Diachronic Diversity in Classical Biblical Hebrew

“Hornkohl’s new book about the development of biblical Hebrew plumbs the most arcane minutiae of biblical grammar and is written for specialists. But his conclusion has the potential to challenge theories about the origins of the Torah widely held in the academy and therefore in our wider cultural discourse…. In his new book, Hornkohl maintains that the Torah displays the earliest linguistic profile of any of the books of the Hebrew Bible and that this is evident in hundreds of places across its five books…. If Hornkohl is correct that the Torah uniquely preserves so many pre-monarchic linguistic features and presents a linguistic profile that is earlier than that found in the other books of the Hebrew Bible, the question stands: could that implicitly suggest that the Torah is the earliest of the Bible’s compositions? This flies in the face of what many Bible scholars today believe. Moreover, it touches on the hot-button question of chronology, as arguments for an early date for the Torah are often viewed with suspicion because they are thought to reflect a religious bias seeking to buttress the Torah’s authority. Nothing in Prof. Hornkohl’s prolific output to date would lead one to suspect him of such a bias…. Biblical studies was right to liberate itself from the obligation of defending tradition. Yet, in doing so it has developed its own traditions of interpretation and accepted doctrine. The rigor of historical linguistics offers a necessary corrective, ensuring the discipline does not simply replace traditional orthodoxy with an orthodoxy of its own making.”