WHY DID THE QUMRAN COMMUNITY WRITE IN HEBREW?

AUTHO R:STEVE WEITZMAN WHY DID THE QUMRAN COMMUNITY WRITE IN TITLE:HEBREW? SOURCJournal of the American Oriental Society 119 E:no1 35-45 Ja/Mr '99 ABSTRACT Although members of the Qumran sect appear to have been multilingual, as a community the sect clearly preferred Hebrew for collective self-expression. This study seeks to shed light on the role of ideology in shaping the sect's preference for Hebrew by exploring its perception of this and other languages as reflected in the Dead Sea Scrolls. THE DISCOVERY OF Hebrew, Aramaic, Greek, and Nabatean texts among the Dead Sea Scrolls is often cited as evidence that the Qumran sect was multilingual.(FN1) There is even more impressive evidence, however, that the sect preferred Hebrew as its principal literary language. The vast majority of the manuscripts found at Qumran, 438 nonbiblical manuscripts, are in Hebrew, as against 104 in Aramaic, 18 in Greek, and 2 in Nabatean.(FN2) More tellingly, Hebrew is the language of virtually every text believed to have been written within the Qumran sect itself-The Rule of the Community, the War Scroll, the Thanksgiving Hymns, and so on.(FN3) Although other languages may have been read or spoken by the sect, it consistently chose Hebrew for literary expression. At first glance, there is nothing particularly puzzling about this choice. Hebrew had been the native language of Israel in the First Temple period, and it survived as a written language--probably as a spoken language also--well into the Hellenistic Roman era.(FN4) For many historians of Hebrew the use of this language at Qumran seems a straightforward example of linguistic maintenance, the perpetuation into the Second Temple period of the native language of Palestinian

Jews.(FN5) In multilingual societies such as HellenisticRoman Palestine, however, where there can be powerful pressure to communicate in the languages of more pervasive speech communities, adhering to one's ancestral tongue can be a much more complex phenomenon than it seems. As sociolinguists have pointed out, a community's social organization and belief system, its relation to other speech communities, and other factors can all affect whether the community seeks to maintain a native language or adopt the language of others.(FN6) Thus, even if we grant that in its use of Hebrew the Qumran sect was simply perpetuating a choice of language it had inherited from earlier generations of Palestinian Jews, the sect's use of Hebrew still raises many questions. Why did the sect consistently avoid using the other languages of Hellenistic-Roman Palestine in its own writing? What did using Hebrew mean to this community? And was the sect's use of Hebrew related in any way to its organization, ideology, or relation to other speech communities? The answers we seek require us to consider how Hebrew was used and perceived in the larger social world of which the Qumran sect was part. Many scholars believe that there was a conscious revival of Hebrew in the second century B.C.E., a linguistic development tied to the upsurge in religious nationalism during the Maccabean Revolt.(FN7) Hebrew, written in paleo-Hebrew script, appears in the legends of Hasmonean coins, and it is the language of proHasmonean works like Daniel 8-12 and probably 1 Maccabees (the latter now appears in Greek but is originally thought to have been written in Hebrew).(FN8) The Qumran sect, also emerging some time in the Hasmonean period, exhibited many of the same linguistic behaviors: it wrote in Hebrew; it often used biblicizing style; there is even evidence that it copied some manuscripts, especially biblical texts, in a paleo-Hebrew script.(FN9) The parallels suggest that the use of Hebrew at Qumran has to be viewed as part of a larger sociolinguistic trend in Judea in the Hellenistic period, one probably tied to the increasingly central role of biblical literature in the formulation of Jewish

identity.(FN10) With all the factionalism and religious diversity of Hellenistic Roman Palestine, however, it should come as no surprise that for some Jews the type of Hebrew to use, and the precise connotations of using it, were guided by different ideological orientations and social affiliations.(FN11) Forty years ago, Chaim Rabin argued such a point, claiming that the Qumran sect developed its distinctive Hebrew, an archaizing dialect purged of colloquialisms, in conscious opposition to Mishnaic Hebrew, supposedly the dialect of the sect's Pharisaic opponents.(FN12) If Rabin is correct, the significance of using Hebrew for the Qumran sect--while sharing many aspects with Hasmonean language ideology-was colored by its distinctive beliefs, organization, and selfimage. But was Rabin correct? Many of his specific claims about Qumran Hebrew and its relation to Mishnaic Hebrew were not borne out by subsequent evidence.(FN13) However, Rabin's larger claim--that the formal characteristics of Qumran Hebrew were shaped by its religious ideology--had remained untested until recently. In a forthcoming article entitled "Qumran Hebrew as an Antilanguage," W. Schniedewind updated Rabin's thesis by describing Qumran Hebrew as an "anti-language" created in conscious opposition to the "standard" dialect of the normative community.(FN14) Anti-languages, dialects developed by underclass groups such as prison communities, relexicalize the standard dialect, creating distinctive lexicons for activities of special concern to the subculture, while inverting forms recognized as mainstream. (FN15) Schniedewind uses this notion to explain the following differentiating traits of QumranHebrew: coded terminology ("Teacher of Righteousness," "Wicked Priest," etc.), the avoidance of Aramaic and colloquial language, archaizing language, and special orthography. Following Rabin, Schniedewind identifies Mishnaic Hebrew as the dialect rejected by the Qumran sect. However, this is debatable since, as reflected in extant manuscripts, what is known as Mishnaic Hebrew is not a single dialect at all but a

conflation of different linguistic varieties from both Palestine and Babylonia.(FN16) Moreover, some of the languagefeatures linked by Schniedewind to the Qumran sect's ideology can be attributed to non-ideological factors. Different degrees of biblicizing Hebrew have been identified in generically distinct sections of individual Qumran texts, for example, suggesting that genre played some role in the sect's use of archaizing language.(FN17) This is not to reject the basic theses of Rabin and Schniedewind--only to emphasize that with so little information about the sociolinguistic contexts forQumran Hebrew, it is difficult to draw causal links between the isoglosses of this dialect and the sect's ideology. There is another resource for investigating how the sect's belief system may have influenced its linguistic behavior. Among the Dead Sea Scrolls are a few brief passages, one published only a few years ago, that explicitly refer to Hebrew. These passages reveal what their authors believed about the origins of Hebrew, its characteristics, and its advantages over other languages. While statements that a typical user makes about his language do not necessarily coincide with actual practice, they often do--as sociolinguist Harold Schiffman has pointed out: "beliefs ... that a speech community has about its language are part of the social conditions that affect the maintenance and transmission of that language."(FN18) The two texts on which we will focus--4Q464 and Jubilees-were both found at Qumran (Jubilees is also known from later translations), but some scholars believe that they were probably composed before the rise of the Qumran sect, probably within some incipiently sectarian community. At best, therefore, we might only use these documents to reconstruct the beliefs of the unknown group from which theQumran community emerged. 4Q464, also known as "An Exposition on the Patriarchs," consists of eleven fragments which appear to belong to the same composition.(FN19) So little of this text survives that one cannot be certain of its genre or purpose.(FN20) Notwithstanding the tattered nature of 4Q464, however, a

brief passage in fragment three, column one is well enough preserved to have merited a separate article by the text's editors, Stone and Eshel:(FN21) While this tiny fragment does not reveal very much, two notions are evident. First, the fragment uses in line 8 the phrase "holy tongue" in reference to Hebrew. This is the earliest known attestation of the expression "holy tongue," and I assume it refers to Hebrew here because that is its meaning in later Jewish sources.(FN23) Second, the phrase "holy tongue" seems to be mentioned in connection with some event from the life of Abraham, just after Genesis 11 when God "confused" the languages of humankind. The link to the Babel story is suggested by the letters [Graphic Character Omitted] in line 5, possibly some form the verb "confuse" in Genesis 11;(FN24) by the citation of Zeph. 3:9 in line 9 "I will make the people pure of speech," which in several later Jewish sources is connected to the Babel story (e.g., Buber's Midrash Tanhuma, 28 fol. 28b(FN25); and by parallels with other early Jewish texts which associate Hebrew with Genesis 11. The latter include Jub. 12:25-27, discussed below, which claims that an angel revealed Hebrew to Abraham shortly after the Babel incident; and targums which insert the expressions "holy tongue" or "the language of the sanctuary" in Gen. 11:1.(FN26) Based on such evidence, Stone and Eshel reconstruct this passage in 4Q464 as a prophecy anticipating a time when the curse of Babel, the curse of heteroglossia, will be lifted and all people will again speak the "pure" language of Hebrew. A similar idea appears in the Testament of Judah, which--although it does not refer to Hebrew explicitly-asserts that in the eschatological age "when Abraham, Isaac and Jacob will arise to life ... there will be one people of the Lord and one language" (25:1-3). It has an even closer parallel in the passage from Midrash Tanhuma cited above which not only predicts that all peoples will speak Hebrew in the World to Come but even cites Zeph. 3:9 as a proof text, as does 4Q464 3.1, line 9: "[I will make] the people pure of speech." The use of this citation in a Qumran text referring to Hebrew suggests that the Jews there also believed that

Hebrew was the eschatological language. Indeed, Stone and Eshel infer from 4Q464 that the sect consistently used Hebrew in its own writings precisely because it believed itself to be the eschatological community living in the "End of Days."(FN27) This is an appealing reconstruction. Yet even if accepted, it raises a question not answered: how can one use 4Q464 to shed light on the Qumran sect's use of Hebrew when this text was probably not composed by the sect itself? (FN28) To address this question, we need first to consider what else 4Q464 reveals about its author's linguistic beliefs. One insight arises when we contrast 4Q464's claim about Hebrew, as reconstructed by Stone and Eshel, with those made by other Jews in the same period. Whether Philo knew Hebrew himself is a much debated question, but it is clear from his comments about his biblical ancestors' use of language, and from his frequent reference to Hebrew etymologies that he had great esteem for the language of his biblical ancestors.(FN29) Philo often praised the names that Abraham and Moses assigned to objects as "the most forceful expression of things" (Cher. 53-56), "perfectly apt and expressive" (Agr. 1-2), and as indicative of "a very precise mind" (QG4.194).(FN30) Such praise at first seems similar to 4Q464's exaltation of Hebrew as a "pure" language, but a closer look reveals differences.(FN31) For while Philo often refers to the precision and aptness of Hebrew, he also suggests that these virtues are potentially characteristic of any language. Abraham and Moses are among the few sages to have captured these qualities in their own language--following Adam, the most perfect user of human language according to Philo(FN32)--but these qualities can be realized in Greek as well, as the translators of the Septuagint demonstrated: These writers, as it clearly appears, arrived at a wording which corresponded with the matter, and alone, or better than any other, would bring out clearly what was meant. The clearest proof of this is that, if Chaldeans have learned Greek, or Greeks Chaldean, and read both versions, the Chaldean and the translation, they regard them with awe and reverence as sisters, or rather one and the same, both

in matter and words, and speak of the authors not as translators but as prophets and priests of the mysteries (Moses 2.39-40). For Philo, "Chaldean" (a label for Hebrew probably derived from the Aramaic or "Chaldean" script in which it came to be written in the Second Temple period) and Greek were potentially equivalent forms of expression, "sisters, or rather one and the same, both in matter and words." While the Hebrew of the patriarchs remains a model of linguistic expression, therefore, it is not the only language which can convey divine wisdom--Greek and perhaps other languages can do so as well.(FN33) I would not want to hazard whether it is Philo's beliefs about language that motivated his use of Greek or his use of Greek that motivated his linguistic beliefs, but his perception of scriptural language and its relationship to other languages clearly seems adapted to the needs of a Jew inclined to interact with others, including fellow Jews, in Greek.(FN34) The author of 4Q464 seems to have perceived the relationship of Hebrew to other languages quite differently. Consistent with his overall ideology of language, Philo doubted whether the Babel curse really accounted for the origin of Greek and barbarian languages: "if [Moses] had merely meant that different languages then originated," Philo wrote in Conf. 191, "he would have applied a more correct term and called it 'separation' rather than 'confusion.'"(FN35) 4Q464, by contrast, seems to read the Babel story as a validation of Hebrew, a "pure" language superior to all other curse-laden languages. Judging from his citation of Zeph. 3:9, the author of 4Q464 can, like Philo, envision the overcoming of linguistic difference: God will one day make the peoples pure of speech. Unlike Philo, however, he evidently believed that linguistic unification was not going to come about through translation and other acts of linguistic accommodation by Jews, but only when all other peoples abandon their languages for Hebrew. In contrast to Philo's linguistic claims, then, which amount to a justification of Jewish use of Greek, 4Q464's description of Hebrew seems to presuppose a deliberate rejection of the

need or utility of using languages other than Hebrew. This is a reconstruction, of course, but support for it comes from cross-cultural analogies with more recent speech communities seeking to maintain their ancestral languages in multilingual societies. H. Schiffman has shown, for example, that claims by Tamils about their language reflect an effort to preserve their linguistic heritage in a social environment increasingly dominated byEnglish and Hindi. (FN36) Indeed, at least one Tamil linguistic claim is strikingly analogous to the description of Hebrew in 4Q464 as a "holy tongue." It seems likely that this expression was originally suggested by the use of Hebrew in the Temple cult (its construction resembles that of other cult-related expressions like "the holy shekel," i.e, a shekel weighed according to the Temple standard), although some scholars have contested this derivation.(FN37) Whatever its origins, the phrase finds a close analogue in Tamil linguistic culture, where a cultic expression is also used to convey teh sacred inviolability of the native language. According to Schiffman, the sanctity ascribed to the Tamil language promotes its continued use and transmission in a society where many social and economic forces encourage use of other languages. Similarly, the description fo Hebrew found in 4Q464 can be plausibly read as a reaction against the multilingualism of Hellenistic-Roman Palestine, na attempt to represent abandonment of Hebrew for other languages as a temporary, soon corrected dereliction form the divinely ordained tongue. Cross-cultural analogy cannot fill in the gaps in our evidence, but a second textfound at Qumran helps to confirm this reading of 4Q464. Like 4Q464, Jubilees was probably not composd by the Qumran sect. Nevertheless, this text was clearly important to the sect, which possessed over a dozen copies of it, cited it as an authoritative text, and shared many of its ideas about angels and other matters.(FN38) Jubilees' high status at Qumran increases the likelihood that the linguistic beliefs 4q464 shares with it were also shared by the Qumran sect. Jubilees aslo hints at other beliefs that may have influenced the sect's linguistic

behavior. Here is what Jubilees has ot say about Hebrew (Jub. 12:25-27):(FN39) Then the Lord God said to me, "Open his mouth and his ears so that he might hear and speak with his tongue in the revealed language. For from the day of the collapse, it had disappeared from the mouth of all mankind." I opened his mouth and his ears and his lips and began to speak with him in Hebrew, in the language of the creation. He took his father's books (they were written in Hebrew) and he copied them. From that time he began to study them while I was telling him everything that he was unable (to understand). He studied them throughout the six rainy months. Since we know so little about 4Q464, we cannot assume that its view of Hebrew is identical to that of Jubilees in every respect. We cannot assume, for example, that the author of 4Q464 shared the belief that Hebrew, completely forgotten after Babel, was revived in the days of Abraham through angelic revelation, for there are no references to such ideas in the extant portions of 4Q464, and we know from later pseudepigraphal texts that other scenarios were entertained.(FN40) This said, the authors of the two texts do share a perception of Hebrew as not simply one of the many languages spoken after Babel but as the true language which everyone would speak if the world were the way it was supposed to be. While in 4Q464 this idea can only be teased out through reconstruction and analogy, Jubilees clearly describes Hebrew as "the language of creation" spoken by all humanity (and animals as well(FN41)), until Babel introduced heteroglossia.(FN42) Jubilees not only makes explicit the view of Hebrew that is implicit in 4Q464; it also allows us a glimpse of what this belief could entail for those who adhered to it. For one thing, according to Jubilees, the revelation of Hebrew to Abraham did not merely involve the revival of the original language, but actually changed the relation of the past to the present by allowing Abraham to learn the teachings of pre-Babel sages like Enoch and Noah, as recorded in the texts these figures left behind. The first thing Abraham does with his new linguistic skills, after all, is to copy his father's books

and study them for six months, and one of the last things he does before dying is to pass on what he has learned from these texts to Isaac: "thus I have found written in the books of my forefathers and in the words of Enoch and in the words of Noah" (Jub. 21:10-11).(FN43) To understand Hebrew, according to Jubilees, is to belong to a divinely selected group with access to esoteric knowledge inherited from the age before Babel. In Jubilees Hebrew is also said to connect those who use it to the heavenly community. It is, after all, the very angel narrating Jubilees who first converses with Abraham in Hebrew and who helps the patriarch understand Hebrew texts: "I opened his mouth and his ears and his lips and began to speak with him in Hebrew .... From that time he began to study them while I was telling him everything that he was unable (to understand)." The significance of this claim is sharpened by the widespread belief, found in many Jewish and Christian texts, that angelic language is different from ordinary language and is, in fact, beyond human linguistic capacities. Thus, in the Apocalypse of Abraham (15:7) Abraham reports hearing the angels "crying aloud words I did not know"; 2 Enoch 17:1 claims that the angels' songs are "impossible to describe"; and 2 Cor. 12:4 refers to an associate of Paul who was "caught up into paradise" where he heard "unspeakable words which it is not permitted for a man to speak." In these and other texts, a human or select group of humans does manage to learn angelic language: Job's daughters in the Testament of Job 48-50 acquire the power to speak in an angelic "dialect"; Zephaniah in the Apocalypse of Zephaniah 8 learns the language of the angels and even prays with them; and Yohanan ben Zakkai studied the language of the ministering angels (b. B. Bat. 134a). This ability is invariably represented as exceptional, however, available only to a few deemed worthy of acquiring it.(FN44) Jubilees also claims that an exceptional Israelite acquired esoteric linguistic knowledge from an angel, but there is a significant difference: for the language revealed to Abraham is no indecipherable tongue, "impossible to describe"--but it is none other than Hebrew!

(FN45) Although the author of Jubilees does not elaborate upon this claim, it proves to play a key role in his conception of what distinguishes Israel from other nations. According to Jubilees, in the days of Adam, Enoch, and Noah, the angels transmitted heavenly knowledge either through personal instruction or by revealing to men the contents of "heavenly tablets." They revealed secrets of horticulture (3:15), law (4:15), calendar (4:18), astronomy (4:28), medicine (10:1012), and other kinds of heavenly wisdom, along with insights into the future (32:20-27).(FN46) In the age before Babel, there was no linguistic impediment to such instruction; individuals were even able to decipher the text of angelic teachings without the consent of the angels themselves (see Jub. 8:2-4). After Babel, however, only Abraham and his children were privileged to learn from the angels. Jubilees 12 declares that it was the ability to read and write in Hebrew-skills which were themselves revealed to Abraham by an angel--that allowed Israel alone among the nations to continue learning from the angels. For the author of Jubilees, in other words, Hebrew represented what D. Martin has recently described as "esoteric speech," a kind of language "closed to all but certain participants who acquire the ability to speak it in abnormal ways, by teaching from spirits or gods and training through secretive procedures."(FN47) Martin finds that this kind of language was used in religious communities, not by the less educated, marginalized, or the gullible (as many modern scholars seem to assume), but by religious leaders, experts, therapists, and others of "high status," allowing them to communicate with divine beings or to express insights learned from such communication. Martin interprets Paul's references to "speaking in tongues" and the "tongues of men and of angels" in 1 Corinthians 12-14 as evidence that an elite group within the Corinthian church was claiming high status within its Christian community. Whether such behavior is related in any specific way to earlier Jewish beliefs about angelic speech is under debate.(FN48) Whatever the connection, however, the notion of esoteric

speech helps to clarify Jubilees' conception of Hebrew. For much of what this text says about Hebrew--that it was revealed especially to Abraham by divine order, that Abraham's first conversation in Hebrew was with an angel, that Abraham could understand the texts of his forefathers only with the angel's help--indicates that its author regarded Hebrew as a medium through which a select group acquired supernatural knowledge. While Hebrew would not involve the kind of incomprehension associated with glossolalia, incantations, and the like, Jubilees intimates that without angelic aid Hebrew would nonetheless be indecipherable. (FN49) Thus, 4Q464 depicts Hebrew as the language of the nations at the "End of Days," and Jubilees represents it as the language of those privy to heavenly secrets. But what both texts share is a conception of it as a supernatural language unlike any other, a transcendent tongue revealed to a divinely designated community in order to free it from Babel's curse. The question we must next address is whether the linguistic beliefs reflected in these two texts can tell us anything about why the Qumransect used Hebrew in its own writings. THE QUMRAN SECT AS A TRANSCENDENT SPEECH COMMUNITY Little is known with certainty about how the contents of the Dead Sea Scrolls relate to the religious and social life of the Qumran community. Some of the scrolls exhibit a distinctive terminology and address the concerns of a specific sectarian community, and most scholars agree that these texts at least can be used to reconstruct the beliefs and praxis of the Qumran community. In most cases, however, it is not easy to relate Qumran texts to social reality, since they may not have been composed there and may or may not have played an important role in the community's religious life.(FN50) Because there are no explicit references to Hebrew in these documents, there would seem to be no direct way of knowing how its members perceived this language. According to Rabin, however, there may be indirect references to Hebrew in Qumran sectarian

documents. He interpreted references in the Thanksgiving Hymns (IQH) and the Damascus Document to the "uncircumcised," and to the "weird" language of the community's opponents as disparaging descriptions of the vulgarized Hebrew used by the Pharisees. Note, for example, the evocation of Isa. 28:11-13a in 1QH x:18b: "But they have changed them by uncircumcised lip and weird (or alien) tongue into a people without understanding, and so they go astray in their delusions" (cf. 1QH12:16; CD5:11-12). Not everyone accepts Rabin's interpretation of these lines: they could refer to the use of Greek by the community's opponents, for example.(FN51) However, Rabin's general point is consistent with a behavior associated with elite groups in other societies, where speech habits distinguish among people of different classes and social backgrounds. (FN52) The references in Qumran sectarian texts to the deficient language of outsiders--however we identify that language--seem to involve this sort of practice, where use of a variety of speech other than that of the sect itself marks estrangement from the community. There is other evidence that the use of a special kind of language distinguished the Qumrancommunity. Several texts found at Qumran refer to angels praising God in the heavenly temple, frequently linking their capacity to do so to their exceptional knowledge. For example, 4Q400 frag. 2.2 has, "they will recount the splendor of his kingdom, according to their knowledge," and 4Q403 col. 1.36 reads, "sing with joy, those of you enjoying his knowledge."(FN53) Angelic praise, these texts seem to suggest, represents an elevated form of speech available only to those gifted with divine knowledge, an impression reinforced by 4Q400 frag. 2.7, which contrasts the praise offered by humans with the knowledge of angels: "What is the offering of our tongue of dust [compared] with the knowledge of the divinities?" Other evidence indicates that the Qumran community also believed that, at least under certain circumstances, it could overcome its linguistic limitations and acquire the linguistic knowledge granted to the angels, as shown by sectarian

documents which refer to the community's ability to join the angels in praise: The corrupt spirit you have purified from the great sin so that he [the corrupt spirit] can take his place with the host of the holy ones, and can enter in communion with the congregation of the sons of heaven. You cast eternal destiny for man with the spirits of knowledge, so that he praises your name together in celebration. (1QH[supa] xi: 21-23) This and other similar passages are evidence that members of the Qumran sect believed they could participate with the angels in heavenly rites.(FN54) Why does the ability to join in angelic speech figure so prominently in the Qumran community's descriptions of itself? According to Newsom, the community, denied or resisting access to the Temple cult in Jerusalem, sought to validate its religious identity by seeking access to the heavenly temple through communal performance of the hymns in the Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice.(FN55) This insight brings us close to what motivated the community's attempt to fuse itself linguistically with the angelic community. As reflected in sectarian texts like the Damascus Document and the Habakkuk Pesher, theQumran community had come to recognize that many Jews, including ritual experts, such as priests, did not acknowledge its authority or accept its understanding of scripture and religious practice; and it labeled such Jews as apostates who "stray from the path" (CD 1.12-13) or who "have rejected the Law of God" (1QpHab 1.11). Perceiving itself to be the authentic heir to biblical Israel, but now surrounded by a hostile and ignorant social world, the Qumran community evidently sought to legitimate its religious status in ways that did not depend on external validation from outside the community. It seems to have done this in part by recontextualizing itself within an alternative and much more receptive social world--the heavenly world where it found among the angels the sacerdotal approval and communal acceptance lacking in the mundane world below. Language played a central role in linking the Qumran sect to this world, for the testimony of Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice, the Thanksgiving Hymns,

and other sectarian texts shows that the community believed that it fused itself with the community of angels by sharing their language and knowledge. While it is true that Qumran sectarian documents never refer to Hebrew explicitly, nevertheless we find reflected in them a conception of language that overlaps with the view of Hebrew in Jubilees and 4Q464. The sect refers to its own specialized language in much the same way that Hebrew is described in these earlier texts, claiming that its linguistic abilities were available only to those favored by God, that they were shared with a supernatural community, and that they gave the sect access to special knowledge. These are the very traits ascribed to Hebrew in 4Q464 and Jubilees, a similarity that suggests that the Qumran sect was still operating with the same basic linguistic belief-system--even if it had reinterpreted many of these beliefs to apply to its own special dialect of Hebrew rather than to Hebrew in general. B. Spolsky has observed that first-century Jews tended to use the language that "asserted the most advantageous social membership for them in the proposed interaction."(FN56) The value of 4Q464's and Jubilees' references to Hebrew, in tandem with the testimony of sectarian Dead Sea Scrolls, is that they help us reconstruct why the members of the Qumran sect believed that it was Hebrew that offered the most social advantages--despite the benefits of using Greek and Aramaic in Hellenistic-Roman Palestine. In 4Q464 and Jubilees, use of Hebrew is represented as the linguistic prerequisite for membership in a supernatural community, either the community at the End of Days or that of the angels in the heavenly temple. The Qumran sect seems to have identified itself with both these communities. If I am correct that the sect shared the linguistic beliefs reflected in 4Q464 and Jubilees, its use of Hebrew--and its avoidance of other "mundane" languages-would have been one way in which it affirmed its identity as a transcendent community, a symbolic gesture of its eternally valid status in a world of competing ideologies and languages.(FN57)

Yet this conclusion requires some qualification. The linguistic beliefs reflected in 4Q464 and Jubilees may well have been shared by other forms of Judaism. Certainly, parallels with later Jewish and Christian sources that also describe Hebrew as the original language indicate that some of the linguistic beliefs described in this study did not remain exclusive to the sectarian form of Judaism of the sort reflected in the Dead Sea Scrolls.(FN58) We have seen, however, that in the Hellenistic-Roman period these beliefs were not shared by Jews living in other kinds of sociolinguistic environments. Philo viewed Hebrew and Greek as potentially equivalent modes of expression, a belief serving his hope for integration into Greek-speaking Alexandria. In rabbinic literature, one can detect several beliefs about Hebrew and its relation to other languages, no doubt reflecting the differing linguistic environments in which rabbinic literature was formulated.(FN59) Some rabbis shared the view of Jubilees that Hebrew was once the original language of all humankind (see j. Meg. 1,11 [9], 71b, for example), but other sages, with different linguistic priorities, claimed that pre-Babel figures like Adam actually spoke Aramaic (b. Sanh. 38b). This evidence is drawn from different periods and locales, indicating that the role of Scripture as a model of linguistic behavior was construed differently by Jews living in different linguistic cultures. The Qumran sect was one such culture, and what distinguished it as a social group--its self-image as a transcendent community; its efforts to compensate for a lack of external validation; its creation of social borders between itself and outsiders--is what distinguished its linguistic culture from that of other kinds of Judaism. With this last observation, I am prepared to spell out my answer to the question posed by this essay. Why did the Qumran community write in Hebrew? To transcend the multilingualism of the wayward world around it. ADDED MATERIAL STEVE WEITZMAN INDIANA UNIVERSITY The research for this essay was made possible by grants

from the American Council of Learned Societies and the Yad HaNadiv/Hebarecha Foundation. I would also like to thank Dr. Sara Japhet and Mira Wasserman for commenting on earlier drafts of this study. line 5 ] confused tlbn [ line 6 ]m to Abrah [r] am[sup22] m [k]hkbal m[ line 7 for ever, since he/it hakh ayk mlkts kts line 8 r]ead the holy tongue shdkqh Nkshl ad[q line 9 I will make] the myMts la [kpha people pure of speech hkNkb hpsh FOOTNOTES
1 For a detailed review of the evidence for multilingualism at Qumran, see E. Puech, "Du bilinguisme Qumran," in Mosa"ique de langues, mosa"ique culturelle: Le Bilinguisme dans le Proche-Orient ancien, ed. F. Briquel-Chatonnet (Paris: Jean Maisonneuve, 1996), 171-79. Also cited as evidence for multilingualism at Qumran is a fragmentary passage in the Damascus Document (CD 14:9-10) which, as usually reconstructed, requires a sect official to know "all the secrets of men and the tongues of all their families." Note, however, that in the recent retranscription of the Geniza CD by E. Qimron (The Damascus Document Reconsidered, ed. M. Broshi [Jerusalem: Israeli Exploration Society, 1992], 37), the Hebrew word for "their families" is not clearly preserved. In response to this lacuna, C. Nebe has argued that the passage actually requires the overseer to master both "high" language and the language of the common folk (Nvkvrpv hMr Nvshl). See C. Nebe, "Das Sprachvermgen des Mebaqqer in Damaskusschrift xiv 10," RQ 62 (1993): 289-92. Nebe's reconstruction is unlikely because the word "common folk" is rare, but that an alternative reconstruction is even possible remainds us that the conventional reading of this passage is only a conjecture. 2 Puech, "Du bilinguisme," 176. 3 See S. Segert, "Die Sprachenfragen in der Qumran Gemeinschaft," in QumranProbleme, ed. H. Bardtke (Berlin: Academie-Verlag, 1963), 315-19. The nearly complete publication of DSS fragments now seems to bear out this initial impression. See D. Dimant, "The Qumran Manuscripts: Contents and Significance," in Time to Prepare the Way in the Wilderness, ed. D. Dimant and L. Schiffman (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1995), 23-58. 4 The evidence for Hebrew use in the Second Temple Period is reviewed in C. Rabin, "Hebrew and Aramaic in the First Century," in The Jewish People in the First Century, vol. 2, ed. S. Safrai and M. Stern (Assen: Van Gorcum; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1976), 1007-39. Among those who argue that Hebrew continued as a vital spoken language throughout the Second Temple period, see M. Segal, "Mishnaic Hebrew and its Relation to Biblical Hebrew and to Aramaic," JQR 20 (1908): 647-737; H. Birkeland, The Language of Jesus (Oslo: I. Kommisjon Hos Jacob Dybwad, 1954); J. Grintz, "Hebrew as the Spoken and Written Language in the Last Days of the Second Temple Period," JBL 79 (1960): 32-47. 5 Among those who have discerned in Qumran Hebrew signs of a living, colloquial language, see E. Kutscher, The Language and Linguistic Background of the Isaiah

Scroll (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1979), 46; S. Morag, "Qumran Hebrew: Some Typological Observations," VT 38 (1988): 148-64; E. Qimron, "Observations on the History of Early Hebrew (1000 B.C.E.-200 C.E.) in the Light of the Dead Sea Documents," in The Dead Sea Scrolls: Forty Years of Research, ed. D. Dimant and U. Rappaport (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1992), 349-61. 6 Cf. the seminal study of J. Fishman, "Language Maintenance and Language Shift as Fields of Inquiry," Linguistics 9 (1964): 32-70. 7 See J. Klausner, "Origin of the Language of the Mishnah," Scripta Universitatis atque Bibliothecae Hierosolymitanarum, Orientalia et Judaica, I (Jerusalem: Hebrew University, 1923), no. 11, 1-8 [in Hebrew]; J. Milik, Ten Years of Discovery in the Wilderness of Judaea (London: SCM, 1959), 130; B. Z. Wacholder, "The Ancient JudeoAramaic Literature (500-164 B.C.E.): A Classification of Pre-Qumranic Texts," in Archaeology and History in the Dead Sea Scrolls, ed. L. Schiffman (Sheffield: JSOT, 1990), 257-81. Similar "revivals" of Hebrew are thought to have occurred in subsequent periods in antiquity as well. See L. Kadmon, The Coins of the Jewish War of 66-73 C.E. (Tel Aviv: Schocken, 1960), 59-71; Y. Yadin, Bar Kochba (London: Steinmatzky's with Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1971), 181; C. Haas, Alexandria in Late Antiquity: Topography and Social Conflict (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997), 120-21. 8 For the numismatic evidence, see Y. Meshorer, Jewish Coins in the Second Temple Period, tr. L. Levine (Tel Aviv: Am Hassefer, 1967), 41-63, and the studies cited in the preceding note. For the revived use of paleo-Hebrew script in the Second Temple period, see R. Hanson, "Paleo-Hebrew Scripts in the Hasmonean Age," BASOR 175 (1964): 26-42. On the use of Hebrew in Daniel 8-12, see J. Collins, Daniel (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1993), 24. On the presumed use of Hebrew in 1 Maccabees, see J. Goldstein, 1 Maccabees (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1976), 1416. 9 Sixteen manuscripts from Qumran, mostly biblical texts, are written in paleoHebrew script. See Puech, "Du bilinguisme," 177; and see E. Tov, "Letters of the Crytic A Script and Paleo-Hebrew Letters used as Scribal Marks in Some Qumran Scrolls," Dead Sea Discoveries 2 (1995): 330-39. 10 Cf. S. Schwartz, "Language, Power and Identity," Past and Present 148 (1995): 2131. 11 In fact, both Hebrew and archaizing Hebrew script were used periodically in the centuries before the Maccabean Revolt, thus severing any necessary connection between revived Hebrew use and Hasmonean ideology. Note, for example, that Ben Sira, written a few decades before the Maccabean Revolt, was composed in Hebrew, and that Hebrew written in paleo-Hebrew script was used in Persian-period Judean coins. See R. Deutsch, "Six Unrecorded 'Yehud' Silver Coins," IEJ 11 (1990-91): 4-6. 12 C. Rabin, "The Historical Background of Qumran Hebrew," Scripta Hierosolymitana 4 (1958): 144-61. 13 For a recent analysis of Qumran Hebrew that directly challenges many of Rabin's specific claims aboutQumran Hebrew and its relation to other dialects, see Qimron, "History of Early Hebrew." 14 I thank Dr. Schniedewind for sharing with me a draft of his essay. 15 See M. K. Halliday, Language as Social Semiotic: The Social Interpretation of Language and Meaning (Baltimore: E. Arnold, 1986), 164-82. 16 See M. Bar Asher, "The Different Traditions of Mishnaic Hebrew," in Working with

No Data: Semitic and Egyptian Studies Presented to Thomas O. Lambdin, ed. D. Golomb (Winona Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns, 1987), 1-38. Our documentation for Palestinian Hebrew in the late Second Temple is, apart from the Dead Sea Scrolls, quite slim. As Schwartz points out ("Language, Power and Identity," 15-16), only a few of the hundreds of Semitic ostraca found at Masada are in Hebrew, and Hebrew inscriptions from Jerusalem in this period are rare, as well. 17 Qimron ("History of Early Hebrew," 354) notes that the language of the legal section of MMT is less similar to biblical Hebrew than that of the theological section. In note 13 on the same page, he makes a similar claim about the different sections of the Damascus Document. Compare the correlation between language choice and genre in late-antiquity Palestinian literature as noted by J. Yahalom, "Angels Do Not Understand Aramaic: On the Literary Use of Jewish Palestinian Aramaic in Late Antiquity," JJS 47 (1996): 33-44. 18 Cf. H. Schiffman, "The Balance of Power in Multiglossic Languages: Implications for Language Shift," International Journal for the Sociology of Languages 103 (1993): 115-48, esp. p. 120. 19 M. Stone and E. Eshel, "An Exposition on the Patriarchs (4Q464) and Two Other Documents (4Q464a And 4Q464b)," Le Muson 105 (1992): 243-64; idem, "Exposition on the Patriarchs;" Qumran Cave 4, part II: Parabiblical Texts, DJD 19 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995), 215-30. 20 4Q464 was considered too fragmentary to be included in the nearly comprehensive English translation of the scrolls edited by F. Garcia Martinez, The Dead Sea Scrolls Translated (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1994). The reading here follows that of Stone and Eshel ("Exposition on the Patriarchs," 249). Otherwise, all translations of Qumran documents in this essay are cited according to Garcia Martinez' translation. 21 M. Stone and E. Eshel, "The Holy Language at the End of Days in Light of a Qumran Fragment," Tarbiz 62 (1993-94): 169-77 [in Hebrew]. 22 The spelling of Abraham with an extra "r" is puzzling and Stone and Eshel ("Exposition on the Patriarchs," 250) can offer no explanation. 23 For example, cf. j. Meg. 1.11 (71a). 24 See Stone and Eshel ("Exposition on the Patriarchs," 250) who prefer a connection with "confuse" over other readings. 25 Note as well that the targumic rendering of the phrase "pure speech" in Zeph. 3:9 as "one chosen language" appears to have been influenced by the phrase "one language" in Gen. 11:1. I thank M. Morgenstern for calling my attention to this example. 26 See E. Clarke, Targum Pseudo-Jonathan of the Pentateuch: Text and Concordance (Hoboken, N.J.: Ktav, 1984), 11; A. Dez Macho, Neophyti I. Targum Palestinense MS de la Biblioteca Vaticana, vol. 1: Genesis (Madrid and Barcelona: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientficas, 1968), 57. 27 There are many indications within Qumran sectarian documents that the community believed it lived at the dawn of the eschatological age. See L. Schiffman, The Eschatological Community of the Dead Sea Scrolls (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1989). 28 4Q464 was apparently not composed at Qumran itself. Stone and Eshel note that texts so composed did not refer to Gentile conversion as a component of the eschatological age, a motif implicit in 4Q464's reference to Zeph. 3:9. Moreover,

4Q464 lacks the specialized terminology of Qumran sectarian texts. See Dimant, "Qumran Manuscripts," 50, n. 68. 29 The present consensus is that Philo knew little if any Hebrew and probably drew on onomastic sources for his knowledge of Hebrew etymologies. See S. Sandmel, "Philo's Knowledge of Hebrew: The Present State of the Problem," StPh 5 (1978-79): 107-12; D. Rokeah, "A New Onomasticon Fragment from Oxyrhynchus and Philo's Etymologies," JThS 19 (1968): 70-82; L. Grabbe, Etymology in Early Jewish Interpretation: The Hebrew Names in Philo (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1988). That Hebrew was not widely known among Jews in Hellenistic-Roman Egypt is further supported by inscriptional evidence. Of 135 published inscriptions from the period, all are in Greek, except for two in Aramaic and three in Hebrew. See W. Horbury, "Jewish Inscriptions and Jewish Literature in Egypt with Special Reference to Ecclesiasticus," in Studies in Early Jewish Epigraphy, ed. J. van Henten and P. van der Horst (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1994), 9-43. 30 See D. Winston, "Aspects of Philo's Linguistic Theory," in The Studia Philonica Annual, vol. 3, ed. D. Runia (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1991), 109-25. 31 Several recent scholars have noted that Philo's linguistic views emerge out of a long debate within Greek philosophical tradition over the nature of language. See Winston, "Aspects"; D. Dawson, Allegorical Readers and Cultural Revision in Ancient Alexandria (Berkeley and Los Angeles; Univ. of California Press, 1992), 84-92; M. Niehoff, "What's in a Name? Philo's Mystical Philosophy of Language," Jewish Studies Quarterly 2 (1995): 220-52. 32 See Dawson, Allegorical Readers, 84-92, who observes that in Philo's view it was only the ideal, non-material Adam of Genesis 1 who used language perfectly; the material Adam of Genesis 2-3 soon fell prey to the ambiguities of language, thus misinterpreting God's command not to eat of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. 33 Cf. Winston, "Aspects," 121-22; Niehoff, "What's in a Name?" 251. According to Winston ("Aspects," 119-20), Philo's view of language accounts for his use of Greek etymologies to explain Hebrew names. 34 Philo was not the only Alexandrian Jew to justify Jewish use of Greek. See the Letter of Aristeas, a document probably composed in Alexandria in the second century B.C.E. Through the character of the high priest in Jerusalem, the Letter explains that the function of the Torah is to surround Jews "with impregnable palisades and with walls of iron, to the end that we should mingle in no way with any of the other nations ... in matters of food and drink and touch and hearing and sight" (pp. 139-40). Significantly, however, the language of scripture is nowhere mentioned as one of the "palisades" that prevents Jews from mixing with other peoples, and, later in the work, it is clear that the author endorses the translation of scripture into Greek. In other words, the author of the Letter of Aristeas, though revering scripture, seems also to have believed that Greek can serve just as well as Hebrew in transmitting divine truths (see Letter of Aristeas, para. 16). For further discussion of early Jewish attitudes towards translation, see N. Janowitz, "The Rhetoric of Translation: Three Early Perspectives on Translating Torah," HTR 84.2 (1991): 129-40. 35 Philo's claim that linguistic difference did not begin at Babel is not without scriptural support. See Gen. 10:5, which implies that there was a plurality of languages even before Babel. 36 Schiffman, "Balance of Power," 120-21; 138-41.

37 See P. Schfer, Die Vorstellung vom Heiligen Geist in der rabbinischen Literature (Mnchen: Ksel Verlag, 1972), 137-39. In contrast to this view, A. Shinan, "'The Language of the Sanctuary' in the Aramaic Targumim to the Pentateuch," Bet Miqra 3/66 (1975-76: 472-74 [in Hebrew]), has argued that the phrase originated in reference to the language of the synagogue. 4Q464 now casts doubt on Shinan's proposal since it is not clear that the synagogue had yet become a central institution, if it existed at all, at the time of this text's composition. Even if Shinan is correct, however, the term would still have had ritual connotations. Stone and Eshel ("Holy Language," 173, n. 10) believe that the phrase originally referred to the "language of the Holy One," that is, the language of God. 38 For the affinities between Jubilees and the Qumran sect, see J. VanderKam, Textual and Historical Studies in the Book of Jubilees (Missoula: Scholars Press, 1977), 255-83; D. Dimant, "The Sons of Heaven: The Theory of the Angels in the Book of Jubilees in Light of the Writings of the QumranCommunity," in Tribute to Sara: Studies in Jewish Philosophy and Kabbala, ed. M. Idel, D. Dimant, and S. Rosenberg (Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1994), 97-118. 39 This passage does not appear among the fragments found at Qumran, but it is known from later translations. For the recently published Hebrew fragments of Jubilees from Qumran, see H. Attridge et al., Qumran Cave 4, VIII: Parabiblical Texts, DJD 13 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994), 1-175, pls. I-XII. For a critical edition of the Ethiopic version of Jubilees along with discussion of the other versions transmitted by Christians, see J. VanderKam, The Book of Jubilees (Louvain: E. Peeters, 1989). All citations of Jubilees in the present study follow the translation of O. Wintermute, "Jubilees: A New Translation and Introduction," in Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, vol. 2, ed. J. Charlesworth (New York: Doubleday, 1985), 35-142. 40 For instance, the Hebrew Testament of Naphtali, a medieval text found in Codex Oxford d II, which reflects exegetical traditions from as far back as the Second Temple period, claims that after Babel an angel revealed all the other languages to the rest of humanity, while Abraham was permitted to continue using Hebrew. For the evidence suggesting that this document reflects traditions originating in the Second Temple period, see M. Stone, "The Geneology of Bilhah," Dead Sea Discoveries 3 (1996): 20-36. (I thank Dr. Stone for discussing this issue with me.) Note also that a tradition found in both Christian and Jewish sources explains the name "Hebrew" by linking it to Eber, who was allowed to continue using Hebrew because he had not joined in building Babel. For sources, see R. H. Charles, The Book of Jubilees, or, the Little Genesis (London: Adam and Charles Black, 1902), 27-28, n. 28. 41 Jub. 3:28 reports that, prior to Adam's sin, the animals spoke to one another "with one speech and one language," hence Hebrew. 42 This passage's mention of "the day of the Collapse" certainly refers to the Babel incident and not the expulsion from Eden or the Flood, since in Jub. 10:29 the fallen tower is referred to by the name "Collapse." Cf. VanderKam, Book of Jubilees, 73. 43 Abraham's descendants are understood by Jubilees to have continued transmitting this written tradition to their children. See Jub. 39:6, where Joseph "remembered ... the words which Jacob, his father, used to read, which were from the words of Abraham"; and 45:15 where Jacob "gave all his book and his fathers' books to Levi, his son, so that he might preserve them and renew them for his sons until this day."

44 For the belief that certain righteous individuals could join in the praise of angels, see the sources cited in M. Weinfeld, "The Heavenly Praise in Unison," in Meqor Hajjim: Festschrift fr Georg Molin zu seinem 75. Geburstag, ed. I. Seybold (Graz: Akademische Druck- und Verlagsanstalt, 1983), 427-37; M. Himmelfarb, "Heavenly Ascent and the Relationship of the Apocalypses and the Hekhalot Literature," HUCA 59 (1988): 73-100, esp. pp. 91-93; and compare our comments below about the Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice and other Qumran sources. For more on the idea of the angelic song in early Jewish and Christian texts, see C. Rowland, The Open Heaven: a Study of Apocalyptic in Judaism and Early Christianity (London: SPCK, 1982), 113-23; I. Gruenwald, "The Song of the Angels, the Qedushah, and the Composition of the Hekhalot Literature," in Jerusalem in the Second Temple Period: Abraham Schalit Memorial Volume, ed. A. Oppenheimer et al. (Jerusalem: Yad Izhak Ben Zvi, 1980), 459-81. 45 The belief that the angels spoke Hebrew was not unique to Jubilees. This idea seems presupposed, for example, in the widespread claim, derived from Isa. 6:1-3, that the angels recited the Qedushah (see 3 Enoch 1:11-13). While many sources assume that Israel shared Hebrew with the angels, Jubilees is unusual in its claim that Abraham learned Hebrew from an angel and needed angelic aid to decipher Hebrew texts. However, note the later testimony of 2 Enoch 23:1-2 (manuscript A), where an angel reveals Hebrew to Enoch. 46 For further discussion of Jubilees' religious ideology, see M. Testuz, Les Ides religieuses du Livre des Jubils (Geneva: E. Droz, 1960), 121-64; J. Schultz, "Two Views of the Patriarchs: Noahides and Pre-Sinai Israelites," in Texts and Responses: Studies Presented to Nahum Glatzer, ed. M. Fishbane and P. Flohr (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1975), 43-59; J. Endres, Biblical Interpretation in the Book of Jubilees (Washington: Catholic Biblical Association of America, 1987), 234-35; G. Anderson, "The Status of the Torah before Sinai," Dead Sea Discoveries I (1994): 1-29. 47 Dale Martin, "Tongues of Angels and Other Status Indicators," JAAR 54 (1991): 547-89. The phenomenon of glossolalia has inspired an enormous secondary literature. See W. Mills, Glossolalia: A Bibliography (New York: E. Mellen Press, 1985). 48 Some scholars have suggested a historical link between early Christian glossolalia and early Jewish beliefs about angelic speech, even pointing to Qumran as the origin of this phenomenon. See R. Harrisville, "Speaking in Tongues: A Lexicographical Study," CBQ 38 (1976): 35-48. Others have minimized the connection to early Judaism. See C. Forbes, Prophecy and Inspired Speech in Early Christianity and its Hellenistic Environment (Tbingen: J. C. B. Mohr, 1995), 182-87. 49 Others in antiquity also interpreted the incomprehensibility of Hebrew as a sign of its status as a supernatural language. In 4 Ezra 14, Ezra's five companions are said to have written down ninety-four books revealed by God "in characters which they did not know." Commentators see in this passage an effort to explain the use of Aramaic (square) script in biblical texts, a practice attributed by the rabbis to Ezra, as well (see b. Sanh. 21b). What is important here, however, is the text's association of the incomprehensibility of sacred (and presumably Hebrew) texts with their divinely revealed status. (I thank Dr. Japhet for calling my attention to this passage.) Note also the tradition in b. Meg. 3a that the Aramaic translation of the Prophets represents a revelation of divine secrets, and the claim of Lucian, a Syrian from the second century C.E., that a certain Alexander convinced people of his prophetic abilities by "uttering a few meaningless words like Hebrew or Phoenician." For the

use of esoteric speech in Hellenistic incantations, see H. Betz, "Secrecy in the Greek Magical Papyri," in Secrecy and Concealment: Studies in the History of Mediterranean and Near Eastern Religions, ed. H. Kippenberg and G. Stroumsa (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1995), 153-75. 50 On the difficulties of distinguishing sectarian from non-sectarian documents at Qumran, see C. Newsom, "'Sectually Explicit' Literature from Qumran," in The Hebrew Bible and its Interpreters, ed. W. Propp, B. Halpern, and D. N. Freedman (Winona Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns, 1990), 167-87; E. Chazon, "Is Divrei ha-Me'orot a Sectarian Prayer?" in The Dead Sea Scrolls: Forty Years of Research, ed. D. Dimant and U. Rappaport (Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1992), 3-17. Even more difficult than deciding the sectarian or non-sectarian provenance of Qumran texts is determining how they were understood and used by theQumran community; see Newsom, "'Sectually Explicit' Literature," 173-75. 51 For the view that these passages refer to the Greek of Hellenizing Jews, see G. Vermes, Les Manuscrits du dsert de Juda, 2nd ed. (Paris: Descle, 1953), 73-74, 190. 52 Cf. C. Myers-Scotten, "Elite Closure as a Powerful Language Strategy: The African Case," International Journal of the Sociology of Language 103 (1993): 149-63. Cf. Schwartz, "Language, Power and Identity," 29, who, without noting the Qumran evidence cited here, concludes that during the Second Temple period the use of Hebrew distinguished the intellectual and religious elite. 53 For the Hebrew text of the Songs of Sabbath Sacrifice, see C. Newsom, Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice: A Critical Edition (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1985). Some scholars have expressed doubt that the Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice was in fact composed by the Qumran community, not least because fragments of the same work were found at Masada. See Newsom, "'Sectually Explicit' Literature," 181-82. Whatever the origins of this composition, the number of copies found at Qumran (eight from cave 4, one from cave 11) suggests its importance there and a similar association of angelic linguistic ability and knowledge is identifiable in undeniably sectarian texts such as The Rule of the Community. 54 See Newsom, Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice, 59-72. 55 See Newsom, Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice, 71-72. 56 B. Spolsky, "Jewish Multilingualism in the First Century: An Essay in Historical Sociolinguistics," in Readings in the Sociology of Jewish Languages, ed. J. Fishman (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1985), 34-50, esp. pp. 45, 48-49. 57 My argument here may also help to clarify why some Qumran sectarian texts seem to avoid foreign loan words, a tendency noted by Schniedewind, "Qumran Hebrew as Anti-language." 58 For a review of later descriptions of Hebrew as the original or perfect language, see U. Eco, The Search for the Perfect Language (Oxford: Blackwell, 1995). 59 Cf. S. Fraade, "Rabbinic Views on the Practice of Targum and Multilingualism in The Jewish Galilee of the Third-Sixth Centuries," in The Galilee in Late Antiquity, ed. L. Levine (New York: JTS, 1992), 23-86. For debate in rabbinic literature about the legitimacy of Jewish use of Greek, see Spolsky, "Jewish Multilingualism," 38-39.

Source: Journal of the American Oriental January/March 1999, Vol. 119 Issue 1, p35, 11p

Society,