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Joshua

Joshua

:This page is about the Hebrew Bible character. For the Biblical book, see Book of Joshua. Joshua or Yehoshúa (יְהוֹשֻׁעַ "The LORD of/is help/court", Standard Hebrew Yəhošúaʿ, Tiberian Hebrew Yəhôšuªʿ) is a Biblical character, much of whose life is described in the Book of Joshua. The lack of a vav after the shin would normally indicate a pronunciation of Yehoshēa`, and in three places he is actually called Hoshēa. In Greek he is called Ιησους (Iēsoûs), the same as the name of Jesus of Nazareth and others bearing the Hebrew name Yēshua`. He is a historical figure, and would have lived sometime between the 18th century BC and the late 13th century BC. Joshua was the son of Nun, of the tribe of Ephraim and the successor to Moses as the leader of Israel. See also History of ancient Israel and Judah. He is called Jehoshua in Num. 13:16 (A.V.), and Jesus in Acts 7:45 and Heb. 4:8 (R.V., Joshua). He was born in Egypt, and was probably of the age of Caleb, with whom he is generally associated. He shared in all the events of the Exodus, and held the place of commander of the host of the Israelites at their great battle against the Amalekites in Rephidim (Ex. 17:8-16). He became Moses' minister, and accompanied him part of the way when he ascended Mount Sinai to receive the Ten Commandments (Exd. 32:17). He was also one of the twelve spies who were sent on by Moses to explore the land of Canaan (Num. 13:16, 17), and only he and Caleb gave an encouraging report. Before Moses died, he appointed Joshua as his successor. The people were encamped at Shittim when he assumed the command before crossing the Jordan River. Upon Joshua devolved a twofold duty: to conquer the land, and to apportion it among the tribes. According to the Book of Joshua, God encouraged him to be strong and to cling to the Law, which was never to "depart out of his mouth." After enlisting the cooperation of the kindred east Jordanic tribes, his first concern was to spy out Jericho. On receiving the report of his emissaries he gave the necessary instructions for the crossing by the Israelites of the Jordan. With the Ark of the Covenant carried by the priests in the van, on the tenth day of the first month of the forty-first year after the Exodus the Israelites set out to conquer the land. The river, miraculously divided as long as the priests with the Ark remained in its bed, was crossed north of Adam; and in memory of this occurrence Joshua erected over the place where the priests had been stationed a monument of twelve stones. Joshua ordered that one man from each tribe should take each another stone from that spot and deposit it on the western bank as a memorial. Here, at Gilgal, Joshua pitched his camp and remained for some time; and in order that all might be able to participate in the Passover, he directed that every Hebrew that had been born in the desert should be circumcised.

Conquest

Now began the wars of conquest which Joshua carried on for many years, the record of which is in the Book of Joshua. Jericho was the first city captured. After exploring it by spies Joshua invested it, finally capturing it. The ban was pronounced over the ruins, and all the inhabitants were destroyed save Rahab and her paternal family; they being spared because she had shown hospitality to the spies. Joshua became famous by this victory, but met a reverse at Ai in consequence of Achan's misdeed; however, after visiting condign punishment upon the offender he made himself master of the town, which was the key to the mountains rising west of the plain of Jericho. The Gibeonites made their peace with him, gaining advantageous terms by means of a clever ruse. On Ebal and Gerizim he caused the blessings and the curses to be read. While Joshua was engaged in the north, five of the southern rulers made an alliance to punish Gibeon; but they were routed at Makkedah by Joshua, who came to the assistance of the Gibeonites. It was during this battle that a furious hail-storm set in, proving more deadly than the sword, and on this occasion also, at Joshua's command, the sun stood still upon Gibeon and the moon in the valley of Ajalon. The fugitive five kings were discovered hiding in a cave at Makkedah. By Joshua's orders the cave was closed with huge stones until the pursuit was over, when it was reopened and the kings, after having been thoroughly humiliated, were slain, their bodies being hanged on trees until the evening, when they were taken down and cast into the cave. Then followed the conquest of Libnah, Lachish, Eglon, Hebron, and Debir. In the south Joshua penetrated as far as Kadesh-barnea; in the west as far as Gaza. Later on he routed the allied kings of the north at Lake Merom—Hazor being the head of these kingdoms—killing the inhabitants and burning the city of Hazor. In this manner Joshua within a few years had made himself master of the whole country with the exception of the Philistine and Phoenician coasts. Still he continued to guard in Gilgal his fortified camp; thence he governed the land, and there he began to allot the districts to the various tribes. Judah, Ephraim, and the half of Manasseh were the first to be settled, Caleb being allowed to take Hebron. After this, Joshua removed the Tabernacle and the Ark from Gilgal to Shiloh, and took up his residence there. Here he continued the work of apportioning the rest of the land by lot according to the families. Cities of refuge, in accordance with the Law, were appointed. Joshua himself received the city of Timnath-serah in Ephraim for an inheritance. Having thus completed his task, he gave Reuben, Gad, and the half of Manasseh permission to return to their east Jordanic territory.

End of his life

When he was "old and stricken in age" Joshua convened the elders and chiefs of the Israelites and exhorted them to have no fellowship with the native population. At a general assembly of the clans at Shechem he took leave of the people, admonishing them to be loyal to their God, who had been so mightily manifested in the midst of them. As a witness of their promise to serve God, Joshua set up a great stone under an oak by the sanctuary of God. Soon afterward he died, at the age of 110, and was buried in Timnath-serah.

Analysis

The character of Joshua is described by Edersheim: "Born a slave in Egypt, he must have been about forty years old at the time of the Exodus. Attached to the person of Moses, he led Israel in the first decisive battle against Amalek (Exd. 17:9, 13), while Moses in the prayer of faith held up to heaven the God-given 'rod.' It was no doubt on that occasion that his name was changed from Oshea, 'help,' to Jehoshua, 'Jehovah is help' (Num. 13:16). And this name is the key to his life and work. Alike in bringing the people into Canaan, in his wars, and in the distribution of the land among the tribes, from the miraculous crossing of Jordan and taking of Jericho to his last address, he was the embodiment of his new name, 'Jehovah is help.' To this outward calling his character also corresponded. It is marked by singleness of purpose, directness, and decision...He sets an object before him, and unswervingly follows it." (Bible Hist., iii. 103)

In rabbinic literature

In rabbinic Jewish literature Joshua is regarded as a faithful, humble, deserving, wise man. Biblical verses illustrative of these qualities and of their reward are applied to him. "He that waits on his master shall be honored" (Pro. xxvii. 18) is construed as a reference to Joshua (Midrash Numbers Rabbah xii.), as is also the first part of the same verse, "Whoso keepes the fig-tree shall eat the fruit thereof" (Midrash Yalk., Josh. 2; Numbers Rabbah xii. 21). That "honor shall uphold the humble in spirit" (Pro. xxix. 23) is proved by Joshua's victory over Amalek (Midrash Numbers Rabbah xiii). Not the sons of Moses — as Moses himself had expected — but Joshua was appointed successor to the son of Amram (Midrash Numbers Rabbah xii). Moses was shown how Joshua reproved Othniel (Yalḳ., Num. 776). Joshua's manliness recommended him for this high post. David referred to him in Psalms lxxxvii. 25, though without mentioning the name, lest dissensions should arise between his sons and those of his brothers (Yalḳ., quoting Sifre). Joshua is also a common name for boys. The name is also commonly shortened to Josh. ----- Initial text from Easton's Bible Dictionary, 1897, and from the Jewish Encyclopedia, 1906. Please update as needed.

External link

- [http://www.biblegateway.com/cgi-bin/bible?language=english&version=NIV&passage=joshua Read Joshua at Bible Gateway]
- [http://www.plymouthbrethren.org/passage.asp Joshua at Biblical Resource Database]
- [http://www.kingscalendar.com/cgi-bin/index.cgi?action=viewnews&id=164 Israel Period of the Judges] Category:Judges of ancient Israel Category:Nine Worthies Category:Torah people ja:ヨシュア

Hebrew Bible

] :This article discusses usage of the term "Hebrew Bible". For the article on the Hebrew Bible itself, see Tanakh. Hebrew Bible refers to the common portions of the Jewish and Christian canons. Its use is favored by most academic Biblical scholars as a neutral term that is preferred to both Tanakh (the term used by Judaism) and Old Testament (the term historically used by Christianity) when discussing the text in academic writing. (For instance, see section 4.3 of The SBL Handbook of Style from the Society of Biblical Literature.) Hebrew here may refer to either the Hebrew language or to the Jews (the Hebrew people)—who historically used the Hebrew language as a spoken language, and have continuously used the language in prayer and study—or both. Because it refers to the common portions of the Jewish and Christian biblical canons, it does not encompass the deuterocanonical books, largely from the Koine Greek Septuagint translation, included in the Old Testament by the Roman Catholic and Orthodox churches; thus it can be argued that the term Hebrew Bible only corresponds fully to the Old Testament in use by the Protestant denominations that follow Jerome's Veritas Hebraica doctrine.
Further reading

- Anderson, Bernhard. Understanding the Old Testament. (ISBN 0139483993)
See also

- Books of the Bible for the differences between these two versions of the text, or the much more detailed Biblical canon.
- Greek Scriptures
- Masoretic Text
- Old Testament for the history of the Hebrew Bible and its interpretation within the Christian tradition.
- Tanakh for the history of the Hebrew Bible and its interpretation within the Jewish tradition.
- Category:Bible

Book of Joshua

The Book of Joshua is the sixth book in both the Hebrew Tanakh and the Old Testament of the Christian Bible. This book stands as the first in the Former (or First) Prophets covering the history of Israel from the possession of the Promised Land to the Babylonian Captivity.

Authorship

Jewish tradition ascribes authorship of the book to Joshua. The Talmud states that the book was written by Joshua except for the last verses (24:29-33) which were added by Phinehas the priest. Certainly, the author writes as an eyewitness to the accounts described, occasionally using first person pronouns (for instance, in Joshua 5:1), although Joshua himself is usually described in the third person. Some sections, however (eg. 5:9, 7:26, 24:29-33) could only have been added after his death (probably by Eleazar the Priest or his son Phinehas). More recently, the authorship of the book of Joshua has come under dispute. Two possibilities have been suggested for the authorship of the book: # Conservative scholars argue that the majority of the book of Joshua was written at the time of the Israelite invasion (the fifteenth century or twelfth century BCE), by a contemporary of Joshua and an eyewitness of the events that occurred. # Modern critical scholars argue that Joshua was probably written in the post-exilic age, either from the JEDP sources that they believe were responsible for the Pentateuch, or by one of the prophets of the eighth century BCE.

Overview

The book of Joshua contains a history of the Israelites from the death of Moses to that of Joshua. After Moses' death, Joshua, by virtue of his previous appointment as Moses' successor, receives from God the command to cross the Jordan. In execution of this order Joshua issues the requisite instructions to the stewards of the people for the crossing of the Jordan; and he reminds the Reubenites, Gadites, and the half of Manasseh of their pledge given to Moses to help their brethren. The book consists of three parts: #The history of the conquest of the land (1-12). #The allotment of the land to the different tribes, with the appointment of cities of refuge, the provision for the Levites (13-22), and the dismissal of the eastern tribes to their homes. This section has been compared to the Domesday Book of the Norman Conquest. #The farewell addresses of Joshua, with an account of his death (23, 24).

Detailed summary

Spying the land (Chapter 2). Joshua sends out from Shittim two spies to explore the city of Jericho. They are saved from falling into the hands of the king by the shrewd tactics of Rahab. The spies return and report. Norman Conquest Crossing of Jordan (Chapters 3-4). The camp is broken at Shittim. A halt is made at the Jordan. Joshua addresses the people; assuring them that God is in the midst of them, that He will drive out the Canaanites, and that the Ark will cross the Jordan, whereupon a miraculous change will be worked in the waters of the river. The predicted miracle takes place as soon as the priests with the Ark wade into the water. In commemoration of the event, Joshua orders two monuments to be erected: one in the river-bed; the other on the west bank, at Gilgal. The Reubenites, the Gadites, and the half of Manasseh number 40,000 warriors. The priests are bidden to come up out of the river's bed after the people have crossed over. This happens on the tenth day of the first month; and the camp is pitched at Gilgal. Circumcision of the Israelites. Joshua is bidden to make flint knives wherewith to circumcise the Israelites, for those born in the desert had not been circumcised. This is done; Passover is celebrated; and the manna ceases. Joshua in front of Jericho receives the visit of a "captain of the host of the Lord" in the guise of a man, who declares that the soil on which Joshua is standing is holy ground. The siege and capture of Jericho. After thirteen circuits (one every day for six days, and seven circuits on the seventh day) with seven priests blowing seven rams' horns and the people shouting, the walls cave in. Jericho is put under the ban; but Rahab is excepted. A curse is pronounced against any one who should rebuild the city. Joshua becomes famous throughout the whole land. See main article: Battle of Jericho The expedition against Ai. Ai is surveyed and pronounced weak, hence the Israelite army sends only a small portion of the whole to attack this town. 3,000 Israelite soldiers are sent, but they are defeated by the warriors of Ai, and 36 of their number are killed. The failure of this expedition strikes terror into the heart of the people and brings Joshua to the verge of despair. But God announces that the people have sinned. As stated in the first verse, Achan has not respected God's commandment that the spoils of Jericho belonged to Him, and could not be taken by the people. The people must be reconsecrated. The sinner must be discovered by the casting of Yhwh's lot (Urim and Thummim.) This is done. By a process of elimination the guilt is limited to the tribe of Judah, then to the clan of the Zarhites, then to the sept of Zabdi; the individual members of Zabdi are then brought forward, man by man, and finally Achan is detected as the culprit. He admits having taken a costly Babylonian garment, besides silver and gold; and his confession is verified by the finding of the treasure buried in his tent. Achan is taken into the valley of Achor, and there stoned to death. Entire army against Ai. The city is taken by clever strategy, 30,000 men being placed overnight in an ambush. The attacking force feigning flight, the King of Ai is drawn far away from the city; Joshua points with his lance toward the city; whereupon the men in ambush rush into it, while Joshua and the army with him face about. Thus the pursuing enemy is taken between the two sections of Israel's array. Not one man escapes; the city is burned; 12,000 inhabitants are killed, and the spoils are taken. The King of Ai is hanged to a tree until nightfall, when his body is thrown into a pit, where on a stone heap is raised. Joshua erects an altar on Mount Ebal as Moses had commanded, offering to Yhwh holocausts and sacrificing peace-offerings. On the stones of the altar he engraves a copy of the law of Moses; the people being ranged in two sections - one facing Ebal; the other, Gerizim - while the blessings and curses are read as ordained by Moses. The Confederacy Against Joshua (Chapter 9). The confederacy of the native kings to fight Joshua. The Gibeonites by craft obtain a treaty from the Israelites, which even after the detection of the fraud is not abrogated. They are, however, degraded to be "hewers of wood and drawers of water" for the altar of Yhwh. Gibeon Alliance between the kings (Chapter 10). Adoni-zedek brings about an alliance between the kings of Jerusalem, Hebron, Jarmuth, Lachish, and Eglon, and they ("the five kings of the Amorites") besiege Gibeon. In their distress the Gibeonites implore Joshua's help. Joshua, assured by Yhwh of victory, comes up from Gilgal by a forced night march and attacks the allies suddenly. Thrown into confusion, the Amorites flee as far as the ascent of Beth-horon. To this battle is referred a song from the Book of Jashar, commanding the sun to be still at Gibeon and the moon in the valley of Ajalon. The miracle of sun and moon standing still on Gibeon, in response to Joshua's impassioned prayer of faith (Josh. 10:12-15), has given rise to much discussion. The five kings are captured, first being incarcerated in the cave where they had hidden for safety, then, after the pursuit had been discontinued,?scarcely one of the enemies escaping?being by order of Joshua humiliated and hanged. Then follows a detailed enumeration of the cities captured and put under ban. Joshua becomes master of the whole land?the hill-country, the southland, the lowland, and the slopes?leaving not one king alive, and banning all men from Kadesh-barnea unto Gaza, and all the district of Goshen unto Gibeon. After this expedition he returns to Gilgal. Jabin of Hazor arrives Merom (Chapter 11). Jabin, King of Hazor, and his allies rendezvous at Merom. Joshua is assured by Yhwh of their total defeat, which in fact is brought about by a sudden attack on the part of Joshua. Pursuing them to a great distance (the cities are named), he hamstrings their horses and burns their chariots, capturing Hazor, killing all of its people, and burning the town. Other royal residences he takes by the sword, putting them under the ban. The spoils are taken, and the men are put to death. The cities on the hill are allowed to stand. Joshua drives the Anakim from the mountains, from Hebron, and from other places. Only in Gaza some remain. Finally the land has peace. Chapter 12. Recapitulation of Joshua's conquests, with statistical details of the number of the kings (30 of them) captured and subdued. Chapter 13. After an enumeration of the places still unconquered (mainly the coast districts of the Philistines) Joshua is bidden to apportion the land, the unconquered as well as the conquered, among nine and one-half tribes of Israel, the other two and one-half tribes having under Moses been given their portion on the east of the Jordan. Chapter 14. Résumé of the foregoing reference to Reuben, Gad, and the half of Manasseh, with a gloss concerning Levi's non-inheritance save as regards detached cities, while Joseph receives a double heritage. Caleb's claim to Hebron is allowed. Chapter 15. The "lot" of Judah; Caleb's share; Expulsion by him of the three Anakim; Story of Kirjath-sepher; Othniel takes it and wins, as promised, Caleb's daughter for wife; Her successful plea for the gift of wells; Catalogue of the heritage of Judah; and a gloss on the continued dwelling of the Jebusites in Jerusalem (63). Chapter 16. Lot of the Josephites (1-3). The Ephraimites own cities in the territory of Manasseh (9). Gloss to the effect that the Canaanites dwelling in Gezer had not been driven out, but had been reduced to slavery (10). Chapter 17. Lot of Manasseh, Machir as a warrior taking for his prize Gilead and Bashan. Delimitation of Manasseh (7). Manasseh's assignments in Issachar and Asher (11). Gloss stating that these cities had not been captured (12). Protest of the Josephites against receiving one share only (14). Joshua advises them to conquer the wooded hill-land (15). Plea on their part that the mountain is not extensive enough, while the plains are held by Canaanites equipped with iron chariots (16). Joshua's consolatory encouragement (17). Chapter 18. Erection of the Tabernacle at Shiloh (1). Seven tribes without allotment. Joshua urges these to appoint commissions of three men out of each tribe to go and take the land and to report to him, when, after dividing it into seven portions, he will cast the lot (2-7). The commissions carry out the errand and lay their book of record before Joshua, who then casts the lot (8-10). Benjamin's share (11). The boundaries (12-20). List of the cities (21-28). Chapter 19. Simeon's share, in the territory of Judah. List of the cities (1-8). Reason why Simeon's lot was in Judean territory (9). Zebulun's share; its boundaries (10-14). Twelve cities not specified (15b). Issachar's share; its cities and boundaries (17-23). Asher's lot; its boundaries; summary gives twenty-two as the number of its cities (24-31). Naphtali's share; its boundaries and fortified cities (32-39). Dan's share; its cities enumerated (40-46). Why the Danites took Leshem = Dan (47). Joshua receives as his own share Timnath-serah (49-50). Eleazar and Joshua had assigned the lots before Yhwh at the gate of the Tabernacle at Shiloh (51). Cities of refuge established (51b-xx.). Chapter 21. The Levites' assignment (1-8). Concluding paragraph, emphasizing God's fulfilment of His promise to the fathers (43-45). The end. Dismissal to their homes of Reuben, Gad, and the half of Manasseh with Joshua's blessing and an admonition to take heed of God's law as commanded by Moses. Now that they have become rich in cattle, silver, gold, iron, and garments they are to divide the booty with their brethren. Return of the east-Jordanic tribes; they build an altar at the stone-heap on the bank of the Jordan; the Israelites desire to punish them for this act; but they first send Phinehas and ten princes to the Reubenites, etc., to censure them, recalling the Peor episode and advising them to remove to Palestine. The Reubenites explain that in building the altar their intention was to show their fidelity to Yhwh,that their descendants might not be taunted with being untrue to Him. The delegation rejoices at the explanation, and upon their report the Israelites abandon the projected punitive expedition (9-34). Chapter 23. Joshua, now old, calls an assembly of all Israel, at which he admonishes the people to remain loyal to the Torah of Moses. Chapter 24. An account of a gathering of Israel at Shechem, at which Joshua delivers an impressive address, reviewing the past, and makes the people vow to remain faithful. He erects a great stone as a witness to the promise (1-28). Joshua dies (29). Joseph's bones are buried in Shechem (32). Eleazar dies and is buried (33).

The ethical problem of war and genocide

One difficulty in this book arises out of the command given by God to completely exterminate the Canaanites. Liberal theologians see this as an ethically unjustifiable order to commit genocide, which is inconsistent with the overall view in the Hebrew and Christian scriptures of God as a loving, compassionate Creator. They see it as a theological polemic, with the majority of events invented during or after the Babylonian captivity, to encourage faithfulness to the Jewish creed at a time when it was being threatened. For instance, Morton (pp. 324-325) says that Joshua "should be understood as a rite of ancient peoples (Israel among them) whereby within the context of their times, they attempted to please God (or the gods)". Conservative theologians, who see the book as a historically accurate account written during or soon after the life of Joshua, give one of the following explanations to this problem: # War was an essential part of the history of the Near East in the fifteenth century BCE. Although it is still sinful, some commentators argue that the book shows God using sinful activities in order to accomplish his just purposes. This does not mean that God supports war, simply that he works with humans as they are. These commentators emphasise what they see as the depraved nature of Canaanite society, pointing to archaelogical evidence of practices such as child sacrifice (burning the infant victims alive). For instance, Hallam, who takes this view, lists a number of pieces of archaeological evidence to support this thesis: "Just a few steps from this temple was a cemetery, where many jars were found, containing remains of infants who had been sacrificed in this temple . . . Prophets of Baal and Ashtoreth were official murderers of little children." "Another horrible practice was [what] they called `foundation sacrifices.' When a house was to be built, a child would be sacrificed, and its body built into the wall. . . . The worship of Baal, Ashtoreth, and other Canaanite gods consisted in the most extravagant orgies; their temples were centers of vice. . . . Canaanites worshiped, by immoral indulgence, . . . and then, by murdering their first-born children, as a sacrifice to these same gods." However, some of this evidence is disputed, with others arguing that it may have been invented at a later date in order to justify the act of extermination. # Christian theologians have tended to emphasise what they see as the progressive nature of revelation in the bible. As the bible progresses, God is seen to reveal himself in ways that are fuller, clearer and more accurate, culminating in the ultimate revelation of God in Jesus Christ. God's command through Joshua to take possession of the land by force of arms is viewed in the context of God's command through the second Joshua, Jesus Christ, to bring about his kingdom through the peaceful application of his teaching.

Archaeological evidence

The Amarna letters, that date from the middle of the 14th century BCE, consist of official communications from Amorite, Hittite, Hurrian, Phoenician, and Philistine chiefs to the kings of Egypt, and provide an independent glimpse into the actual condition of Canaan at the time of this work. The testimony of this archive, however, presents many difficulties of its own, including the mysterious, yet clearly warlike Habiru who are the subject of many letters. In addition, we also have a letter from a military officer, "master of the captains of Egypt," which dates from near the end of the reign of Ramesses II. Its curious account of a journey, probably official, that the officer undertook through Canaan as far north as Aleppo, provides more information. Among the things brought to light by this letter and the Amarna letters is the state of confusion and decay that had fallen upon Egypt. The Egyptian garrisons that had held possession of Canaan from the time of Thutmose III, some two hundred years before, had now disappeared. The way was thus opened for the Hebrews. In the history of the conquest there is no mention of Joshua having encountered any Egyptian force. The tablets contain many appeals to the king of Egypt for help against the inroads of the Hebrews, but no help seems ever to have been sent. Excavations of several Canaanite cities have provided contradictory evidence for establishing the historicity of the Book of Joshua. The Tells of Lachish and Hazor were both Canaanite cities in the Late Bronze Age. Around the year 1200 BCE, both cities were destroyed and the following layers of occupational debris contain Israelite artifacts. The archaeological records of these cities show that a destructive invasion by the Israelites occurred at the end of the Late Bronze Age. The excavation of Ai yielded evidence that disagreed with Ai's destruction in the Book of Joshua. Ai appears to have been abandoned in the Early Bronze Age and not reoccupied until after the Israelite invasion. It has been suggested that the destruction of Ai was added to the Book of Joshua as an etiological myth, explaining the visible ruins of the Early Bronze Age city.

References

- Morton, William H. Joshua. The Broadman Bible Commentary, Vol. 2. Ed. Clifton J. Allen, et al. Nashville: Broadman Press, 1970.
- Halley, Henry H. Halley's Bible Handbook. Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House, 1927, 1965.
- Mazar, Amihai. The Archaelogy of the land of the Bible. New York: Doubleday, 1990.

External links

Online translations of the Book of Joshua:
- Original text:
- [http://www.mechon-mamre.org/p/pt/pt0601.htm יְהוֹשֻׁעַ Yehoshua - Joshua] (Hebrew - English at Mechon-Mamre.org)
- Jewish translations:
- [http://www.mechon-mamre.org/e/et/et0601.htm Joshua at Mechon-Mamre] (Jewish Publication Society translation)
- [http://www.chabad.org/library/archive/LibraryArchive2.asp?AID=15749 Yehoshua - Joshua (Judaica Press)] translation with Rashi's commentary at Chabad.org
- Christian translations:
- [http://www.anova.org/sev/htm/hb/06_joshua.htm Joshua at The Great Books] (New Revised Standard Version)
-
- [http://wikisource.org/wiki/Bible%2C_English%2C_King_James%2C_Joshua Joshua at Wikisource] (Authorised King James Version) Related article:
- [http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/view.jsp?artid=545&letter=J&search=Joshua Book of Joshua article] (Jewish Encyclopedia) ---- Joshua, Book of Joshua ko:여호수아 (성경) zh-min-nan:Iok-su-a-kì ja:ヨシュア記

Standard Hebrew

Hebrew is a Semitic language of the Afro-Asiatic language family spoken by more than 6 million people, mainly in Israel, the West Bank, the United States and by Jewish communities around the world. The core of the Tanakh (sometimes referred to as the Hebrew Bible), the Torah (which Christianity and Judaism traditionally hold to have been first recorded in the time of Moses 3,300 years ago), is written in (Biblical) Classical Hebrew. Jews have always called it לשון הקודש Lashon ha-Qodesh ("The Sacred Language") as the scriptures written in this language were considered sacred. Most scholars agree that after the first destruction of Jerusalem by the Nebuchadnezzar II and the Babylonians in 586 BCE, the kind of Hebrew prevalent in the Tanakh was replaced in daily use by Mishnaic Hebrew and a local version of Aramaic. After the depletion of the Jewish population of parts of Roman occupied Judea, it is believed that Hebrew gradually ceased to be a spoken language roughly around 200 CE, but has stayed as the major written language throughout the centuries. Not only religious, but texts for a large variety of purposes: letters and contracts, science, philosophy, medicine, poetry, protocols of courts—all resorted to Hebrew, which thus adapted itself to various new fields and terminologies by borrowings and new inventions. Hebrew was revitalized as a spoken language during the late 19th and early 20th century as Modern Hebrew, replacing a score of languages spoken by the Jews at that time, such as Arabic, Judezmo (also called Ladino), Yiddish, Russian, and other languages of the Jewish diaspora as the spoken language of the majority of the Jewish people living in Israel. Modern Hebrew became an official language in British-ruled Palestine in 1921, and the primary official language of the State of Israel, (Arabic maintained its official language status). The Hebrew name for the language is עברית, or Ivrit (IPA: )

History

While the term "Hebrew" as a nationality is customarily used to refer to the ancient Israelites, the classical Hebrew language was extremely similar to the Canaanite languages spoken by their neighbors, such as Phoenician; indeed, Moabite and Hebrew are often considered to be two dialects of the same language. Hebrew strongly resembles Aramaic and to a lesser extent South-Central Arabic, sharing many linguistic features with them.

Early history

Hebrew is an Afro-Asiatic language. This language family is generally thought by linguists to have originated somewhere in northeastern Africa, and began to diverge around the 8th millennium BCE, although there is much debate about the exact date and place. (The theory is espoused by most archeologists and linguists, but at odds with traditional reading of the Torah.) One branch of this family, Semitic, eventually reached the Middle East; it gradually differentiated into a variety of related languages. By the end of the 3rd millennium BCE the ancestral languages of Aramaic, Ugaritic, and other various Canaanite languages were spoken in the Levant alongside the influential dialects of Ebla and Akkad. As the Hebrew founders from northern Haran filtered south into and came under the influence of the Levant, like many sojourners into Canaan including the Philistines, they adopted Canaanite dialects. The first written evidence of distinctive Hebrew, the Gezer calendar, dates back to the 10th century BCE, the traditional time of the reign of David and Solomon. It presents a list of seasons and related agricultural activities. The Gezer calendar (named after the city in whose proximity it was found) is written in an old Semitic script, akin to the Phoenician one that through the Greeks and Etruscans later became the Roman script. The Gezer calendar is written without any vowels, and it does not use consonants to imply vowels even in the places where more modern spelling requires it (see below). Roman script, dates to the 7th century BCE.]] Numerous older tablets have been found in the region with similar scripts written in other Semitic languages, for example Protosinaitic. It is believed that the original shapes of the script go back to the hieroglyphs of the Egyptian writing, though the phonetic values are instead inspired by the acrophonic principle. The common ancestor of Hebrew and Phoenician is called Canaanite, and was the first to use a Semitic alphabet distinct from Egyptian. One ancient document is the famous Moabite Stone written in the Moabite dialect; the Siloam Inscription, found near Jerusalem, is an early example of Hebrew. Less ancient samples of Old Hebrew include the ostraka found near Lachish which describe events preceding the final capture of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar and the Babylonian captivity of 586 BCE. The most famous work originally written in Hebrew is the Tanakh, though the time at which it was written is a matter of dispute (see dating the Bible for details). The earliest extant copies were found among the Dead Sea Scrolls, written between the 2nd century BCE and the 1st century CE. The formal language of the latter Babylonian Empire was Aramaic (its name is either derived from "Aram Naharayim", Upper Mesopotamia, or from "Aram," the ancient name for Syria). The Persian Empire, which had captured Babylonia a few decades later under Cyrus, adopted Aramaic as the official language. Aramaic is also a North-West Semitic language, quite similar to Hebrew. Aramaic has contributed many words and expressions to Hebrew, mainly as the language of commentary in the Talmud and other religious works. In addition to numerous words and expressions, Hebrew also borrowed the Aramaic writing system. Although the original Aramaic letter forms were derived from the same Phoenician alphabet that was used in ancient Israel, they had changed significantly, both in the hands of the Mesopotamians and of the Jews, assuming the forms familiar to us today around the first century CE. Writings of that era (most notably, some of the Dead Sea Scrolls found in Qumran) are written in a script very similar to the "square" one still used today.

Later history

The Jews living in the Persian Empire adopted Aramaic, and Hebrew quickly fell into disuse. It was preserved, however, as the literary language of Bible study. Aramaic became the vernacular language of the renewed Judaea for the following 700 years. Famous works written in Aramaic include the Targum, the Talmud and several of Flavius Josephus' books (several of the latter were not preserved, however, in the original.) Following the destruction of Jerusalem and the Second Temple in 70 CE, the Jews gradually began to disperse from Judaea into foreign countries (this dispersion was hastened when the Romans destroyed Jerusalem (and turned it into a pagan city named Aelia Capitolina) in 135 CE after putting down Bar Kokhba's revolt.) For many hundreds of years Aramaic remained the spoken language of Mesopotamian Jews, and Lishana Deni, one of several Judæo-Aramaic languages, is a modern descendant that is still spoken by a few thousand Jews (and many non-Jews) from the area known as Kurdistan; however, it gradually gave way to Arabic, as it had given way to other local languages in the countries to which the Jews had gone. Hebrew was not used as a mother tongue for roughly 1800 years. However the Jews have always devoted much effort to maintaining high standards of literacy among themselves, the main purpose being to let any Jew read the Hebrew Bible and the accompanying religious works in the original (see rabbinic literature, Codes of Jewish law, The Jewish Bookshelf). It is interesting to note that the languages that the Jews adopted from their adopted nations, namely Ladino and Yiddish were not directly connected to Hebrew (the former being based on Spanish and Arabic borrowings, latter being a remote dialect of Middle High German), however, both were written from right to left using the Hebrew script. Hebrew was also used as a language of communication among Jews from different countries, particularly for the purpose of international trade. The most important contribution to preserving traditional Hebrew pronunciation in this period was that of scholars called Masoretes (from masoret meaning "tradition"), who from about the seventh to the tenth centuries CE devised detailed markings to indicate vowels, stress, and cantillation (recitation methods). The original Hebrew texts used only consonants, and later some consonants were used to indicate long vowels. By the time of the Masoretes this text was considered too sacred to be altered, so all their markings were in the form of pointing in and around the letters.

Revival

cantillation The revival of Hebrew as a mother tongue was initiated by the efforts of Eliezer Ben-Yehuda (1858-1922) (אליעזר בן־יהודה). He joined the Jewish national movement and in 1881 emigrated to Eretz Israel, then a province of the Ottoman Empire. Motivated by the surrounding ideals of renovation and rejection of the diaspora "shtetl" lifestyle, Ben-Yehuda set out to develop tools for making the literary and liturgical language into everyday spoken language. However, his brand of Hebrew followed norms that had been replaced in Eastern Europe by more modern grammar and style, in the writings of people like Achad Ha-Am and others. His organizational efforts and involvement with the establishment of schools and the writing of textbooks pushed the vernacularization activity into a gradually accepted movement. It was not, however, until the 1904-1905 "Second aliyah" that Hebrew had caught real momentum in Ottoman Palestine with the new and better organized enterprises set forth by the new group of immigrants. When the British Mandate of Palestine recognized Hebrew as one of the country's three official languages (English, Arabic, and Hebrew, in 1922), its new formal status contributed to its diffusion. While many saw his work as fanciful or even blasphemous, many soon understood the need for a common language amongst Jews of pre-state Israel who at the turn of the 20th century were arriving in large numbers from diverse countries and speaking different languages. A Committee of the Hebrew Language was established. Later it became the Academy of the Hebrew Language, an organization that exists today. The results of his and the Committee's work were published in a dictionary (The Complete Dictionary of Ancient and Modern Hebrew). Ben-Yehuda's work fell on fertile ground, and by the beginning of the 20th century, Hebrew was well on its way to becoming the main language of the Jewish population of both Ottoman and British pre-State Israel.

Modern Hebrew

Ben-Yehuda based Modern Hebrew on Biblical Hebrew. Often new words were coined by applying unused word-patterns to existing roots (Biblical k-t-v, "write," gave rise to modern Hebrew hikhtiv, "dictated," and hitkatev, "corresponded.") When this did not suffice and the Committee set out to invent a new word for a certain concept, it searched through the Biblical word-indexes and foreign dictionaries, particularly Arabic. While Ben-Yehuda preferred Semitic roots to European ones, the abundance of European Hebrew speakers led to the introduction of numerous foreign words. Other changes which had taken place as Hebrew came back to life were the systematization of the grammar - the Biblical syntax was sometimes limited and ambiguous -- and the adoption of standard Western punctuation. Modern Hebrew shows influences from Russian (for example, the Russian suffix -acia is used in nouns where English has the suffix -ation); German (particularly in combination words like "tapuakh-adama," meaning potato (German Erdapfel , earth-apple) or "iton" (German Zeitung, news-ity, news-paper). English has been a very strong influence, both from British influence during the period of the Mandate and American influence in the present day. Finally, Arabic, being the language of numerous Mizrahic and Sephardic Jewish immigrants from Arab countries as well as of the Palestinians and Israeli Arabs, has also had an important influence on Hebrew, especially in slang (for example, "sababa", meaning "excellent", or "ya'alla", meaning "come on".) Due to its many influences and its youth, Modern Hebrew has many characteristics which are distinctly not Semitic. At the phonetic level, it has abandoned the pharyngeal and emphatic consonants (in most pronunciations). It also uses the occasional foreign morpheme, in words such as רכבל ("rakevel") (meaning "cable car", formed by adding a lamed to the word for "vehicle") and רמזור ("ramzor") (meaning "traffic light", formed by adding a vav and a resh to the root for "hinting" and "allusion"). Even so, the Hebrew preserved part of the prominent characteristics of the Semitic languages. One of the main questions which occupying the researchers of the Modern Hebrew is how much the Modern Hebrew is a Semitic language. Another non-Semitic property of Modern Hebrew is the pronunciation of certain letters. For instance, the letter Heth (ח) now sounds like Khaf (כ), the letter 'Ayin (ע) now sounds like (sometimes) Alef (א), Qof (ק) sounds like Kaf (כּ), and Thav (ת) sounds like Teth (ט). Modern Hebrew is printed with a script known as "square". It is the same script, ultimately derived from Aramaic, that was used for copying of Bible books in Hebrew for two thousand years. This script also has a cursive version, which is used for handwriting. Hebrew has been the language of numerous poets, which include Rachel, Hayim Nahman Bialik, Shaul Tchernihovsky, Lea Goldberg, Avraham Shlonsky and Natan Alterman. Hebrew was also the language of hundreds of authors, one of whom is the Nobel Prize laureate Shmuel Yosef Agnon.

Hebrew language in the USSR

, Yevsektsiya The Soviet authorities considered Hebrew a "reactionary language" since it was associated with both Judaism and Zionism, and it was officially banned by the Narkompros (Commissariat of Education) as early as 1919. Hebrew books and periodicals ceased to be published and were seized from the libraries. Despite numerous protests in the West, teachers and students who attempted to study Hebrew language were pilloried and sentenced for "counter revolutionary" and later for "anti-Soviet" activities.

Dialects

According to Ethnologue, dialects of Hebrew include Standard Hebrew (General Israeli, Europeanized Hebrew), Oriental Hebrew (Arabized Hebrew, Yemenite Hebrew). In practice, there is also Ashkenazi Hebrew, still widely used in Ashkenazi Jewish religious services and studies in Israel and abroad. It was influenced by the Yiddish language. Sephardi Hebrew language is the basis of Standard Hebrew and not all that different from it, although traditionally it has had a greater range of phonemes. It was influenced by the Ladino language. Mizrahi (Oriental) Hebrew is actually a collection of dialects (including Yemenite) spoken liturgically by Jews in various parts of the Arab and Islamic world. It was influenced by the Arabic language. Nearly every immigrant to Israel is encouraged to adopt Standard Hebrew as their daily language. Phonologically, this "dialect" may most accurately be described as an amalgam of pronunciations preserving Sephardic vowel sounds and Ashkenazic consonant sounds—its recurring feature being simplification of differences among a wide array of pronunciations. This simplifying tendency also accounts for the collapse of the Ashkenazic /t/ and /s/ pronunciations of unaspirated and aspirated ת into the single phoneme /t/. Most Sephardic dialects differentiated between these two pronunciations as /t/ and /θ/. Within Israel, the pronunciation of "Standard Hebrew", however, more often reflects the national or ethnic origin of the individual speaker, rather than the specific recommendations of the Academy. For this reason, over half the population pronounces ר as , (a uvular trill, as in Yiddish and some varieties of German) or as (a uvular fricative, as in French or many varieties of German), rather than as /r/, an apical trill, as in Spanish. The pronunciation of this phoneme is often used as a determinant among Israelis when ascertaining the national origin of perceived foreigners.

Languages strongly influenced by Hebrew

See main article Jewish languages Yiddish, Ladino, Karaim, and Judaeo-Arabic were all highly influenced by Hebrew. Although none are completely derived from Hebrew, they all make extensive use of Hebrew loanwords. In a less direct manner, the revival of Hebrew is often cited by proponents of International auxiliary languages as the best proof that languages long dead, with small communities, or modified or created artificially can become living languages used by a large number of people.

Sounds

Hebrew has two kinds of stress: on the last syllable (milra‘) and on the penultimate syllable (the one preceding the last, mil‘el). The former is more frequent. Specific rules connect the location of the stress with the length of the vowels in the last syllable; however due to the fact that Modern Hebrew does not distinguish between long and short vowels, these rules are often ignored in everyday speech. Interestingly enough, the rules that specify the vowel length are different for verbs and nouns, which influences the stress; thus the mil‘el-stressed ókhel (="food") and milra‘-stressed okhèl (="eats", masculine) are written in the same way. Little ambiguity exists, however, due to nouns and verbs having incompatible roles in normal sentences. This is, however, also true in English, in, for example, the English word "conduct," in its nominal and verbal forms.

Vowels

vowel length The Hebrew word for vowels is tnu‘ot. The marks for these vowels are called Niqqud. Modern Israeli Hebrew has 5 vowel phonemes:
- /a/ (as in "car") - The vowels qamatz and patakh
- /e/ (as in "set") - The vowels seggol and tzereh
- /i/ (as in "beak")- The vowel khiriq
- /o/ (as in "horn")- The vowel kholam
- /u/ (as in "room")- The vowels shuruq and qubbutz In Biblical Hebrew, each vowel had three forms: short, long and interrupted (hataf). However, there is no audible distinction between the three in modern Israeli Hebrew. Hebrew phonetics include a special feature called shva. According to "Ha-Yesod, the Fundamentals of Hebrew" by Luba Uveeler and Norman M. Broznick, this feature is pronounced "Shva" and is spelled Shin Vav He. There are two kinds of shva: resting (nax) and moving (na' ). The resting shva is pronounced as a brief stop of speech. The moving shva sounds much like the English a in about. Hebrew also has dagesh, a strengthening. There are two kinds of strengthenings: light (qal, known also as dagesh lene) and heavy (hazaq or dagesh forte). There are two sub-categories of the heavy dagesh: structural heavy (hazaq tavniti) and complementing heavy (hazaq mashlim). The light affects the phonemes /b/ /k/ /p/ in the beginning of a word, or after a resting schwa. Structural heavy emphases belong to certain vowel patterns (mishkalim and binyanim; see the section on grammar below), and correspond originally to doubled consonants. Complementing strengthening is added when vowel assimilation takes place. As mentioned before, the emphasis influences which of a pair of (former) allophones is pronounced. Interestingly enough, historical evidence indicates that /g/, /d/ and /t/ used to have strengthened versions of their own, however they had disappeared from virtually all the spoken dialects of Hebrew. All other consonants except gutturals may receive the heavy emphasis, as well. One-letter words are always attached to the following word. Such words include: the definite article h (="the"); prepositions b (="in"), m (="from"), l (="to"); conjunctions sh (="that"), k (="as", "like"), v (="and"). The vowel that follows the letter thus attached depends in general on the beginning of the next word and the presence of a definite article which may be swallowed by the one-letter word. The rules for the prepositions are complicated and vary with the formality of speech. In most cases they are followed by a moving schwa, and for that reason they are pronounced as be, me and le. In more formal speech, if a preposition is put before a word which begins with a moving schwa, then the preposition takes the vowel /i/ (and the initial consonant is weakened), but in colloquial speech these changes do not occur. For example, colloquial be-kfar (="in a village") becomes bi-khfar. If l or b are followed by the definite article ha, their vowel changes to /a/. Thus
- be-ha-matos becomes ba-matos (="in the plane"). However it does not happen to m, therefore me-ha-matos is a valid form, which means "from the plane". :
- indicates that the given example is not grammatically correct

Consonants

The Hebrew word for consonants is ‘itsurim (עיצורים). ע was once pronounced as a voiced pharyngeal fricative. Modern Ashkenazi (Northern and Eastern European Jews) reading tradition ignores this; however, Mizrahi (Middle Eastern and North African Jews) and Israeli Arabs accent these phonemes in a traditional semitic fashion which resembles Arabic `ain ع. Georgian Jews pronounce it as a glottalized g. Western European Sephardim and Dutch Ashkenazim traditionally pronounce it as "ng" in "sing" — a pronunciation which can also be found in the Italki tradition and, historically, in south-west Germany. Postalveolar sounds (with the exception of ) are not native to Hebrew, and only found in borrowings. The pairs (/b/, /v/), (/k/, /x/), (/p/, /f/), written respectively by the letters bet (ב), kaf (כ) and pe (פ) have historically been allophonic. In Modern Hebrew, however, all six sounds are phonemic, due to mergers involving formerly distinct sounds (/v/ merging with /w/, /k/ merging with /q/, /x/ merging with ), loss of consonant gemination (which formerly distinguished the stop members of the pairs from the fricatives when intervocalic), and the introduction of syllable-initial /f/ through foreign borrowings.

Historical sound changes

Standard (non-Oriental) Israeli Hebrew (SIH) has undergone a number of splits and mergers in its development from Biblical Hebrew .
- BH /b/ had two allophones, [b] and [v]; the [v] allophone has merged with /w/ into SIH /v/
- BH /k/ had two allophones, [k] and [x]; the [k] allophone has merged with /q/ into SIH /k/, while the [x] allophone has merged with into SIH /x/
- BH /t/ and have merged into SIH /t/
- BH and have merged into SIH
- BH /p/ had two allophones, [p] and [f]; the incorporation of loanwords into Modern Hebrew has probably resulted in a split, so that /p/ and /f/ are separate phonemes

Grammar

See main article Hebrew grammar Hebrew grammar is mostly analytical, expressing such forms as dative, ablative, and accusative using prepositional particles rather than grammatical cases. However inflection does play an important role in the formation of the verbs, nouns and the genitive construct, which is called "smikhut". Words in smikhut are often combined with hyphens.
Writing system
Modern Hebrew is written from right to left using the Hebrew alphabet. Modern scripts are based on the "square" letter form. A similar system is used in handwriting, but the letters tend to be more circular in their character, and sometimes vary markedly from their printed equivalents. Biblical Hebrew text contains nothing but consonants and spaces, and most modern Hebrew texts contain only consonants, spaces and western-style punctuation. A pointing system (nikud, from the root word meaning "points" or "dots") developed around the 5th Century C.E. is used to indicate vowels and syllabic stresses in some religious books, and is almost always found in modern poetry, children's literature, and texts for beginning students of Hebrew. The system is also used sparingly to avoid certain ambiguities of meaning — such as when context is insufficient to distinguish between two identically spelled words — and in the transliteration of foreign names. All Hebrew consonant phonemes are represented by a single letter. Although a single letter might represent two phonemes — the letter "bet," for example, represents both /b/ and /v/ — the two sounds are always related "hard" (plosive) and "soft" (fricative) forms, their pronunciaton being very often determined by context. In fully pointed texts, the hard form normally has a dot, known as a dagesh, in its center. The letters hei, vav and yud can represent consonantal sounds (/h/, /v/ and /j/, respectively) or serve as a markers for vowels. In the latter case, these letters are called "emot qria" ("matres lectionis" in Latin, "mothers of reading" in English). The letter hei at the end of a word usually indicates a final /a/, which in turn is usually indicative of feminine gender. Vav may represent /o/ or /u/, and yod may represent /i/. There is no consonantal marker for /e/. In some modern Israeli texts, the letter alef is used to indicate long /a/ sounds in foreign names, particularly those of Arabic origin. Terminal syllabic emphasis is most common. Fully pointed texts will note variations with a vertical line placed underneath the first consonant of the emphasized syllable, to the left of the vowel mark if there is one.
Romanization
See also Romanization of Hebrew The Hebrew language is normally written in the Hebrew alphabet. Due to publishing difficulties, and the unfamiliarity of many readers with the alphabet, there are many ways of transcribing Hebrew into Roman letters. The most accurate method is the International Phonetic Alphabet. It is used (in a simplified ASCII form) in the section concerned with Phonology, to describe the sounds of the Hebrew language. However, the IPA is not well known, and is often considered cumbersome for transcribing pronunciations for a general audience. Therefore this article uses a different system to express Hebrew pronunciation, and at least some orthographic peculiarities. The system comes down to the following:
- The letter tzadi (צ) is transcribed by "c" so that it could be distinguished from other combinations of /t/ and /s/, although "ts" or "tz" is usually acceptable.
- The letter ‘ayin (ע) is transcribed ', the same as alef. In word-final position, this phoneme is always preceded by the vowel /a/.
- The letter shin (ש) is transcribed by "sh", and the letter sin as "s".
- Both the letter tav (ת) and the letter tet (ט) are transcribed by "t".
- The letter he (ה) at the end of a word, in those cases where it marks feminine gender, is transcribed by "ah" (it is read /a/).
- The letter chet (ח) is usually transcribed by "ch" as there is no "ch" sound in hebrew. "kh" is usually acceptable but not as common. "h" is occasionally used but often avoided as "h" is also used for he (ה).
- The letter qof (ק) is transcribed by "q" (it is pronounced /k/ by many speakers).
- Single-letter prepositions and the definite article are separated with a dash (-) from their subject.
- Stresses and schwas are not marked.
- The vowels are always written.
- The letter yod is usually transcribed by "y".
See also

- Common phrases in Hebrew
- Cantillation
- Hebrew alphabet
- Niqqud (vowel points)
- Samaritan Hebrew
- The study of Hebrew
- Hebrew literature
Notes
# [http://www.jewishmag.com/43mag/ben-yehuda/ben-yehuda.htm Eliezer Ben Yehuda and the Resurgence of the Hebrew Language] by Libby Kantorwitz # [http://www.zionistarchives.org.il/ZA/SiteE/pShowView.aspx?GM=Y&ID=48&Teur=Protest%20against%20the%20suppression%20of%20Hebrew%20in%20the%20Soviet%20Union%20%201930-1931 Protest against the suppression of Hebrew in the Soviet Union 1930-1931] signed by Albert Einstein, among others # Robert Hetzron. (1987). Hebrew. In The World's Major Languages, ed. Bernard Comrie, 686–704. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-520521-9.
External links

- [http://www.ethnologue.org/show_language.asp?code=heb Ethnologue report for Hebrew]
- [http://hebrew-academy.huji.ac.il/english.html Academy of Hebrew Language], the Institute which prescribes standards for modern Hebrew grammar, orthography, transliteration, and punctuation based upon the study of Hebrew's historical development.
- History of the Hebrew Language
- [http://www.adath-shalom.ca/history_of_hebrew.htm History of the Hebrew Language Steinberg]
- [http://www.adath-shalom.ca/rabin_he.htm Short History of the Hebrew Language Rabin]
- [http://www.adath-shalom.ca/israeli_hebrew_tene.htm Israeli Hebrew Tene]
- [http://www.adath-shalom.ca/israel_lang_policy_rosen.htm Israel Language Policy and Linguistics Rosén]
- [http://www.adath-shalom.ca/hebrew_words_history.htm Words and their History Kutscher]
- [http://www.adath-shalom.ca/hebrew_slang_sappan.htm Hebrew Slang and Foreign Loan Words Sappan ]
- Grammars
- [http://foundationstone.com.au/HtmlSupport/FrameSupport/onlineHebrewTutorialFrame.html Online Hebrew Tutorial] (foundationstone)
- [http://perso.wanadoo.fr/babel-site/ Hebrew is easy] (babel-site)
- [http://www.adath-shalom.ca/gk_cont.htm Gesenius' Hebrew Grammar]
- Dictionaries
- [http://www.hebrewatmilah.org/maskilon1/index.htm Root-based] (Maskilon)
- [http://milon.morfix.co.il/ Word-search] English-Hebrew and Hebrew-English (Morfix)
- [http://www.hebrewatmilah.org/maskilon3/index.htm Hebrew-English] (Maskilon)
- [http://www.faithofgod.net/davar/ Hebrew-English] (DAVAR freeware, english)
- [http://www.websters-online-dictionary.org/definition/Hebrew-english/ Hebrew-English] (Webster's Rosetta Edition)
- [http://www.hebrewatmilah.org/maskilon4/index.htm English-Hebrew] (Maskilon)
- General
- [http://www.yiwoodmere.org/library/cybrary/hebrew.html Learning Hebrew - Links], Young Israel
- [http://www.yomanim.com Hebrew Writings and Diaries]
- [http://infoshare1.princeton.edu/katmandu/hebrew/atoc.html Hebrew Abbreviations], Princeton University Library
- [http://www.mikledet.com Mikledet.com]: Send Hebrew emails without having a Hebrew keyboard.
- [http://www.amhaaretz.org/translit/ Hebrew translit]: type in Hebrew using an English keyboard
- Category:Jewish languages Category:Judaism Category:Guttural R Category:Semitic languages Category:Canaanite languages Category:Languages of Israel ko:히브리어 ja:ヘブライ語 simple:Hebrew language th:ภาษาฮีบรู

Tiberian Hebrew

Tiberian Hebrew is an oral tradition of pronunciation for ancient forms of Hebrew, especially the Hebrew of the Tanakh, that was given written form by masoretic scholars in the Jewish community at Tiberias in the early Middle Ages, beginning in the 8th century. This written form employed symbols, called niqqudot (for vowels) and cantillation signs, added to the Hebrew letters. Though the written symbols came into use in the early Middle Ages, the oral tradition they reflect is apparently much older, with ancient roots. The Tiberian system of vocalization for the Tanakh represented its own local tradition. Two other local traditions that created written systems during the same period are referred to geographically as the vocalization of the "Land of Israel" (not identical to Tiberias) and the Babylonian vocalization. The former system had little or no historical influence, but the Babylonian system was dominant in some areas for many centuries, and even survives to this day. Unlike the Tiberian system, which mostly places vowel points under the Hebrew letters, the Babylonian system mostly places them above the letters, and is thus called the "supralinear" vowelisation. As mentioned above, the Tiberian points were designed to reflect a specific oral tradition for reading the Tanakh. Later they were applied to other texts (one of the earliest being the Mishnah), and used widely by Jews in other places with different oral traditions for how to read Hebrew. Thus the Tiberian vowel points and cantillation signs became a common part of Hebrew writing. Category:Jewish texts Category:Hebrew language Category:Jewish languages

Book of Joshua

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Overview

Detailed summary

The ethical problem of war and genocide

Archaeological evidence

References

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Greek language

Greek (Greek Ελληνικά, IPA – "Hellenic") is an Indo-European language with a documented history of 3,500 years. Today, it is spoken by 15 million people in Greece, Cyprus, the former Yugoslavia, particularly The Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Bulgaria, Albania and Turkey. There are also many Greek emigrant communities around the world, such as those in Melbourne, Australia which is the third-largest Greek-populated city in the world, after Athens and Thessaloniki. Greek has been written in the Greek alphabet, the first true alphabet, since the 9th century B.C. and before that, in Linear B and the Cypriot syllabaries. Greek literature has a long and rich tradition.

History

This article does not cover the reconstructed history of Greek prior to the use of writing. For more information, see main article on Proto-Greek language. Greek has been spoken in the Balkan Peninsula since the 2nd millennium BC. The earliest evidence of this is found in the Linear B tablets dating from 1500 BC. The later Greek alphabet (q.v.) is unrelated to Linear B, and was derived from the Phoenician alphabet (abjad); with minor modifications, it is still used today. Greek is conventionally divided into the following periods:
- Mycenean Greek: the language of the Mycenean civilisation. It is recorded in the Linear B script on tablets dating from the 16th century BC onwards.
- Classical Greek (also known as Ancient Greek): In its various dialects was the language of the Archaic and Classical periods of Greek civilisation. It was widely known throughout the Roman empire. Classical Greek fell into disuse in western Europe in the Middle Ages, but remained known in the Byzantine world, and was reintroduced to the rest of Europe with the Fall of Constantinople and Greek migration to Italy.
- Hellenistic Greek (also known as Koine Greek): The fusion of various ancient Greek dialects with Attic (the dialect of Athens) resulted in the creation of the first common Greek dialect, which gradually turned into one of the world's first international languages. Koine Greek can be initially traced within the armies and conquered territories of Alexander the Great, but after the Hellenistic colonisation of the known world, it was spoken from Egypt to the fringes of India. After the Roman conquest of Greece, an unofficial diglossy of Greek and Latin was established in the city of Rome and Koine Greek became a first or second language in the Roman Empire. Through Koine Greek it is also traced the origin of Christianity, as the Apostles used it to preach in Greece and the Greek-speaking world. It is also known as the Alexandrian dialect, Post-Classical Greek or even New Testament Greek (after its most famous work of literature).
- Medieval Greek: The continuation of Hellenistic Greek during medieval Greek history as the official and vernacular (if not the literary nor the ecclesiastic) language of the Byzantine Empire, and continued to be used until, and after the fall of that Empire in the 15th century. Also known as Byzantine Greek.
- Modern Greek: Stemming independently from Koine Greek, Modern Greek usages can be traced in the late Byzantine period (as early as 11th century). Two main forms of the language have been in use since the end of the medieval Greek period: Dhimotikí (Δημοτική), the Demotic (vernacular) language, and Katharévousa (Καθαρεύουσα), an imitation of classical Greek, which was used for literary, juridic, and scientific purposes during the 19th and early 20th centuries. Demotic Greek is now the official language of the modern Greek state, and the most widely spoken by Greeks today. It has been claimed that an "educated" speaker of the modern language can understand an ancient text, but this is surely as much a function of education as of the similarity of the languages. Still, Koinē , the version of Greek used to write the New Testament and the Septuagint, is relatively easy to understand for modern speakers. Greek words have been widely borrowed into the European languages: astronomy, democracy, philosophy, thespian, etc. Moreover, Greek words and word elements continue to be productive as a basis for coinages: anthropology, photography, isomer, biomechanics etc. and form, with Latin words, the foundation of international scientific and technical vocabulary. See English words of Greek origin, and List of Greek words with English derivatives.

Classification

Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European language family. The ancient languages which were probably most closely related to it, Ancient Macedonian language (which may be regarded as a dialect of Greek) and Phrygian, are not well enough documented to permit detailed comparison. Among living languages, Armenian seems to be the most closely related to it.

Geographic distribution

Modern Greek is spoken by about 15 million people mainly in Greece and Cyprus. There are also Greek-speaking populations in Georgia, Ukraine, Egypt, Turkey, Albania, Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia and Southern Italy. The language is spoken also in many other countries where Greeks have settled, including Armenia, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Netherlands, Sweden, United Kingdom, and the United States.

Official status

Greek is the official language of Greece where it is spoken by about 99.5% of the population. It is also, alongside Turkish, the official language of Cyprus. Due to the membership of Greece and Cyprus, Greek is one of the 20 official languages of the European Union.

Phonology

This section generally describes the post-Classic phonology of the Greek language. :All phonetic transcriptions in this section use the International Phonetic Alphabet

Vowel sounds

Greek has 5 vowel sounds, all phonemic:

18th century BC

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Events

- 1787 – 1784 BC -- Amorite conquests of Uruk and Isin
- 1786 BC -- Egypt: Queen Sobekneferu died. End of Twelfth Dynasty, start of Thirteenth Dynasty, start of Fourteenth Dynasty
- 1766 BCE -- Shang conquest of Xia Dynasty. China
- 1764 – 1750 BC -- Wars of Hammurabi
- 1759 BC -- Mari sacked by Hammurabi
- 1750 BC -- Hyksos occupation of Northern Egypt
- 1750 BC -- A colossal volcanic eruption at Mount Veniaminof, Alaska
- 1749 – 1712 BC -- Mesopotamian Rebellions
- 1700 BC -- Minoan civil war
- early Unetice culture, beginning of the Bronze Age in Central Europe

Significant persons

- Hammurabi, ruler of the Babylonian Empire
- Tang overthrew emperor Jie, last ruler of the Xia dynasty.

Inventions, discoveries, introductions

- The Phaistos Disc most likely dating from about 1700 BC. Its purpose and meaning, and even its original geographical place of manufacture remains unknown, making it one of the most famous mysteries of archaeology.

Deaths

- 1750 BC - Hammurabi (middle chronology) Category:18th century BC ja:紀元前18世紀

Nun (Biblical character)

Nun, in the Hebrew Bible, was a man from the Tribe of Ephraim, grandson of Ammihud, son of Elishama, and father of Joshua. (1 Chron. 7:26-27.) He grew up in and may have lived his entire life in the Israelites' Egyptian captivity, where the Egyptians "made life bitter for them with harsh labor at mortar and bricks and with all sorts of tasks in the field." () In Aramiac, "nun" means "fish." Thus the Midrash tells: "[T]he son of him whose name was as the name of a fish would lead them [the Israelites] into the land." (Genesis Rabbah 97:3.) Category:Torah people Category:Hebrew Bible/Tanakh people

Moses

Moses or Móshe (מֹשֶׁה, Standard Hebrew Móše, Latin Moyses, Tiberian Hebrew Mōšeh, Arabic موسى Musa), son of Amram (Imran in Arabic) and his wife, Jochebed, a Levite. Legendary Hebrew liberator, leader, lawgiver, prophet, and historian. According to scriptural account, Moses freed a group of nearly two million Hebrew slaves and organized them in the desert. In doing so, he presented societal and religious laws which form the foundation of many contemporary legal, religious, and governmental systems. Moses promoted the doctrine of monotheism, which was not widely accepted at the time, codifying it in Jewish religion with the 1st Commandment, thereby limiting polytheism within the culture. He is revered as a prophet in Judaism, Christianity and

Joshua

Conquest

End of his life

Analysis

In rabbinic literature

External link

Hebrew Bible

Further reading

See also

Book of Joshua

Authorship

Contents

Overview

Detailed summary

The ethical problem of war and genocide

Archaeological evidence

References

External links

Standard Hebrew

History

Early history

Later history

Revival

Modern Hebrew

Hebrew language in the USSR

Dialects

Languages strongly influenced by Hebrew

Sounds

Vowels

Consonants

Historical sound changes

Grammar

Writing system

Romanization

See also

Notes

External links

Tiberian Hebrew

Book of Joshua

Authorship

Contents

Overview

Detailed summary

The ethical problem of war and genocide

Archaeological evidence

References

External links

Greek language

History

Classification

Geographic distribution

Official status

Phonology

Vowel sounds

18th century BC

Events

Significant persons

Inventions, discoveries, introductions

Deaths

Nun (Biblical character)

Moses