses to specific verbs in 1 Samuel 1-2.

Der folgende Wortschatz bezieht sich primär auf den TANACH, doch wird allgemein auch darge-legt, wie die betroffenen Begriffe im Neuhebräischen gebraucht werden. Grundsätzlich wird der Wortschatz der hebräischen Mosestora sowie der Schriftpropheten und des Psalters vorausgesetzt, und zwar vor allem diejenigen Wörter, die wiederholt vorkommen. Meine Dateien mit dem Wortschatz des ganzen TANACHS sowie des (neu-)hebräischen Neuen Testaments findet man auf meiner „Academia“-Seite: https://sthbasel.academia.edu/JacobThiessen/Drafts. Den Text aller Bücher der Bibel (auch mit Audio-Dateien) findet man u. a. unter dem folgenden Link: http://haktuvim.co.il.
Ich weise darauf hin, dass ich kein Philologe, sondern Exeget (Neutestamentler) bin. Das ist beim Gebrauch dieser Unterlagen zu beachten. Gleichwohl werden Experten und andere durch diese Unterlagen zu sehr spannenden philologischen Erkenntnissen gelangen.

This work analyzes Iron Age graffiti from the site of Kuntillet ‘Ajrud, Israel from a form critical perspective, drawing upon parallels in the corpus of Egyptian dedicatory graffiti. I also discuss the tension between orality and literacy in ritual performance, and the evolving importance of writing in Ancient Israel and Judah.

"Chronology is the backbone of history" is usually taught in schools but what is very disturbing is the total absence of reliable chronology to fix the Exodus because the date goes from 2100 to 650 BC (Sparks: 2015, 60); such a 1500-year gap is not at all serious. Furthermore, Exodus pharaoh identifications and theories (page 61) are absurd because the pharaoh of the Exodus died suddenly in the Red Sea according to the biblical text (Ps 136:15) and it is easy to see that the state of the mummy of Seqenenre Taa (Cairo Museum, The Royal Mummies CG 61051) proves that his body received severe injuries and remained abandoned for several days before being mummified. In addition Crown Prince Ahmose Sapaïr (Musée du Louvre, Paris: statue E 15682), who was the eldest son of Seqenenre Taa (1543-1533), died shortly before his father (Ex 12:29), who himself died on May 10, 1533 BCE. According to the biblical chronology based on absolute dates, not to the scholarly chronology of Edwin R. Thiele, the pharaoh of the Exodus died on May 10, 1533 BCE (exactly the same day). Consequently Seqenenre Taa was the pharaoh of the Exodus, according to absolute chronology.

In the first place the paper focused on levirate marriage deals with the roots of levirate and occurence of levirate in the ancient societies especially in the Hittite empire. The next section discusses about Hebrews who took levirate, customized to their needs including the introduction of the possibility of rejection by the ceremony called chalica. In conclusion are described the develompent of levirate in Jewish law to modern times including efforts to cancel this restrictive institute.

This paper offers a critical analysis of Rabbinic sources concerning the the history of Loshon HaQodesh. The paper first attempts to define the language known as "Loshon HaQodesh" and then trace its origins through Midrashic and Talmudic sources. The paper also follows the rise and decline of this language.
A more complete version of this paper was printed in Nov. 2014 under the name Lashon HaKodesh: History, Holiness, & Hebrew (Mosaica Press, 2014).

It is well known to both translators and students of the Bible, that some words or verses are very difficult, not only
to translate but also to understand. The Hebrew text of Ruth 2:7b is one of them. The purpose of this paper is to
consider some of the inherent problems of this text—such as unclear meaning of words and uncanny grammatical
structures—and to provide an overview of ancient and modern ways to deal with the difficulties. While it is logical
to assume that the author of Ruth expected to be understood (including when resorting to intentional ambiguity),
we also need to consider that the original manuscripts are lost and that the possibility of a corrupted text could
explain its awkwardness. The various translations of Ruth 2:7b stem from attempts to make sense of a text of which
the exact original, word-by-word meaning might not be established beyond all reasonable doubt, but of which the
basic intended meaning seeps through unmistakably: Ruth indeed is a hard worker, worthy of Boaz’s attentions.

Im Folgenden wird der Hauptwortschatz des hebräischen Alten Testaments (TANACH) und aus der Mischna alle Traktate der 1. Ordnung (Berakhoth, Pea, Demai, Kilayim, Scheebi‘it, Trumot, Ma‘aserot, Ma‘aserot Scheni, Challah, Orla und Bikkurim), der 2. Ordnung (Schabbat, Eruwim, Pesachim, Schekalim, Joma, Sukka, Jom Tow, Rosch Haschana, Ta‘anijot, Megilla, Mo‘ed Katan und Chagiga) sowie der 3. Ordnung (Jebamot, Ketubot, Nedarim, Nasir, Sota, Gittin und Qiddu-schim) grundsätzlich vorausgesetzt. Meine Wortschatz-Dateien dazu findet man unter folgendem Link: https://sthbasel.academia.edu/JacobThiessen/Drafts. Man beachte die Einführung mit vielen Link in den Dateien zur Mosestora, zum Matthäusevangelium, zum Römerbrief und zu den zwei Korintherbriefen sowie in dem alphabetischen Verzeichnis zum TANACH.
Die Verben ohne Punktierung beziehen sich grundsätzlich auf den TANACH-Wortschatz, während die Verben mit Punktierung den neuhebräischen Gebrauch darstellen.
Ich weise darauf hin, dass ich kein Philologe, sondern Exeget (Neutestamentler) bin. Das ist beim Gebrauch dieser Unterlagen zu beachten. Gleichwohl werden Experten und andere durch diese Un-terlagen zu sehr spannenden philologischen Erkenntnissen gelangen.

The overall aim of the project is to develop a method to integrate these fields, using cutting edge machine learning techniques, with the goal of getting a much more complete picture of the development of the text and language of the Hebrew Bible than is currently possible.

The author, on the basis of the study of the commentaries and prefaces to Wu-jek's Bible of 1599, depicts the image of the Jews, their language and their customs as it was presented by Jakub Wujek and his contemporaneous fellow Jesuits. The author refers to the sources of the information contained in Wujek's Bible, evaluates it in the context of the religious situation in the Renaissance Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and attempts at establishing the realm and power of the influence it had on readers.

The purpose of the present article is the contrastive analysis of the semantic aspect of the lexemes דָםּ (dam), krew and blood, respectively in biblical Hebrew, Polish, and English. Apart from its fundamental meaning referring to the fluid which circulates in the blood vessels of humans and animals, in all of these three languages blood occurs in many other meanings and contexts of language use. The analysis of examples taken from the Hebrew Bible and from Polish and English
dictionaries demonstrates that some of these meanings are coincident for all the three languages, some are analogous only in Polish and English and some typical only to one of these languages.
Key words: blood, contrastive analysis, semantics, symbolism, Polish, English, biblical Hebrew

Der folgende Wortschatz bezieht sich primär auf den TANACH, doch wird allgemein auch dargelegt, wie die betroffenen Begriffe im Neuhebräischen gebraucht werden. Grundsätzlich wird der Wortschatz der hebräischen Mosestora und der Großen Propheten (Jesaja, Jeremia und Hesekiel – siehe die entsprechenden Dateien) vorausgesetzt, und zwar vor allem diejenigen Wörter, die oft vorkommen. Meine Dateien mit dem Wortschatz des gesamten TANACHs sowie der Großen Propheten und des (modernen) hebräischen Neuen Testaments findet man auf meiner „Academia“-Seite: https://sthbasel.academia.edu/JacobThiessen/Drafts. Den Text aller Bücher der Bibel (auch mit Au-dio-Dateien) findet man u. a. unter dem folgenden Link: http://haktuvim.co.il.
Ich weise darauf hin, dass ich kein Philologe, sondern Exeget (Neutestamentler) bin. Das ist beim Gebrauch dieser Unterlagen zu beachten. Gleichwohl werden Experten und andere durch diese Un-terlagen zu sehr spannenden philologischen Erkenntnissen gelangen.

This paper explores the definition and role of tummah in the book of Job. I maintain that tummah is Job’s foundational character trait and essential for fusing diverse and often conflicting elements of his character into a comprehensible whole. I have chosen the metaphor of a “soul anchor” as an apt descriptor of Job’s tummah since it grounds Job in the most dependable source of truth of which he is cognizant, whether traditional sources of religious knowledge or his personal experience as righteous sufferer. Throughout the book Job’s tummah is exhibited in three dimensions—righteousness, authenticity, and perseverance—each of which propels Job to a deeper knowledge of truth. As such it also serves to chart Job’s course to reconciliation with God. Job will learn the true worth of his character and achieve his full potential as intercessor when his tummah is firmly grounded in a genuine relationship with God.

A Casa da Vivência Judaica em Gouveia é um espaço de conhecimento histórico da cidade, que retrata o papel da comunidade judaica medieval e cristã-nova da época moderna na construção do centro histórico, enquadrando a importante Inscrição Hebraica de Gouveia, referente à construção da última sinagoga na Península Ibérica Medieval, inaugurada poucos meses antes do édito manuelino, em 1496.

Although the sound change w>y in Biblical Hebrew is well -
known, it has not received significant attention until now. This
paper provides a synchronic analysis to this phenomenon. The shift
is partly morphologically, partly phonologically conditioned.
Focusing on the phonological conditioning, the author describes the
exact environments of the change and suggests an explanation.
While weakening of w appears between vowel and consonant, w>y
occurs in the complementary set of environments: initial,
postconsonantal and possibly between vowels. This conditioning
and other phonological facts suggest that w>y is a strengthening. It
is thus necessary to distinguish this process from the regular
syncope of w which is morphologically, rather than
morphophonologically, conditioned.

A denominative verb is one that is derived from a noun. Hebrew nouns are commonly either primary nouns (i.e. without any link to a verb) or else derived from a verb. But in some cases (330 appearing in this list) it is the verb that is derived from a noun.
That is, the meaning of denominative verbs may be said to incorporate that of a noun.
        This list was posted on 17 November 2017,

Volume IX offers a valuable enhancement of the 8-volume Dictionary of Classical Hebrew (1993–2011).

In DCH I–VIII, each volume had its own English–Hebrew Index, but this volume presents a much improved gathering together of all those indexes. The Index here contains every word used as a translation (gloss) in the Dictionary, that is, all the words printed in bold. In addition—a feature not seen before in Hebrew dictionaries—beneath each listed word are noted all the Hebrew words it translates, together with the volume and page reference of the relevant article.

The second element in this volume is the Word Frequency Table. This is a combination of the Word Frequency Tables in the various volumes of DCH. There, the lists of word frequencies were arranged under each letter of the alphabet. In the present publication, all the words in the Dictionary are combined in a single list arranged in order of frequency of occurrence.

Unlike all previous lists of occurrences of Hebrew words, the present list includes the occurrences not only in the Hebrew Bible but also in the whole scope of The Dictionary of Classical Hebrew, which is to say, Sirach (Ecclesiasticus), the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Hebrew Inscriptions as well as the Hebrew Bible itself.

Available from Sheffiiel Phoenix Press; details and order www.sheffieldphoenix.com/showbook.asp?bkid=283.

The present article delves into the syntactic role of Biblical Hebrew verb forms with an inflected prefix and the suffix final nun. In the research literature, there are two central arguments concerning this phenomenon. As per the first camp, the final nun underwent a process of erosion. Consequently, its distinction vis-à-vis the suffix final -0 lapsed to the point where the two became free variants. The other school of thought claims that there remains a functional syntactic difference between the two suffixes in the Biblical Hebrew. By formulating a new analytical framework, the author builds on the second hypothesis. Aside for the final nun’s prevalent uses in dependent clauses marked by a subordinating conjunction, this suffix appears in a wide array of clauses in which it signifies the verb as a non-innovative element in the sphere of the message. In this paper, the nexus between these two usages is theoretically bolstered by a typological comparison of the various fields that host different subjunctive categories in different Semitic languages.

This magnificent book, published by Macmillan a month after the Faruqis’ deaths, presents the ‎entire world view of Islam-its beliefs, traditions, institutions, and its place in the cultures in which ‎it has taken mot. THE CULTURAL ATLAS OF ISLAM is not only a comprehensive introduction ‎to the Islamic experience in history and the modern world. It is an authoritative and deeply felt ‎statement of the faith of Islam, written for those of all faiths. Isma‘il and Lois Lamya’ al Famqi’s ‎book is, in fact, Islam explaining itself.‎

This history emphasizes the continuous linguistic accumulation, manifold connections and mutual enrichment among various Semitic languages, which have shared a long and complex history. The Middle East is the oldest field of cultural interaction where the most ancient languages and the most influential ideas were born, evolved, and intermingled. Every Semitic language emerged from this diverse cultural environment and drew upon a common repertoire of inherited and imported expressions such as oral languages (including constantly changing regional dialects and various scripts), music (Semitic and non-Semitic), visual images, and foreign languages. This constant linguistic flux became the driving force behind the development of a culture that experienced a relentless linguistic reorientation throughout its ancient and medieval history and has lasting consequences on the formation and transformation of its modern languages.

The main origins of this linguistic flexibility lie in the age long discrepancy (or inconsistency including periodical temporary unity) between written and oral language and between the conventionalized symbols and the actual sound of language. This discrepancy drove a continuous cycle of birth and death of a stream of languages in the Middle East. Although Semitic language was the original inventor of alphabetic script, the alphabet form of writing did not come easily within the Semitic language group because of this inherited discrepancy. During the third Millennium BC, most ancient Semitic languages adopted cuneiform, a highly conservative and logographic script. It was not until 1100 BC that a semi-alphabetic script was created. Several alphabetic scripts emerged and became extinct during the next fifteen centuries because an important part of the Semitic languages, the vowels that defined meaning and grammatical structure, were not fully presented. As a result, only spelling (not the way to be read) of the written language was standardized; thus the pronunciation of the written language remained unregulated and fluid. Consequently, local languages and dialects disappeared as quickly as they appeared. The authority of written languages was often challenged by active and innovative oral languages and quickly branched out after every minor phonetic shift.

This thesis provides an overview of the literary characteristics of the Book of Jonah and discusses the literary categories that scholars have associated with it, namely historical, imaginative, or humorous literature. After a hermeneutical discussion of multiple genres within these literary categories that have been used to describe the Book of Jonah, this work concludes that the book is best described as a ‘didactic, satiric novella’.

The identification of the character Job and his placement in the Biblcal history has been an issue taxing scholars for generations. The Russian Orthodox and Slavonic traditions, some Jewish traditions, and David Gibson in his book on the Hyksos and Abraham Abulafia identify him with Jobab son of Zerach second king of Edom. Dann Farelly of Bethel School of Supernatural Ministry places him with Abraham. Barry Setterfield and Bernard Northrup place him with Peleg after the flood of Noah.  This short paper brings out the clear connection with Jobab son of Zerach. The argument based on timing, geography, names, and cult practices point clearly to this period. Job is seen as a prophet on the order of Abraham and Bilaam, and Moses who consults God on behalf of others. The writers work on Hadad: Hero or Satan (lulu.com), and Solomon's Satans (lulu.com) are supportive of this conclusion.

De studie van het Midden-Oosten wordt vandaag de dag mede bepaald door de bestudering van talen uit de regio. Enkele decennia geleden was dat nog veel meer het geval. Eén van de mensen die van deze bestudering van talen zijn specialiteit heeft gemaakt is Wim Delsman, die in 2009 als universitair docent afscheid nam van de Radboud Universiteit in Nijmegen. Dat is alweer een tijdje geleden, maar omdat het er destijds niet van is gekomen en vanwege Delsmans verslechterende gezondheidssituatie wilde de redactie van ZemZem hem nu alsnog interviewen. Joas Wagemakers, oud-student en oud-collega van Delsman, sprak met hem. Deel 24 in de serie Afscheid van een generatie.

By request I found my original file and am uploading it here.  With the decipherment of Paleo-Hebrew Script, I published this Lesson Manual.  More explanation is needed concerning determinatives, both prefix and suffix; but I hope this will introduce the subject.

Mormon’s Chronological Summary of the Period from the 19th Regnal Year of the Reign of MosiahI to the Coming of the Limhites and Mormon’s Synopsis of the Book of Mormon Prophetic Calendar
A small scrap of paper entitled “Caractors” (also known as the Anthon Transcript) that contained Reformed Egyptian characters copied from the plates from which the Book of Mormon was translated has remained an enigma for more than a hundred years.  Finally, the characters have been successfully translated. In a book that is the first of its kind, Jerry Grover, a professional civil engineer, geologist, and translator, has been able to crack the code of the “reformed Egyptian.” The author’s approach is meticulous and scientific. This book is a landmark event in Book of Mormon studies and is a book that must be read by every serious student of the Book of Mormon and of Mesoamerican studies. The author is dedicating all proceeds from the book to additional scientific studies to cast further light on the ancient setting of the Book of Mormon.

Within a literary ontology, YHWH in the Hebrew Bible is technically also a fictional entity or object. In Hebrew Bible scholarship, a variety of philosophical issues surrounding fiction have received sustained and in-depth attention. However, the mainstream research on these matters tends to focus on the philosophical foundations of or backgrounds to a particular literary theory, rather than on metaphysical puzzles as encountered in the philosophy of fiction proper. To fill this gap, the present article seeks to provide a meta-theoretical overview of the main contemporary philosophical perspectives on the metaphysics of fictional objects. Three views (and their sub-currents) are discussed, namely possibilism, (neo-)Meinongianism and (literary) creationism. Each view’s theory is introduced and critically appropriated with reference to what is implied to be an answer to the question of what exactly the biblical character YHWH can meaningfully be said to be in the context of the metaphysics of fictional objects. In this way, the present study also goes beyond the traditional concern with the nature of God in Old Testament theology.

Überblick über Stand und mögliche Perspektiven der Hebraistik in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland - Vortrag in Hamburg, Juli 2015 / Survey of present state and possible perspectives of the study of the Hebrew language in Germany - Paper delivered in Hamburg, July 2015

Most of this book, _Identifying Biblical Persons_, is available on the Google Books web site:  www.google.com/search?tbo=p&tbm=bks&q=mykytiuk+identifying&num=10

This book is a revised Ph.D. dissertation in Hebrew and Semitic Studies, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1998, which began with a February 1992 graduate seminar paper.

"Establishes the first comprehensive protocols for evaluating potential identifications of persons mentioned in the Hebrew Bible with persons mentioned in Northwest Semitic inscriptions. Applies this system in detail to a small number of Hebrew inscriptions, the Mesha Inscription, and the Tel Dan stele.
Appendixes covering inscriptions published through mid-2002 briefly evaluate potential identifications of over seventy-five biblical persons in over ninety Northwest Semitic inscriptions which are mostly contemporary with the person.
Resulting identifications and non-identifications appear in six categories of strength or weakness, from unmistakable to disqualified. The final product is a first-ever corpus consisting only of inscriptions that name biblical persons. This technical book will appeal to advanced scholars, graduate students, seminarians, clergy, and others who have a working knowledge of at least one Northwest Semitic language, e.g., biblical Hebrew, and to nonspecialists interested in questions about biblical historicity."

par Agnès Tichit.
—
Agnès Tichit propose ici une grammaire qui, tout en tenant compte de la particularité de l’hébreu biblique vocalisé, sensibilise l’étudiant à l’hébreu moderne non vocalisé, dans le cadre des indications pédagogiques.

Une grammaire pratique
L’accent est mis sur la comparaison entre le verbe régulier et les autres selon un plan systématique basé sur la conjugaison expliquée, les exercices d’application et la liste des verbes requis.

Des exercices variés
Chaque leçon est accompagnée de plusieurs types d’exercices, à partir de versets et passages bibliques, qui facilitent l’apprentissage progressif des verbes, dont la conjugaison diffère de celle du verbe régulier. Le corrigé des exercices est fourni.

Public cible
L’ouvrage s’adresse à des étudiants de niveau intermédiaire, qui peuvent l’utiliser selon l’ordre adopté ou à leur convenance. Les plus avancés peuvent s’y référer sans l’aide d’un enseignant.

Détails et table des matières sur http://www.safran.be/proddetail.php?prod=LCA2