The invention of Hebrew
- ISBN: 9780252078354
- Editorial: University of Illinois Press
- Fecha de la edición: 2011
- Lugar de la edición: Chicago. Estados Unidos de Norteamérica
- Colección: Traditions
- Encuadernación: Rústica
- Medidas: 23 cm
- Nº Pág.: 280
- Idiomas: Inglés
The Invention of Hebrew is the first book to approach the Bible in light of recent findings on the use of the Hebrew alphabet as a deliberate and meaningful choice. Seth L. Sanders connects the Bible's distinctive linguistic form--writing down a local spoken language--to a cultural desire to speak directly to people, summoning them to join a new community that the text itself helped call into being. Addressing the people of Israel through a vernacular literature, Hebrew texts gained the ability to address their audience as a public. By comparing Biblical documents with related ancient texts in Hebrew, Ugaritic, and Babylonian, this book details distinct ways in which Hebrew was a powerfully self-conscious political language. Revealing the enduring political stakes of Biblical writing, The Invention of Hebrew demonstrates how Hebrew assumed and promoted a source of power previously unknown in written literature: "the people" as the protagonist of religion and politics.