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The Original Tongues: Flame and Fragment

Where the Bible Begins Before Writing

1500 BCE - 300

Before writing was utterance, chant, and early Semitic speech including photo-Hebrew/mythic pre-linguistic "Edenic" speech, Biblical Hebrew, Aramaic, and Koine Greek (Septuagint).ogether, these languages reflect shifting political forces, cultural exchanges, and the theological evolution of ancient Israel. Their interaction defines the earliest strata of the Bible and reveals how the "Word" transitioned from sound to script.

1. Proto-Hebrew and the Pre-Linguistic Word

The Oral Matrix

The earliest stratum of biblical language was not written but spoken. Semitic tribal groups transmitted myths, genealogies, and ritual traditions orally. Rhythm, poetic parallelism, and repetition preserved stories across generations.

Proto-Hebrew emerged during the Late Bronze Age as part of the Northwest Semitic family. Early inscriptions such as the Gezer Calendar and the Izbet Sartah ostracon show a transitional script between Proto-Canaanite and early Hebrew. Though sparse, these inscriptions connect directly to the linguistic roots of later Biblical Hebrew.

In this stage, “the Word” was experienced as action. Hebrew terms for speech—including davar (word/event), qol (voice), and ruaḥ (breath/spirit)—suggest that speech carried creative force. Divine utterance was experienced as vibration, not text. Meaning lived in sound.

2. Biblical Hebrew: From Sound to Scripture

The Language of Covenant

Biblical Hebrew took shape during the Iron Age as Israelite identity developed. As monarchy emerged in the 10th century BCE, scribes began recording laws, narratives, and prophetic messages. Oral tradition entered a period of textualization.

Characteristics of Biblical Hebrew

1. Root-based morphology Three-letter roots allowed related words to share meaning and nuance, creating dense semantic networks.

2. Poetic parallelism Biblical poetry uses parallel lines that reinforce or contrast ideas. This structure comes directly from oral recitation.

3. Narrative minimalism Hebrew narrative employs sparse description and relies on implication. Actions and dialogues carry meaning more than psychological commentary.

4. Fluid divine names Names such as YHWH, Elohim, and El Shaddai reflect regional traditions and theological development. Variations later contributed to source-critical analysis.

The Rise of Written Scripture

The shift from oral tradition to written texts changed the nature of religious authority. Writing created permanence. Texts could be preserved, copied, canonized. Prophetic messages once spoken in immediacy became preserved statements for future generations.

By the 7th century BCE, during reforms under King Josiah, written law had gained official status. Hebrew became both a literary language and a sacred one.

3. Aramaic: The Imperial Tongue of Exile

The Babylonian and Persian Influence

The Babylonian Exile marked a turning point in Jewish linguistic history. Aramaic had become the administrative language of the Near East, and Jewish communities adopted it for daily use.

Aramaic gradually displaced Hebrew as the spoken language in many regions. Parts of the Hebrew Bible—sections of Daniel and Ezra—were written directly in Aramaic. Legal documents, letters, and decrees from the Persian period show standardized Aramaic forms.

A New Script

Hebrew scribes returning from exile adopted the Aramaic alphabet (the “square script”) that is still used today. The script of modern Hebrew is, fundamentally, Aramaic in origin. The Exile reshaped not only vocabulary but the physical appearance of writing.

The Targums: Translating the Sacred

As spoken Hebrew declined, Aramaic translations known as the Targums emerged. These were not literal translations. They expanded, interpreted, and explained Hebrew texts. The Targums became essential teaching tools in synagogues and preserved biblical meaning for communities no longer fluent in Hebrew.

Translation became interpretation. Interpretation became tradition.

4. The Greek Horizon: The First Great Translation

The Arrival of Hellenism

The conquests of Alexander the Great spread Greek culture across the Near East. Greek became the lingua franca of the Hellenistic world, including Jewish communities in Alexandria.

The Septuagint

Between the 3rd and 1st centuries BCE, Jewish scholars translated the Hebrew Scriptures into Greek. This translation, known as the Septuagint (LXX), was the first major transformation of the Bible into another language.

The Septuagint does more than translate; it interprets. Hebrew concepts were reshaped by Greek philosophical terms. Words for righteousness, soul, spirit, law, and even the divine name shifted in meaning.

A New Concept of “Word”

Greek introduced terms like logos, which carried meanings of reason, order, and principle. These concepts later influenced early Christian theology and the framing of Jesus as the incarnate Word.

The Septuagint made scripture accessible to the Hellenistic world, but it also distanced communities from the sound and structure of Hebrew. A new interpretive layer was born.

5. Consequences of Layer I

Layer I shows that the Bible began as a multilingual, multi-layered collection of traditions shaped by migration, empire, and cultural exchange.

Key outcomes of this period:

1. The Word shifts from breath to text Oral tradition becomes written scripture. Divine speech becomes inscription.

2. Translation begins early Even before Christianity, Hebrew texts were shaped by Aramaic and Greek.

3. Meaning becomes fluid Different languages introduce different theological frameworks.

4. Exile and empire reshape scripture Aramaic and Greek entered the biblical tradition through political upheaval.

5. The original soundscape fades The Bible’s earliest resonance—its oral, vibrational dimension—begins vanishing as texts crystallize into fixed forms.

Layer I lays the foundation for the later transformation of the Bible through translation, power, and canonization.

Select Bibliography (Chicago Style)

Primary Sources – Septuagint (NETS), ed. Albert Pietersma and Benjamin G. Wright. – Targum Onkelos, trans. Bernard Grossfeld. – Hebrew Bible (BHS).

Secondary Sources Seth L. Sanders, The Invention of Hebrew (University of Illinois Press, 2009). William M. Schniedewind, How the Bible Became a Book (Cambridge University Press, 2004). Robert Alter, The Art of Biblical Narrative (Basic Books, 2011). Joel M. Hoffman, In the Beginning: A Short History of the Hebrew Language (NYU Press, 2004). Timothy Michael Law, When God Spoke Greek (Oxford University Press, 2013). Emmanuel Tov, Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible, 3rd ed. (Fortress Press, 2012). Stephen A. Kaufman, “The Aramaic Language,” in Anchor Bible Dictionary, vol. 1. John Huehnergard, A Grammar of Akkadian, 3rd ed. (Eisenbrauns, 2011).