History of the Hebrew Language, the Hebrew Bible and the Targum’s

In his Ancient Hebrew Timeline, Jeff Benner parallels Biblical events, alphbets, inscriptions, Hebrew Bible’s, and Translations https://www.ancient-hebrew.org/biblical-history/ancient-hebrew-timeline.htm.  Benner’s timeline reveals early Semitic (Hebrew)  was pictographic, and evolved into Paleo-Hebrew (middle Semitic) that resembled the Phoenician alphabet, and was used by Israel until the Babylonian exile in the 6^th century BC, when it evolved into Aramaic (late Semitic script).  The Greek adopted the middle Semetic alphabet in the 10^th century BC, that evolved into the modern form in the 9^th century BC, and in the 4^th century BC Jewish scholars translated the Torah into Greek, known as the Septuagint. 

In Benners Ancient Hebrew Timeline, he states “The Hebrew language ceases as their native language (135 AD).”  In the 1^st century AD, the Torah was translated into Aramaic, named the Targum Onkelos after its alleged author, and the prophets were translated into Aramaic by Jonathon Ben Uziel, named the Targum Jonathon.  In the 2^nd century AD, the writings and prophets were translated into Greek, in the Septuagint.  In the 3^rd century AD, the Talmud was written in Aramaic (the Late Semitic script) and the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament were translated into Aramaic, titled the Peshitta, and translated into Latin by Jerome (the Vulgate) in the 5^th century AD.  In the 7^th century AD, the English language adopted the Roman alphabet.

Benner indicates that vowel pointings were added to the Hebrew (Modern Semitic) in the 10^th century AD, and the oldest known Hebrew Bible was written in modern Hebrew by the Jewish Masorites.  In the 15^th century AD, the Gutenburg Bible became the first Bible, a copy of the Latin Vulgate, printed on moveable type, and in 1611 the King James Bible was published.  In the 19^th century AD, Eliezer Ben-Yehuda started a revival of the Hebrew language, which became the official language of the newly established state of Israel in 1948.

Steve Rudd divides the history of the Hebrew language into four periods based on the evolution of the alphabet https://www.bible.ca/manuscripts/Septuagint-LXX-Hebrew-ancient-earliest-writing-Bible-scripts-alphabets-origin-Mosaic-heiroglyphic-Paleo-Aramaic-Masoretic-Jewish-Greek.htm.  First, Joseph borrowed 22 Egyptian hieroglyphic symbols as the character alphabet for each sound in the Hebrew language called hieroglyphic Hebrew (Abstract).  Second, the 22 letters were simplified into “Paleo-Hebrew” in the time of Samuel, which was used until the Babylonian captivity (Abstract).  Third, Aramaic Hebrew was adopted, “derived from the Hebrew alphabet they replaced” (#9).  After Hebrew went extinct about 300 BC, a fourth Hebrew alphabet was invented by the Masoretes in 600 – 900 AD that added vowels, known as ‘Masoretic Hebrew’ (Abstract). 

There is consensus among religious scholars and historians that Jesus and the Apostles spoke Aramaic, and whether he knew Hebrew or not is debatable.  According to Steve Rudd, at the time of Jesus, the Jews in Judea spoke Aramaic (not Hebrew) and Greek was the language of commerce (Abstract).  Britannica contradicts itself, stating that Aramaic replaced Hebrew as the language of the Jews as early as the 6^th century BC, confirming that the books of Daniel and Ezra are written in Aramaic, and the Babylonian and Jerusalem Talmuds, yet claims that Hebrew remained the language of religion, government and the upper class.  Wouldn’t scripture have been written in Hebrew if this was true?

There are contradictory claims about the extinction of the Hebrew language, but the evidence supports that when the nation of Israel went into captivity in Babylon, Hebrew fell into disuse and was replace by Aramaic Hebrew, which is the language the Targums were written in.

In the next article we will take a closer look at the the history of the Massoretic text, for a fuller understanding of it’s history, language, to assess it’s reliability.  Then we will do the same for the Targum Onkelos and the Samaritan Targum.