The Nature of Biblical Hebrew as a Language

70 CHAPTER 5 GENERAL THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK

5.1 Introduction

The general theoretical framework discussed here lays an important foundation for the analysis presented in the subsequent chapters. Two introductory matters require attention, however, before getting into the main theoretical concepts: 1 The nature of biblical Hebrew as a language and 2 the nature of linguistic description.

5.1.1 The Nature of Biblical Hebrew as a Language

Biblical Hebrew is often conceived of as a dead ancient language—which, of course, in a sense it is—, but it is important to keep in mind that the people who spoke and heard, wrote and read biblical Hebrew were members of a living speech community. There are obviously no existing samples of spoken Hebrew from the biblical period—the text is all we have—but one of the basic tenets of this study is that the biblical Hebrew text reflects the language as it was used in actual communication. In other words, the biblical Hebrew text was produced by and intended for people who used and understood the language in which it was written. Even if most people only heard the text as it was read out loud in ceremonial settings, this still presupposes language that was understood 71 by reader and listener alike. Consequently, the study of biblical Hebrew requires a model of linguistic analysis that focuses on language use. The study of a linguistic item like assumes that the text reflects acceptable patterns of usage and not misuse or improper usage. It is assumed that editing the text did not violate its communicative integrity. By implication, then, all occurrences of are assumed to be in the text because they reflect how the writers andor editors understood and used . This hypothesis may seem extreme, but it is the best way to proceed with an analysis of . If the assumption were made that certain occurrences of did not coincide with acceptable patterns of usage, the analysis would not only have to explain why these unacceptable occurrences of are in the text, but the integrity of the entire text becomes suspect. On the other hand, if the integrity of the text including all the occurrences of is assumed, the analysis is constrained to seek explanations for those occurrences through careful implementation of whatever method of linguistic analysis might be necessary. In the final analysis, if some occurrences are not adequately explained, it will be the fault of the model and its implementation rather than the fault of the text.

5.1.2 The Nature of Linguistic Description