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3 - Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek in the Hellenistic age

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 March 2008

By
James Barr
Edited by
W. D. Davies  and
Louis Finkelstein
James Barr
Affiliation:
University of Oxford
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Summary

HEBREW

Apart from final adjustments, the main body of the Hebrew Bible was already complete before Hellenistic times, and it is easy to forget that the latest portions of it were in fact written within that period. Of such portions, however, it is often hard to decide definitely whether their origin was in the Persian or the early Greek period, especially since the setting and subject matter is often Persian, as in Esther and Daniel. Some parts of the prophets, like Zechariah 9 to 14, and more doubtfully other ‘protoapocalyptic’ passages like Isaiah 24 to 27, have been assigned to a Hellenistic date, but even if this is right it may mean the very beginning of that era, a time therefore before its character had yet fully flowered. Some of the biblical psalms may also be Hellenistic; but the dating of psalms is notoriously difficult, and the practice of dating canonical psalms in late (for example, in Maccabean) times is now less widely supported than it once was. Nevertheless it is significant that characteristic ‘late’ linguistic features are displayed by many of the psalms found at the end of the Psalter: for example, the relative še appears only from Ps. 122 on, and then occurs about nineteen times. Since the tradition of psalmody went on and psalms continued to be written after the canonical Psalter was complete, it would not be surprising if some canonical psalms were of Hellenistic date. Finally, one writing which by the main consensus of scholars was written well down within the Hellenistic age is the latest portion of Daniel (8 to 12), coming from the second quarter of the second century b.c.e.

Type
Chapter
Information
The Cambridge History of Judaism
, pp. 79 - 114
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 1990

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