An Alternative Approach to the Lexicon of Late Biblical Hebrew

Abstract

In 2014 Avi Hurvitz published A Concise Lexicon of Late Biblical Hebrew: Linguistic Innovations in the Writings of the Second Temple Period. In the present article we offer an alternative, quantitative interpretation of the data in the Lexicon. Our main conclusions are that the late language cataloged in the Lexicon is rare and idiosyncratic in late biblical writings and accordingly the value of the late language for linguistic periodization and linguistic dating is negligible.