ARAMAIC AND HEBREW
The Languages spoken in Judea during the 1st century CE
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"Shema Yisrael Adonai Eloheinu Adonai Echad", Deuteronomy 6, 4
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By Camilo Ezagui Menashe, studious of the Jewish roots of Christianity and Pilgrims Guide in Israel.
Hebrew is one of several northwestern Semitic languages such as Phoenician, Moabite and Amonean wich all share strong influences of Canaanite. We know that the Torah or Pentateuch of the Bible was originally written in archaic Hebrew using the characters of the Phoenician Alphabet.
The Torah or Pentateuch of the Bible
In the second book of Kings, chap. 18, 26 and in the Book of the Prophet Isaiah chap. 36, 11 (8th century BCE) there is a clear mention about the difference between Aramaic and the language spoken in Judea at the time of the Sanaquerib invasion when the advisers of King Hezekiah in Jerusalem told the emissary of the king of Assyria: "Please speak to your servants in Aramaic, for we understand it; do not speak to us in the Judaean language within earshot of the people on the ramparts."...
Ancient Hebrew writting of the 10TH century BCE
Khirbet Qeiyafa Ostracon - Mibtzar Haela
On returning to Judea from the Babylonian Exile (6th century BCE) the "Targumim" in Aramaic were used to teach Torah to the people. The Hebrew alphabet adopted the square characters of the Caldean calligraphy. Five hundred years later things had changed, such that by the 1st century CE, Hebrew had already been spoken for a long time.
Professor Sara Lipkin, a specialist in Hebrew, in her study: "The Hebrew, story in chapters" (1992) tells us that the archaic Hebrew of the Mikrá, spoken in the time of King Solomon as it appears in the Pentateuch, Chronicles and Prophets, was replaced about 300 years BCE by a spoken Hebrew using words, idioms, pronunciation and expressions somewhat different known as "Lashon Chazal" or the Language of the Sages. This Hebrew was spoken in Judea until 200 CE. Professor Sara Lipkin remarks that during that period Aramaic was an international language that was spoken and written from India to Kush (Sudan). At this time, Sara Lipkin concludes, Jews spoke three languages: Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek. There were those who spoke the three and others who spoke only one of them".
Professor David Flusser of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem concludes that: "After the discovery of the Book of Ben Sira in Hebrew among the Dead Sea Scrolls and the discovery of the Bar Kochba letters and in light of further study of the language of the Jewish Sages, it is accepted that most part of the people spoke good Hebrew". Professor M. H. Segal, an authority on Mishnaic Hebrew, thinks the same.
It should be noted that among the Dead Sea Scrolls all texts of self expression such as hymns, commentaries on Scripture, correspondence, the community rule, the apocalyptic prophecy as well as Pesher Habakuk, among others, were written in what scholar John Meier called a "post-biblical Hebrew" that was in use during the 1st century BCE and the 1st century CE.
Dead Sea Scrolls
Hymn in Hebrew dedicated to Jerusalem
The Book of Ben Sira in Hebrew was written between 190 and 180 BCE at the time of the suffocating occupation of Judea by the Greeks. With this text, teachers and elders taught Mosaic wisdom and virtue to the young. It was translated into Greek by the grandson of Ben Sira who says in the introduction: "Because things originally expressed in Hebrew do not have the same strength when translated into another language." This book is considered a canonical text in the Catholic Bible (Ecclesiastes).
Excerpts from the book of Ben Sira in Hebrew
