Diachronic Development of Kinship Terminology in Pre- and Post-Exilic Biblical Texts

Abstract

Much of the linguistic analysis of Biblical Hebrew (BH) is concerned with assigning dates of writing to the books, or with categorizing features of BH as "early" or "late." Accurate linguistic dating and categorization is beyond our abilities at this time with the limitations of the available data, and this preoccupation distracts from what linguistic analysis is possible.

The current study examines kinship terminology in Samuel-Kings and Chronicles and compares these books for evidence of semantic and lexicographical changes that support a theory of diachronic change. Language change between Samuel-Kings and Chronicles reflects a difference in writing time and different stages of the language. These changes are thought to be triggered by language contact and societal disruption during the Babylonian exile and its aftermath. This study uses corpus analysis to identify changes in frequency and usage of kinship terminology, and finds statistically significant differences in usages of terms which indicate semantic drift and metaphorical usages derived from the primary meanings available only in the language of Chronicles.

This study demonstrates that modern linguistics-informed methodology can be applied productively to biblical texts and that linguistic analysis can provide information about language change without getting caught up in the impossible task of dating. Chapter One explores the historical and linguistic backdrop of Samuel-Kings and the difficulties involved in language analysis with a limited corpus. Chapter Two examines the data to identify differences in the language of Samuel-Kings and Chronicles. Chapter Three discusses language change and examples of language change in kinship terminology, and draws conclusions about these changes.