Linguistics, Philology, and the Role of Theory

Linguistic and Philological Perspectives: Papers forming part of the 2017 and 2018 SBL Linguistics and Biblical Hebrew Seminar

Abstract

What is “philology” in contemporary research? How does it relate to linguistics? Does studying language for the purpose of reading texts legitimise a pre-theoretical approach to language analysis? Is research without an explicit theoretical undergirding (no matter how deep beneath the overt layers of argument) anything more than naive empiricism? This essay addresses a long-standing issue in Biblical Hebrew studies that has recently flared up: is a theory of language necessary for the study of Biblical Hebrew grammar? Rather than a comprehensive review of literature on the study of Biblical Hebrew, this essay is programmatic, weaving questions of discipline, theory, and praxis together to present a case for how Biblical Hebrew linguists ought to orient themselves in the process of collecting and analysing their data.