Isn’t It Time to Break Up with Linguistic Dating? Rethinking Hornkohl’s Method—and What Comes Next

In the end, Hornkohl’s work represents a well-argued example of an older paradigm trying to survive in a new era. His case studies are meticulously done and worthy of attention. But until we reckon fully with the compositional and textual realities of the Hebrew Bible, linguistic dating will remain, at best, a hopeful guess—and at worst, a circular exercise in self-confirmation.

By Robert Rezetko
Independent Researcher
Research Affiliate of the Universities of Arizona, Copenhagen, and Sydney

By Ian Young
Professor of Biblical Studies and Ancient Languages
Faculty of Theology and Philosophy
Australian Catholic University

By Martin Ehrensvärd
Associate Professor of Biblical Exegesis
Faculty of Theology
University of Copenhagen

By Martijn Naaijer
Postdoctoral Researcher
Faculty of Theology and Religious Studies
University of Zurich
July 2025

Aaron Hornkohl’s Diachronic Diversity in Classical Biblical Hebrew[1] may be sparking renewed scholarly engagement[2] over one of the thorniest problems in biblical scholarship: whether we can use the Hebrew Bible’s language to establish when different parts of it were written. Hornkohl’s answer is a confident yes. But for those of us more skeptical of linguistic dating, the confidence is more revealing than the data itself.

         Hornkohl is a major figure in the scholarly tradition that seeks to chart the development of Biblical Hebrew (BH) over time, following in the footsteps of the late Avi Hurvitz, his mentor and a giant in the field. This book takes the core premise of that tradition—that there’s a meaningful linguistic divide between Classical Biblical Hebrew (CBH), typically associated with earlier/pre-exilic writings, and Late Biblical Hebrew (LBH), typically associated with later/post-exilic writings—and pushes it further. Hornkohl argues that even within CBH, he can detect distinctions. Most notably, he claims that the Hebrew of the Pentateuch differs in significant ways from that of other early books within the Prophets and Writings. Thus he proposes an internal division within CBH itself—between what he calls a pre-monarchic Pentateuchal linguistic tradition, CBH1 (1000–800 BCE), and a monarchic linguistic tradition in the Prophets and Writings, CBH2 (800–600 BCE).

         On the surface, this sounds precise—perhaps even scientific. But is it justified?

         While Hornkohl is upfront about the challenges of textual transmission—the texts are late, edited, and transmitted in ways that muddy linguistic signals—he remains “far more optimistic than many” (p. 207) about what can still be gleaned. Yet he underestimates how deeply editorial and scribal processes have shaped the linguistic profiles of the biblical writings. This, we believe, is the heart of the issue.

         There’s no doubt that Hornkohl has done his homework. He walks readers through twelve deep-dive linguistic case studies, grouped into two parts, “Variation Perceptible in the Combined Tiberian Biblical Reading–Written Tradition” and “Variation Limited to the Written Component of the Tiberian Biblical Tradition,” to build his case for diachronic variation, or change in language through time, within CBH. He has assembled a fascinating collection of distribution patterns. Yet even as he acknowledges the fragmentary, ambiguous, and multivalent nature of the data, he remains optimistic that these patterns tell us something about when the books were written. Unfortunately, many readers will miss how highly selective such studies can be. Scholarship in Hornkohl’s paradigm often highlights evidence that fits the preconceived model while sidelining anomalies and counterexamples. This book is no exception.

         Some illustrative examples: Although Hornkohl addresses forms more common in the Pentateuch, he largely avoids other evidence—such as lev (לֵב) versus levav (לֵבָב) for “heart,” or the paragogic nun—that defy neat classification. Likewise, alternative interpretations of similar phenomena—like our in-depth studies of tsaʿaq (צעק) versus zaʿaq (זעק) for “to cry,” or abstract nouns ending in -ūt—receive scant attention.

         Hornkohl openly acknowledges that his linguistic patterns mostly hold within the traditional Tiberian Masoretic Text (MT), the medieval vocalized form of the text of the Hebrew Bible. His preference for the (proto-)MT—and the assumption that it has remained largely unchanged since 800 BCE—runs counter to the scholarly consensus that biblical texts were transmitted fluidly. He concedes that pervasive later interventions could obscure the original linguistic profiles, making diachronic analysis impossible, but treats this as an unresolved issue. However, we have demonstrated that even within the MT, parallel passages do not consistently preserve less common linguistic forms. For instance, in the parallel texts of 2 Samuel 22 and Psalm 18, or 2 Kings 25, Jeremiah 39, and Jeremiah 52, very few uncommon forms are shared between the parallel texts. This strongly indicates that the linguistic patterns found in the MT (or other sources) are more likely the result of later editorial and scribal activity than of earlier stages of composition.

         Orthography may offer the most instructive analogy. Hornkohl is right that the MT Pentateuch sometimes looks more archaic than other books. But based on the evidence of dated inscriptions, what looks archaic often turns out to be post-exilic—just a slightly earlier phase of a later tradition. Even rare survivals like the third person masculine suffix spelled with heh instead of waw are mostly post-monarchic phenomena. In short, what Hornkohl sees as a glimpse into most ancient Hebrew may simply reflect early post-exilic scribal practices.

         This brings us to a deeper concern, one that goes beyond a few data points:

         We argue that Hornkohl’s methodological assumptions and limited integration of literary and textual criticism into his linguistic dating enterprise significantly undermine the reliability of his conclusions. In our view, he overestimates the capacity of diachronic linguistic data to reflect original composition, failing to fully grapple with the complex compositional and transmissional history of the Hebrew Bible. Hornkohl treats editorial and textual developments as mere “complications” (p. 9) that diachronic (linguistic) analysis must overcome, rather than recognizing them as integral to any attempt at dating biblical writings. This privileging of linguistic evidence over literary and textual factors is, we believe, methodologically flawed. It underestimates the impact of editorial and scribal interventions, which can substantially distort the linguistic profile of a text. As a result, his interpretations of orthographic developments—even concerning the names “David” and “Jerusalem”—are, in our judgment, overly confident and insufficiently attentive to the broader textual landscape.

         We also contend that Hornkohl dismisses or underplays the likelihood—supported by substantial distributional, literary, and textual evidence—that many later writers, editors, and scribes continued to use older spelling forms alongside newer ones. This undermines his core assumption that specific spellings can reliably indicate chronological strata. Furthermore, his selective use of evidence—favoring data that appear to support his diachronic model while ignoring contradictory patterns—produces conclusions that strike us as circular and unrepresentative of the actual variation within the biblical texts. By contrast, we align with scholars like Emanuel Tov and James Barr, who maintain that the orthographic data in the MT primarily reflect the period of transmission—post-exilic and beyond—rather than the time of original composition, and thus cannot serve as a secure foundation for linguistic dating.

         In a forthcoming volume, Scribes, Spellings, and Statistics: Orthographic Variation in the Masoretic Text, Samaritan Pentateuch, and Dead Sea Scrolls, Naaijer, Ehrensvärd, and Rezetko pursue a more holistic approach that directly challenges Hornkohl’s linguistic dating approach. By integrating advanced data modeling, expanded textual datasets, and philological sensitivity, we bridge the divide between computational linguistics, textual scholarship, and literary criticism. Our analysis moves beyond the limitations of an MT-only focus, incorporating evidence from the Samaritan Pentateuch and the Dead Sea Scrolls to reevaluate traditional assumptions about spelling and dating.

         Continuing the theme of integration highlighted in the preceding paragraphs, this is a subject we have explored and emphasized for decades. Yet, many scholars remain entrenched in the conventional linguistic dating paradigm, often overlooking the need to develop an approach that fully integrates historical, cultural, social, literary, textual, linguistic, and conceptual dimensions when tracking the compositional history of the Hebrew Bible. Within the scope of a separate, well-funded large-scale research project underway, “Towards an Integrated Methodology of Dating Biblical Texts: The Case of the Book of Jeremiah,” Naaijer, Aren Wilson-Wright, Moritz Adam, and Konrad Schmid seek to demonstrate—more clearly and convincingly—that a more robust and comprehensive approach is both necessary and possible.

         All of this isn’t to deny that the language of the Hebrew Bible shows evidence of development. Of course it does! But the real scholarly consensus isn’t that the Bible is divided into clean chronological strata—it’s that every book is a tapestry woven over time, continuously altered through the interventions of changing editors and scribes. That’s why language in the Bible rarely reflects a single moment. Instead, it bears the marks of its long and complex journey through history. Until we uncover more dated, non-literary evidence—like inscriptions—we simply lack the tools to disentangle the precise chronology of most individual Hebrew forms. The language of our extant manuscripts doesn’t lock us into a specific time period. Rather, it reflects a long and layered history of how the Bible came to be.

         In the end, Hornkohl’s work represents a well-argued example of an older paradigm trying to survive in a new era. His case studies are meticulously done and worthy of attention. But until we reckon fully with the compositional and textual realities of the Hebrew Bible, linguistic dating will remain, at best, a hopeful guess—and at worst, a circular exercise in self-confirmation.[3]