2019b Young Rezetko Review of Hendel and Joosten How Old Is The Hebrew Bible? Appendix 1 (original) (raw)

Chapter 1, "All Things Change: Language and Method" (pp. 1-10), underscores that languages and texts change, Biblical Hebrew (BH) and the Hebrew Bible (HB) were not stable entities, and linguistic and textual changes allow us to discern different temporal states of BH and the HB. A preliminary example illustrates how Hendel and Joosten (henceforth RH-JJ) believe textual criticism and diachronic linguistics complement each other: the likely older passive qal of ‫י‬ ‫ל‬ ‫ד‬ (yalad) as the ketiv in MT 2 Sam 3:2 and as a misvocalized pual in MT 2 Sam 3:5, versus the likely younger niphal form as the qere in 2 Sam 3:2 (Masoretic Text [MT]) and in 4QSam a and synoptic 1 Chr 3:1 (MT). Having considered this example of how BH changed over time, what RH-JJ consider a substantial resistance to historical linguistic inquiry in contemporary biblical scholarship is considered, and the focus falls on Carr's The Formation of the Hebrew Bible, and in particular on his analysis of the Song of Songs in which, they claim, he dismisses the evidence of language for dating. Chapter 2, "Kinds and Causes of Linguistic Change" (pp. 11-30), provides a partial sketch with illustrative examples of how BH changed, focusing on the kinds and causes of linguistic change, including phonological change, lexical and morphosyntactic change, and change due to language contact.