Israelian Hebrew, Inscriptions from the North of Israel, and Samaritan Hebrew: A Complex of Northern Dialects: SBL Annual Meeting 2020 Linguistics and Biblical Hebrew Seminar: Samaritan Hebrew and Dialectal Diversity in Second Temple Hebrew

Gary Rendsburg

doi:10.25159/2663-6573/9719

Authors

Gary Rendsburg Rutgers University, United States of America

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.25159/2663-6573/9719

Keywords:

Israelian Hebrew, Hebrew inscriptions, Samaritan Hebrew, northern Israel, regional dialects

Abstract

This article surveys the three sources at our disposal for the recovery of ancient northern Hebrew: a) Israelian Hebrew, that is, the dialect present in those portions of the Bible with a northern provenance; b) inscriptions from the northern kingdom of Israel, including Kuntillet ‘Ajrud; and c) Samaritan Hebrew. The overall goal is to determine the common lexical and grammatical features of this complex of northern Hebrew dialects from the biblical period, many of which are shared with Phoenician and Aramaic, though not with Judahite Hebrew.

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