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The study of the Hebrew language has been a major preoccupation of many Jews and non-Jews since ancient times. This book fully illuminates this fascinating history.
Substantial sections of the book deal with the Second Temple period, when Hebrew was cultivated alongside the Aramaic and Greek vernaculars; the Roman empire; the medieval period, with special attention to the Karaite Jews and their characteristic Hebrew, the Renaissance and early modern period, including the efflorescence of Christian Hebrew study in Italy and northern Europe; and the revival of Hebrew in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries in Europe, in Palestine under the British mandate, and in modern Israel.
Experts in various periods collaborate to make this book a valuable introduction to an area lacking a comprehensive survey.
—Wido Van Peursen, Bibliotheca Orientalis LVII No.5/6 (September-December 2000)
"To find in one volume such a large sample of distinguished British scholars writing on a rather forgotten topic is doubtless a brilliant display of the state of scholarship on Jewish Studies in the United Kingdom at the end of the century, and it creates in the reader a sense of optimism."
—Angel Saenz Badillos, Journal of Jewish Studies 52.1 (Spring 2001)
| Notes on Contributors | ||
| Abbreviations | ||
| Introduction | 1 | |
| 1 | Hebrew and its Study in the Persian Period | 15 |
| 2 | Hebrew Study in Ben Sira's Beth Midrash | 27 |
| 3 | Hebrew and its Study at Qumran | 38 |
| 4 | The Ancestral Language of the Jews in 2 Maccabees | 53 |
| 5 | How Did the Rabbis Learn Hebrew? | 71 |
| 6 | St. Jerome and the Meaning of the High-Priestly Vestments | 90 |
| 7 | Hebrew and Aramaic in the Dialogue of Timothy and Aquila | 106 |
| 8 | The Hebrew Matthew and Hebrew Study | 122 |
| 9 | 'Peace upon Israel': Hebrew Formulae and Names in Jewish Inscriptions from the Western Roman Empire | 135 |
| 10 | A Thousand Years of Hebrew in Byzantium | 147 |
| 11 | The Knowledge of Hebrew among Early Karaites, and its Use in Karaite Legal Contracts | 165 |
| 12 | The Karaite Tradition of Hebrew Grammatical Thought | 186 |
| 13 | Alexander Neckam's Knowledge of Hebrew | 207 |
| 14 | Christian Hebrew Scholarship in Quattrocento Florence | 224 |
| 15 | Robert Wakefield (d. 1537): the Father of English Hebaists? | 234 |
| 16 | Some Points of Interest in Sixteenth-Century Translations of Exodus 15 | 249 |
| 17 | The Amsterdam Translation of the Mishnah | 257 |
| 18 | Samson Raphael Hirsch's Use of Hebrew Etymology | 271 |
| 19 | A Jewish Usurper among Christian Hebraists? - Cambridge, 1866 | 279 |
| 20 | Resistance to the Study of Hebrew: the Experiences of Peretz Smolenskin and Eliezer Ben-Yehuda | 293 |
| 21 | Hebrew in Mandatary Palestine | 300 |
| 22 | 'Hebrew, Speak Hebrew': the Place of Hebrew in Modern Hebrew Literature | 307 |
| Select Bibliography | 319 | |
| Index of Authors | 321 | |
| Index of Proper Names | 329 | |
| Index of Places | 331 | |
| Index of Subjects | 334 |
Overview
The study of the Hebrew language has been a major preoccupation of many Jews and non-Jews since ancient times. This book fully illuminates this fascinating history.
Substantial sections of the book deal with the Second Temple period, when Hebrew was cultivated alongside the Aramaic and Greek vernaculars; the Roman empire; the medieval period, with special attention to the Karaite Jews and their characteristic Hebrew, the Renaissance and early modern period, including the ...