Linguistics and Biblical Hebrew Program Unit, SBL 2018 - Call for Papers

The Linguistics and Biblical Hebrew program unit solicits papers for four sessions at the Society of Biblical Literature annual meeting, 17-20 November 2018 in Denver.

• The first session (co-sponsored with NAPH) is non-thematic/open and entitled “Linguistics and Biblical Hebrew.” Papers that address the study of Biblical Hebrew using a well-articulated linguistic method are welcome, and those that apply linguistics to particular Biblical Hebrew constructions or corpuses are especially encouraged.
• The second session is a thematic session entitled “Did the Israelites think differently? Revisiting the relationship of language and cognition in the light of linguistics.” The question of Hebrew versus Greek thinking has long been debated (e.g. by James Barr and Thorlief Boman), but the linguistic debate goes back to Sapir and Whorf. Papers that address the question of the relationship between ancient Hebrew language and culture using linguistics are welcome.
• The third session, co-sponsored with Masoretic Studies, is entitled “Similarities and Differences in Biblical Hebrew: Linguistic and Masoretic Perspectives.” Papers should address either linguistic or masoretic perspectives on topics such as consonantal doubling, the accusative particle, homonyms, hapax legomena, etc. or general similarities and differences in the language of the Hebrew Bible from the point of view of both Masorah and linguistics

The fourth session, co-sponsored with Philology in Hebrew Studies, is entitled “Issues in Language Change and Language Contact – Linguistic and Philological Perspectives”. Papers should address the topics of language change or language contact from a linguistic and/or philological perspective, with preference given to papers that address both perspectives.

• Submit an abstract to the Linguistics and Biblical Hebrew Seminar (not Section) on-line at www.sbl-site.orgbefore 7 March 2018. All papers will be read and discussed. Everyone is welcome. For questions, contact Prof Jacobus Naudē <naudej@ufs.ac.za> or Dr Tania Notarius tania.notarius@mail.huji.ac.il