Biblical Hebrew in its Northwest Semitic Setting: Typological and Historical Perspectives (review)

Hebrew Studies 48 (2007) 348 Reviews Semitic data, especially North-West Semitic. Such data were already inserted by Muraoka in previous editions, and even more in the latest one (e.g., p. 121, note 2; p. 125, note 3; p. 138, note 4; p. 161, §61j, note 7; p. 267, note 2; p. 291, note 2; and many more). In conclusion, the new 2006 edition of Joüon-Muraoka grammar makes a significant contribution to the field of Semitic and Biblical studies and is highly recommended for students and scholars alike. Tamar Zewi University of Haifa Haifa, Israel tzewi@univ.haifa.ac.il BIBLICAL HEBREW IN ITS NORTHWEST SEMITIC SETTING: TYPOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVES. Edited by Steven E. Fassberg and Avi Hurvitz. Pp. 324. Winona Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns, 2006. Cloth, $49.50. The impetus for this extraordinary volume of essays—and presumably for the 2001–2002 Hebrew University symposium that engendered it—is the venerable study by William L. Moran within the Festschrift to his mentor William Foxwell Albright entitled “The Hebrew Language in its Northwest Semitic Background” (The Bible and the Ancient Near East, Doubleday, 1961). The present collection posits itself broadly as a descendant, four decades removed, to Moran’s titular subject which he himself engaged via a three decade retrospective and synthesis. In tandem, these works embrace in a representative manner the better part of the past century’s philological inquiries into ancient Hebrew and its linguistic milieu. The book itself enjoys a polished look. It is bound firmly between sturdy glossed covers yet lies open readily. The page layout is consistent and convenient with sharp headings, clean fonts, and handy footnotes. Typographical errors are occasional and mostly inconsequential. The essay by André Lemaire and Ada Yardeni (“New Hebrew Ostraca from the Shephelah,” pp. 197–223) includes plates featuring black and white photographs and drawings (both of acceptable quality) for twenty heretofore unpublished inscriptions . Twenty articles by Israeli, European, and American scholars compose this volume, ranging widely in subject matter and scope. They are all written in English and are presented alphabetically by author. So then, what is new with Northwest Semitic philology since Moran’s contribution? In terms of raw materials, the ensuing decades have not yielded treasures on the magisterial scale of the Amarna, Ugarit, and Mari Hebrew Studies 48 (2007) 349 Reviews archives. Nevertheless, varying isolated and small cache inscriptions of importance have since been unearthed, such as at Deir {All (1967), Kuntillet {Ajrd (1975–1976), Tel Dan (1993–1994), and Tel Zayit (2005), to name a few prominent examples. As for methodology, Northwest Semitic philology remains a staunchly comparative enterprise. Its modern scholarly roots wend back chiefly through European Structuralism and Saussure, to Neogrammarianism and its comparative–historical antecedents in the works of founding Indo-Europeanists such as Franz Bopp and Rasmus Rask. Indeed, both the Typological and Historical Perspectives alluded to by this volume’s subtitle are fundamentally comparative in nature. The historical method compares language elements within both temporal (diachronic) and genetic (derivational) boundaries, whereas the typological method compares patterns of language that may or may not be linked temporally (either diachronic or synchronic) and/or genetically. It is with regard to investigative scope that Northwest Semitic philology has most notably broadened its reach over the past few decades. Parameters for study have traditionally bifurcated into the paradigmatic and syntagmatic. Paradigms—structured according to locales of simultaneity and dynamics of selection (substitution)—entail componential portions of language such as phonemes, morphemes, and (arguably) lexemes. Syntagms—constructed according to locales of contiguity and dynamics of combination—include segmental portions of language such as clauses and sentences (cf. R. Jakobson, “Two Aspects of Language and Two Types of Aphasic Disturbances,” in On Language, Harvard, 1990 [1956]). But, as philologists have grown to realize, language also entails a supersegmental level at which phenomena such as discourse, context, and genre can exert functional and even formal impacts upon componential and segmental dimensions of texts. Consequently—as many of the essays in this volume demonstrate—contemporary Northwest Semitic philology finds itself arrayed variously along the componential–segmental–supersegmental spectrum of language study. It is fitting that the essay by Moshe Bar-Asher (“The Qal Passive...