Studies in Semitic Vocalisation and Reading Traditions

Studies in Semitic Vocalisation and Reading Traditions
Author: Aaron Hornkohl
Publisher: Open Book Publishers
Total Pages: 713
Release: 2020-06-01
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1783749377

This volume brings together papers relating to the pronunciation of Semitic languages and the representation of their pronunciation in written form. The papers focus on sources representative of a period that stretches from late antiquity until the Middle Ages. A large proportion of them concern reading traditions of Biblical Hebrew, especially the vocalisation notation systems used to represent them. Also discussed are orthography and the written representation of prosody. Beyond Biblical Hebrew, there are studies concerning Punic, Biblical Aramaic, Syriac, and Arabic, as well as post-biblical traditions of Hebrew such as piyyuṭ and medieval Hebrew poetry. There were many parallels and interactions between these various language traditions and the volume demonstrates that important insights can be gained from such a wide range of perspectives across different historical periods.

Studies in Jewish Babylonian Aramaic

Studies in Jewish Babylonian Aramaic
Author: Matthew Morgenstern
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 307
Release: 2018-08-14
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 9004370129

This book is the first wide-ranging study of the grammar of the Babylonian Aramaic used in the Talmud and post-Talmudic Babylonian literature to be published in English in a century.

Books within Books

Books within Books
Author: Andreas Lehnardt
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 362
Release: 2013-09-25
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 9004258507

Books within Books presents some recent findings and research projects on the fragments of medieval Hebrew manuscripts discovered in the bindings of other manuscripts and early printed books across Europe. This is the second collection of interdisciplinary articles on Hebrew binding fragments presenting current scholarship and its international scope. From the contemporary perspective, the fragments of medieval Hebrew manuscripts preserved until today, through their numbers (estimated 30,000 fragments, so more than double of the number of the known Hebrew volumes produced in medieval Europe ), the texts they carry (some of them have been previously unknown), the insights into book making techniques and finally their economic impact, are an unprecedented source for our knowledge of the Hebrew book culture and literacy as well as the economic and intellectual exchanges between the Jewish minority and their non-Jewish neighbours.

Hamlet on a Hill

Hamlet on a Hill
Author: Martin F. J. Baasten
Publisher: Peeters Publishers
Total Pages: 688
Release: 2003
Genre: Bibles
ISBN: 9789042912151

This volume is published in honour of Professor Takamitsu Muraoka on the occasion of his retirement from the Chair of Hebrew, Israelite Antiquities and Ugaritic at Leiden University, a date which coincides with the celebration of his sixty-fifth birthday. The laureate is well known for his expertise in the languages of the Bible and cognate studies and this volume includes contributions covering as far as possible the wide field of his interests. Some of his friends and colleagues from all parts of the world are presenting him with this valuable collection of forty-two articles. They include studies on the Greek of the Septuagint; Hebrew (Biblical and Qumran); Aramaic (Old, Offical and Qumran; Syriac and Neo-Aramaic); Canaanite (Amarna, Ugaritic and Phoenician-Punic); Medieval Jewish exegesis and Karaite studies. M.F.J. Baasten and W.Th. van Peursen, two former students of Muraoka at Leiden, have edited the volume.

The Tiberian Pronunciation Tradition of Biblical Hebrew, Volume 1

The Tiberian Pronunciation Tradition of Biblical Hebrew, Volume 1
Author: Geoffrey Khan
Publisher: Open Book Publishers
Total Pages: 762
Release: 2020-02-20
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1783746777

These volumes represent the highest level of scholarship on what is arguably the most important tradition of Biblical Hebrew. Written by the leading scholar of the Tiberian Masoretic tradition, they offer a wealth of new data and revised analysis, and constitute a considerable advance on existing published scholarship. It should stand alongside Israel Yeivin’s ‘The Tiberian Masorah’ as an essential handbook for scholars of Biblical Hebrew, and will remain an indispensable reference work for decades to come. —Dr. Benjamin Outhwaite, Director of the Taylor-Schechter Genizah Research Unit, Cambridge University Library The form of Biblical Hebrew that is presented in printed editions, with vocalization and accent signs, has its origin in medieval manuscripts of the Bible. The vocalization and accent signs are notation systems that were created in Tiberias in the early Islamic period by scholars known as the Tiberian Masoretes, but the oral tradition they represent has roots in antiquity. The grammatical textbooks and reference grammars of Biblical Hebrew in use today are heirs to centuries of tradition of grammatical works on Biblical Hebrew in Europe. The paradox is that this European tradition of Biblical Hebrew grammar did not have direct access to the way the Tiberian Masoretes were pronouncing Biblical Hebrew. In the last few decades, research of manuscript sources from the medieval Middle East has made it possible to reconstruct with considerable accuracy the pronunciation of the Tiberian Masoretes, which has come to be known as the ‘Tiberian pronunciation tradition’. This book presents the current state of knowledge of the Tiberian pronunciation tradition of Biblical Hebrew and a full edition of one of the key medieval sources, Hidāyat al-Qāriʾ ‘The Guide for the Reader’, by ʾAbū al-Faraj Hārūn. It is hoped that the book will help to break the mould of current grammatical descriptions of Biblical Hebrew and form a bridge between modern traditions of grammar and the school of the Masoretes of Tiberias. Links and QR codes in the book allow readers to listen to an oral performance of samples of the reconstructed Tiberian pronunciation by Alex Foreman. This is the first time Biblical Hebrew has been recited with the Tiberian pronunciation for a millennium.

The Verbal System in the Hebrew Text of Ben Sira

The Verbal System in the Hebrew Text of Ben Sira
Author: Willem Th. van Peursen
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 484
Release: 2017-07-03
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 9047412303

This volume is a revised and enlarged version of the author's Ph.D. dissertation (1999). It gives a comprehensive analysis of the morphosyntax and syntax of the tenses in the Hebrew text of Ben Sira. Due attention is paid to the heterogeneous character of the textual evidence (three manuscripts from the Desert of Judah and six mediaeval manuscripts from the Cairo Geniza), which complicates any linguistic study of Ben Sira. A descriptive analysis is complemented by a comparison with other contemporaneous, earlier, and later forms of Hebrew. It is argued that the Hebrew of Ben Sira is a literary language in its own right, rather than an imitation of Biblical Hebrew or a predecessor of Mishnaic Hebrew.

The Early Karaite Tradition of Hebrew Grammatical Thought

The Early Karaite Tradition of Hebrew Grammatical Thought
Author: Geoffrey Khan
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 602
Release: 2000
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 9789004119338

A large section from a hitherto unknown Hebrew grammatical text, written in the tenth century by the Karaite scholar Ab Ya q b Y suf ibn N h of Jerusalem, is analysed in detail. The volume includes an annotated English translation.

Ancient Manuscripts in Digital Culture

Ancient Manuscripts in Digital Culture
Author: David Hamidović
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 300
Release: 2019-05-20
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 9004399291

Ancient Manuscripts in Digital Culture presents an overview of the digital turn in Ancient Jewish and Christian manuscripts visualisation, data mining and communication. Edited by David Hamidović, Claire Clivaz and Sarah Bowen Savant, it gathers together the contributions of seventeen scholars involved in Biblical, Early Jewish and Christian studies. The volume attests to the spreading of digital humanities in these fields and presents fundamental analysis of the rise of visual culture as well as specific test-cases concerning ancient manuscripts. Sophisticated visualisation tools, stylometric analysis, teaching and visual data, epigraphy and visualisation belong notably to the varied overview presented in the volume.

Historical Continuity in the Emergence of Modern Hebrew

Historical Continuity in the Emergence of Modern Hebrew
Author: Yael Reshef
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
Total Pages: 151
Release: 2019-11-13
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 1498584500

Historical Continuity in the Emergence of Modern Hebrew offers a new perspective on the emergence processes of Modern Hebrew and its relationship to earlier forms of Hebrew. Based on a textual examination of select case studies of language use throughout the modernization of Hebrew, this book shows that due to the unconventional sociolinguistic circumstances in the budding speech community, linguistic processes did not necessarily evolve in a linear manner, blurring the distinction between true and apparent historical continuity. The emergent language’s standardization involved the restructuring of linguistic habits that had initially taken root among the first speakers, often leading to a retreat from early contact-induced or non-classical phenomena. Yael Reshef demonstrates that as a result, superficial similarity to earlier forms of Hebrew did not necessarily stem from continuity, and deviation from canonical Hebrew features does not necessarily stem from change.