The Verbal System Of The Aramaic Of Daniel

In the context of current research on grammaticalization phenomena, this book offers a synchronic explanation of the verbal system of the Aramaic of Daniel that is coherent with the diachronic development of Aramaic and of human languages in general.

This book explains the verbal system of the Aramaic of Daniel in the context of current research on grammaticalization, which, though first mentioned by Meillet in 1912, did not flourish until the beginning of the 1980 s, and has only more recently been applied to the study of Ancient Near Eastern languages. Although various aspects of the Aramaic of Daniel have been subject of numerous studies, including a few exhaustive studies on the verbal system in the last century, it remains among the most difficult to explain. The explanation offered here is coherent with the historical development of Aramaic as well as the observable tendencies in the development of human languages in general.

Grammarians have been unable to provide a sufficient explanation for the verbal system of Biblical Aramaic by means of the standard categories of tense and aspect. Michael B. Shepherd exposes this situation and suggests a way out of the present impasse through distributional analysis by proposing that Biblical Aramaic has a primary verbal form for narration and a primary verbal form for discourse. This simple yet comprehensive proposal holds true not only for Biblical Aramaic but also for extra-Biblical Aramaic texts. This volume is an indispensable resource for courses in Biblical Aramaic and for anyone who wishes to read and understand the Biblical Aramaic corpus.

In Targum Song of Songs and Late Jewish Literary Aramaic, Andrew W. Litke presents a full language analysis of the Targum that positions each feature within the spectrum of Aramaic dialects. The study includes a new transcription and translation.

Hebrew Texts and Language of the Second Temple Period presents discussions on textual and linguistic aspects of the Dead Sea Scrolls and of Second Temple Hebrew corpora.

The writings of the prophets make up over a quarter of the Old Testament. But perhaps no other portion of the Old Testament is more misunderstood by readers today. For some, prophecy conjures up knotted enigmas, opaque oracles and terrifying visions of the future. For others it raises expectations of a plotted-out future to be reconstructed from disparate texts. And yet the prophets have imprinted the language of faith and imagination with some of its most sublime visions of the future - nations streaming to Zion, a lion lying with a lamb, and endlessly fruiting trees on the banks of a flowing river. We might view the prophets as stage directors for Israel's unfolding drama of redemption. Drawing inspiration from past acts in that drama and invoking fresh words from its divine author, these prophets speak a language of sinewed poetry, their words and images arresting the ear and detonating in the mind. For when Yahweh roars from Zion and thunders from Jerusalem, the pastures of the shepherds dry up, the crest of Carmel withers, and the prophetic word buffets those selling the needy for a pair of sandals. The Dictionary of the Old Testament: Prophets is the only reference book of its kind. Not only does it focus exclusively on the prophetic books; it also plumbs their imagery of mountains and wilderness, flora and fauna, temple and Zion. It maps and guides us through topics such as covenant and law, exile and deliverance, forgiveness and repentance, and the Day of the Lord. Here the nature of prophecy is searched out in its social, historical, literary and psychological dimensions as well as its synchronic spread of textual links and associations. And the formation of the prophetic books into their canonical collection, including the Book of the Twelve, is explored and weighed for its significance. Then too, contemporary approaches such as canonical criticism, conversation analysis, editorial/redaction criticism, feminist interpretation, literary approaches and rhetorical criticism are summed up and assayed. Even the afterlife of these great texts is explored in articles on the history of interpretation as well as on their impact in the New Testament.

The present study investigates the function of the verbal forms in biblical Hebrew narrative, using the Joseph story (Gen. 37-50) as a corpus. It demonstrates how the 'tense', 'aspect' and 'sequentiality' function as factors in the choice of the verbal forms in both main clauses and subordinate clauses. The tense distinction past vs. non-past basically works as a factor in the choice of the freestanding conjugations, except for the stative verb, the verb with a stative sense, the passive construction, or the performative utterance. Moreover, the traditional aspectual opposition complete vs. incomplete also corresponds to QATAL (*qátal) vs. YIQTOL (*yaqtúlu). There appears to be not much difference between these oppositions in describing the function of the above verbal forms (esp. ch.2). Furthermore, the opposition non-sequential vs. sequential discriminates functionally between YIQTOL and (w,) QATAL (*qatál) in the non-past context, between QATAL and (waY)YIQTOL (*yáqtul) in the past context, and between the IMPV (coh., impv. and juss.) forms and (w,) QATAL (*qatál) in the hortatory context. In each context the former functions as a non-sequential form and the latter as a sequential form. The phenomenon of sequentiality is purely syntactical. It controls the flow of the story as a discourse function; the non-sequential form stops the flow (i.e. stand still), while the sequential form lets the story flow on. A thread of discourse is usually traced by sequential forms, but it may include non-sequential forms to signal the difference of discourse level or a discourse boundary. Or each form could play an opposite role to produce special literary effects (chs. 3-7). Finally, a verbal form in the subordinate clause is chosen not from the viewpoint of the deictic centre of the narrator, but from that of the immediate participant in the main clause (ch. 8).

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.