Re: [TIED] Hebrew and Arabic

There is a theory, not unlikely IMO, based on remarkable resemblances between biblical names & W.Arabian geographical names, that the Jews originally lived in western Arabia, were deported to Assyria & Babylonia (8th-6th cent.BC), not from Israel but from W.Arabia, and later "came back", not to W.Arabia but to Israel. If that is true, Hebrew & Arabic split ca.2600 years ago. Kamal Salibi 1985 "Het ware land van Abraham" Elsevier Netherlands (I don't know the origin German title, Rowohlt Verlag, 1985).

No, no, no. Highly unlikely, absurd. You have to dismiss much of the Old Testament as a forgery on grounds that would require you toss Homer and Hesiod onto the bonfire too.

 

Mark.

 

Hebrew, as a living language, was essentially extinct by the end of the Exile, and had been supplanted by Aramaic (the chancery language of the Persians). Before the Exile, it was probably little more than the official court dialect. Aramaic displaced just about everything until the advent of Greek, and finally, Arabic.