Thank you for your comments. We now recognize that it would have been helpful to phrase our preceding comment about language differently or to clarify more precisely what we intended by it. Specifically, the catalog of forms and usages conventionally employed to sequence biblical writings tends to be less common, more superficial, and less stable in the writings and in their transmission. Our conclusion is not the result of a dogmatic stance on language, nor does it reflect any neglect of linguistic research. Rather, it arises from the detailed analysis presented in our numerous publications, as well as from other features we have studied but not yet published, which consistently raise as many distributional red flags as green ones when used for trying to date the sources in which they appear. We have approached this issue from multiple angles: comparing between CBH and LBH writings, comparing within CBH writings or within LBH writings, comparing across MT parallel texts, and comparing across the MT and other textual traditions. Regarding MT parallel texts, for example, we conclude:
“All of the evidence from parallel texts in the MT indicates that the surviving texts of the biblical books are late, thoroughly revised and reworked versions of earlier texts whose distinctive linguistic features are lost to us. We would like to emphasize the word “distinctive” in this statement. We say again that the basic features shared by almost every BH writing—“early” and “late,” MT and non-MT—are quite stable, which is not unexpected since BH as a whole is a standard literary language, so that the surviving manuscripts give us no reason to doubt that the basic features of BH were characteristic of earlier compositional stages of the biblical books....” (HLBH, p. 167)
“In summary, all the evidence from the parallel texts in the MT itself points in the same direction: Large-scale and basic features of Classical Hebrew only relatively rarely show variation. Less common features of Classical Hebrew are highly fluid, and the current distribution of such forms cannot be relied on as evidence of the language of particular authors at particular times and in particular places. Nevertheless, it is precisely these less common features that have played a big role in historical linguistic and linguistic dating studies of BH writings.” (HLBH, p. 168)
We hope this will help clarify what we meant in context with our “We would just say that, in our view, our research makes dubious any connection between the language of the MT and that of “original authors” in their historical setting. We therefore consider language one of the less useful parts of the dating puzzle.” Our comment, our conclusion, revolves around the issue of the “distinctive” or “less common” language features, rather than the basic or common ones that are pervasive and stable. See especially “Currents,” pp. 29-37, where we look specifically at textual stability on the one hand, and textual instability or fluidity on the other, in relation to “original” biblical language and texts.
Dear Drew and Stephen,
Thank you for your comments. We now recognize that it would have been helpful to phrase our preceding comment about language differently or to clarify more precisely what we intended by it. Specifically, the catalog of forms and usages conventionally employed to sequence biblical writings tends to be less common, more superficial, and less stable in the writings and in their transmission. Our conclusion is not the result of a dogmatic stance on language, nor does it reflect any neglect of linguistic research. Rather, it arises from the detailed analysis presented in our numerous publications, as well as from other features we have studied but not yet published, which consistently raise as many distributional red flags as green ones when used for trying to date the sources in which they appear. We have approached this issue from multiple angles: comparing between CBH and LBH writings, comparing within CBH writings or within LBH writings, comparing across MT parallel texts, and comparing across the MT and other textual traditions. Regarding MT parallel texts, for example, we conclude:
“All of the evidence from parallel texts in the MT indicates that the surviving texts of the biblical books are late, thoroughly revised and reworked versions of earlier texts whose distinctive linguistic features are lost to us. We would like to emphasize the word “distinctive” in this statement. We say again that the basic features shared by almost every BH writing—“early” and “late,” MT and non-MT—are quite stable, which is not unexpected since BH as a whole is a standard literary language, so that the surviving manuscripts give us no reason to doubt that the basic features of BH were characteristic of earlier compositional stages of the biblical books....” (HLBH, p. 167)
“In summary, all the evidence from the parallel texts in the MT itself points in the same direction: Large-scale and basic features of Classical Hebrew only relatively rarely show variation. Less common features of Classical Hebrew are highly fluid, and the current distribution of such forms cannot be relied on as evidence of the language of particular authors at particular times and in particular places. Nevertheless, it is precisely these less common features that have played a big role in historical linguistic and linguistic dating studies of BH writings.” (HLBH, p. 168)
We hope this will help clarify what we meant in context with our “We would just say that, in our view, our research makes dubious any connection between the language of the MT and that of “original authors” in their historical setting. We therefore consider language one of the less useful parts of the dating puzzle.” Our comment, our conclusion, revolves around the issue of the “distinctive” or “less common” language features, rather than the basic or common ones that are pervasive and stable. See especially “Currents,” pp. 29-37, where we look specifically at textual stability on the one hand, and textual instability or fluidity on the other, in relation to “original” biblical language and texts.