Semantics of Ancient Hebrew Database

Semantics of Ancient Hebrew Database (SAHD)

Cambridge, through the Faculty of Divinity, is one of a group of universities in Britain, Europe, the USA and Australia that are cooperating on a major scholarly enterprise in the field of Old Testament Studies. The Chairman of the Project is Prof. H. Gzella (following in the footsteps of his predecessors Prof. J. Hoftijzer and Prof. T. Muraoka) of the University of Leiden in the Netherlands, and the Secretary is Prof. Hugh Williamson of the University of Oxford. For information on other Universities involved, see the Website of Edinburgh. 

The Context

Cambridge has for many years been a front-line centre of Old (and New) Testament study and it was host in 1995 to the Fifteenth Congress of the International Organization for the Study of the Old Testament. In recent years research projects in the Faculty of Divinity have led to the publication of four reference works by Cambridge University Press: Ancient Hebrew Inscriptions by Prof. Davies (two volumes, 1991 and 2004), and three volumes of Jewish Inscriptions from the Graeco-Roman period (Prof. William Horbury and Dr David Noy). Currently there is a growing interest in Cambridge in the relationship of Old and New Testament Theology to one another in the widest context of Christian theology as well as in Jewish biblical exegesis, and this can be expected to benefit from the work of the Hebrew Database Project and also lead to important publications in the future. 

Method

The method is to store in a computerised form all the information that a scholar, translator, preacher or layperson could require about the meaning and interpretation of ancient Hebrew vocabulary. The data are systematically arranged, evaluated by experts in the field, and encoded so as to make consultation and cross-referencing easy and maximally productive. Both the quantity of data included and the possibilities of comparison and cross-reference will go far beyond that which any standard Hebrew dictionary can offer; the contributions of modern linguistics and computer technology will be exploited to the full. Such information lies at the foundation of all good biblical scholarship, whether this takes the form of commentaries on the Bible, historical works or biblical theology. The Faculty of Divinity is particularly interested in the study, in the context of this project, of theological terms like blessing, holiness and salvation, whose careful definition is essential if the meaning of the biblical writers is to be accurately represented. Given the fact that so much of the language and theology of the New Testament is modelled on those of the Old, a work of this kind will be of great benefit to New Testament interpretation as well. 

Work completed and in progress

The Project ihas been directed in Cambridge by Professor Davies of the Faculty of Divinity, and Professor Robert Gordon and Professor Geoffrey Khan of the Faculty of Oriental Studies. Under their supervision the research and writing up has been undertaken by Dr James Aitken, Dr Peter Williams and Mrs Alison Gray. The initial work was on a series of entries for the database on the Hebrew words for weapons, road and path, blessing and cursing, deliverance ('salvation'), and some of the Hebrew particles. Many of these entries have been published, either in print or online (see the list and links below). The entries on words for salvation (or, as we now prefer to say, ‘deliverance’) and an introductory overview to them written by Prof. Davies are in the final stages of revision and are expected to appear on this website in late-2012.

Funding

The project has been in preparation for several years. A grant from the European Science Foundation enabled leading scholars from several different countries to hold a series of meetings to discuss the study of Hebrew and to make specific plans for the database. Dr Graham Davies, then Reader in Old Testament Studies at Cambridge, was Secretary of the Co-ordinating Committee throughout this period and played a major part in establishing the ground rules for the project. In 1995 Cambridge was awarded £65,000 by the Leverhulme Trust to pay for a research worker for the first three years of the project, and since then funding has also been received from the Jerusalem Trust, the British Academy/Humanities Research Board, and other sources.

Publications of the SAHD Project

Some of the semantic principles employed in the Project were published in a volume: T. Muraoka (ed.), Studies in Ancient Hebrew Semantics (Abr-Nahrain Suppl. 4; Louvain: Peeters Press, 1995) and in Zeitschrift für Althebraistik 6 (1993).

The following sample entries were published in T. Muraoka (ed.), Semantics of Ancient Hebrew (Abr-Nahrain Suppl. 6; Louvain: Peeters Press, 1998): 

  • creation/creature by Dr. S. Bindi of Florence [translated by Dr. P.J. Williams, Cambridge]; 
  • words for to curse and curse by Dr. J.K. Aitken of Cambridge; 
  • words for road, path etc. by Dr. J.K. Aitken of Cambridge; 
  • words for royal appurtenances by Dr. A. Salvesen of Oxford. 

Two studies of complete semantic fields have been be published in book form:

  •  J.K. Aitken: The Semantics of Blessing and Cursing in Ancient Hebrew (Ancient Near Eastern Studies Supplement Series 23; Louvain: Peeters, 2007). 
  • J.E. Hartley, The Semantics of Ancient Hebrew Colour Lexemes (Ancient Near Eastern Studies Supplement Series 33; Louvain: Peeters, 2010).

Individual papers from the project include:

  • Aitken, J.K., Article on [brk, berakah], in H.-J. Fabry and U. Dahmen (ed.), Theologisches Wörterbuch zu den Qumrantexten, vol. 1 (Kohlhammer, 2011).
  • Aitken, J.K., Article on [za‘am], in H.-J. Fabry and U. Dahmen (ed.), Theologisches Wörterbuch zu den Qumrantexten, vol. 1 (Kohlhammer, 2011).
  • Gray, A., Article on [ga'al], in H.-J. Fabry and U. Dahmen (ed.), Theologisches Wörterbuch zu den Qumrantexten, vol. 1 (Kohlhammer, 2011).
  • Williams, Peter J., 'Difference between the roots mlt1 and plt1', Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft 114/3 (2002), 438-442. 

Some of the work has now been published online:

Contact

Professor G.I. Davies, Faculty of Divinity, West Road, Cambridge CB3 9BS (gid10@cam.ac.uk)