Chris: you are grasping at straws again.
Chris Watts wrote: ↑Wed Sep 29, 2021 4:35 am
kwrandolph wrote: ↑Tue Sep 28, 2021 4:30 pm
Chris, you asked, what would I consider as hard evidence?
• A document, written in Hebrew identifying a town or region as speaking Hebrew.
• A trove of documents written in Hebrew not connected to law, worship, high literature and/or communications with the diaspora.
So far, it is my understanding, that not one document has turned up that fulfills either of the two.
Karl W. Randolph.
Ok Karl thankyou. And of course I do not doubt your final comment here, no evidence of a vernacular/market language attested after 500 BC even though I do see it. But I empathize with your perspective.
How do you see it? First hand through documents that you know, or the claims of others?
Chris Watts wrote: ↑Wed Sep 29, 2021 4:35 am
However, I do wonder about other ancient languages, I have read that the only texts.tablets available for the Sumerian language consist of leagal/law and administrative writings. Do you think that the common people here would have waffled along in a pub/street/market place dialogue in Sumerian? And I wonder if this applies to a few other ancient sources where there are only official and administrative fragments.
We know too little about daily life in Sumer to be able to answer all your questions.
Chris Watts wrote: ↑Wed Sep 29, 2021 4:35 am
Another valuable point worth considering is this: There were no bookshops and staionary outlets where Mr and Mrs post exilic returnee could buy paper and pen, and I am convinced (though not by hard documentary evidence) that very very few people would have been able to write in the first place,( except perhaps that one school child who scribbled the agricultural times on a piece of stone). In fact would it be untrue of me to conclude that all evidence of ancient languages consist primarily in documentary.legal and historical records? And thereofre conclude that there was no waffling market talk in the towns in these languages- but we have no non governmental non administrative non legal records of this do we?
The evidence is that almost all Jews, both before and after the exile, could both read and write. However, there were people who were hired to write official documents because of their beautiful handwriting.
An example of how almost anyone can learn to read and write, are the Cherokee Indians. When the majority of Cherokees were still living in tents, Sequoyah invented a syllabary to record the language. Within months, practically every Cherokee could read and write. Likewise Hebrew writing was equally simple to learn.
Chris Watts wrote: ↑Wed Sep 29, 2021 4:35 am
As a final point in question:
1. What language do you think Joseph aquired in Egypt?
He acquired Egyptian. But he didn’t forget his native tongue. The book of Genesis records that.
Chris Watts wrote: ↑Wed Sep 29, 2021 4:35 am
2. ...And therefore what languages did now his two sons, Ephraim and Mannessah, speak with by his Egyptian wife? And did Joseph ever imagine that he would be speaking the langauge of Canaan ever again, so did he teach it to his sons?
Genesis mentions it specifically, Exodus hints at it, that outside of necessary business, Egyptians avoided contact with Hebrews. Likewise, Hebrews had little contact with Egyptians.
Chris Watts wrote: ↑Wed Sep 29, 2021 4:35 am
3. Moses was raised Egyptian (different language) emigrated to Midian (different language) and wrote and spoke ? (different language)
Moses was reared first by his mother, then put in a situation where he spoke Egyptian. As a top official in the government, he would have been required to learn a few important languages.
Chris Watts wrote: ↑Wed Sep 29, 2021 4:35 am
4. The hebrew slaves, 400 years, surely their kids aquired Egyptian? I mean let's face it, neither Joseph nor the family of Jacob ever thought they would really be going back to Canaan. So now that they are living freely with much less of a national identity than what they would have in Babylon, and the subsequent genrations following them BEFORE slavery they would have mingled and done business in Egypt. So I am very surprised that we do not have the first 5 books of Moses written in Hieroglyphics. Let's face it, thousands descended from those 8, and really, their kids would have played chase the camel with their Egyptian buddies.
Joseph specifically said that he expected the people to return to Canaan.
See above, the Israelites had little contact with Egyptians, lived in self-contained communities, as a result the children didn’t have Egyptian buddies.
That was not the case in Babylon and Persia.
Chris Watts wrote: ↑Wed Sep 29, 2021 4:35 am
Or am I being naive and too simplistic?
Now where is the documentary evidence?
Oh and Finally Saenz-Badillos does not agree with you on a chronological order for as you quoted a "...DSS morphed to Tiberian..." scenario, language never works lke this.
Chris watts
Who is this Saenz-Badillos? Why should I listen to him? All I see of him is his contradiction to the historical and Biblical records. What makes him such an expert that people should set aside their own thinking and listen to him?
talmid56 wrote: ↑Wed Sep 29, 2021 4:10 pm
I'm not sure how big a trove of documents has to be. I think the some of the Bar Kochva documents (A.D. 132-135!) fit. Some of the ones Bar Kochva (Bar Kosiba) exchanged with other rebel leaders were in Hebrew. They were military dispatches, so clearly not scholarly/second language documents. We also have from the same trove land lease documents from Eleazar ben Shmuel (Samuel) leasing land to Bar Kosiba. Some of the leases are written in Hebrew as well, in a quite elegant hand similar to that used for Bible MSS. (Others concerning the land lease are in Aramaic.) This is surely an everyday communication, not scholarly. And, as you see, way past the cutoff time you have proposed. Have a look for yourself at the images, if you like:
https://www.deadseascrolls.org.il/explo ... Hev%2044-1. The two from Eleazar in Hebrew are 5/6Hev 44 and 46.
Bar Kochba tried to revive Hebrew as an everyday, spoken language. But too few Jews knew Hebrew well enough to make that effort a success. What you describe is still well within the realm of a learned, second language. At least one of the writers of a non-Hebrew letter admitted that he didn’t know Hebrew. It is my understanding that fewer than half of the letters are in Hebrew.
That he was called “Bar Kochba” already implies an Aramaic background.
talmid56 wrote: ↑Wed Sep 29, 2021 4:10 pm
There are also coins from the Maccabean revolt and the Bar Kochva revolt with Hebrew inscriptions. One interesting thing about these is that they use
Paleo-Hebrew script rather than the square script. There were not, as far as I know, special collectible coins issued back in those days. So, it is likely these were issued for public, common use. Nothing scholarly there. Again, later use than you argue for. 2nd century B.C. and 2nd century A.D.
Remember, Hebrew was used for temple worship, for business, for official records, for law, for communications with the diaspora, for high literature, in other words for reasons other than scholarly. In all those uses, it was a learned, second language.
The paleo-Hebrew font was still known and to a limited extent still used, in late second temple times and for a while afterwards. That can be seen also among the DSS. Coins were connected with both government and commerce.
So far, there has been no indication of Hebrew usage that required that Hebrew be the language of the street and in the market. A learned second language suffices for these uses.
Karl W. Randolph.