This is a comprehensive reference grammar of Qumran Aramaic. Not only Aramaic texts from Qumran caves, but also contemporary texts originating from other neighbouring locations in the Judaean Desert such as Nahal Hever, Murabba'at, Jericho, and Massada are covered. It would be an important tool of study for specialists in Aramaic linguistics, the Jewish culture of the Second Temple period, and the New Testament. The scope and nature of the grammar is comparable to that of Muraoka - Porten, A Grammar of Egyptian Aramaic (2nd revised ed., 2003).
The Aramaic texts among the Dead Sea Scrolls are among the most important discoveries for the history of Aramaic and for the background of early Judaism and Christianity. They constitute a “missing link” between Biblical Aramaic and the later Aramaic of the targums and midrashic literature. Among them are the oldest texts we have of the Book of Enoch and Tobit, as well as the earliest Aramaic translation of a portion of Scripture, the Targum of Job. Other previously unknown texts such as the Genesis Apocryphon and the Aramaic Levi Document have opened up many new avenues of research on the literature of early Judaism, and the dialect itself is chronologically the one nearest to the origins of Christianity. Now, for the first time, there is a comprehensive dictionary of all the Aramaic texts from the 11 Qumran caves, from a noted specialist in Qumran Aramaic. It is the first dictionary in any language devoted solely to this important Aramaic corpus and contains a wealth of detail, including definitions, extensive citations of the sources, discussions of difficult passages, revised readings, and a bibliography. It will be an indispensable resource to anyone interested in the Dead Sea Scrolls, the literature of early Judaism and Christianity, and the Aramaic language.
Subdivided into three segments (Hebrew Bible, Greek Bible, Qumran), this updated and revised collection of essays represents the work of Emanuel Tov in the past seventeen years. He focuses on various aspects of the textual analysis of the Hebrew and Greek Bible, as well as the Qumran biblical manuscripts in Hebrew and Greek. Further he takes a special interest in the orthography of biblical manuscripts, the nature of the early Masoretic Text, the nature of the Qumran biblical texts and their importance for our understanding of the history of the biblical text, the editions of the Hebrew Bible, and the use of computers in biblical studies. The author also focuses on the interaction between textual and literary criticism and the question of the original text or texts of the Hebrew Bible. His special interests in the Qumran scrolls include the nature of the Qumran corpus, their scribal background, the contents of the various caves, and the number of the compositions and copies found at Qumran. His interest in the Septuagint translation evolves around its text-critical value, the Greek texts from the Judean Desert, and translation technique.
This book provides the first comprehensive treatment of the Aramaic Dead Sea Scrolls from the caves of Qumran. These nearly one hundred scrolls open a window onto a vibrant period of Jewish history for which we previously had few historical sources. Scholars and advanced students will find a general introduction to the corpus, detailed, richly-illustrated profiles of individual scrolls, and up-to-date studies of their Aramaic language and scribal practices. The goal of the book is to foster and support further study of these scrolls against the historical backdrop of early Judaism and ancient Mediterranean scribal cultures.
Appendices -- Index of passages -- Index of subjects -- Tables of loan-words -- Concordance of principal editions -- Individual scribes and dates -- List of technical terms.
A unique grammar for intermediate or advanced students of Hebrew This grammar is intended for students of Hebrew who wish to learn more about the history of the Hebrew language, specifically its phonology and morphology. Reymond focuses on aspects of Hebrew that will encourage a student to better remember the words and their inflection as well as those that will reinforce general principles of the language. Specific examples for memorization are outlined at the end of each chapter. The book also serves as a resource for students wishing to remind themselves of the relative frequency of certain phenomena. The book provides students with a full picture of the language's morphology. Features: Tables of nouns and adjectives illustrating the absolute and construct, singular and plural forms, as well as all the forms with suffixes Tables include forms not found in the Masoretic Text Additional tables that set similar verbal inflections side by side
This volume contains studies that explore the content and meaning of the Qumran manuscripts of the Aramaic Books of Enoch, the Book of Giants, and related literature. The essays shed new light on the lexicon, orthography and grammar of the Aramaic scrolls, as well as their relationship to schematic astronomy in ancient Mesopotamia. Contributors examine the origin of the angelic tradition of the Watchers, the textual and literary relationship of the Aramaic scrolls to the Book of the Watchers, and the culpability of humanity in the spread of evil on earth according to the myth of the fallen angels.
This book offers a diachronic and synchronic account of the verb morphology and phonology of Aramaic from its initial appearance early in the first millennium B.C.E. until the second millennium C.E. Aramaic, a subfamily of Semitic, is closely related to Hebrew and the other Canaanite languages; together, the two subfamilies of Aramaic and Canaanite constitute the northwest branch of the Semitic phylum. In this study, Joseph L. Malone focuses on thirteen dialects of Aramaic, chosen from a candidate list of approximately twice that number. The specific varieties of Aramaic examined here are chosen to provide an optimal chronological and geographical range. In a similar vein, the finite verb serves as the subject of this study, based on the assumption that a thorough treatment of the verb will asymptomatically involve most of the patterns and processes that hold for the grammar as a whole. The tools of this study are drawn from standard generative linguistics, though care is taken to explicate these in more traditional terms where it is deemed necessary. This book is essential reading for linguists who study the Semitic language families, and in particular those interested in Northwest Semitic languages.
