Cian J. Power explores how the biblical authors viewed and presented a fundamental human reality: the existence of the world's many languages. By examining explicit references to this diversity - such as the ambivalent account of its origins in the Tower of Babel episode - and implicit acknowledgements that included the use of strange-sounding speech to portray alien peoples, he illuminates ideas about Aramaic, Egyptian, Akkadian, and other ancient languages. Drawing on sociolinguistics, Power detects a consistent link between language and - ethnic, political, religious, and divine/human boundaries, and argues that changing historical circumstances are key to the Bible's varying attitudes. Furthermore, the study's findings regarding the biblical authors' ideas about their own language and its importance challenge our very notion of Hebrew.
A Christian imagination of colonial discovery permeated the early modern world, but legal histories developed in very different ways depending on imperial jurisdictions. Indigenous Rights and the Legacies of the Bible: From Moses to Mabo explores the contradictions and ironies that emerged in the interactions between biblical warrants and colonial theories of Indigenous natural rights. The early debates in the Americas mutated in the British colonies with a range of different outcomes after the American Revolution, and tracking the history of biblical interpretation provides an illuminating pathway through these historical complexities. A ground-breaking legal judgment in the High Court of Australia, Mabo v. Queensland (1992), demonstrates the enduring legacies of debates over the previous five centuries. The case reveals that the Australian colonies are the only jurisdiction of the English common law tradition within which no treaties were made with the First Nations. Instead, there is a peculiar development of terra nullius ideology, which can be traced back to the historic influences of the book of Genesis in Puritan thought in the seventeenth century. Having identified both similarities and differences between various colonial arguments, and their overt dependence on early modern theological reasoning, Mark G. Brett examines the paradoxical permutations of imperial and anti-imperial motifs in the biblical texts themselves. Concepts of rights shifted over the centuries from theological to secular frameworks, and more recently, from anthropocentric assumptions to ecologically embedded concepts of Indigenous rights and responsibilities. Bearing in mind the differences between ancient and modern notions of indigeneity, a fresh understanding of this history proves timely as settler colonial states reflect on the implications of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (2007). Brett's illuminating insights in this detailed study are particularly relevant for the four states which initially voted against the Declaration: the USA, Canada, New Zealand, and Australia.
"THE OLD TESTAMENT: Commentary, Background, & Bible Difficulties - Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges - VOLUME I" is an extensive guide that ventures deep into the study of the Old Testament, providing comprehensive commentary, historical and cultural background, and exploration of Bible difficulties for the books of Genesis through Judges. This book begins with a detailed examination of the foundations of the Old Testament, covering a range of topics such as the Inspiration of the Old Testament, archaeology's role in unveiling Biblical history, the significance of chronology, the textual criticism of the Old Testament, and much more. It dissects the origin and evolution of Hebrew manuscripts, the history of Hebrew writing, and how these documents became the Canon of the Old Testament. The book also presents an in-depth study of the Documentary Hypothesis theory and provides a thorough exploration of God's name, debunking common misconceptions. Following the Old Testament studies, the book embarks on a thorough analysis of the first seven books of the Old Testament—Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, Joshua, and Judges. Each book review commences with the identification of the author, place and time of writing, followed by highlights of the book. A comprehensive commentary for each book is provided, that carefully unpacks the text and context. In addition, each review provides an extensive analysis of the historical and cultural background and sheds light on the Bible difficulties associated with each book, assisting the reader in resolving and understanding these perceived contradictions. Finally, the value of each book is discussed, drawing out the underlying principles for contemporary application. Designed for theologians, scholars, students of the Bible, and anyone with a keen interest in understanding the Old Testament, this guide is a vital resource. It is not merely a commentary but a tool for study, reflection, and deepening faith.
This book is a collection of letters from a religious Jew in Israel to a Christian friend in Barcelona on life as an Orthodox Jew. Equal parts lighthearted and insightful, it's a thorough and entertaining introduction to the basic concepts of Judaism.
This book provides a new explanation for what has long been a challenge for scholars of Biblical Hebrew: how to understand the expression of verbal tense and aspect. Working from a representative text corpus, combined with database queries of specific usages and surveys of examples discussed in the scholarly literature, Ulf Bergström gives a comprehensive overview of the semantic meanings of the verbal forms, along with a significant sample of the variation of pragmatically inferred tense, aspect, or modality (TAM) meanings. Bergström applies diachronic typology and a redefined concept of aspect to demonstrate that Biblical Hebrew verbal forms have basic aspectual and derived temporal meanings and that communicative appeal, the action-triggering function of language, affects verbal semantics and promotes the diversification of tense meanings. Bergström’s overarching explanation of the semantic development of the Biblical Hebrew verbal system is an important contribution to the study of the evolution of the verbal system and meanings of individual verbs in the Hebrew Bible. Accessibly written and structured for seminar use, Bergström’s study brings new perspectives to a debate that, in many ways, had reached a stalemate, and it challenges scholars working with TAM and the Biblical Hebrew verb to revisit their theoretical premises. Advanced students and scholars of Biblical Hebrew and other Semitic languages will find the study thought provoking, and linguists will appreciate its contributions to linguistic theory and typology.
Since the beginning of critical scholarship, biblical texts have been dated using linguistic evidence. In recent years, this has been a controversial topic. However, until now, there has been no introduction to and comprehensive study of the field. Volume I introduces the field of linguistic dating of biblical texts, particularly to intermediate and advanced students of Biblical Hebrew with a reasonable background in the language, but also to scholars of the Hebrew Bibles in general who have not been exposed to the full scope of issues. It outlines topics at a basic level before entering into detailed discussion. Many text samples are presented for study, and readers are introduced to significant linguistic features of the texts through notes on the pages. Detailed notes on these text sample provide a background, concrete illustrations and a point of departure for discussion of the general and theoretical issues discussed in each chapter that will make this volume useful as a classroom textbook.
!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" html meta content="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1" http-equiv="content-type" body A philologically robust approach to the history of ancient Hebrew In this book the authors work toward constructing an approach to the history of ancient Hebrew that overcomes the chasm of academic specialization. The authors illustrate how cross-textual variable analysis and variation analysis advance research on Biblical Hebrew and correct theories based on extra-linguistic assumptions, intuitions, and ideologies by focusing on variation of forms/uses in the Masoretic text and variation between the Masoretic text and other textual traditions. Features: A unique approach that examines the nature of the sources and the description of their language together Extensive bibliography for further research Tables of linguistic variables and parallels
This book is a comprehensive description of Hebrew from its Semitic origins and the earliest settlement of the Israelite tribes in Canaan to the present day.
More than 80 years have passed since Bauer and Leander’s historical grammar of Biblical Hebrew was published, and many advances in comparative historical grammar have been made during the interim. Joshua Blau, who has for much of his life been associated with the Academy of the Hebrew Language in Jerusalem, has during the past half century studied, collected data, and written frequently on various aspects of the Hebrew language. Phonology and Morphology of Biblical Hebrew had its origins in an introduction to Biblical Hebrew first written some 40 years ago; it has now been translated from Modern Hebrew, thoroughly revised and updated, and it distills a lifetime of knowledge of the topic. The book begins with a 60-page introduction that locates Biblical Hebrew in the Semitic family of languages. It then discusses various approaches to categorization and classification, introduces and discusses various linguistic approaches and features that are necessary to the discussion, and provides a background to the way that linguists approach a language such as Biblical Hebrew—all of which will be useful to students who have taken first-year Hebrew as well those who have studied Biblical Hebrew extensively but have not been introduced to linguistic study of the topic. After a brief discussion of phonetics, the main portion of the book is devoted to phonology and to morphology. In the section on phonology, Blau provides complete coverage of the consonant and vowel systems of Biblical Hebrew and of the factors that have affected both systems. In the section on morphology, he discusses the parts of speech (pronouns, verbs, nouns, numerals) and includes brief comments on the prepositions and waw. The historical processes affecting each feature are explained as Blau progresses through the various sections. The book concludes with a complete set of paradigms and extensive indexes. Blau’s recognized preeminence as a Hebraist and Arabist as well as his understanding of language change have converged in the production of this volume to provide an invaluable tool for the comparative and historical study of Biblical Hebrew phonology and morphology.
In Early Biblical Hebrew, Late Biblical Hebrew, and Linguistic Variability, Dong-Hyuk Kim attempts to adjudicate between the two seemingly irreconcilable views over the linguistic dating of biblical texts. Whereas the traditional opinion, represented by Avi Hurvitz, believes that Late Biblical Hebrew was distinct from Early Biblical Hebrew and thus one can date biblical texts on linguistic grounds, the more recent view argues that Early and Late Biblical Hebrew were merely stylistic choices through the entire biblical period. Using the variationist approach of (historical) sociolinguistics and on the basis of the sociolinguistic concepts of linguistic variation and different types of language change, Kim convincingly argues that there is a third way of looking at the issue.
