Hebrew of the Dead Sea Scrools an Ben Sira: Proceedings of a Symposium held at Leiden University 11-14 December 1995, The

The Hebrew of the Dead Sea Scrolls and Ben Sira: Proceedings of a Symposium held

at Leiden University 11-14 December 1995. Edited by T. Muraoka and J. F. Elwolde.

STDJ 26. Leiden: Brill, 1997, 222 pp., $81.00.

This volume, papers presented at the first international symposium on the Hebrew of the Dead Sea Scrolls and Ben Sira, is of importance for every serious Hebrew grammarian. The value of the contributions lies not so much in the results-as the raw data for much of the Dead Sea side of the discussion is still forthcoming-but in the methodologies detailed in the studies and current bibliographical information.

M. F. J. Baasten contributes the first article, "Nominal Clauses Containing a Personal Pronoun in Qumran Hebrew" (pp. 1-16). This study focuses on the order of elements in simple (bipartite) and tripartite noun clauses that include a personal pronoun.

In "Developments in Hebrew Vocabulary between Bible and Mishnah" (pp. 17-55), J. P. Elwolde details the "innovation and development . . . in the vocabulary of all Hebrew texts prior to the compilation of the Mishnah" (p. 18). Although preliminaryespecially in regard to the Dead Sea corpus, where corrections and additions would require a much longer review than allowed!-this article represents an important step in the study of early Hebrew lexicography.

S. E. Fassberg's "On the Syntax of Dependent Clauses in Ben Sira" (pp. 56-71) examines conditional, relative, temporal, circumstantial and purpose clauses in the Ben Sira manuscripts from the Cairo Genizah, Masada and Qumran and concludes that they are "on the whole, similar to dependent clauses in Classical Biblical Hebrew" (p. 71).

A. Hurvitz, in "The Linguistic Status of Ben Sira as a Link between Biblical and Mishnaic Hebrew: Lexicographical Aspects," examines lexical examples that suggest that Ben Sira evidences a transitional point between Biblical and Mishnaic Hebrew.

T. Muraoka's contribution, "Verb Complementation in Qumran Hebrew" (pp. 92149) is an important prelude to the study of verbal complements in Qumran Hebrew. As it stands, however, the article is skewed by the small number of documents examined (1QH, lQS, 1QSa, 1QSb, 4Q255-264, 4Q159, 4Q513, 4Q514, 5Q11, 5Q13). For example, although Muraoka notes correctly (p. 97) that the object marker 't with suffixes as a complement to the verb is virtually nonexistent in his database-the pronominal suffix is instead the rule-it is relatively common in 11QTS and elsewhere. As more extensive data become available in the next few years, the value of Muraoka's study will be in the nature of the question that he asks of his own limited corpus of texts.

W. T. van Peursen's study, "Periphrastic Tenses in Ben Sira" (pp. 158-173) is introduced by a helpful discussion of the periphrastic construction giving it value even for students whose grammatical interests might not include Ben Sira.

"How to Write a Poem: The Case of Psalm 151A (11QPsa 28.3-12)" (pp. 182-208), by M. S. Smith, is included because its final section, "A syntactical taxonomy of the superscriptions in 11QPsa," was read at the symposium. Sections I-V, concerning Psalm 151, represent a workshop presented during the symposium.

Shorter articles include: "The Syntax of : in the Language of Ben Sira" by M. Z. Kaddari (pp. 87-91), "Die hebraische Sprache der Nahal Hever Dokumente 5/6Hev 44-46" by G. W. Nebe (pp. 150-57) and E. Qimron's study, "A New Approach to the Use of Forms of the Imperfect Without Personal Endings" (pp. 174-181).

Martin G. Abegg, Jr.

Trinity Western University, Langley, BC, Canada

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