Beyond Babel: A Handbook for Biblical Hebrew and Related Languages (review)

Hebrew Studies 45 (2004) 288 Reviews BEYOND BABEL: A HANDBOOK FOR BIBLICAL HEBREW AND RELATED LANGUAGES. Edited by John Kaltner and Steven L. Mckenzie. Resources for Biblical Study 42. Pp. xiii + 241. Atlanta, Ga.: Society of Biblical Literature, 2002. Paper, $29.95. When asked to review this book, I was a bit non-plussed by the title, as it gave me no idea what to expect its contents to be. Having seen the book, I remain a bit uncertain as to its usefulness for its intended audience (“readers who have not had detailed exposure” to the languages covered and particularly “students who are just beginning their academic careers in the study of the Hebrew Bible” [p. vii]). After an introduction by John Huehnergard, ten languages/dialects are covered: Akkadian (David Marcus), Ammonite, Edomite, and Moabite (Simon B. Parker), Arabic (John Kaltner), Aramaic (Frederick E. Greenspahn), Egyptian (Donald B. Redford), Biblical and Epigraphic Hebrew (Jo Ann Hackett), Post-biblical Hebrew (Baruch A. Levine), Hittite (Harry A. Hoffner, Jr.), Phoenician (Charles R. Krahmalkov), and Ugaritic (Peggy L. Day). With one exception (Ugaritic), each contribution provides a brief linguistic sketch of the language. This is followed by a section on the significance of the literature attested in a given language for the study of the Hebrew Bible, then by a section on primary and secondary literature on the language and the texts attested in that language. My uncertainty about the usefulness of the book comes from the wide variety that one encounters from one chapter to another in each of the three sections just described. The editors ascribe this variety to the fact that the “format is less suitable for some languages…than for others” (p. vii) and praise the authors for their “creativity in adapting” the format “to the needs of their subject languages” (p. viii). I must say that the only subject language that was not amenable to such a treatment is the group composed by Ammonite, Edomite, and Moabite, where the textual resources are simply insufficient to allow for a linguistic description and, for the most part, for literary comparisons (this is meant to take nothing away from the masterful way in which Parker handles the topic). For all the others, the number of texts is sufficient for a basic grammar to have been extracted there from that could be presented in outline form with Biblical Hebrew as the point of comparison . With the exception of Phoenician (in addition to the three Transjordanian dialects to which reference has just been made), a reasonably broad range of literary genres is also attested. To provide the reader with comparable sets of data, the editors could have imposed a stricter outline on the grammatical section which would have permitted an easy comparison of the basic features of each language with the others. As it is, each author tends to stress what strikes him or her as important. Hebrew Studies 45 (2004) 289 Reviews But this leaves open the question of whether descriptions of principal linguistic features and isoglosses will really be meaningful to most members of the audience for whom the book is intended. In order to appreciate the differences between Biblical Hebrew and another language, the student must know Biblical Hebrew quite well and have at least one other strong point of comparison , either another Semitic language or a basic theoretical knowledge of comparative Semitics. How meaningful will it be to most students of Biblical Hebrew to read that Aramaic and, apparently, Moabite, both have a Gt stem alongside the tD stem of Biblical Hebrew? On the other hand, if the student already knows Aramaic, even just Biblical Aramaic, the distribution of the tforms in the other Semitic languages is more meaningful because the contrast between the Hebrew and the Aramaic systems is already a part of his/her intellectual baggage. I ask myself, then, if the first section of each chapter here should not have been reduced to a basic outline, with the emphasis placed on significance for the Bible and the bibliographical leads to further reading for the student who wishes to go deeper into the linguistic aspect. Somewhat perversely, perhaps, because they are so different, I found the most...