Greek Loanwords in Mishnaic Hebrew

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neilgodfrey
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Greek Loanwords in Mishnaic Hebrew

Post by neilgodfrey »

I would be very interested to know of any relatively recent works discussing and/or listing Greek loanwords in the Hebrew of the Mishnah, Talmud, Midrash, Targums -- that is, in rabbinic writings of late antiquity. Most preferably but not necessarily in English.

The reason: I am following up Bernard Dubourg's case for the early Christian literature (with special focus on the canonical gospels though Dubourg goes way beyond those) being composed in Hebrew. Our canonical versions, the argument goes, are translations of those Hebrew texts.

A central plank of Dubourg's thesis is that the NT (Greek) vocabulary is riddled with words that appear as Greek loanwords in the later rabbinic literature. The gospel translators, it follows, were translating Hebrew that we later find in the rabbinic works from the Mishnah on.

My first reaction was that such an argument had major flaws but the more I have been thinking about it the more I want to find ways of checking it.

If you feel outraged or merely queasy about such an argument yourself, feel free to list your reasons. I want to cover as many bases as possible.

As for the request for relatively recent works on Greek loanwords in later Hebrew -- no need to list any of the following, which I already have. Anything beyond these would be very welcome.
Thanks
Last edited by neilgodfrey on Sun Jul 18, 2021 1:03 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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mlinssen
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Re: Greek Loanwords in Mishnaic Hebrew

Post by mlinssen »

Could you give just three examples of such Hebrew-Greek loanwords? It would put some flesh on the idea

There's an abundance of Latin loanwords in the NT but AFAIK no one has tried to make a case that they thence were originally written in Latin. Nonetheless, any idea is a good one as long as it is supported by some plausible and tangible arguments and examples - hence my question
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neilgodfrey
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Re: Greek Loanwords in Mishnaic Hebrew

Post by neilgodfrey »

I have updated the bibliography in the opening post so anyone interested in examples of Greek loan words can find too many to count. After reading Krivoruchko's article, however, it looks like nothing major has been added up to 2012 and if anything since 2012 had entered the field it would not be so hard to find.
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neilgodfrey
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Re: Greek Loanwords in Mishnaic Hebrew

Post by neilgodfrey »

Thanks -- but unfortunately I can't get the page to work as I think it is meant to. Hyperlinks on letters don't open the associated pages. At least I have the pdf volumes, though -- a second best option.
StephenGoranson
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Re: Greek Loanwords in Mishnaic Hebrew

Post by StephenGoranson »

https://maagarim.hebrew-academy.org.il/Pages/PMain.aspx
Historical dictionary of the Hebrew Language
Instructional video, which has a closed caption in English option:
https://daf.hebrew-academy.org.il/maaga ... p-english/
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DCHindley
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Re: Greek Loanwords in Mishnaic Hebrew

Post by DCHindley »

neilgodfrey wrote: Sun Jul 18, 2021 2:44 pm
Thanks -- but unfortunately I can't get the page to work as I think it is meant to. Hyperlinks on letters don't open the associated pages. At least I have the pdf volumes, though -- a second best option.
Hmmm, Works for me. Usually it's my computer that acts odd.

Maybe your virus software or a browser setting is preventing a script from running (like a pop-up ad blocker) or something like that.

DCH
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neilgodfrey
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Re: Greek Loanwords in Mishnaic Hebrew

Post by neilgodfrey »

DCHindley wrote: Mon Jul 19, 2021 5:41 pm
neilgodfrey wrote: Sun Jul 18, 2021 2:44 pm
Thanks -- but unfortunately I can't get the page to work as I think it is meant to. Hyperlinks on letters don't open the associated pages. At least I have the pdf volumes, though -- a second best option.
Hmmm, Works for me. Usually it's my computer that acts odd.

Maybe your virus software or a browser setting is preventing a script from running (like a pop-up ad blocker) or something like that.

DCH
Well well -- today it is working for me. Mysterious are the ways.....
StephenGoranson
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Re: Greek Loanwords in Mishnaic Hebrew

Post by StephenGoranson »

Targums are Aramaic translations of Hebrew Bible books, so, if you want, you could exclude them to narrow down your search a bit.
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neilgodfrey
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Re: Greek Loanwords in Mishnaic Hebrew

Post by neilgodfrey »

StephenGoranson wrote: Tue Jul 20, 2021 2:22 am Targums are Aramaic translations of Hebrew Bible books, so, if you want, you could exclude them to narrow down your search a bit.
The question arising relates to Greek loanwords in post-biblical Hebrew and Aramaic texts.
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