Fact-Checking the Torah -- They knew.

So I was studying Talmud and as usual I noticed something I didn’t see before. I thought about it and came up with a solution but those of you who have followed my 21^st century Biblical Hebrew blog or the language portion of my Fact-checking blog will have to look closer.

In every edition of Mishnah that I’ve looked at (davka, Blackman, Mechon Mamre, Sefaria) Mishnah Berakhot 1:1 has several nun-sofit verbs. I explained them as “this is what you ought to do”, and I pointed out that I find mem-sofit verbs in case reports. My conclusion was that the nun-sofit verbs are a follow-on from the uncertainty epistemic in Biblical Hebrew, which is used in a lot of the commandments, especially in Deuteronomy. The mem-sofits in the case studies are things that already actually happened, so there’s no uncertainty about them.

So then that same Mishnah quote in Talmud in every one of those editions (except Blackman, he didn’t edit Talmud) has neekhalim, where Mishnah in non-Talmud versions has neekhalin. Is there a reason?

If you listen to academics like the one I give a link to below, people who spoke Hebrew either had two letters for the same sound, or their scribes didn’t know what they were doing. Or that’s what his sources (other academics) suggest to him. None of them knew anything about the 21^st century description of Biblical Hebrew grammar, and we’ve seen that  “don’t know what they’re doing” argument before.

What’s my answer? Look at all the nun-final forms in Mishnah and see how many change to mem-final in Talmud. Again, Berakhot Mishnah 1:1 has part of the answer. It has qorin because you’re supposed to say shema. Talmud keeps qorin. Why?

Because the law on saying Shema was still in effect in Talmudic times. But while the second temple existed during most of Mishnaic times and the eating of terumah (neekhalin) was still supposed to be done, by Talmudic times the temple no longer existed. Any discussion of eating terumah was historical in nature, like the case reports that use mem-final forms.

Go ahead. Here’s the test procedure.

-- Pick a chapter or tractate of Mishnah. Make a list of all the nun-final verbs. Verify from the context that this is something people are supposed to do. Record the citation so you can find it in Talmud. Remember, there is no Gemara on some tractates of Mishnah so there will be no corresponding tractate in Talmud.

-- Add two columns. For each verb, study the legal context. If it applied only to temple operations or was required only during the temple period, mark one column. Otherwise mark the other column. An example of something not done inside the temple that only happened during the temple period would be farmers paying m’ilah for using the diluted blood of sacrifices as fertilizer.

-- Now go to the quotes of Mishnah in Talmud and record what Talmud uses. The ones unrelated to the temple should all still have nun-final forms. If they have mem, you probably misunderstood halakhah or missed that the context gives the verb a different meaning. But I do need to know about these. One you correct for this issue, the ones related to the temple should now have mem-final forms.

There used to be this idea that Hebrew used nun-final forms under the influence of Aramaic, although I can’t find my sources that said so on the Internet. Hebrew supposedly was evolving to drop mem-final in favor of nun-final. The change from neekhalin to neekhalim, with preservation of qorin, says otherwise.

So once again we have academics who haven’t sufficiently studied the sources saying things that are picked up by later academics who also don’t study the sources enough, and so the urban legends roll down the years.

 

Qumran Hebrew: An Overview of Orthography, Phonology, and Morphology

By Eric D. Reymond 2014

https://books.google.com/books?id=bmoYAwAAQBAJ&pg=PA67&lpg=PA67&dq=later+hebrew+language+final+mem+replaced+by+final+nun+Influence+of+aramaic+-wikipedia+-sript&source=bl&ots=Ms5nNePtF_&sig=ACfU3U2PmlbGuimxtEQCPmle4r5GOql0jA&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiHgYCehtHxAhXZW80KHUp7BK0Q6AEwBXoECBUQAw#v=onepage&q=later%20hebrew%20language%20final%20mem%20replaced%20by%20final%20nun%20Influence%20of%20aramaic%20-wikipedia%20-sript&f=false