d. Various Short Poems: Genesis 2:23; Genesis 3:14-19; Genesis 4:6-7; Genesis 4:23-24; Genesis 8:22; Genesis 9:6; Genesis 9:25-27; Genesis 12:2-3; Genesis 14:19-20; Genesis 16:11-12; Genesis 24:60; Genesis 25:23; Genesis 27:28-29; Genesis 27:39-40; Genesis 35:10-12; Genesis 48:15-16; Genesis 48:20; Exodus 32:18; Numbers 6:24-26; Numbers 10:35-36; Numbers 21:14,15,17-18; Numbers 21:27-30; Joshua 10:12-13; Judges 9:8-15; Judges 14:14, 18; Judges 15:16; Judges 16:23-24; 1 Samuel 15:22-23; 1 Samuel 18:7; 2 Samuel 3:33-34; 2 Samuel 20:1; 1 Kings 8:12-13; 1 Kings 12:16; 2 Kings 19:21-34.

e. Prose Texts

i) Genesis 2:18-24

ii) Genesis 4:1-3; Genesis 13:4-14; Joshua 7:1-3

iii) Siloam Inscription

VI Reconstruction of EBHP

1. Introduction

It goes without saying that the pronunciation of pre-exilic Biblical Hebrew (c. 1000-600 BCE) varied with "...socio-economic class, professional standing, degree and type of education, religious affiliation, ethnic origin, generation, and even sex."[1] We should aim at recovering, as closely as possible, the pronunciation that a scribe in Jerusalem 700-600 BCE would have used in reading poetry to upper class Judeans or members of the king’s court ([EBHP]). For poems of northern origin this might have included some features of northern pronunciation which would share some of the phonetic features of Phoenician and Aramaic such as the contraction of diphthongs. The clearest example of such a poem is the Song of Deborah.

Scribes trained in Jerusalem 700-600 BCE were likely the authors of the bulk of surviving JEH e.g. Siloam Inscription, Lachish ostraca, Arad ostraca etc. The same circles were likely the composers and/or transmitters of most of the pre-exilic biblical texts. JEH documents have been preserved in their original language and orthography and, within limits, can serve as a guide to pronunciation. Except for archaisms used in poetry, the pre-exilic biblical texts would very likely have conformed to the norms of JEH.

I aim to do the following listed in rough order of importance:

(1) Distinguish the consonantal and vowel phonemes and indicate their likely pronunciation. This will require, among other things, differentiating between:

Ø long (geminated) and short consonants;

Ø different qualities of vowels with emphasis on qualitative differences that are phonemic; and,

Ø between diphthongs, long vowels (phonological or phonetic[2]), short vowels and the absence of vowels.

(2) Establish the number of syllables and their boundaries and syllable length; and,

(3) Establish the syllable carrying the word stress (primary or secondary).

This will require an understanding of:

i) Pronunciation – the main differences between:

Ø the probable phonology and use of vowel letters of Biblical Hebrew at time of writing;

Ø the pronunciation tradition embodied in the Tiberian vocalization; and,

Ø Hebrew as it is pronounced in modern Israel.

ii) Script and Orthography:

Ø the appearance of the text in different historical periods and the latitude this provided for mistakenly replacing one letter by another; and,

Ø the development of orthography and its impact on the range of meanings and pronunciations that could be attributed to the original consonantal skeleton.

Box

Can Biblical Texts be Linguistically Dated?[3]

Regrettably the answer must be no[4]. For many years the careful research of Avi Hurvitz[5] seemed to indicate that pre-exilic CBH could be linguistically distinguished from the very similar post-exilic PCBH with the Hebrew of Jeremiah and Ezekiel falling between the two. However, recent scholarship (see Young 1993, Zevit 2004, Zevit 2005, Zevit 2006) has made it clear that what Hurvitz had taken as indicators of chronological change in the language could also have been caused by different degrees of openness to spoken dialects (of which we know almost nothing) and Aramaic forms[6], differences due to genre[7], preferences of different scribal circles, author's idiolect etc. etc.[8]

At the current state of play we can say the following;

· Probably CBH represents a literary dialect current in Jerusalem scribal and ruling circles in the late eighth to early sixth centuries BCE.[9] It was likely the literary register corresponding to the official governmental register - JEH. However, CBH continued to be written into the Persian period. In the pre-exilic period the normal formal speech used by these scribal and ruling circles may or may not have been substantially different from CBH. Nb. all pre-exilic CBH texts would have undergone orthographic modernization and an unknown amount of editing in the Persian period[10].

· Probably PCBH represents a literary dialect current in Jerusalem scribal circles in the Persian period. During this period the spoken languages would have been proto-Mishnaic Hebrew and/or Aramaic and the administrative language was Imperial Aramaic. Both CBH and PCBH would have been so distant from proto-Mishnaic spoken Hebrew that they would have had to be learned virtually as another language form.

· Probably ABH represents a poetic literary register, including stock archaic forms, used for poetry set in the remote past by scribes who would normally write CBH or even PCBH[11].

It is now clear that much additional work must be done before the usefulness of language analysis in dating biblical passages can be reassessed. This is well described in the last paragraphs of Zevit 2004.

2. Changes in the Pronunciation Tradition of Biblical Hebrew Between EBHP and that Recorded in the Tiberian Masoretic Tradition (early 10^th century CE)

Justification of Proposals for Early Biblical Hebrew Pronunciation

If we assume that the Tiberian Masoretes simply encoded a traditional pronunciation, it is reasonable to insist that any proposals regarding the grammar and pronunciation of EBHP and JEH must be supported by a reconstruction of how the form could have developed into attested TH given our understanding of the linguistic changes that took place between EBHP/JEH andTH. (Of course, the same requirement separately exists for BH_Qum, BH_Pal, and BH_Gk-La_t)[12].

Tiberian Masoretic Text (MT) has in general satisfactorily preserved the consonantal system of pre-exilic Hebrew. However, it is clear that the vocalization of the MT differs systemically in many ways from the pronunciation of EBHP of over a millennium earlier. These systemic differences, many of which were influenced by Aramaic, can often be identified through comparative grammar. Among the most important changes, mainly phonetic, which can be detected in Hebrew after 600 BCE, are the following. As you will note, some of these changes had already begun to take place before the exile^{^[13]}.

a) The process whereby the place of stress replaced vowel and consonant length as phonemic went to completion[14]. The Tiberian vocalization system (/TH/⁺) marked:

Ø all the phonemes in their reading tradition;

Ø such allophones (eg. פ = p [f] and gemination) as were required for “correct” reading of the biblical text according to the Tiberian reading tradition.

The Tiberian system did not explicitly mark vowel length - see Were there Long and Short Vowels in Tiberian Hebrew (TH)?

b) Disappearance of intervocalic /h/.

Ø This had been well advanced in the pre-exilic period[15]. E.g.

*/lạhasˈsuːs/ > /lasˈsuːs/ לסוס <lsws> “for the horse”[16];

*/yahašˈmiːd/ or */yəhašˈmiːd/ > /yašˈmiːd/ ישׁמיד <yšmys> "he will destroy".

Ø In a few cases it is unknown when the intervocalic /h/ disappeared. The most important case is that of the third person masculine pronominal suffix.

Ø In the post-exilic period this went further – e.g. /lahašˈmiːd/ (/EBHP/); /ləhašˈmid/ (/TH/⁺);
/lašˈmiːd/ לשׁמיד <lhšmyd> (MH ) “to destroy”[17]

c) Elision of syllable-or word-final glottal stop (/’/[ʔ]) and /y/ – usually with a lengthening of the preceding vowel

d) <שׂ> /ś/ [ɬ] > <שׂ, ס> /s/ [s