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Is modern Hebrew a good representation of what ancient Jews would have spoken?

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  • 6 years ago
    Favorite Answer

    Yes

    ...um - not the street language in Israel

    Hebrew has had very slow development and because the Torah (which essentially the Constitutional Law of Judaism) was written very very early in the development of the Jewish nation (actually - just about the same point in time when the Hebrew Clan became "The Nation of Israel")

    that very early language was continuously studied and maintained.

    and then you can see linguistic developments and socio-political influences on ancient Israel tracked through the post-Torah books of the Bible --

    and these were likewise very carefully preserved as they form the basis of Jewish literature and philosophy.

    Then -- the focus of Hebrew usage from the time of the close of the Bible and until the establishment of the modern secular state of Israel was the religious-political social culture of the Jewish communities - centered on very detailed study of the Bible.

    So -- yes --

    A Jew from a traditional community today, who is not living in Israel, speaks Hebrew in the manner of the Jews of Roman period Israel.

    A well educated Israeli is conversant with this same Roman-period Hebrew in the same manner that a literate American is comfortable with the language of Mark Twain.

  • banana
    Lv 6
    6 years ago

    The Hebrew language was used for the writing of the major part of the inspired Scriptures—39 books in all (according to the division of material as found in many translations), composing some three quarters of the total content of the Bible. A small portion of these books, however, was written in Aramaic.

    The Bible is the only historical source giving reliable evidence of the origin of the language that we know as Hebrew. It was, of course, spoken by the Israelite descendants of “Abram the Hebrew” (Ge 14:13), who, in turn, was descended from Noah’s son Shem. (Ge 11:10-26) In view of God’s prophetic blessing on Shem (Ge 9:26), it is reasonable to believe that Shem’s language was not affected when God confused the language of the disapproved people at Babel. (Ge 11:5-9) Shem’s language would remain the same as it had been previously, the “one language” that had existed from Adam onward. (Ge 11:1) This would mean that the language that eventually came to be called Hebrew was the one original tongue of mankind. As stated, secular history knows no other.

    In the eighth century B.C.E., the difference between Hebrew and Aramaic had become wide enough to mark them as separate languages. This is seen when King Hezekiah’s representatives requested the spokesmen of Assyrian King Sennacherib to “speak with your servants, please, in the Syrian [Aramaic] language, for we can listen; and do not speak with us in the Jews’ language in the ears of the people that are on the wall.” (2Ki 18:17, 18, 26) Although Aramaic was then the lingua franca of the Middle East and was used in international diplomatic communication, it was not understood by the majority of the Judeans. The earliest known non-Biblical written documents in Aramaic are from about the same period, and these confirm the distinction between the two languages.

    Had both Hebrew and Aramaic diverged from the original “one language,” or did one of them preserve the purity of that primary language? While the Bible does not specifically say, the implication is that the language in which Moses began the writing of the inspired Sacred Record was the same as that spoken by the first man.

    Source(s): jw.org
  • 6 years ago

    No, because it was ancient Hebrew that ancient Jews spoke and wrote, and it is different to modern Hebrew. Many Jews who know Hebrew cannot cope with ancient Hebrew, it is so different, and more difficult.

    All of the Hebrew scriptures were in this ancient Hebrew, up until about 400 years before the Christian Era. Thereafter they had been translated into koine Greek even though the Jews who had been Hellenized mainly spoke Aramaic. And when the followers of Jesus wrote down their accounts, it was in koine Greek with a smattering of Aramaic. But koine Greek is as different from modern Greek as ancient Hebrew is from modern Hebrew.

  • 6 years ago

    Ancient Hebrews spoke Aramaic, now a dead language.

    Most of of the Old Testament was originally written in Aramaic.

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  • ?
    Lv 5
    6 years ago

    not nearly enough. ancient jews would never join forces with christians to conquer the arabs. who need christians when you have yhwh?

  • 6 years ago

    No the current language as far as I know is a mixture of European and middle eastern.

  • ?
    Lv 7
    6 years ago

    No

  • 6 years ago

    its type and talking

  • ?
    Lv 6
    6 years ago

    probably not

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