Just so y'all are aware. . .

My blog's reading level:



All I need now is for someone to actually read it.

How to Teach Biblical Hebrew

I found an interesting article via the wonderful blog Awilum about teaching Biblical Hebrew. I will be teaching BYU's intensive Biblical Hebrew course next summer and enjoyed the links a great deal. Hopefully someone out there also finds them interesting.

King of the Universe

I'm doing some research on 2 Maccabees and have come across an interesting little problem that may help my research a great deal. My thesis, in a nutshell, is that 2 Maccabees 7 is an interpolation from the late first or early second century CE. As part of my research, I've come in contact with a lot of different perspectives on 2 Macc. One of the most interesting, I think, comes from Christian Habicht way back in 1976.[1] He argues for a Hebrew original for 2 Macc 7. I’m intrigued by the possibility, and the phrase “king of the universe,” found in 2 Macc 7:9 (ὁ δὲ τοῦ κόσμου βασιλεὺς) seems to me to support the conclusion.

As Goldstein points out in his Anchor Bible volume on 2 Maccabees,[2] the term is absent from Jewish literature in Greek until after the first century CE. The phrase corresponds with the Hebrew melech ha‘olam, but ‘olam meant “eternity” until the beginning of the Common Era, when it came to signify the world or universe. The earliest such use is found in late Aramaic Qumran texts. ”King of Eternity” is how melech ha‘olam was translated into Greek prior to the first century CE (see Tobit 13:7, 11 – βασιλέα τῶν αἰώνων – King of Eternity).

If 2 Maccabees 7 was composed in the second century BCE, as is accepted, we would expect to find the phrase “King of Eternity,” as the phrase “King of the Universe” is not attested in Judaism during this time period. Goldstein assumes “King of the Universe” developed first in Greek Jewish literature and was later borrowed into Hebrew, but much more likely is that the Greek “King of the Universe” was a translation of the Hebrew phrase melech ha‘olam as it was understood in the Common Era. This would mean (1) 2 Maccabees 7 was translated into Greek from Hebrew, and (2) the translation took place well into the Common Era.

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[1] Christian Habicht, 2. Makkabäerbuch (JSHRZ 1.3; Gütersloh: Gerd Mohn, 1976), 171–77, 233.

[2] Jonathan Goldstein, II Maccabees (Anchor Bible 41A; Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1983), 305.

Great Collection of Links

I was just perusing the Students of the Ancient Near East website to see if any updates had been made since I was last there, and I am pleased to say that two very exciting things have been added. First, and more importantly, our resources page has been updated to include all the ancient Near Eastern studies related links from last semester's contest (which I did win). Simply click on the "Links" tab to find hundreds of invaluable resources, including, at the very bottom, the entire SBL Handbook of Style.

From the SANE homepage you can also find last spring's issue of Studia Antiqua, BYU's student journal for the study of the ancient world. There are several great articles in that issue. We're working on next semester's issue right now, which includes a wonderful introduction to the Shabaka Stone. Don't miss it.

Deuteronomy 32:8

Deuteronomy 32 is poetry from verse 1 to 43. Much like Exodus 23:17, verse 8 is of little theological significance until we peel off a layer or two of redaction and theological emendation. Comparing the various ancient attestations of the verse reveal some interesting clues to the nature of the original text. The verse as it appears in the Masoretic text (I'll transliterate from now on, since I can't get a decent Hebrew font working):

bəhanhēl elyōn gōîm bəhaprîdō bənê ādām yasēb gəbulot ‘amîm ləmispar bənê yisrāēl

When the Most High gave inheritance to the nations, when he divided the sons of Adam / He set the boundary of the people according to the numbering of the sons of Israel.

The Septuagint preserves a different reading:

ὅτε διεμέριζεν ὁ ῞Υψιστος ἔθνη, ὡς διέσπειρεν υἱοὺς ᾿Αδάμ, ἔστησεν ὅρια ἐθνῶν κατὰ ἀριθμὸν ἀγγέλων Θεοῦ


When the Most High was distributing the nations, as he scattered the sons of Adam / He set the boundaries of the nations according to the numbering of the angels of God.

We have another alternate reading in j4QDeutj, which replaces yisrāēl with ’lwhm (plene spelling of elohim), giving us:

When the Most High gave inheritance to the nations, when he divided the sons of Adam / He set the boundary of the people according to the numbering of the sons of God.

The Dead Sea Scroll account is most likely an older reading than the MT, with the LXX reading between the two. The received text edited by the Masoretes may have read bəhanhēl elyōn gōîm bəhaprîdō bənê ādām yasēb gəbulot ‘amîm ləmispar bənê ēl (sons of God), which may have been cause for concern. Rather than preserve a reading that seemed to refer to the offspring of El (Canaanite reference or otherwise), the Masoretes (or their predecessors), may have prefixed the letters ysr to El, giving us the word for Israel. While we can't know for sure, Hebrew Bible scholars are confident in the reading preserved in the DSS; so much so, in fact, that the new Oxford Hebrew Bible inserts the older reading into their critical edition (sample w/ Deut 32:8 here). The new Biblia Hebraica Quinta makes the argument in the footnote, but it is prominent. John Hobbins addresses the manuscript evidence much more thoroughly here. An interesting little side note, to say the least.

Online Greek and Hebrew Parsing Quizzes

Whether you do Greek or Hebrew (or both), these quizzes are helpful. They're pretty basic, but still a good way to keep your skills sharp. Try 'em out.

Teach Yourself Biblical Aramaic

Eric Reymond, Lecturer of Northwest Semitic Languages and Cultures at the University of Michigan, has a website designed to introduce Biblical Aramaic to students with little exposure to Hebrew and other Semitic languages. It looks like a very useful tool.