HEBREW DIACHRONY AND THE LINGUISTIC PERIODISATION OF BIBLICAL TEXTS: OBSERVATIONS FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF REWORKED PENTATEUCHAL MATERIAL

The accepted ancient Hebrew diachronic paradigm and the standard linguistic approach for the periodisation of biblical texts are today heavily criticised, the criticism most recently centring on the textual situation of the sources. Critics argue that the high degree of textual instability and linguistic fluidity characterising the extant witnesses preclude any reliable tracing of the history of the language and make even the most approximative attempts at linguistic dating impossible. However, much of this textual argument is abstract, since the effect of secondary intervention on the stability of diachronically significant features has been studied in detail in the case of only a few texts, the investigations reaching conflicting conclusions. After a brief survey of foregoing investigations, the present study compares Pentateuchal material from the MT and Qumran, concluding that (a) preservation of diachronically meaningful detail is still very much the norm, and (b) differences between editions of the Torah often indicate the linguistic conservatism of one edition, here the MT, as opposed to linguistic development of the other, here the Qumran material

The Life of Aleksandr Men\u27: Hagiography in the Making

Hagiography is not an extinct genre in Russian literature, even though many believe that it was important in the history of early Russian literature but became irrelevant as Russian literature entered its modem period. The autobiography of priest A vvakum, written in the second half of the seventeenth century, is often considered to be the final work in the development of Russian hagiography. Russian spirituality has not died out, however, and holy men and women continue to display the same devotion to Christ that was admired in medieval saints. The biographies and memoirs of these modem saints retain some of the hallmarks of traditional hagiography. In this paper I propose to show that the memoirs written about one of these contemporary Christian heroes, Aleksandr Men\u27, draw upon traditional hagiographic elements in order to portray him as a saint. Furthermore, the literature written about Men\u27 contains the seeds for a full-length saint\u27s Life, one that could possibly be included among the works of a modem neo-hagiographic genre

Correlations Between Old Aramaic Inscriptions and the Aramaic Section of Daniel

Problem. In scholarly debates on the origin of DA, the corpus of OA texts has not received full attention. Thus, there is a lack of comparative studies between DA and OA. This type of study serves a twofold purpose: It contributes to providing an answer to the questions of origin of DA, and it provides fresh insights into both OA and DA. Method. This study of OA texts has been organized into seven sections which pertain to the literary and linguistic character of every one of the inscriptions: Description, Nature, Structure, Vocabulary, Orthography and Phonology, Morphology, and Syntax. The discussion of each of these sections has brought its corresponding subject into contact with the text of DA. Eight OA inscriptions dating from the ninth to the seventh centuries B.C. have been studied. To this six other inscriptions have been added since they come from a period of transition from OA into OfA. Results. The text of DA in its present form contains a significant amount of material similar to OA texts. Literary evidence presented in this study on structure and vocabulary, as well as grammar (especially orthography) and syntax, points to the presence of early material in DA. This contextual study of OA texts contributes to the present discussions on DA in that it presents the answers to certain objections raised regarding the traditional dating of DA. The study has produced a number of parallels which provide a better understanding of the literary, historical, and cultural situations of both dialects. Three factors have to be accounted for in any conclusion on DA: geography, chronology, and the literary character of the text. The desideratum of this study is that the search for early dated features in DA should be pursued more intensively in the future

Using ChatGPT and Other AI Engines to Vocalize Medieval Hebrew

Hebrew is usually written without vowel points, making it challenging for some readers to decipher. This is especially true of medieval Hebrew, which can have nonstandard grammar and orthography. This paper tested four artificial intelligence (AI) tools by asking them to add vowel points to an unpublished medieval Hebrew translation of the Lord’s Prayer. The vocalization tools tested were OpenAI’s ChatGPT-3.5 and ChatGPT-4, Pellaworks’ DoItInHebrew, and Dicta’s Nakdan. ChatGPT-3.5 freely changed the text, even rewriting some phrases and adding an entire sentence. ChatGPT-3.5 also provided erroneous vowels in its rewritten Hebrew text. ChatGPT-4 did a moderately good job with only a few errors, but also modified the orthography. One of ChatGPT-4’s errors was not trivial, resulting in the invention of a word. When challenged, ChatGPT-4 corrected this confabulation by inventing another word, which it claimed was a “rare form” for which it provided a fictitious derivation. When challenged on this second made-up word, ChatGPT-4 replaced the word from the input text with a word based on an entirely different root. DoItInHebrew inserted vowels that produced a gibberish text. In contrast, Dicta’s Nakdan provided near perfect vocalization, with only one genuine error, but like ChatGPT-4 it modified the orthography. ChatGPT-3.5, ChatGPT-4, and DoItInHebrew exhibited serious “hallucinations,” of both the “factual” and the “untruthful” varieties, typical of other AIs, making them counterproductive for vocalizing historic Hebrew texts. Nakdan can be a powerful tool but still requires someone with expertise in Hebrew grammar to verify and correct the vocalization. Nakdan’s interface simplified correcting the vocalization, although it required its user to have advanced knowledge of Hebrew