Hebrew Study from Ezra to Ben-Yehuda

Hebrew Study from Ezra to Ben-Yehuda. Edited by William Horbury. Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1999, xiv + 337 pp., $69.95.

This collection of 22 essays mainly consists of papers read at the 1996 meeting of the British Association for Jewish Studies. The essays are organized into six sections: the Second Temple period; rabbinic and early Christian Hebraists; Rome and Byzantium; the Karaites; Christian Hebraists in medieval and early modern Europe; the 19th and 20th centuries.

The collection begins with an introduction by the editor (pp. 1-12). The 22 essays are as follows: Joachim Schaper, "Hebrew and Its Study in the Persian Period," pp. 15-- 26; James K. Aitken, "Hebrew Study in Ben Sira's Beth Midrash," pp. 27-37; Jonathan Campbell, "Hebrew and Its Study at Qumran," pp. 38-52; Jan Willem van Henten, "The Ancestral Language of the Jews in 2 Maccabees," pp. 53-68; Philip S. Alexander, "How Did the Rabbis Learn Hebrew?" pp. 71-89; Robert Hayward, "St Jerome and the Meaning of the High-Priestly Vestments," pp. 90-105; Lawrence Lahey, "Hebrew and Aramaic in the Dialogue of Timothy and Aquila," pp. 106-121; William Horbury, "The Hebrew Matthew and Hebrew Study," pp. 122-131; David Noy, "'Peace upon Israel': Hebrew Formulae and Names in Jewish Inscriptions from the Western Roman Empire," pp. 135-146; Nicholas de Lange, "A Thousand Years of Hebrew in Byzantium," pp. 147-161; Judith Olszowy-Schlanger, "The Knowledge of Hebrew among Early Karaites, and Its Use in Karaite Legal Contracts," pp. 165-185; Geoffrey Khan, "The Karaite Tradition of Hebrew Grammatical Thought," pp. 186-203; Raphael Loewe, "Alexander Neckam's Knowledge of Hebrew," pp. 207-223; Anders Bergquist, "Christian Hebrew Scholarship in Quattrocento Florence," pp. 224-233; Gareth Lloyd Jones, "Robert Wakefield (d. 1537): The Father of English Hebraists?" pp. 234-248; Graham Davies, "Some Points of Interest in Sixteenth-Century Translations of Exodus 15," pp. 249-256; Peter van Rooden, "The Amsterdam Translation of the Mishnah," pp. 257-- 267; A. H. Lesser, "Samson Raphael Hirsch's Use of Hebrew Etymology," pp. 271-278; Stefan C. Reif, "A Jewish Usurper among Christian Hebraists?-Cambridge, 1866," pp. 279-292; George Mandel, "Resistance to the Study of Hebrew: The Experiences of Peretz Smolenskin and Eliezer Ben-Yehuda," pp. 293-299; Edward Ullendorff, "Hebrew in Mandatary Palestine," pp. 300-306; Risa Domb, "'Hebrew, Speak Hebrew': The Place of Hebrew in Modern Hebrew Literature," pp. 307-317.

Richard A. Taylor

Copyright Evangelical Theological Society Jun 2000
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