Late Biblical Hebrew and the Qumran Pesher Habakkuk
What it is about
The chronological model says Early Biblical Hebrew (EBH) turned into Late Biblical Hebrew (LBH) around the exile, and Qumran Hebrew went further down the same road. Young tests this on the Pesher Habakkuk (1QpHab, 1st century BCE). He measures accumulation: the number of different LBH features (Hurvitz's criteria: late distribution, contrast with an early equivalent, attestation outside the Bible) in a 500-graphic-word sample, counting each feature once. Core LBH samples score 20–25 (Ezra, Daniel, Chronicles, Nehemiah); 1QpHab scores no higher than EBH texts and lower than the pre-exilic Arad ostraca, and it shows 34 links with EBH against 6 with LBH. He concludes that EBH and LBH were co-existing styles, conservative and open to variety, not periods.
Ideas
- I1. Implement the accumulation test as a tool: a list of LBH features as tree/lemma patterns, a 500-graphic-word sliding window, and a count of distinct features per window; run it over the five Torah books and print the profile with the date.
- I2. Count in graphic words (space-separated units), not MACULA tokens, so that numbers are comparable with Young's tables (one graphic word ≈ 1.5 MACULA tokens; measure our own ratio).
- I3. Score a "preference" feature only when it occurs at least five times in the window with no early equivalent, or at a 10:1 ratio, as Young does; keep the rule in the code.
- I4. In the manual, present EBH/LBH as a style continuum measured by accumulation, citing the scores, and keep the dating question open.
For Mova
I1–I3 are a measure on the Torah trees (and on any other Hebrew text Mova gets), naturally a subcommand of tools/macula; I4 goes into 12. Biblical, Mishnaic and Modern Hebrew compared (the dating debate, counts book by book).
Cite
@article{young2008late,
title = {{Late Biblical Hebrew and the Qumran Pesher Habakkuk}},
author = {Young, Ian},
journal = {Journal of Hebrew Scriptures 8},
year = {2008},
doi = {10.5508/jhs.2008.v8.a25},
url = {https://doi.org/10.5508/jhs.2008.v8.a25}
}References
- Narrative”, Biblical Hebrew Studies in Chronology and Typology, 98-103, and the general introduction to the chronological model in Young, Rezetko and Ehrensvärd, Linguistic Dating, 1.10-44. 9 For more discussion of the question of “imitation”, see section 4.4, below. 10 M.J. Bernstein, “Pesher Habakkuk,” Encyclopaedia of the Dead Sea Scrolls (eds L.H. Schiffman and J.C. VanderKam; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), 647, 649; T.H. Lim, Pesharim (Companion to the Qumran Scrolls, 3; London/ New York: Sheffield Academic, 2002), 21, 72. Lim (p.72) refers to “the presumed date of the composition of pesher Habakkuk (c.60-50 BCE)”. An alternative view proposed is the late second century BCE. 11 S. Berrin, “Qumran Pesharim,” Biblical Interpretation at Qumran (ed. M. Henze; Grand Rapids/ Cambridge: Eerdmans, 2005), 110. 12 E.g. R.D. Haak, Habakkuk (VTSup, 44; Leiden: Brill, 1992), 107-08, 114, 130-33; M.A. Sweeney, “Habakkuk, Book of,” ABD, 3.2; M.A. Sweeney, The Twelve Prophets Volume Two (Berit Olam; Collegeville: Liturgical Press, 2000), 454-55; O. Dangl, “Habakkuk in Recent Research,” CurBS 9 (2001), 139-44. severe problems. What exactly are the features of LBH? The classic methodology of Avi Hurvitz for identifying LBH has three criteria. A fourth criterion is then used to decide whether a particular text is to be considered late on linguistic grounds. 13 The first criterion is linguistic distribution: the linguistic feature in question must occur exclusively or predominantly in biblical books which are indisputably post-exilic in date, that is the core LBH books of Esther, Daniel, Ezra, Nehemiah and Chronicles, whose historical setting indicates without doubt a post-exilic date. Thus, the form תוּכ ל ְ מ ַ for “kingdom” occurs in each of the core LBH books, a total of 78 times out of 91 occurrences in the Hebrew Bible. A further 6 occurrences are in LBH-related psalms and Qoheleth. 14 The second criterion is linguistic contrast: there must be expressions in earlier biblical books which express the same meaning as the linguistic item in question. This is intended to rule out of discussion linguistic forms that may appear in LBH sources simply because there was no opportunity to use them in EBH texts. Thus תוכלמ can be considered in linguistic opposition to other BH words for “kingdom” such as הכלממ. The third criterion is extra-biblical attestation: the linguistic form in question must appear in post-exilic sources, whether Hebrew or Aramaic, from outside the Hebrew Bible. This is intended to demonstrate that the form was indeed current in the post-exilic period. Thus תוכלמ is widely used in later Aramaic dialects and Tannaitic literature and is also found at Qumran. 15 Fourth and finally, there is the criterion of accumulation: if a particular biblical text is to be judged late on linguistic grounds it must exhibit a clustering of late linguistic items identified using the above three criteria. The four criteria are carefully thought out in order to guard against common mistakes made by earlier scholars trying to date texts by their language. Hurvitz’s methodology remains a useful way to describe linguistic relationships. Nevertheless, we argue that the nature of the evidence means that even these criteria cannot be used successfully to demonstrate the lateness of any text. 16 The second criterion, linguistic opposition, is extremely useful, since there is indeed a variety of linguistic forms in the Hebrew Bible which 13 For the criteria discussed here, see the references to Hurvitz’s work in note 2, and add A. Hurvitz, “Linguistic Criteria for Dating Problematic Biblical Texts,” Hebrew Abstracts 14 (1973), 74-79. A detailed introduction to Hurvitz’s methodology can be found in Young, Rezetko and Ehrensvärd, Linguistic Dating, 1.12-23. 14 For the term “LBH-related” see above with note 4. 15 On תוכלמ see Hurvitz, Transition Period, 79-82. 16 For a full discussion see Young, Rezetko and Ehrensvärd, Linguistic Dating, especially 1.45-142, and on external attestation especially 1.143-72, 201-79. On the continued utility of Hurvitz’s methodology in the non-chronological model, see especially 2.102, 105. appear to fulfil identical linguistic roles. 17 This criterion is misunderstood, however, if it is taken to mean that LBH books completely replace EBH linguistic forms with LBH ones. This can happen, as in Esther’s total preference for תוכלמ as its word for “kingdom”. 18 However, the more common situation is where both EBH and LBH forms are used in the same book. Thus Chronicles uses תוכלמ 28 times, and הכלממ 22 times. LBH is generally not a replacement for EBH, but rather a supplementation of it. LBH is EBH plus extra linguistic choices. 19 The usefulness of the third criterion, external attestation, for dating is virtually negated by the nature of the external evidence. Since the vast majority of our evidence for Hebrew and Aramaic dates to the post-exilic period or later, it is almost inevitable that BH forms, whether “early” or “late”, will be attested somewhere in a “late” non-biblical source. To draw chronological conclusions from this data would furthermore overlook the fact that these late sources are usually considered to represent linguistic forms available long before their attestation in writing. Thus, it is a widely held consensus that MH is a Hebrew dialect, independent of BH, which existed long before its full literary attestation in the Mishnah. 20 We note, for example, linguistic forms attested in Hebrew inscriptions from the monarchic period and in MH, but never in the intervening literature. 21 In regard to Aramaic, it is an especially weak argument from silence to claim that if a form is unattested in our extremely limited Old Aramaic sources, it therefore did not exist in that period. Thus Hurvitz has pointed out “we must always bear in mind that although the Elephantine papyri were written down in the fifth century B.C.E., the language employed in these texts was not created suddenly in the Persian period….It is, therefore, perfectly clear that Elephantine Aramaic on the one hand and Biblical Hebrew on the other, even when exhibiting similar (or identical) linguistic usages, could have drawn, independently and at different times, on a common third For instance, is תרגא used in Esther and Chronicles to designate specifically a festal letter, and hence is not in opposition to the usual word רפ ס also used in these two books? On this, see Rezetko, “‘Late’ Common Nouns,” 399-400. 18 For other examples, see section 4, below. 19 See the discussion of Chronicles’ vocabulary in Rezetko, “‘Late’ Common Nouns”. 20 See, for instance, G.A. Rendsburg, Diglossia in Ancient Hebrew (AOS, 72; New Haven: American Oriental Society, 1990); I. Young, Diversity in Pre-Exilic Hebrew. (FAT, 5; Tübingen: Mohr-Siebeck, 1993), 76-81, 87-93; M. Bar Asher, “Mishnaic Hebrew: An Introductory Survey,” HS 40 (1999), 118-119; Young, Rezetko and Ehrensvärd, Linguistic Dating, 1.242-43. E. Qimron, “Observations on the History of Early Hebrew (1000 B.C.E.-200 C.E.) in the Light of the Dead Sea Documents,” The Dead Sea Scrolls Forty Years of Research (eds D. Dimant and U. Rappaport; Leiden/ Jerusalem: Brill/ Magnes/ Yad Izhak Ben-Zvi, 1992), 361 n.49 states: “It stands to reason that the dialects underlying both D[ead] S[ea] S[crolls] Hebrew and MH already existed in the First Temple period.” 21 See e.g. Young, “LBH and Inscriptions,” 301-02, on the appearance of the participle of לכי in the eighth century B.C.E. Arad ostracon 40:13-14. find
- “kingdom” occur in core-LBH or LBH-related texts, there are still seven occurrences of the word in EBH texts. 28 This phenomenon alone is enough to undermine or seriously modify the chronological approach to BH. Is תוכלמ actually a “late” linguistic item after all? If so, its appearance in a text should indicate that therefore the text is to be dated late. And if EBH texts which use תוכלמ were dated late, this means late texts need not exhibit an “accumulation” of LBH features. If against this is it argued that the LBH linguistic feature found in the EBH text is not actually “late” but was also available in an early period, then its value for dating texts “late” is negated. Despite the claims of the criterion of accumulation, there is no reason to assume that an early author could not produce a text with a clustering of “LBH” elements if they were available to him. Or perhaps the LBH elements in EBH texts are evidence of later textual alteration of the language of the BH books? 29 Proponents of the chronological model have been very reticent about invoking this explanation. Once it is admitted that the language of the biblical texts has been changed in scribal transmission, the claim that the language of the current texts is evidence of the date of the original author is thrown into doubt. 30 Another serious problem emerges in the common situation where a linguistic feature is claimed to be characteristic of LBH, yet is not in fact characteristic of all LBH texts. A good example is the claim that the appearance of unassimilated ןמ “from” before a noun without definite article is a feature of LBH. 31 In this case not only are there numerous examples in EBH texts, but we also have the problem that significant numbers of examples of unassimilated ןמ are only found in Chronicles and, to a lesser extent, Daniel, among core LBH texts. Another core LBH text, Esther, never fails to assimilate ןמ. 32 Is preference for unassimilated ןמ a symptom of lateness or simply a stylistic choice only brought to prominence by scholars because it happens to appear in some “late” texts? Many similar patterns of distribution and preference for linguistic forms are overlooked by scholars because they have no obvious relationship with chronology. Thus, scholars have long noted that Deuteronomy has a strong preference for בבל as “heart”, while Jeremiah strongly prefers בל. 33 Jeremiah’s preference is shared by, among others, Genesis, Exodus, find
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