Joel M. Hoffman, In the Beginning: A Short History of the Hebrew Language

Joel M. Hoffman. In the Beginning: A Short History of the Hebrew Language. New York: New York University Press, 2004. Pp. xvi. and 263. 4 illustration. ISBN 0-8147-3690-4. Softcover. $17.95.

By Sean A. Guynes

For those interested in Near East history, Scriptural studies, or linguistics – specifically of the Hebrew language – In the Beginning: A Short History of the Hebrew Language stands as an accessible and practical achievement of Hebrew Union College’s Joel M. Hoffman, professor of ancient Hebrew at the Jewish Institute of Religion and translator for Jewish Lights Publishing. In the Beginning details the adventure of the life of Hebrew, its effects on the world’s alphabetical systems, the importance of the language’s successes, and how ancient, or biblical, Hebrew might have actually sounded. Though approaching such a significant work of scholarship appears intimidating, Hoffman’s book is organized in a manner that even those without prior knowledge of Hebrew, linguistics, or Scripture will find it straightforwardly instructive. The comprehensive nature of the book’s organization leaves no questions unanswered and provides appendices for further investigation of more broadly related topics. Brilliant and easy to read, In the Beginning portrays Hebrew as a language instrumental to the creation or widespread literacy and a predecessor to modern alphabets as a result of Hebrew being the first known language to record vowels. Further, an introduction to historical and linguistic theories and to various forms of non- and alphabetic writing is given. From the attempted recreation of ancient Hebrew pronunciation by the Masoretes and the Greeks, to the Dead Sea Scrolls, biblical dialects, and advances of Modern Hebrew by Ben-Yehuda, In the Beginning presents the grand picture of the Hebrew language’s over-3,000-year journey and its world-changing implementations as the language of Scripture and ancestor to the Western and Near Eastern worlds’ modern alphabets.
Anyone who wishes to delve into the wonders and mysteries of the creation of the Hebrew language should find no issues with Hoffman’s work, which is filled with scholarly insights and organized so that one with no experience may learn in the first few chapters all that is needed to understand the latter commentary, while someone with knowledge of historical and linguistic theories and the Hebrew alphabet may simply skip to the next chapters. In the Beginning is divided into four Parts and a fifth section, the Appendices. Part I, “Getting Started” is a brief, ten-page introduction, beginning with the three theories of history: Dumb-Luck Theory, God Theory, and Science Theory – knowing all of which is essentially to study not only history itself, but the way in which others and other culture have interpreted history and thus how history may have been interpretively passed down. The latter pages explore the two linguistic theories – prescriptive and descriptive linguistics – and the way in which Hebrew, and to a lesser extent, Greek and Russian, transliteration works. “Antiquity,” Part II, provides the in-depth introduction to non- and alphabetical writing systems, primarily those pre-Hebraic ones of the Near East, and details the groundbreaking importance of the Hebrews’ invention of vowels, even positing that the Hebrew alphabet might have been the first complete alphabet, following the tradition of Linear A and B and other Canaanite scripts. Hoffman next introduces the Masoretes, a group of Jewish linguists and scribes working out of Tiberias, Babylon, and Israel circa the 7th century C.E. who envisioned the pronunciation of ancient Hebrew who created various vowel systems, the most famous of which, Tiberian, is still employed to some extent today. To display the difficulty and in order to investigate the Masoretes’ accuracy Hoffman examines methods of comparing and concluding the pronunciation of ancient languages – specifically, of course, Tiberian Hebrew – by comparing Modern and Semitic ancestor languages and Greek, largely by way of the Septuagint (LXX) and the Origen Hexapla. Part III, “Moving On” explores the famous Dead Sea Scrolls (DSS), how they came to be and how came into scholars’ hands, and how the Hebrew and content of the DSS compares to earlier Toraic texts; also, various biblical dialects – the way in which different dialects effected writing, pronunciation, and grammar of the Torah – to further the exploration of Hebrew on a Scriptural level. Following the DSS, a section on post-biblical Hebrew introduces the effects of Greek and Aramaic on Hebrew, and vice versa, and the nature of Rabbinic Hebrew, which as a seemingly natural linguistic continuation of Biblical Hebrew confirms all that is believed about the dialects, grammar, and, to a lesser extent, the pronunciation of Biblical Hebrew. Finally, “Now”, Part IV, elucidates the courageous reassertion at the hands of Eliezer Ben-Yehuda of Hebrew as a modern, colloquially spoken language for the Jews, which developed along with the Zionist movement and come to fruition with the creation of the Mandate of Palestine in 1917 and, at last, with the establishment of the State of Israel. Those interesting in exploring more about historical and linguistic theories, writing systems, the Masoretes, DSS, and stages of Hebrew development and dialect, may consult the to Appendices, which itself bequeaths a wealth of information to the budding scholar or interested reader.
As a piece of scholarship, Joel Hoffman’s In the Beginning: A Short History of the Hebrew Language stands out as a crowning achievement of Hebrew language research and Scriptural history. This work champions the great triumph of Hebrew in creating an effective alphabetic writing system, replete with vowels, which promoted widespread literacy among the Hebrews, and which formed the basis for the Arabic, Cyrillic, Farsi, Greek, Roman, and Sanskrit alphabets. A Medieval Studies and Linguistics student with interest in Hebrew, and a Jew, I found Hoffman’s book within my interest, especially in terms of the historical development of Hebrew given in the latter Parts. Further, understanding the effects of Hebrew and its own genesis is a practically necessity for any student of the language or of theology. In the Beginning binds the rarely merged subjects of linguistics, history, and religion in one effective, intelligible, and outstanding piece of literature, a book that I feel will be indulged by the world of academia, students and professors alike, and likewise by anyone with a basic interest in the subjects it covers, for years to come.

Sean A. Guynes studies Medieval History, Hebrew, and Linguistics at Western Washington University.