How to Identify a Ptolemaic Period Text in the Hebrew Bible

“How to Identify a Ptolemaic Period Text in the Hebrew Bible,” in: Sylvie Honigman et al. (eds.), Times of Transition. Judea in the Early Hellenistic Period, Mosaics 1, University Park: Penn State University Press, 2021, 281–292.

Times of Transition: Judea in the Early Hellenistic Period. Eds. S. Honigman, C. Nihan, and O. Lipschits. (Mosaics 1; Eisenbrauns/Institute of Archaeology, Tel Aviv University), 2021

Encyclopedia of Hebrew Language and Linguistics 1:843-851

This article first discusses the argument that since Standard Biblical Hebrew (SBH) is identical with the language of the Hebrew inscriptions of the monarchic period, it cannot be dated to the Persian or later periods. In response it is argued that even if SBH is identical to inscriptional Hebrew this does not prove that SBH was not also used, say, in the Persian period. Then it investigates the inscriptions and concludes that in fact they represent an independent linguistic corpus (or more than one) rather than being identical to SBH. Updated with better copy January 2018.

Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 200 (2016) 100–108, 2016

This review covers the third volume of the Corpus Inscriptionum Iudaeae/Palaestinae with special reference to its relevance to the study of the New Testament. This review follows the review published in JSNT in 2013 of the first two volumes.

Textual History of the Hebrew Bible, 2016

The version of the Bible known as Christian Palestinian Aramaic (CPA) and also designated Palestinian Syriac is the Palestinian Aramaic dialect of Judea and Sinai. This dialect was most prevalent between the fifth and eighth centuries, but it continued to serve as a liturgical language for the Christian Melkite community into the thirteenth century. The written dialect is transmitted through the translation of Greek literature such as the Old and New Testament as well as patristic texts. Furthermore, some inscriptional relics that have been preserved in churches and monasteries (mosaics, stones, graffiti). The inscriptional testimonies are helpful for the localization of CPA’s geographical distribution. What makes the CPA Bible material unique and important is that it comprises textual witnesses of the first (fifth to eighth centuries) and the second (tenth to thirteenth centuries) periods for the Old Testament. They were transmitted in their original manuscripts without ever being copied, thus reflecting the original fourth-century written dialect. The reading and publication of the early period manuscripts has been partially hindered by the fact that they are only extant in the form of palimpsests, overwritten in Arabic, Georgian, Greek, Hebrew, and Syriac. It has been less helpful that Syriac lexemes, forms, and syntactical constructions have been read into the first palimpsest publications, disguising important textual variants for Bible critics.