Translation or Divination? Sacred Languages and Bilingualism in Judaism and Lucumí Traditions

I compare the status of a sacred language in two very different religious traditions. In Judaism, the Hebrew language is the language of liturgy, prayer, and the Written Law. The traditional way of reading Torah passages involved translating them into Aramaic, the everyday language of communication in the Middle East in the first half of the first millennium CE. Later, other Jewish languages, such as Yiddish, played a role similar to that of Aramaic in the Talmudic period, constituting a system referred to as the “Traditional Jewish Bilingualism”. Hebrew lexemes had denotations related to the realm of Biblical texts, while Aramaic/Yiddish lexemes had everyday references. Therefore, the act of translation connected the two realms or domains. The Lucumí (Santería) Afro-Cuban religion is a syncretic tradition combining Roman Catholicism with the Ifá tradition, which does not have a corpus of written sacred texts, however, it has its sacred language, the Lucumí (Anagó) language related to the Yoruba language of West Africa. While the Spanish-Lucumí bilingualism plays an important role in Santería rituals, the mechanisms of reference are very different from those of the Hebrew-Yiddish bilingualism in Judaism. In Santería, divinations about the meaning of Lucumí words play a role similar to the translations from Hebrew in Judaism. I further discuss the role of ritual dances in Santería for the transition from the sacred to the secular domain and a function of Hebrew epitaphs to connect the ideal world of Hebrew sacred texts to the everyday life of a Jewish community.

Referential expressions in monolingual and bilingual children with and without Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD): A study of informativeness and definiteness

The current study evaluated the separate and combined effects of bilingualism and Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) on informativeness and definiteness marking of referential expressions. Hebrew-speaking monolingual children (21 with ASD and 28 with typical language development) and Russian–Hebrew-speaking bilingual children (13 with ASD and 30 with typical language development) aged 4–9 years participated. Informativeness, indexed by referential contrasts, was affected by ASD, but not by bilingualism. Definiteness use was non-target-like in children with ASD and in bilingual children, and it was mainly predicted by children’s morpho-syntactic abilities in Hebrew. Language-universal and language-specific properties of referential use are discussed.

Հրեաների լեզվի հայերեն անունների և դրանց տարբերակների բառարանային մշակման պատմությունը

The printed dictionary, in which the Armenian name of the Hebrew language was registered for the first time (with a wrong spelling։ էբրաէրէն), was the Armenian-Latin dictionary by F. Rivola (1621). Old Armenian dictionary by Mkhitar Sebastatsi (1749) was the first monolingual dictionary where the different variants of the Hebrew language name (հրէարեն and հրէէրէն) were recorded.

Samaritans, Biblical Studies, and Ancient Judaism: Recent Trends

In this article, I survey recent trends in Samaritan studies, with a particular focus on biblical studies and the interactions of Samaritan Israelites with other religious traditions. While remaining entrenched in discussion of the origins of Samaritans, scholars have firmly embraced the idea of processual Samaritan identity, emerging over time and in a non-genealogical sense alongside and interwoven with Judean/Jewish self-definition. Extensive work clusters, in particular, at three nodes: the study of Hebrew-language scriptures, archaeological excavations, and the remodelling of identity-production in a constructivist form. I also sketch out the directions in which the field is moving, with growing and productive emphasis on Aramaic, Arabic, and late antiquity. Finally, I identify some of the quirks of Samaritan studies as it might be encountered, in particular a continued effort to salvage Samaritans for biblical studies, somewhat intermittent interdisciplinarity, and practices of engagement with Samaritan Israelites themselves.

Perayaan Israel Bagi Ekklesia

God as the Initiator of culture in Israel put celebration to be celebrated by them. The celebration is Passover celebration, unleavened bread, firstfruits, Pentecost, trumpet, atonement, and booths as written in Leviticus 23. In order to understand God's purpose in each of these feasts, one must have the same way of thinking as the Israelites. One form is to celebrate the feasts. But there are groups within Christianity who refuse to celebrate it on the grounds of Paul's direction in Colossians 2:16. Through descriptive qualitative method with a literature study approach, it can be concluded that the current condition of the church only celebrates Passover and Pentecost of the seven Israelite feasts. There are groups who thought that not all the Words are things that the church must do, especially in Leviticus 23. Celebrations based on the Hebrew language mean entering an appointed cycle and time, thus explaining that the church should follow this celebration in order to align with God's cycle and experience God's appointed time. Each of Israel feasts has great significance and is an image that can help believers experience spiritual growth. Church history proves that Israel's celebrations were no longer celebrated not by the decree of the apostles, but as a result of the shift in Constantine's reign in Rome. So, the Israelite Festival should be celebrated and taught its meaning by the church.Tuhan sebagai Penggagas kebudayaan di Israel menaruh perayaan yang harus dirayakan oleh mereka. Perayaan tersebut adalah Paskah, roti tak beragi, buah sulung, pentakosta, terompet, pendamaian, dan pondok daun seperti yang tertulis pada kitab Imamat 23. Agar bisa mengerti maksud Tuhan pada setiap perayaan tersebut pastinya harus memiliki cara berpikir yang sama dengan orang Israel. Salah satu bentuknya adalah merayakan perayaan tersebut. Namun ada kelompok didalam kekristenan yang menolak untuk merayakannya dengan alasan atas arahan Paulus pada Kolose 2:16. Melalui metode kualitatif deskritif dengan pendekatan studi literatur dapat disimpulkan bahwa dapat kondisi gereja saat ini hanya merayakan paskah dan pentakosta dari tujuh perayaan Israel. Adanya kelompok yang beranggapan bahwa tidak semua Firman merupakan hal yang wajib gereja lakukan, khsususnya pada Imamat 23 ini. Perayaan berdasarkan Bahasa Ibrani berarti memasuki siklus dan waktu yang ditetapkan, sehingga menerangkan bahwa gereja seharusnya mengikuti perayaan ini untuk bisa selaras dengan siklus Tuhan dan mengalami waktu yang Tuhan tetapkan. Setiap perayaan Israel memiliki makna yang sangat penting dan merupakan gambaran yang dapat membantu orang percaya untuk mengalami pertumbuhan rohani. Sejarah gereja membuktikan bahwa perayaan Israel tidak dirayakan lagi bukan oleh keputusan rasul-rasul, melainkan diakibatkan pergeseran saat kekuasaan Konstantin di Romawi. Jadi seharusnya Perayaan Israel dirayakan dan diajarkan maknanya oleh gereja.

Was there a Revival of Hebrew during the Hasmonean Period?

Since the end of the nineteenth century, many scholars have held that there was a revival of the Hebrew language during the Hasmonean period, associated with a growing nationalistic sentiment under Hasmonean leadership at that time. Other scholars have rejected this idea, opting instead for a revival of the language at different times, or for no revival at all. Though the idea of a national revival of Hebrew has often been used to explain various historical or literary phenomena in early Judaism, serious defenses of this position have been lacking. In this article, we examine much of the relevant literary, epigraphic, and archeological evidence in order to reassess the idea of a revival of Hebrew associated with Hasmonean rule. In light of this evidence, we conclude that such a revival finds strong literary and archaeological support, and may justifiably be assumed by historians of Second Temple period Judaism.

The Pedagogical Challenge

The field of Second Language Acquisition has long since reached consensus that the most effective way to teach a foreign language is through “Communicative Methods” that immerse students in the language as soon and as fully as possible, requiring them to hear and speak—not translate—the new language. Are there lessons from this we can learn for teaching classical languages such as Greek and Hebrew? Below is an edited transcript of a panel sponsored by the National Association of Professors of Hebrew at the 2017 conference of the Society of Biblical Literature. The publication of Paul Overland’s textbook, Learning Biblical Hebrew Interactively (2016), provided the occasion for a group of Hebrew language instructors to reflect together on the challenges and possibilities of Second Language Acquisition communicative methods for teaching Biblical Hebrew.

Diskurse protestantischer Hebraisten der Frühen Neuzeit über jüdische Kommunikationsformeln

The study addresses the issue of the Christian scholarly interest in the Hebrew language since the rise of Humanism. Though the main focus of that interest in Hebrew grammar and vocabulary was to get a better understanding of the “Old Testament”, the subsequent reformation fostered the notion that a better knowledge of both the Hebrew language and the Jewish culture, can promote the conversion of Jews to Christianity. The article inspects possible other underlying motives and discourses behind the translation of Hebrew and Old Yiddish blessings into Latin as the most important lingua sacra, taking into account twentieth century theories about power and hegemony by Michel Foucault and Antonio Gramsci. The study examines the chapter about Jewish greetings and blessings in the original dictionary Šemot Devarim – Nomenclatura Hebraica Autore Helia Levita (Isny, 1542) and the revised translation as Nomenclator Eliae Levitae Germani by Johannes Drusius and son (Franeker, 1652). Also included are transliterated editions of both texts, with translations.

Naomi B. Sokoloff and Nancy E. Berg (eds.), What We Talk About When We Talk about Hebrew (And What It Means to Americans). Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2018. x + 238 pp.

This chapter discusses What We Talk About When We Talk about Hebrew (And What It Means to Americans) (2018). The essays in this collection address the diminishing role of Hebrew in American Jewish communal identity and practice. On the one hand, each writer demonstrates passionate commitment to the Hebrew-language, in many cases offering moving testimony of Hebrew's role in their personal and communal lives. Consequently, they propose diverse strategies for boosting the presence of Hebrew among Jewish Americans. On the other hand, they all resist romantic concepts of Hebrew drawn from Johann Gottfried Herder's conflation of language, nation, and folk, which inevitably leads to a valorization of authenticity. To put it another way, modern Israeli Hebrew poses particular challenges to Hebraists elsewhere, despite the longstanding role of Hebrew in Jewish civilization. The great strength of this volume lies in its successful severing of devotion to Hebrew (whether intellectual, emotional, or cultural) from allegiance to “authenticity” in its diverse meanings.