Hebrew Voices #187 – Second Temple Hebrew in the Middle Ages: Part 1

Transcript

Hebrew Voices #187 – Second Temple Hebrew in the Middle Ages: Part 1

You are listening to Hebrew Voices with Nehemia Gordon. Thank you for supporting Nehemia Gordon’s Makor Hebrew Foundation. Learn more at NehemiasWall.com.

Geoffrey: Until then, for me, Biblical Hebrew was essentially what you get in a printed edition of the Hebrew Bible. But then when I was introduced to this incredible collection of the Genizah, I realized that we have to get behind the printed texts of the Hebrew Bible.

Nehemia: Shalom and welcome to Hebrew Voices! I am here with Prof. Geoffrey Khan, who is the Regius professor of Hebrew at the University of Cambridge, which is part of the faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies. He got his PhD from the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London. And I’m actually really honored to be with you here today, Prof. Khan. Guys, I’m here with the greatest linguist of Northwest Semitic languages of our time, and it’s a real honor. Thank you for joining me on the program.

Geoffrey: Well, thank you! Thank you for coming.

Nehemia: There are so many things I want to discuss with you. You’ve done groundbreaking work on Karaite studies, on the pronunciation of Tiberian Hebrew, on probably a whole bunch of things I don’t even know. I know one of your specialties is Modern Aramaic, Neo-Aramaic, so, there are so many things we could talk about. Of course, my interest is the Bible, so I’m going to try to discuss that sort of thing with you. You have this book in front of you; can you tell the audience about your book?

Geoffrey: Right, yes. This is a book about the pronunciation of Hebrew according to the Tiberian tradition, which came out in 2020. And this represents a product of many years of research on the pronunciation of Biblical Hebrew, which is one of my particular interests. I suppose it’s a bit of a long story on how I became interested in the pronunciation of Biblical Hebrew. I think perhaps I’ll say something about how my interest developed.

Nehemia: Please.

Geoffrey: As you said, when I did my PhD at SOAS, the School of Oriental and African Studies, a long time ago now… frankly it was 1984 that I got my PhD there, but I had the great fortune and great luck to get a post-doc job on the Cairo Genizah project here in Cambridge. So, for my PhD, I was working on the syntax of Semitic languages, working mainly on written texts, published texts in printed form. But when I got this post-doc position at the Genizah, this really introduced me to this world of Medieval Hebrew and Aramaic manuscripts. And this was a real turning point, I think, in my interests and my career, because I became aware of this incredible collection of primary sources of the Hebrew Bible. Until then, for me, Biblical Hebrew was essentially what you get in a printed edition of the Hebrew Bible. But then, when I was introduced to this incredible collection of the Genizah, I realized that we have to get behind the printed texts of the Hebrew Bible.