HaKatan: לשון הקדש absolutely DID evolve. This is one of my areas of knowledge, having written a master’s thesis on the way the various Targumim render the poetic portions of the Tanakh and having taught BH on the university level for years. (Now, I do secondary ed consulting, for the most part, but this was one of my fields.) The oldest portions of the Tanakh (e.g. שירת למך in Genesis 4; Genesis, 49; שירת הים in Exodus 15; שירת דבורה in Judges 5; Psalms 18, 29, 68, et al.) are examples of Archaic Hebrew, which differs from pre-exilic and post-exilic Hebrew. (We are not talking about Rabbinic Hebrew, which is something else.) Aside from the Judeo-Aramaic portions of Ezra, the Hebrew there is quite modern, forming a sort of nexus between the biblical and post-biblical varieties of the language.
Menu