Mova0.5 pre-release⌕
☰
home / docs / papers / Ancient Hebrew / Studies in Rabbinic Hebrew

Studies in Rabbinic Hebrew

What it is about

A book of eight articles, most from a 2016 Cambridge workshop on Rabbinic Hebrew. Breuer explains the Talmudic names Rabba (written with final he and a doubled bet) and Rava (final alef, single bet) as two different nouns, and uses the contrast to place Mishnaic Hebrew between Western and Eastern Aramaic. Henshke shows that the sparse vocalisation of MS Cambridge of the Mishnah reflects deliberate choices of an early Palestinian tradition that survived in Byzantium. Shemesh-Raiskin describes the halakhic give-and-take of the Mishnah with conversation analysis: question–answer adjacency pairs and a fixed set of argumentative steps. Stadel discusses the registers of Tannaitic Aramaic (conservative legal formulas, semi-official letters, vernacular sayings and proverbs). Avirbach studies Rabbinic words in Ibn Tibbon's medieval translation; Wormser uses the Hebrew of the late Midrash to refine the split between the Palestinian and Babylonian branches of Rabbinic Hebrew; Efrati compares two versions of a midrash; Heijmans shows that Greek loanwords in the Mishnah underwent Hebrew vowel reduction in open pretonic syllables. This card draws on the introduction, the contents and the chapters by Breuer, Henshke, Shemesh-Raiskin, Stadel and Wormser.

Ideas

For Mova

I1 goes into tools/langseg (the hbo-x-mishnaic features) and 11. Mishnaic Hebrew (hbo-x-mishnaic). I2 goes into The lexicon of Jewish Babylonian Aramaic and 11. Mishnaic Hebrew (hbo-x-mishnaic). I3 goes into 11. Mishnaic Hebrew (hbo-x-mishnaic) and is a rule for the pragmatics of Mishnaic text. I4 goes into Biblical Aramaic texts, annotated. I5 goes into 11. Mishnaic Hebrew (hbo-x-mishnaic) (phonology of loanwords).

Cite

The paper itself, not this card. BibTeX from the library's record of the work.

@book{heijmans2020studies,
  title = {{Studies in Rabbinic Hebrew}},
  author = {Heijmans, Shai},
  year = {2020},
  url = {https://doi.org/10.11647/OBP.0164}
}

References

3 references, 0 of them with a card of ours. ↗ leads to the work, «find» searches for one we have no id for yet.

  1. The distinction between the two branches of Rabbinic Hebrew — the Palestinian branch and the Babylonian branch — has been well accepted from the very beginning of the modern study of Rabbinic Hebrew. Zacharias Frankel was probably the first to comment on this distinction, in 1859. 2 More than fifty years later, in 1912, Jacob Nahum Epstein briefly mentioned this distinction as a known fact. 3 In 1933, Harold Louis Ginsberg published a comprehensive study about it, 4 and five years later Epstein introduced a detailed description of this subject in his monumental introduction to the text 1 This paper is based on a research performed in the Centre for Interdisciplinary Research of the Cairo Genizah of University of Haifa. I would like to express my deep thanks to Dr Moshe Lavee, head of the Centre, for his inspiring cooperation in this research. This research was also conducted with the support of the Russian Science Foundation (project no. 17-18-01295), Saint Petersburg State University. 2 Zacharias Frankel, Darkhe ha-Mishnah (in Hebrew; Leipzig: Hunger, 1859), p. 222. 3 Jacob N. Epstein, in his review article “Otsar Leshon ha-Mishnah” (in Hebrew), Hatequfah 13 (1912), pp. 503–516, at pp. 505–506. 4  Harald L. Ginsberg, “Zu den Dialekten des Talmudisch-Hebräischen”, Monatsschrift für die Geschichte und Wissenschaft des Judenthums 77 (1933), pp. 413–429. find
  2. © Yehonatan Wormser, CC BY 4.0 https://doi.org/10.11647/OBP.0164.06 of the Mishnah. 5 Later scholars, such as Kutscher, 6 Bendavid, 7 Rosenthal, 8 Bar-Asher, 9 and Breuer, 10 continued in this course, expanding and detailing the basic distinction. However, the latest developments in this domain, in which numerous details of this distinction have been questioned or proven wrong (that is to say, linguistic features which were considered characteristic only of one branch were also found in texts of the other branch), have blurred this distinction. The two most important scholars who have dealt with such cases are Friedman 11 and Breuer. 12 5 Jacob N. Epstein, Introduction to the Text of the Mishnah (in Hebrew; 3rd ed. Jerusalem: Magnes Press and Tel-Aviv: Dvir, 2000), pp. 1207–1269. 6 Eduard Y. Kutscher, “Mibeʿayot ha-milonut shel leshon hazal” (in Hebrew), in: Eduard Y. Kutscher (ed.), Archive of the New Dictionary of Rabbinical Literature, vol. 1 (Ramat-Gan: Bar-Ilan University Press, 1972), pp. 29–82, at p. 40. 7 Abba Bendavid, Biblical Hebrew and Mishnaic Hebrew, vol. 1 (in Hebrew; Tel-Aviv: Dvir, 1967), pp. 171–222. 8  David Rosenthal, “Mishna Aboda Zara: A Critical Edition with Introduction” (in Hebrew; PhD dissertation, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 1980), vol. 1, pp. 71–83. 9 Moshe Bar-Asher, “The Different Traditions of Mishnaic Hebrew” (in Hebrew), Tarbiẓ 53 (1984), pp. 187–220, at pp. 209–216. 10  In various studies, especially Yochanan Breuer, The Hebrew in the Babylonian Talmud according to the Manuscripts of Tractate Pesaḥim (in Hebrew; Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 2002). 11  See Shamma Yehuda Friedman, “Early Manuscripts of Tractate Bava Metzia” (in Hebrew), Alei Sefer 9 (1981), pp. 5–55, at pp. 18–22; idem, “An Ancient Scroll Fragment (B. Hullin 101a–105a) and the Rediscovery of the Babylonian Branch of Tannaitic Hebrew”, Jewish Quarterly Review 86 (1995), pp. 9–50; idem, “The Manuscripts of the Babylonian Talmud: A Typology Based upon Orthographic and Linguistic Features” (in Hebrew), in: Moshe Bar-Asher (ed.), Studies in Hebrew and Jewish Languages Presented to Shelomo Morag (Jerusalem: Bialik Institute, 1996), pp. 163–190, at pp. 165–175, 178–182. 12 E.g., Breuer, Pesaḥim, pp. 70, 86–87, 138–139, 167–168; idem, “The Preposition Hemmenu and the Babylonian Branch of Mishnaic Hebrew” (in Hebrew), Leshonenu 74 (2012), pp. 217–228. ↗
  3. One of the features that has remained a fairly stable distinguishing feature up to present is the spelling of the conjunction אלא ‘but (rather)’: in Babylonian texts it is frequently (but not always) written with yod, אליא, while in Palestinian texts it is written with the standard defective spelling. The different spelling methods reflect different pronunciations: in the Land of Israel the vowel of the initial alef was probably the segol, but in Babylonia, according to the testimony of manuscripts with Babylonian vocalisation, 13 along with Yemeni oral traditions, 14 it was ṣere or ḥireq. The first to indicate this difference in spelling was probably Sokoloff, in a short comment in his doctoral dissertation. 15 But the issue became widely known only a few years later, after Yeivin published a thorough study in which he examined the spelling of אלא and אליא in a wide range of different manuscripts. 16 He introduced his conclusions very carefully, 13 Efraim Porat, Leshon hakhamim: Lefi masorot bavliyot she-be-khitvei yad yeshanim (in Hebrew; Jerusalem: Bialik Institute, 1938), p. 146; Israel Yeivin, The Hebrew Language Tradition as Reflected in the Babylonian Vocalization (in Hebrew; Jerusalem: Academy of the Hebrew Language, 1985), pp. 1117–1118. 14  Henoch Yalon, “Nimmukim le-mishnayot menukkadot” (in Hebrew), Leshonenu 24 (1960), pp. 157–166, at p. 164; Yitschak Shivtiʾel, “Massorot ha-temanim be-diqduq leshon ha-mishna (masekhet sanhedrin)” (in Hebrew), in: Saul Lieberman et al. (eds.), Henoch Yalon Jubilee Volume on the Occasion of his Seventy-fifth Birthday (Jerusalem: Kiryat Sepher, 1963), pp. 338–359, at p. 324; Bendavid, Biblical Hebrew and Mishnaic Hebrew, p. 148; Eduard Y. Kutscher, “The Literary and Oral Tradition of Hebrew and Aramaic amongst the Samaritans” (review article, in Hebrew), Tarbiẓ 37 (1968), pp. 397–419, at p. 408; Shelomoh Morag, The Traditions of Hebrew and Aramaic of the Jews of Yemen (in Hebrew; ed. Yosef Tobi; Tel-Aviv: Afikim 2002), p. 233. 15 Michael Sokoloff, “The Genizah Fragments of Genesis Rabba and MS Vat. Ebr. 60 of Genesis Rabba” (in Hebrew; PhD dissertation, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 1971), p. *29. 16 Israel Yeivin, “Ketivah shel tevat אלא”, Leshonenu 40 (1976), pp. 254–258. emphasising that they were liable to necessitate revision on the basis of future manuscript research. Nevertheless, this distinction has been well accepted, even though, as we shall see, it has not always enjoyed complete confirmation in further findings. This acceptance was also strengthened by the parallel Aramaic dialects of the period: the form אליא is very common in Jewish Babylonian Aramaic texts, 17 but in Palestinian Aramaic it occurs very rarely. 18 In this paper I would like to examine what can be learnt about this matter from texts of the well-known and widespread genre of the late Midrash, the Tanḥuma-Yelammedenu (TY) genre. TY literature, according to most studies, was created in the Land of Israel after the Amoraic period. Initially it included written summaries of oral sermons (derashot), which were compiled into unified collections. 19 A few of those collections are known nowadays as the two editions of Tanḥuma (the ‘standard’ edition 17 Michael Sokoloff, A Dictionary of Jewish Babylonian Aramaic (Ramat-Gan: Bar-Ilan University Press, 2002), p. 132. For another occurrence in epigraphic material cf. Shaul Shaked, James Nathan Ford, and Siam Bhayro, Aramaic Bowl Spells (Leiden: Brill, 2013), p. 81. Yechiel Bin-Nun, “Le-inyan ketivah shel tevat אלא”, Leshonenu 41 (1976), p. 77, proposed an etymological explanation based upon Babylonian Aramaic forms. 18 This matter requires a separate study. For partial findings see Kutscher, “The Literary and Oral Tradition”, p. 408; Michael Sokoloff, A Dictionary of Jewish Palestinian Aramaic (Ramat-Gan: Bar-Ilan, 1992), p. 58; Johannes de Moor (ed.), A Bilingual Concordance to the Targum of the Prophets (Leiden: Brill, 1995–2005), vol. 1, p. 18; vol. 2, p. 20; vol. 9, p. 35. 19 Most of the material was created, according to common opinion, between the 6th and 8th centuries CE. For additional background on TY literature see Mark Bregman, The Tanhuma-Yelammedenu Literature: Studies in the Evolutions of the Versions (in Hebrew; Piscataway: Gorgias Press, 2003), pp. 5–13, 176–186; Günter Stemberger, Introduction to the Talmud and Midrash (2nd ed.; Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1996), pp. 302–306; Anat Reizel, Introduction to the Midrashic Literature (in Hebrew; Alon Shevut: Tevunot — Mikhlelet Herzog, 2011), pp. 236–237. and Buber edition), Shemot Rabbah, Bemidbar Rabbah and Devarim Rabbah (two different editions). But it is clear that there were more TY editions, from which we have only remnants preserved in Cairo and European Genizah fragments, and in short quotations in yalkutim (medieval collections of Midrashim), while their full texts have been lost. As to its linguistic character, the Hebrew of TY literature reflects its Palestinian sources very clearly. 20 Indeed, the Palestinian linguistic features were not equally preserved in all TY editions, and in at least a few of them, some of these features were considerably blurred. 21 From the perspective of the Palestinian linguistic features we can single out a group of Cairo Genizah fragments of lost TY editions, 22 the Palestinian linguistic character of which is very clear and consistent in a manner not common in other TY texts. 23 The Hebrew of these fragments is very similar to the Hebrew of the well-known early manuscripts of Tannaitic and Amoraic literature, like MS Kaufmann of the Mishnah and MS Vatican 30 of Bereshit Rabbah. For example, the famous Palestinian spelling of the final diphthong -ay with double yod 20 Yehonatan Wormser, “On Some Features of the Language of Tanhuma-Yelammedenu”, Leshonenu 75 (2013), pp. 191–219, at pp. 198–210. 21 Idem, pp. 209–210. 22 At the current state of the research, this group is known to contain nine fragments, remnants of four different editions. Two of those fragments (Cambridge University Library, T-S Misc.36.198 and T-S C1.46) were already recognised as good textual representatives of early Palestinian Hebrew (Mordechay Mishor, “Talmudic Hebrew in the Light of Epigraphy” (in Hebrew), Meḥqerei Lashon 4 (1990), pp. 253–270, at p. 169; Bregman, The Tanhuma-Yelammedenu Literature, pp. 163–164). The other fragments are: Cambridge University Library T-S Misc.35–36.129; T-S C2.68; T-S C1.71; T-S C2.38; Or.1081 2.51; New York, Jewish Theological Seminary, ENA 3692.7 and ENA 691.18. 23 A comprehensive linguistic description of these fragments and a thorough discussion of their importance will be published in a separate study currently in preparation. is consistently employed in those texts (e.g., יילע ‘on me’, יינב ‘my sons’ etc.), 24 final nun frequently substitutes radical final mem (e.g., ןדא instead of םדא ‘man, person’, ןשכ meaning םשכ ‘like’), 25 and consonantal alef is always omitted in certain words (e.g., in the name רזעלא, which is written רזעל, or in the construct וליאכ ‘as if’, which appears as וליכ). 26 From this group, our main interest here is in one TY edition, which is represented in four Genizah fragments. 27 The Palestinian linguistic character of this edition is obvious: except for the above-mentioned features, which all appear in those texts, we find here the extraordinary form לוכיויכ instead of לוכיבכ ‘seemingly’. That is, a waw had substituted the bet, a well-known Palestinian spelling phenomenon. 28 Other striking forms in these texts are the 24 The most important discussion on this famous feature appears in Eduard Y. Kutscher, “Leshon ḥazal” (in Hebrew), in: Saul Lieberman et al. (eds.), Henoch Yalon Jubilee Volume on the Occasion of his Seventy-fifth Birthday (Jerusalem: Kiryat Sepher, 1963), pp. 246–280, at pp. 251–253. 25 See Shlomo Naeh, “Shtei sugiyot nedoshot bi-leshon ḥazal” (in Hebrew), in: Moshe Bar-Asher and David Rosenthal (eds.), Meḥqerei Talmud: Talmudic Studies Dedicated to the Memory of Professor Eliezer Shimshon Rosenthal, vol. 2 (1993), pp. 364–392, at pp. 382–383, and the references there. 26 See Epstein, Introduction to the Text of the Mishnah, pp. 1236, 1266; Bendavid, Biblical Hebrew and Mishnaic Hebrew, pp. 171–222; Michael Sokoloff, “The Hebrew of Bereshit Rabba According to MS Vat. Ebr. 30” (in Hebrew), Leshonenu 33 (1969), pp. 25–42, 135–149, 270–279, at pp. 34–42; Shimon Sharvit, “Two Phonological Phenomena in Mishnaic Hebrew”, in: Aron Dotan (ed.), Studies in Hebrew and Arabic: In Memory of Dov Eron (Teuda, vol. 6; Tel-Aviv: Tel-Aviv University, 1988), pp. 115–134, at pp. 44–45; Naeh, “Shtei sugiyot”, pp. 364–368. 27  New York, Jewish Theological Seminary ENA 3692.7; Cambridge University Library Or.1081 2.51; T-S C2.38; New York, JTS: ENA 691.18. 28 Epstein, Introduction to the Text of the Mishnah, pp. 1123–1226; Bendavid, Biblical Hebrew and Mishnaic Hebrew, p. 218; Sokoloff, “The Hebrew of Bereshit Rabba”, p. 30; Kutscher, “Mi-beʿayot ha-milonut”, pp. 36–37; Shimon Sharvit, A Phonology of Mishnaic Hebrew: Analyzed Materials (Jerusalem: The Academy of the Hebrew Language, 2016), p. 309. constructs וש and יש, meaning אוההש ‘that he’, איההש ‘that she’. The elision of h is witnessed also in the equivalent form in Jewish Palestinian Aramaic of the Byzantine period וד, shortened form of אוההד, which frequently occurs in this dialect. 29 Considering all these features, it seems beyond doubt that this text represents an original early Palestinian linguistic tradition. There is only one feature in this text that seemingly contradicts this assumption — the spelling of אלא, which occurs twenty-six times in the text, all of them in the ‘Babylonian’ form אליא. Given the frequency, it cannot be explained as a scribe’s spelling mistake. It also cannot be assumed that yod was used as a vowel letter representing the vowel of segol in the initial alef — because yod is employed frequently in this text to represent ṣere, but it never comes with segol. Rather we should raise the question, how did it come about that a typical Babylonian form appears in an otherwise Palestinian text? We are not able to provide a certain explanation, but there are three reasonable options: it could be an independent development in the Hebrew of the Land of Israel; it may be due to the influence of a foreign linguistic tradition; or the explanation might involve a combination of the two aforementioned options. According to the first alternative, it may be that the gemination of the lamed was simplified for some reason. The loss of gemination might then have brought about the lengthening of the preceding vowel, the segol. This lengthening could then have been realised as substitution of the segol by a ṣere: א לּ ָ א ֶ < א ל ָ ֿ א* ֶ < א ל ָ ֿ א*, ֵ a common 30 process in the Tiberian vocalization system. As for the second 29 Sokoloff, Dictionary of Jewish Palestinian Aramaic, p. 159; Shai Heijmans, “Morphology of The Aramaic Dialect in The Palestinian Talmud According to Geniza Manuscripts” (in Hebrew; MA dissertation, Tel-Aviv University, 2005), p. 18. 30 Compare, for example, the form שׁ א ֵ ‘fire’ when a suffix is added: ם כ ֶ שׁ ְ א ֶ ‘your fire’. It seems probable that this is a natural phonetic shift, which option, since TY literature is considered a relatively late stratum of Rabbinic Hebrew, i.e., from after the Amoraic period, it is possible that when this text was written, the Babylonian Talmud and even Geonic literature had already reached an exclusive and authoritative position in the Jewish literary canon. In such a situation, the Babylonian linguistic tradition could have had an impact even in regions where the Palestinian traditions were practiced. Whatever the reason behind this form, if we consider a few findings from Tannaitic Hebrew, its absolute attribution to the Babylonian branch seems quite dubious: Eldar 31 and Yeivin 32 have found a few occurrences of the form א ל ָ א, ֵ vocalised with ṣere and without dagesh in Tiberian manuscripts; Eldar also commented on the occurrence of the spelling אליא in MS Cambridge, Add.470.1 (widely known due the edition published by Lowe); 33 Birnbaum 34 found the form with ṣere in two Genizah fragments of the Mishnah, in which, according to his examination, there are no other signs of Babylonian influence on the language. 35 took place in Palestinian Hebrew and which is reflected in both the Tiberian vocalization and TY texts. 31 Ilan Eldar, The Hebrew Language Tradition in Medieval Ashkenaz (ca. 950–1350 C.E.) (in Hebrew), vol. 2 (Edah ve-Lashon, vol. 5; Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1978), p. 229. 32 Israel Yeivin, The Hebrew Language Tradition as Reflected in the Babylonian Vocalization (in Hebrew; Jerusalem: The Academy of the Hebrew Language, 1985), pp. 1117–1118. 33 Prof. Yehudit Henshke notified me that it is found in this manuscript only once. 34 Gabriel Birnbaum, The Language of the Mishna in the Cairo Geniza: Phonology and Morphology (in Hebrew; Sources and Studies [New Series], vol. 10; Jerusalem: The Academy of the Hebrew Language, 2008), p. 334. 35 Yet, since we do not know exactly when those texts were written, we cannot conclude, at the current stage of research, that the form with ṣere or the spelling with yod have sources in the Palestinian Tannaitic Hebrew. find

This page in Markdown → https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/docs/papers/hbobook-obp0164-heijmans-studies-rabbinic-hebrew/