Re-Revisiting the Language of the Aramaic Documents in Ezra

References (26)

1. T. MURAOKA -B. PORTEN, A Grammar of Egyptian Aramaic, 2nd, rev. ed. (Leiden 2003) 20-21.
2. MURAOKA -PORTEN, Grammar of Egyptian Aramaic, 91.
3. Ezra 4,12 (Letter #3); 5,8 (Letter #5). Most cases, however, are recorded in the fram- ing narrative: 5,5.15; 6,5.14.
4. T. MURAOKA, A Grammar of Qumran Aramaic (Leuven 2011) 14.
5. L.L. GRABBE, "The 'Persian Documents' in the Book of Ezra: Are They Authentic?", Judah and the Judeans in the Persian Period (eds. O. LIPSCHITS -M. OEMING) (Winona Lake, IN 2006) 531-570, here 533, 548.
6. WILLIAMSON, "Aramaic Documents Revisited", 54-55;
7. A. KOLLER, "Four Dimen- sions of Linguistic Variation: Aramaic Dialects in and around Qumran", The Dead Sea Scrolls in Context, 2 vols. (eds. A. LANGE et al.) (Leiden 2011) 2:199-213. 31 Examples of {d} in the spelling of the relative marker can be found in TAD B2.7:7, 11, 16 [446 BCE];
8. D5.3:2 [early fifth century BCE]. In the Idumaean letters, {z} regularly stands for *ð (e.g., TAO G1.4, 4 ‫זנה‬ [late fifth century BCE];
9. G2.1, 1 ‫זי‬ [late fifth-early fourth century BCE], etc.).
10. M.L. FOLMER, The Aramaic Language in the Achaemenid Period. A Study in Lin- guistic Variation (Leuven 1995) 60-61. 33 FOLMER, Aramaic in the Achaemenid Period, 62-63.
11. W.R. GARR, "Prenasalization in Aramaic", Studies in Semitic and Afroasiatic Lin- guistics Presented to Gene B. Gragg (ed. C.L. MILLER) (Chicago, IL 2007) 81-109.
12. H. GZELLA, "The Heritage of Imperial Aramaic in Eastern Aramaic", Aramaic Studies 6 (2008) 85-109, here 91-92.
13. S. BAKER, "'And Now': Transitions in Northwest Semitic Epigraphy and Narrative", Maarav 25 (2022) 17-30; cf. WILLIAMSON, "Aramaic Documents Revisited", 57-59. 51 HENDEL -JOOSTEN, How Old is the Hebrew Bible? 52 SCHWIDERSKI, Handbuch, 365-368; GRABBE, "The 'Persian Documents'", 547.
14. J.A. LUND, "Aramaic Language", Dictionary of the Old Testament: Historical Books (eds. B.T. ARNOLD -H.G.M. WILLIAMSON) (Downers Grove, IL 2005) 50-60. Cf. WILLIAMSON, "Aramaic Documents Revisited", 59-60. 54 Most recently, O.I. VINNICHENKO, "The Reassessment of the Influence of Aramaic on
15. Assyrian Syntax" (PhD dissertation, St. John's College, University of Cambridge, 2016) 59-60. 55 SCHWIDERSKI, Handbuch, 364-365, 377-378; GRABBE, "The 'Persian Documents'", 545;
16. L. DOERING, Ancient Jewish Letters and the Beginnings of Christian Epistolography (Tübingen 2012) 123.
17. STEINER ("Bishlam's Archival Search Report", 682-683) further argues that the greeting in Ezra 4,17 [Letter #4] is abbreviated and points to other abbreviated greetings in Elephan- tine.
18. Steiner's arguments are unfortunately missing from a recent discussion of this feature in GRÄTZ, "Literary and Ideological Character".
19. A. KUHRT, "State Communication in the Persian Period", State Correspondence in the Ancient World (ed. K. RADNER) (Oxford 2014) 112-140, here 127.
20. F.M. FALES, "Aramaic Letters and Neo-Assyrian Letters: Philological and Methodologi- cal Notes", JAOS 107 (1987) 451-469. This use of šulmu is also attested in Neo-Babylonian letters; see E. SALONEN, Die Gruss-und Höfflichkeitsformelen in babylonisch-assyrischen Briefen (Helsinki 1967) 80.
21. WILLIAMSON, "Aramaic Documents Revisited", 60.
22. S. PARPOLA, Letters from Assyrian Scholars to the Kings Esarhaddon and Assurba- nipal, 2 vols. (Neukirchen-Vluyn 1970-1983) 2:438; e.g., SAA 05 213 b.e. 3-4. For Neo- Babylonian, see SALONEN, Gruss-und Höfflichkeits-formelen, 82. 67 There are in fact no known seals of the king either; see KUHRT, "State Communi- cation", 134 n. 161. 68 For example, Δορυμένης Διαφάνει χαίρειν. See H.M. COTTON -M. WÖRRLE, "Seleukos IV to Heliodoros: A New Dossier of Royal Correspondence from Israel", Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 159 (2007) 191-205. 69 For similar Neo-Babylonian expressions, see SALONEN, Gruss-und Höfflichkeits- formelen, 93. Neo-Babylonian letters from the king are particularly similar to Ezra 4,17; for example, the letter from Nebuchadnezzar II (reigned 605-562 BCE): amât šarri ana Kurbanni-Marduk u Illī-rēmanni šulum yâši (YOS 3, 2:4) "The order of the king to Kurbanni- Marduk and Illī-rēmanni. I am well".
23. M. LUUKKO, "On Standardisation and Variation in the Introductory Formulae of Neo- Assyrian Letters", Iraq 74 (2012) 97-115, here 103-104, notes the spread of Neo-Assyrian formulae, like šulum ayāši, in contemporary letters by non-Assyrian speakers.
24. S.E. HOLTZ, "'To Go and Marry Any Man That You Please': A Study of the Formulaic Antecedents of the Rabbinic Writ of Divorce", JNES 60 (2001) 241-258.
25. K. RADNER, "An Imperial Communication Network: The State Correspondence of the Neo-Assyrian Empire", State Correspondence in the Ancient World (ed. K. RADNER) (Oxford 2014) 93-64, here 69. Cf. H. NIEHR, ‫,"טעם"‬ in Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament, 16: Aramaic Dictionary (ed. H. GZELLA; trans. M.E. BIDDLE) (Grand Rapids, MI 2018) 134-139 at 138 ( §II.4); this reference work will be referred to hereafter as TDOT 16. The transfer of Akkadian vocabulary to Aramaic is known from both pre- modern and modern dialects of Aramaic. For pre-modern, see S. KAUFMAN, The Akkadian Influences on Aramaic (Chicago, IL 1974) and G. KROTKOFF, "Studies in Neo-Aramaic Lexicology", Biblical Studies Presented to Samuel Iwry (eds. A. KORT -S. MORSCHAUSER) (Winona Lake, IN 1985) 123-134; for modern, see H. MUTZAFI, "Akkadian Substrate Words and Meanings Surfacing in Neo-Aramaic", Brill's Journal of Afroasiatic Languages and Linguistics 10 (2018) 24-51.
26. M.W. STOLPER, "The Governor of Babylon and Across-the-River in 486 BC", JNES 48 (1989) 283-305, here 284 n. 4. 74 This title, a loanword from Aramaic, refers to a scribe who writes in alphabetic script on parchment rather than on tablets (CAD, S, 225).