Conceptions of Language and Rhetoric in Ancient and Medieval Judaism

Abstract

This study explores conceptions of language and rhetoric in ancient and medieval Jewish life and writings which relate to Hebrew, other languages, and language per se, reflecting both ‘religious’ notions and ethnic and national praxis and identity. The main focus in those times was on the language of scripture, but Jews also pondered the purpose of language as a natural, even trivial phenomenon, as a Jewish vernacular, and as an aesthetic or transcendental conduit. Salient themes are Eden, Babel, the evolution of Hebrew and its script, textual hermeneutics, rationalistic and mystical beliefs and praxis, and the comparative merits of Hebrew and rival languages. Alongside Biblical and Rabbinic perspectives, we consider the linguistic values and attitudes of the broader Jewish masses and of sectarians. Surprisingly perhaps, given the centrality to Jewishness of linguistic and rhetorical ideology, much of this was only implicitly expounded.