Abstract

“Pre-modern Hebrew” is a maximally inclusive term that encompasses the language of a variety of material from a period spanning around three thousand years, ca. 1200 bce–1900 ce (Saénz-Badillos 1993). The historical periodization of the language, each phase entailing a linguistically heterogenous assemblage of material, may be schematicized as follows:

Iron Age (ca. 1200–6th century bce): Epigraphy (Aḥituv, Garr, and Fassberg 2016); Literary (biblical) texts (Lam and Pardee 2016)

Persian (Achaemenid) Period (6th–4th centuries bce): Literary (biblical) texts (Morgenstern 2016) and sparse extra-biblical material (Greenfield and Naveh 1984: 122)

Hellenistic (4th–1st centuries bce) and Roman Period (1st century bce–4th century ce): Literary – biblical and extra-biblical material from the Judean Desert (Joosten and Rey 2016); Ben Sira (Ecclesiasticus; van Peursen 2016); Tannaitic sources (Kutscher and Breuer 2007); Samaritan Pentateuch reading tradition (Florentin 2013, 2016); Greek and Latin transcriptional evidence (Yuditsky 2013); Documentary – receipts, letters and contracts from the Judean Desert (Mor 2013); Epigraphy – epitaphs, numismatics, lists

Byzantine Period (4th–7th centuries ce): Amoraic sources (Breuer 2013); Liturgical poetry (Rand 2013)

Medieval and Ottoman Period (7th–18th centuries ce): Translations, science, philosophy, secular and liturgical poetry (Sáenz-Badillos 2013)

Late pre-modern (late 18th–early 20th centuries ce): Europe (late 18th–late 19th centuries ce) – Jewish Enlightenment (Haskala) (Kahn 2013a); Hasidic tales (Kahn 2013b); Palestine – Revival (Teḥiya) and revernacularization (late 19th–early 20th centuries ce (Reshef 2013a, 2013b) (see Chapter 22)