What exactly is the meaning of the Hebrew term sara'at? Is it appropriate to still accept the traditional translation of "leprosy" or does it refer to something completely different? In order to answer these and other related questions, the following work seeks to explore the an…
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The reconstruction of the Proto-Indo-European system of personal pronouns is highly controversial. This dissertation puts forth a scenario that has internal coherence on the level of the proto-language and explains the whole range of attested forms in the individual branches. It…
The process of grammaticalization is the transition from a less "grammatical" state to one that is more so. But the results of the process, if we follow the history of any given linguistic unit as it undergoes grammaticalization over and over again, may involve achieving a state…
In Longacre's (1989, 1992) salience scheme for Biblical Hebrew, the 'storyline' (foreground) morphosyntactic form (waw + Imperfect) for narrative discourse is characterized as being the most 'dynamic' morphosyntactic construction. However, 'dynamicity' is not clearly defined. I …
The New Testament contains several prominent stories involving blind characters, most strikingly the congenitally blind person Jesus sends to the pool of Siloam (John 9). To understand such stories better, we must put aside some modern misconceptions and ascertain exactly what "…
This study investigates the use of the preposition l + the infinitive construct (liqtol) as a sentence predicate, as in babel linpol, "Babylon is destined to fall" (Jer 51:49). Although predicate liqtol is a syntactic category recognized by the standard reference grammars of Bib…
Two distinct Greek versions of the biblical book of Esther are extant, the LXX text and the Alpha-text (AT). This dissertation describes the character of the AT version and its relationship to the Hebrew Masoretic text (MT). The syntactical profile of the Greek of the AT is dete…
This study identifies the literary forms used in the admonitions of 4QInstruction to better assess the relationship between that text and both biblical wisdom and the broader wisdom tradition. This study determines that the admonitions rely on traditional wisdom forms for their …
The emergence of a critical edition of Peshitta Proverbs and the methodological inadequacy of the former studies provide reasons for a new investigation of the Peshitta Proverbs translation. My method of examining the translation is to describe a translation act using two dimens…
A long history of studies exists of how Hebrew and Aramaic influenced NT Greek. Many deal specifically with the Semitic background to the Fourth Gospel. These are flawed, however, by (1) a lack of precision in selection of Greek and Semitic sources used for comparative purposes,…
Previous investigation of 2 Kings 18-20 has been dominated by event and literary historical reconstruction. Recent interest in the "final form" function of the parallel Isaiah 36-39 has not been matched for 2 Kings 18-20 in relationship to Kings as a whole. This study addresses …
This dissertation represents a comprehensive study of the structural (syntactic) and functional (pragmatic) features of the Biblical Hebrew relative clause within the linguistic framework of the Minimalist Program (as articulated in Chomsky 1995, 1998, 1999). There are two purpo…
The Pyramid Texts, written on the walls of the entrance corridors, antechambers, and funerary chambers of the royal pyramids of the late Fifth and entire Sixth Dynasties, are filled with mythic statements and allusions, without using prose or poetic narrative. They functioned as…
One of the perennial problems within the study of biblical Hebrew syntax is the meaning and function of the various types of clauses represented in narrative prose. How stories are shaped using only the five basic verbal clause types--QATAL, YIQTOL, WeQATAL, WeYIQTOL and WAYYIQT…
The tell of Ras Shamra on the Mediterranean coast of Syria has yielded thousands of cuneiform tablets which shed light on the scribal traditions of ancient Ugarit, a city-state which flourished during the latter part of the Late Bronze Age. This dissertation treats one aspect of…
This dissertation presents a social history of Berytus (Beirut) from the third through sixth centuries A.D. Berytus, long characterized as the "most Roman city in the East," attracted students from distant areas to study jurisprudence and Latin. An exploration of the urban milie…
David said, “The Spirit of the Lord spoke through me; and his word was on my tongue” (2 Sam. 23:2). This speaking “through” the authors of Scripture, utilizing their personalities, educational levels, and individual idiosyncrasies of thought and expression, is possibly no better…
This dissertation builds on the insights of the “Italian school” (e.g., Liverani, Fales, Zaccagnini, Younger) concerning the ideological shaping of historical narratives. It engages in a literary-ideological analysis of nine West Semitic royal inscriptions from the ninth to the …
This dissertation deals with the Septuagint's translation of the verbs of Chronicles. It slices through two diachronic developments: the development of the Hebrew verbal system and the trend towards a more literal translation of the Bible. Firstly, the way the translator of Chro…