Discover Top Posts Tagged with #ancient hebrew

paGe with oc

Archaeologists conducting works on behalf of the Israel Antiquities Authority have uncovered a 2,000-year-old stone “receipt” during excavat

"You want a receipt? Fine, I'll give you a receipt. Take that home on your donkey"

#ancient Israel #ancient receipt #archaeology #ancient Hebrew

How the Torah describes patriarchal wives in Genesis.

Rebekah

Rebekah arrives in Genesis 24,

Collecting water for the house hold. She is "very functional of appearance", the servant looking for a wife for Isaac notes. This is not just a physical observation but also her character. She is everything he is looking for especially when he finds out she is from Abraham's family.

Rachel. In Genesis 29 Jacob is looking for a wife. He meets Rachel and her sister Leah and Rachel is "beautiful of form and appearance." So again her character is pleasing but also looks attractive.

Leah. The translation in Genesis 29:17 says her "eyes were tender (or weak)". This has nothing to do with her sight but more to do with how men saw her. Isaac's eyes glossed over Leah and met with Rachel's, Leah was plain, and this was how ancient Hebrew vocabulary was used.

These descriptions don't often appear in modern translations but have come from mechanical translations, going back to ancient Hebrew texts.

Thank you to jw.org for the illustrations.

Torah references from mechanical-translation.org

#ancient hebrew #torah #genesis

Fashions from the ancient world, from Le Costume Historique by Auguste Racinet (click to enlarge)

#fashion #fashion history #le costume historique #ancient world #ancient greece #ancient rome #ancient greek fashion #ancient roman fashion #ancient hebrew #ancient hebrew fashion #headdress #hairstyles #weapons #armor #helmets #accessories #transportation #ceremonial fashion #religious fashion

A post by Sorekbekarmi is making the rounds on Tumblr. Here’s a number of myths I need to address:

1) “Hebrew has been constantly spoken since antiquity.”

Hebrew was moribund during the Second Temple period and went extinct after the Bar Kokhba revolt during the third century. From then until the 1800s, there existed a “Medieval Hebrew” used almost exclusively by Jewish literati, none of whom spoke it natively. This was the basis of Modern Hebrew which was invented by Eliezar Ben-Yehuda, operating on his knowledge of medieval Hebrew as a second language. Even people who speak modern Hebrew as a native language are working on the basis of at best second-hand knowledge 1600 years after the language went extinct.

2) “Most Christian translations of the Tanakh use the Vulgate and/or Septuagint.”

During the Reformation, Martin Luther (before he became a vitriolic antisemite) used a version of the Tanakh compiled by Jacob ben Chaim, itself a compilation of Masoretic manuscripts. Protestant Bibles have primarily used Masoretic sources for translations of the Tanakh ever since, only rarely using the Septuagint (and even more rarely Targumim, and still more rarely the Vulgate) for Hebrew words of uncertain meaning. For the record, Jewish translations of the Tanakh do this too. The JPS Tanakh from 1985 translates hashmal as “amber” because the Septuagint calls it elektron. Ben-Yehuda repurposed the same word to mean “electricity” in Modern Hebrew for the exact same reason.

3) “Christians have altered the Tanakh for political reasons.”

Arguments like these open the door to arguments such as the one put forward by Israel Finkelstein, et. al. in the paper “Pig Husbandry in Iron Age Israel and Judah” that the ban on pork in the Torah was a post-Exilic addition made to distinguish the people of Judah from the people of the northern kingdom of Israel. Do not throw stones in glass houses.

4) “Jews have a better access to the original meaning of Hebrew simply for being Jewish.”

Language knowledge is not genetic. Jewish knowledge of ancient Hebrew and Christian knowledge of ancient Hebrew are both primarily dependent on the work of the Masoretes. We are working from the exact same texts. Of course there are differences in how Jews and Christians interpret the Tanakh, but since everyone has had to contend with ancient Hebrew as a second language (including native speakers of modern Hebrew), the Jewish interpretation is not innately superior.

5) “Speakers of modern Hebrew can read the Tanakh without difficulty.”

Tell that to Avraham Ahuvya, who is currently translating the Tanakh into modern Hebrew, or Ghil’had Zuckerman, a trained linguist who was born in Israel, speaks modern Hebrew, and thinks Ahuvya’s translation is necessary.

5) “Christian scholarship neglects the Dead Sea Scrolls.”

Upon their discovery, the Scrolls immediately captivated the attention of Mar Samuel and Ovid R. Sellers. It is important to note that not a lot of the world’s great vaults of literature are located in caves in the middle of the desert that go two millennia without being touched by humans, so most of the Scrolls exist in a fragmentary condition. Not many of the complete sentences found in the Scrolls actually differ meaningfully from the Masoretic texts, and if anything, the Scrolls testified to the stability of the Hebrew text of the Tanakh overtime. But, when they differ, modern Bible translations used by both Jews and Christians mention it in the footnotes.

More Unsolicited Jewish Text Info: Language and ToC

So it seems that people enjoyed my very unsolicited post about what some core Jewish texts are, so I decided to do more since I’m a huge nerd about this!

Here follow details about the language and “table of contents” of the aforementioned texts:

The Torah is written entirely in Ancient / Biblical Hebrew, though the exact dialect / time period of the language used varies from section to section. It is composed of the five books known in English as Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy but more typically referred to by their common Hebrew names of Bereishit, Shmot, Vayikra, Bamidbar, Devarim (note that they all have OTHER / formal Hebrew names as well but these are used far less often).

The Tanach, as previously mentioned, is composed of Torah, Neviim (books of prophecy), and Ketuvim (other writings), in that order. This breaks down to 24 books: the five books of Torah, followed by Joshua (Yehoshua), Judges (Shoftim), Samuel (Shmuel), Kings (Melachim), Isaiah (Yishaiyah or Yishaiyahu), Jeremiah (Yirmiyah or Yirmiyahu), Ezekiel (Yechezkel), and the collected works of the Twelve Minor Prophets, referred to collectively as Trei Asar (Aramaic for “12″) as the works of Neviim/Prophecy. This is followed in Ketuvim by Psalms (Tehillim), Proverbs (Mishlei), Job (Iyov), Shir HaShirim (Song of Songs / Song of Solomon), Ruth, Eicha (Lamentations), Kohellet (Ecclesiastes), Esther, Daniel, Ezra and Nehemiah (treated as one book), and Divrei HaYamim (Chronicles). The Tanach is written entirely in Biblical Hebrew (of varying time periods), except segments of Daniel and Ezra, which switch to Biblical Judeo-Aramaic and then back. (I might also argue that it’s possible Iyov was written in a similar-but-different dialect to the actual Biblical Hebrew used elsewhere in Tanakh based on numerous oddities in grammar and diction, but that is definitely my opinion and not hard fact.)

The Mishna is divided into six books referred to Sedarim (singular: Seder), or “orders”: Zraim (Seeds / Planting), Moed (Holidays), Nashim (Women), Nezikin (Damages), Kodshim (Holy things), Taharot (Purities). The Mishnah is written in Mishnaic Hebrew, which is a recognizably different dialect than both Biblical Hebrew and Modern Hebrew.

The Gemara follows the same division of Sedarim as the Mishna, except it’s much longer so within those orders, it’s divided into smaller books known as Massechtot (singular: Massechet), or tractates. (Technically, the Mishna has these tractate divisions, too, but since the Mishna is shorter the “main” divisions are the orders, whereas the Gemara/Talmud is almost always taken one tractate at a time.) There are like 36 tractates so I am not going to list them all here (but maybe I will......... another day???? :o ). The Gemara is written entirely in Judeo-Aramaic (note that this is a very different dialect of Aramaic than what’s used in Ezra and Daniel, which makes sense since hundreds of years have passed).

I will end this post by repeating that anyone reading this should feel free to ask me further questions on related topics because I have some knowledge and I LOVE questions, and please be aware that not only is there no such thing as a stupid question (this is obscure/niche stuff! We ask questions in order to learn!), BUT ALSO it is basically impossible to offend me with a question unless you’re actually trying to!