Determination of the noun in Biblical Hebrew

The two comprehensive reference grammars for Biblical Hebrew, Gesenius/Kautzsch and Joüon/Muraoka, in addition to the more or less generally accepted categories of use of the definite article, make use of a category which they describe as not having to do with definiteness in the sense that we know it. In this category they group the instances of use of the article that do not seem to fit into the generally accepted categories, instances where the Hebrew definite article, in German and English respectively, is said to be expressed by an indefinite article. In the present article, I analyse the 67 examples given to substantiate the existence of the proposed category. I argue that this category probably does not exist and I contend that most of the examples, when carefully analysed, are examples of regular article usage. When the nouns in question are perceived as nondetermined and translated as such, it is because we are not sufficiently familiar with ancient Hebrew language and culture and hence do not possess the contextual information the articles refer to.     

Just a Little Bend on the S-Curve: The Rise and Fall of Linguistic Change in Post-Classical Biblical Hebrew

The paper deals with the text-critical challenge and the variationist analysis in application to the historical linguistics of Biblical Hebrew, coming out in recent research, particularly in Historical Linguistics and Biblical Hebrew by Robert Rezetko and Ian Young (2014). Different textual transmissions have become part of the linguistic corpus and an indispensable part of historical-linguistic research. Variationist analysis corroborates that some explicit innovative processes in the standard literary idiom of the Persian period were reversed by the conservative tendency, distinctive in the Qumran corpus, so that it will be more accurate to speak about two different stages in Late Biblical Hebrew development: Persian period and Late Hellenistic—early Roman periods.     

Hebrew Inscriptions

Abstract

In the light of the ceramical evidence it is clear that a small settlement was built here during the Hyksos period. It was abandoned during Late Bronze and Early Iron, but rebuilt and flourished during the period of the Hebrew monarchy. It was again rebuilt during the Persian period, but permanently abandoned afterwards. The neglect of aqueducts and springs probably led to the swamping of the region.

Several facts are interesting in this story. Firstly, that the periods of habitation attested here are just those when security in the country was good, so that it was possible to live in an unfenced village sited in undefended ground in the lowland. Secondly, in the conditions obtaining prior to the reclamation work undertaken by the Jewish settlers, the site, situated in swamp ground, could hardly have been inhabited. Yet the archaeological evidence indicates occupation here up to the Persian period. The changes in environment leading to the present state of things could thus, at the earliest, have begun after that time. The site thus furnishes dated evidence about geographical changes in the country of which it seems worth while taking cognizance.     

Prognosis and Postgnosis in Biblical Prophecy

The Prophetic books of the Hebrew Bible are more than documents containing pronouncements from the prophets after whom the texts are named. They include not only prophecies, but also interpretations of these prophecies’ historical consequences, a quality that makes the Bible’s prophetic literature stand out from its ancient Near Eastern counterparts. This interpretive dynamic is indispensable for understanding the reception of these prophecies in the texts from Qumran and in the New Testament.     

Hebrew Prose and Poetry

Book reviewed in this article: Agnon vehatzimhonut (Agnon and Vegetarianism), Rena Lee Jardin D'Eden Jardins D'Espagne, Masha Itzhaki and Michel Gare     

试论敦煌写本斋文的骈文特色

敦煌写本斋文作为要在佛教斋会上宣读的仪文,大多采用骈体为体裁,是由于创作和传播的需要。它在具备骈体文的五大文体特色之外,在情采、词句、风格、文字等几个方面具有自己的特征。另一方面,斋文作为骈体文在宗教仪文中广泛应用的一大体现。同时彰显了佛教中国化过程中文学和佛典的互动关系。     

The messiah epithet in the Hebrew Bible

Rather than a reference ''to a present, political and religious leader who is appointed by God, applied predominantly to a king, but also to a priest and occasionally a prophet'' as proposed in 1985 by the first Princeton Symposium of Judaism and Christian origins, the term 'MSH' in the Hebrew Bible is an epithet or title which functions within a literary and mythic but not an historical context. The role of the messiah as played in the Hebrew Bible is not uniquely Jewish, but functions within the symbol system of ancient Near Eastern royal ideology and functions within a theology of divine transcendence and immanence. The coherence of the mythic role of the messiah is identified in relation to concepts of messianic time, as in the functions of expiating and mediating transcendence, of maintaining creation through war against the powers of chaos and the establishment of eternal peace. David's role as messiah in the Psalter is described in his role as ideal representative of piety, and as ruler over destiny bringing the good news expressed in various forms of ''the poor man's song.'' Finally, the role of the messiah myth is integrated with utopian concepts of a new Israel.