CHAPTER 1: Introduction
Can Biblical Texts Be Dated Linguistically?
Since the beginning of critical scholarship, scholars have sought to
date the text of the Hebrew Bible. Dating the text has important implications
for a number of critical issues in the study of the Hebrew Bible, including
understanding its historicity, transmission, authorship, intended audience, and
an array of other issues. Dating the biblical text is not only important for
biblical scholars, but also theologians, archaeologists, and is of great
interest to the public at large, given the importance of the Hebrew Bible in Western
civilization. Scholars have sought to date the biblical text in a number of
ways based on the theological, historical and literary content of each text. One
method that came to the forefront in the nineteenth century was to use
linguistics to date the texts.[1] This generally involved an
analysis of each biblical text to determine which period of Biblical Hebrew
(BH) was represented by its linguistic features and on that basis to assign a
date to its initial composition. While linguistic dating had been used and
developed by scholars for two hundred years, in the 1990s, it came under
attack. Scholars began to question the validity of this approach and offered up
an alternative explanation for the linguistic variation in the Hebrew Bible
that was non-chronological. The proposed weaknesses that these scholars identified
has led to an ongoing scholarly debate and the question this study seeks to
answer: Is it possible to use linguistic features to date the biblical texts?[2]
It is the thesis of
this study that the linguistic features of a biblical text may, in some cases,
aid in dating, but that linguistic features alone are not sufficient to allow
scholars to confidently date the initial composition of a biblical text. As will be made clear, scholars on each side
of the debate—the proponents and the challengers—look at the same linguistic
evidence and yet come to opposing conclusions. Therefore, in this study I will
examine and evaluate the arguments and evidence of the proponents (Chapter 2)
and the challengers (Chapter 3).[3]
In Chapter 4, I will analyze Judges 5, one of the reputedly oldest texts in the
Hebrew Bible, to demonstrate that linguistic features are insufficient, in and
of themselves, to date the text. In Chapter 5, I will summarize the reasons why
biblical texts cannot be dated by linguistic features alone.
1.2 When Biblical Texts Were Written Does Matter
Richard Elliot Friedman’s most recent book, The
Exodus: How It Happened and Why It Matters, illustrates what the linguistic
dating debate is about and why it matters today. He states, “Figuring out how
the Bible came to be composed—who wrote the parts, who put the parts
together—has been a central question of Bible scholarship for the last two
centuries.”[4]
The thesis of his book is that there is
a historical reality in Israel’s past that provides the foundation, or perhaps
the impetus, for the Exodus story as referenced throughout the Hebrew Bible. His argument, in part, is based on texts that
he dates as definitively pre-exilic in origin. He regards such texts as Exodus
15 (Miriam’s Song) and Judges 5 (Deborah’s Song) to be the most ancient texts
in the Bible, which he contends were written in close proximity to the events
they describe. Specifically, he dates these texts (along with Deuteronomy 12–26
and 32–33) to somewhere between the twelfth century and the eighth century BCE.
His dating is based on linguistic features that he, along with other proponents
of linguistic dating, identify as archaic in origin.[5]
When the texts of the Hebrew Bible were written is
crucial to an understanding of their reliability, or usefulness, in
reconstructing Israelite history.[6]
Whether the biblical texts, especially the traditionally older texts, can or
cannot be dated, has a significant impact on the potential historicity of these
texts. In contrast to Friedman, Israel Finkelstein and Neil Asher Silberman, in
their book, The Bible Unearthed, date the Exodus narrative to “the
second half of the seventh and the first half of the sixth century BCE.”[7]
For this, and other reasons, they regard the biblical narratives as
historically unreliable, as do other scholars such as Niels Peter Lemche,
Philip R. Davies and Thomas L. Thompson.[8]
Over the last thirty years intense scholarly attention has been given to the
idea of the linguistic dating of biblical texts. The disagreement and debate
among Hebrew language and Bible scholars illustrates how important it is to
determine whether or not it is possible to date biblical texts by means of
their linguistic characteristics.
Friedman is adamant that the current tendency to date
more of the Hebrew Bible later ignores the most recent research on the Hebrew
language. It is this research that convinces him that we can distinguish
pre-exilic Hebrew from post-exilic Hebrew.[9] He challenges those who disagree, and thus
date all biblical texts to the post-exilic period, to defend their dates by
dealing with the evidence presented by the proponents of the linguistic dating
model. Friedman’s conclusions and his
challenge to those who disagree demonstrate just one example of what is at
stake in the linguistic dating debate. In this case, whether or not there is
any historical core to the Exodus impacts our understanding of Israel’s origin
story which is repeated and referenced throughout the entire Hebrew Bible.
[1]
Young et al 2008, vol. 1:8–9, notes that the diachronic study of
Biblical Hebrew began in 1815 with Wilhelm Gesenius’ publication of Geschichte
der hebräischen
Sprache und Schrift. Later in the century, S. R. Driver “presented a
thorough analysis of the language of each book in his An Introduction to the
Literature of the Old Testament.”
[2] Ian Young (1992), in an
article regarding the Gezer Calendar (dated by many to the 10th c. BCE),
concludes that the type of Hebrew in this inscription is not so much related to
the age of the text, but to its style—that of Hebrew poetry. Since then, Young,
Robert Rezetko and others have challenged the idea that biblical texts can be
dated linguistically. Avi Hurvitz, Jan Joosten, Robert Holmstedt and others
have responded to these challenges with the result that a debate of growing
intensity and divergence has been going on among Hebrew scholars for almost two
decades.
[3] Rezetko
and other scholars who refer to themselves as “challengers,” also refer to
“proponents” such as Hurvitz, Hendel, Joosten, etc., as “consensus scholars”
and/or “traditionalists” (See Rezetko 2013, http://www.jhsonline.org).
[4] Friedman 2017, 41–42.
[5] Friedman 2017, 65; 250 n. 97. Friedman is not
specific as to which linguistic features are convincingly archaic Hebrew for
him, but rather references numerous scholarly articles written by proponents
and states that the challenges of Young, Rezetko and Ehrensvärd have been
“thoroughly rejected” by Joosten, Hendel, Miller-Naudé, and Zevit.
[6]
Schniedewind 2004, ch. 1. Kindle Edition. As he notes succinctly,
the crucial question is not “Who wrote the Bible?” but “When was the Bible
written?”
[7]
Finkelstein and Silberman 2002a, 68. In addition, Finkelstein and Silberman
defend their conclusions in an article responding to William Dever’s review of
their book. See 2002b, 63–64.
[8] In
contrast with Friedman, Finkelstein and Silberman note, “Biblical historians
such as Thomas Thompson and Niels Peter Lemche of the University of Copenhagen
and Philip Davies of the University of Sheffield, dubbed “biblical minimalists”
by their detractors, have argued that David and Solomon, the united monarchy of
Israel, and indeed the entire biblical description of the history of Israel are
no more than elaborate, skillful ideological constructs produced by priestly
circles in Jerusalem in post-exilic or even Hellenistic times” (2002a,
127–128).
[9] Pre-exilic
Hebrew is most often known as Classical Biblical Hebrew (CBH), but also as
Standard Biblical Hebrew (SBH) and sometimes as Early Biblical Hebrew (EBH).
Depending on the scholar, any of the above can be considered inclusive of
Archaic Biblical Hebrew (ABH) if they have concluded such a stratum/register
actually exists. Post-exilic
Hebrew is most often known as Late Biblical Hebrew (LBH). For some scholars,
LBH is inclusive of Qumranic Hebrew (QH) and even Mishnaic Hebrew (MH), but
others refer to the latter two separately from LBH. See J. Naudé 2010, 3.
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