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150-613: Asherah ( / ˈ æ ʃ ər ə / ; Hebrew : אֲשֵׁרָה , romanized : ʾĂšērā ; Ugaritic : 𐎀𐎘𐎗𐎚 , romanized: ʾAṯiratu ; Akkadian : 𒀀𒅆𒋥 , romanized: Aširat ; Qatabanian : 𐩱𐩻𐩧𐩩 ʾṯrt ) was a goddess in ancient Semitic religions . She also appears in Hittite writings as Ašerdu(s) or Ašertu(s) ( Hittite : 𒀀𒊺𒅕𒌈 , romanized: a-še-ir-tu 4 ), and as Athirat in Ugarit . Some scholars hold that Yahweh and Asherah were
300-411: A hot desert climate ( Köppen : BWh ) with very hot, dry summers and warm, similarly dry winters. Winters are usually between 11–23 °C (52–73 °F). Summers are usually between 26–40 °C (79–104 °F). There are relatively small coral reefs near Eilat; however, 50 years ago they were much larger. The overwhelming majority of Eilat's population are Jews . Arabs constitute about 4% of
450-732: A tax-free zone . Notable attractions include the Dolphin Reef , where visitors can swim with dolphins; the Coral Beach Nature Reserve , the northernmost shallow coral reef on Earth; the Coral World Underwater Observatory , the Ice Mall, and the city's marina and sea-side promenade, home to many bars, restaurants and shops. The city also offers opportunities for hiking and exploration in nearby natural reserves like Timna Valley Park and
600-401: A "protective genius" (font?) for her in her temple. Though it is accepted that Ashratum's name is cognate to that of Asherah, the two goddesses are not actually identified with one another, given that they occupied different positions within their pantheons, despite sharing their status as consort to the supreme deity. In Akkadian texts , Asherah appears as Aširatu ; though her exact role in
750-685: A Hebrew form. Medieval Hebrew added 6421 words to (Modern) Hebrew. The approximate number of new lexical items in Israeli is 17,000 (cf. 14,762 in Even-Shoshan 1970 [...]). With the inclusion of foreign and technical terms [...], the total number of Israeli words, including words of biblical, rabbinic and medieval descent, is more than 60,000. In Israel, Modern Hebrew is currently taught in institutions called Ulpanim (singular: Ulpan). There are government-owned, as well as private, Ulpanim offering online courses and face-to-face programs. Modern Hebrew
900-545: A bit abstractly) from the pubic triangle. Remarking on the Lachish ewer , Hestrin noted that in a group of other pottery vessels found in situ , the usual depiction of the sacred tree flanked by ibexes or birds is in one goblet replaced by a pubic triangle flanked by ibexes. The interchange between the tree and the pubic triangle prove, according to Hestrin, that the tree symbolizes the fertility goddess Asherah. Hestrin draws parallels between this and representations of Hathor as
1050-595: A century ago, was fluent enough in this idiom to be able to follow the Mishna Berurah without any trouble." Hebrew has been revived several times as a literary language, most significantly by the Haskalah (Enlightenment) movement of early and mid-19th-century Germany. In the early 19th century, a form of spoken Hebrew had emerged in the markets of Jerusalem between Jews of different linguistic backgrounds to communicate for commercial purposes. This Hebrew dialect
1200-730: A common motif in Syrian and Phoenician ivories that the Arslan Tash horde had at least four; they can be seen in the Louvre. Early scholarship emphasized somewhat mutually-negating possibilities of holy prostitution , hieros gamos , and orgiastic rites. It has been suggested by several scholars that there is a relationship between the position of the gəḇīrā in the royal court and the worship (orthodox or not) of Asherah. The Hebrew Bible frequently and graphically associates goddess worship with prostitution ("whoredom") in material written after
1350-508: A connection to Asherah in 1941. Subsequent studies tried to find further evidence for equivalence of Qetesh and Asherah, although Wiggins does not. His hesitance did not dissuade subsequent scholars from equating Asherah with Qetesh. As ʾAṯirat ( Qatabanian : 𐩱𐩻𐩧𐩩 ʾṯrt ) she was attested in pre-Islamic south Arabia as the consort of the moon-god ʿAmm . One of the Tema stones (CIS II 113) discovered by Charles Huber in 1883 in
1500-432: A consort pair among the ancient Israelites. Possible evidence for her worship includes an iconography and inscriptions at two locations in use circa the 9th century. The first was in a cave at Khirbet el-Qom . The second was at Kuntillet Ajrud . In the latter, a jar shows bovid-anthropomorphic figures and several inscriptions that refer to "Yahweh of Samaria and his Asherah" and "Yahweh of Teman and his Asherah." However,
1650-549: A consort pair in ancient Israel and Judah , while others disagree. Some have sought a common-noun meaning of her name, especially in Ugaritic appellation rabat athirat yam , only found in the Baal Cycle . But a homophone's meaning to an Ugaritian doesn't equate an etymon, especially if the name is older than the Ugaritic language. There is no hypothesis for rabat athirat yam without significant issues, and if Asherah were
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#17327730529371800-661: A corollary Hebrew ceased to function as a spoken language around the same time. Moshe Zvi Segal , Joseph Klausner and Ben Yehuda are notable exceptions to this view. During the latter half of the 20th century, accumulating archaeological evidence and especially linguistic analysis of the Dead Sea Scrolls has disproven that view. The Dead Sea Scrolls, uncovered in 1946–1948 near Qumran revealed ancient Jewish texts overwhelmingly in Hebrew, not Aramaic. The Qumran scrolls indicate that Hebrew texts were readily understandable to
1950-579: A distinct style of philosophical Hebrew. This is used in the translations made by the Ibn Tibbon family. (Original Jewish philosophical works were usually written in Arabic. ) Another important influence was Maimonides , who developed a simple style based on Mishnaic Hebrew for use in his law code, the Mishneh Torah . Subsequent rabbinic literature is written in a blend between this style and
2100-594: A gradually accepted movement. It was not, however, until the 1904–1914 Second Aliyah that Hebrew had caught real momentum in Ottoman Palestine with the more highly organized enterprises set forth by the new group of immigrants. When the British Mandate of Palestine recognized Hebrew as one of the country's three official languages (English, Arabic, and Hebrew, in 1922), its new formal status contributed to its diffusion. A constructed modern language with
2250-496: A king of the Amorites by the 14th-century name of Abdi-Ashirta , "servant of Asherah". Each is on line ii within the letter's opening or greeting sentiment. Some may transcribe Aširatu or Ašratu . In Ugaritic texts , Asherah appears as ʾṯrt ( Ugaritic : 𐎀𐎘𐎗𐎚), anglicised ʾAṯirat or Athirat . She is called ʾElat , "goddess", the feminine form of ʾEl (compare Allāt ); she is also called Qodeš , "holiness". There
2400-468: A literary language down through the Byzantine period from the 4th century CE. The exact roles of Aramaic and Hebrew remain hotly debated. A trilingual scenario has been proposed for the land of Israel. Hebrew functioned as the local mother tongue with powerful ties to Israel's history, origins and golden age and as the language of Israel's religion; Aramaic functioned as the international language with
2550-536: A literary language, especially in Spain, as the language of commerce between Jews of different native languages, and as the liturgical language of Judaism, evolving various dialects of literary Medieval Hebrew , until its revival as a spoken language in the late 19th century. In May 2023, Scott Stripling published the finding of what he claims to be the oldest known Hebrew inscription, a curse tablet found at Mount Ebal , dated from around 3200 years ago. The presence of
2700-478: A number of scholars hold that the "asherah" mentioned in the inscriptions refers to some kind of cultic object or symbol, rather than a goddess. For instance, some scholars have argued that since cognate forms of "asherah" are used with the meaning of "sanctuary" in Phoenician and Aramaic inscriptions from the same period, this may also be the meaning of the term in the two Hebrew inscriptions. Others argue that
2850-616: A passive participle form, referring to the "one followed by (the gods)", that is, "progenitress or originatress", which would correspond to Asherah's image as the "mother of the gods" in Ugaritic literature. This solution was a response to and variation of B. Margalit's of her following in Yahweh's literal footsteps, a less generous estimation nonetheless supported by D ULAT 's use of the Ugaritian word in an ordinary sense. Binger finds some of these risibly imaginative, and unhappily falls back on
3000-490: A person or deity betwixt two confronted animals . According to Beaulieu, depictions of a divine " mistress of lions " motif are "almost undoubtedly depictions of the goddess Asherah." The lioness made a ubiquitous symbol for goddesses of the ancient Middle East that was similar to the dove and the tree. Lionesses figure prominently in Asherah's iconography, including the tenth-century BC Ta'anach cult stand , which also includes
3150-603: A population of about 500. The Timna Copper Mines near the Timna Valley and the Port of Eilat were opened that year and concerted effort by the Israeli government to populate Eilat began, starting with Jewish immigrant families from Morocco being resettled there. Eilat began to develop rapidly after the Suez Crisis in 1956, with its tourism industry in particular starting to flourish. The Israeli Navy 's Eilat naval base
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#17327730529373300-541: A rail link, sometimes referred to as the Med-Red to decrease travel times substantially from Eilat to Tel Aviv and Jerusalem , via the existing line at Beer Sheba ; planning is underway. As of 2021 Dimona railway station is the southernmost passenger train station in Israel. In the 1970s tourism became increasingly important to the city's economy as other industries shut down or were drastically reduced. Today tourism
3450-548: A set of dialects evolving out of Late Biblical Hebrew and into Mishnaic Hebrew, thus including elements from both but remaining distinct from either. By the start of the Byzantine Period in the 4th century CE, Classical Hebrew ceased as a regularly spoken language, roughly a century after the publication of the Mishnah, apparently declining since the aftermath of the catastrophic Bar Kokhba revolt around 135 CE. In
3600-668: A spoken language, it continued to be used as a lingua franca among scholars and Jews traveling in foreign countries. After the 2nd century CE when the Roman Empire exiled most of the Jewish population of Jerusalem following the Bar Kokhba revolt , they adapted to the societies in which they found themselves, yet letters, contracts, commerce, science, philosophy, medicine, poetry and laws continued to be written mostly in Hebrew, which adapted by borrowing and inventing terms. After
3750-472: A truly Semitic vocabulary and written appearance, although often European in phonology , was to take its place among the current languages of the nations. While many saw his work as fanciful or even blasphemous (because Hebrew was the holy language of the Torah and therefore some thought that it should not be used to discuss everyday matters), many soon understood the need for a common language amongst Jews of
3900-558: A vernacular in Judea until it was displaced by Aramaic, probably in the 3rd century CE. Certain Sadducee , Pharisee , Scribe , Hermit, Zealot and Priest classes maintained an insistence on Hebrew, and all Jews maintained their identity with Hebrew songs and simple quotations from Hebrew texts. While there is no doubt that at a certain point, Hebrew was displaced as the everyday spoken language of most Jews, and that its chief successor in
4050-754: A word from Ugarit it would be pronounced differently. The common NW Semitic meaning of šr is "king, prince, ruler." The NW Semitic root ʾṯr (Arabic أثر ) means "tread". The -ot ending "Asherot" is found three times in the Tanakh , with -im "Asherim" making up the great majority. The significance is unclear, as the interaction of gender and number in Hebrew is not robustly understood. Not all scholars find HB references with final t plural. Archaic suffixes like –atu/a/i became Northwest Semitic -at or -ā latter written -ah in transcription. That is, merely terminally alternate spellings like Asherat and Asherah reflect contextual rather than existential variation. Her name
4200-613: Is Israel 's southernmost city, with a population of 53,151, a busy port and popular resort at the northern tip of the Red Sea , on what is known in Israel as the Gulf of Eilat and in Jordan as the Gulf of Aqaba . The city is considered a tourist destination for domestic and international tourists heading to Israel. Eilat is located at the southernmost tip of Israel, at the southern end of
4350-518: Is 8198, of which some 2000 are hapax legomena (the number of Biblical Hebrew roots, on which many of these words are based, is 2099). The number of attested Rabbinic Hebrew words is less than 20,000, of which (i) 7879 are Rabbinic par excellence, i.e. they did not appear in the Old Testament (the number of new Rabbinic Hebrew roots is 805); (ii) around 6000 are a subset of Biblical Hebrew; and (iii) several thousand are Aramaic words which can have
4500-552: Is Israel's smallest. Special services geared to the Red Sea region are a hyperbaric chamber to treat victims of diving accidents and kidney dialysis facilities open to vacationing tourists. Since 2019, Ramon International Airport has handled commercial domestic and international flights to Eilat ( IATA : ETM, ICAO : LLER). Eilat has two main roads connecting it with the center of Israel - Route 12 , which leads North West, and Route 90 which leads North East, and South West to
4650-518: Is cognate to ḥawwat , an attested epithet of Tanit in the first millennium BCE, though other scholars dispute a connection between Tanit and Asherah, and between Asherah and Eve. A Phoenician deity Ḥawwat is attested in the Punica tabella defixionis . There is further speculation that the Shekhinah as a feminine aspect of Yahweh may be a cultural memory or devolution of Asherah. Another such aspect
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4800-514: Is fighting to stop businesses from using only English signs to market their services. In 2012, a Knesset bill for the preservation of the Hebrew language was proposed, which includes the stipulation that all signage in Israel must first and foremost be in Hebrew, as with all speeches by Israeli officials abroad. The bill's author, MK Akram Hasson , stated that the bill was proposed as a response to Hebrew "losing its prestige" and children incorporating more English words into their vocabulary. Hebrew
4950-460: Is located in the Gulf of Aqaba , one of the most popular diving destinations in the world. The coral reefs along Eilat's coast remain relatively pristine and the area is recognized as one of the prime diving locations in the world. About 250,000 dives are performed annually in Eilat's 11 km (6.8 mi) coastline, and diving represents 10% of the tourism income of this area. In addition, given
5100-636: Is no genuine Asherah iconography". An Amorite goddess named Ashratum is known to have been worshipped in Sumer. Her Amorite provenance is further supported by her status as the wife of Mardu/Amurrum , the supreme deity of the Amorites. A limestone slab inscribed with a dedication made by Hammurabi to Ashratum is known from Sippar . In it, he complements her as "lord of the mountain" ( bel shadī ), and presages similar use with words like voluptuousness, joy, tender, patient, mercy to commemorate setting up
5250-644: Is one of several languages for which the constitution of South Africa calls to be respected in their use for religious purposes. Also, Hebrew is an official national minority language in Poland , since 6 January 2005. Hamas has made Hebrew a compulsory language taught in schools in the Gaza Strip. Eilat Eilat ( / eɪ ˈ l ɑː t / ay- LAHT , UK also / eɪ ˈ l æ t / ay- LAT ; Hebrew : אֵילַת [eˈlat] ; Arabic : إِيلَات , romanized : Īlāt )
5400-541: Is one reference to the 70 sons of Athirat, presumably the same as the 70 sons of ʾEl. Among the Hittites this goddess appears as Ašerdu(s) or Ašertu(s) , the consort of Elkunirsa ("El, the Creator of Earth ") and mother of either 77 or 88 sons. The conception of Asherah as the partner of Yahweh has stirred a lot of debate. Many have written about it, and most scholars have argued that Yahweh and Asherah were indeed
5550-503: Is reference to a šr. ‘ṯtrt. Gibson says sources from before 1200 BC almost always credit Athirat with her full title rbt ʾṯrt ym (or rbt ʾṯrt ). However, Rahmouni's indexing of Ugaritic epithets states the phrase occurs in only the Baʿal Epic . Apparently of Akkadian origin, rabat means "lady" (literally "female great one"). She appears to champion her son, Yam , god of the sea, in his struggle against Baʾal. (Yam's ascription as god of
5700-505: Is seen in the feminine (grammatically or otherwise) treatment of the Holy Spirit or Sophia . Goddess "aspect creep" can even lap upon male figures like Jacob or Jesus. A variety of symbols have been associated with Asherah. The most common by far is that of the tree, an equivalence seen as early as Neolithic times. Cultic objects dedicated to Asherah frequently depict trees, and the terms asherim and asheroth , regularly invoked by
5850-432: Is sometimes ’lt "Elat", the feminine equivalent of El . Her titles often include qdš "holy" and baʽlat , or rbt "lady", and qnyt ỉlm , "creator of the gods." Due to certain ambiguities in surviving attestations of Asherah, whether she is to be considered a deity or a symbol is not universally agreed upon. While some consider Asherah to be a defined deity, others call her a "mere cultic object ". de Vaux says Asherah
6000-532: Is the city's major source of income, although Eilat became a free trade zone in 1985. Eilat offers a wide range of accommodations, from hostels and luxury hotels to Bedouin hospitality. In recent years Eilat has been the target of militants from Egypt and Gaza causing a reduced tourist inflow to the region. Attractions include: Skin and scuba diving equipment is for hire on or near all major beaches. Scuba diving equipment rental and compressed air are available from diving clubs and schools all year round. Eilat
6150-530: Is the only Canaanite language, as well as one of only two Northwest Semitic languages, with the other being Aramaic , still spoken today. The earliest examples of written Paleo-Hebrew date back to the 10th century BCE. Nearly all of the Hebrew Bible is written in Biblical Hebrew , with much of its present form in the dialect that scholars believe flourished around the 6th century BCE, during
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6300-457: Is the primary official language of the State of Israel. As of 2013 , there are about 9 million Hebrew speakers worldwide, of whom 7 million speak it fluently. Currently, 90% of Israeli Jews are proficient in Hebrew, and 70% are highly proficient. Some 60% of Israeli Arabs are also proficient in Hebrew, and 30% report having a higher proficiency in Hebrew than in Arabic. In total, about 53% of
6450-547: Is used to pronounce the Hebrew Bible; however, properly it should be distinguished from the historical Biblical Hebrew of the 6th century BCE, whose original pronunciation must be reconstructed. Tiberian Hebrew incorporates the scholarship of the Masoretes (from masoret meaning "tradition"), who added vowel points and grammar points to the Hebrew letters to preserve much earlier features of Hebrew, for use in chanting
6600-650: The Chayei Adam in Hebrew, as opposed to Yiddish , as a guide to Halacha for the " average 17-year-old" (Ibid. Introduction 1). Similarly, Rabbi Yisrael Meir Kagan 's purpose in writing the Mishnah Berurah was to "produce a work that could be studied daily so that Jews might know the proper procedures to follow minute by minute". The work was nevertheless written in Talmudic Hebrew and Aramaic, since, "the ordinary Jew [of Eastern Europe] of
6750-674: The Afroasiatic language family . A regional dialect of the Canaanite languages , it was natively spoken by the Israelites and remained in regular use as a first language until after 200 CE and as the liturgical language of Judaism (since the Second Temple period ) and Samaritanism . The language was revived as a spoken language in the 19th century, and is the only successful large-scale example of linguistic revival . It
6900-727: The Ancient Greek Ἑβραῖος ( hebraîos ) and Aramaic 'ibrāy , all ultimately derived from Biblical Hebrew Ivri ( עברי ), one of several names for the Israelite ( Jewish and Samaritan ) people ( Hebrews ). It is traditionally understood to be an adjective based on the name of Abraham 's ancestor, Eber , mentioned in Genesis 10:21 . The name is believed to be based on the Semitic root ʕ-b-r ( ע־ב־ר ), meaning "beyond", "other side", "across"; interpretations of
7050-700: The Arabah and the Negev Desert , adjacent to the Egyptian resort city of Taba to the south, the Jordanian port city of Aqaba to the east, and within sight of Haql , Saudi Arabia , across the gulf to the southeast. Eilat hosts numerous hotels, holiday resorts, and beaches. Its renown coral reefs make it a popular destination for diving tourism , with activities such as snorkeling and scuba diving . The city's shopping centers benefit from its status as
7200-437: The British Mandate era , a British police post existed in the area, which was known as Umm Al-Rashrash . The area was designated as part of the Jewish state in the 1947 UN Partition Plan . During the 1948 Arab-Israeli War , the abandoned police post, which consisted of five clay huts, was taken without a fight on March 10, 1949, as part of Operation Uvda . This marked the end of Israel's war for independence. The memorial at
7350-547: The Canaanite group of languages . Canaanite languages are a branch of the Northwest Semitic family of languages. Hebrew was the spoken language in the Iron Age kingdoms of Israel and Judah during the period from about 1200 to 586 BCE. Epigraphic evidence from this period confirms the widely accepted view that the earlier layers of biblical literature reflect the language used in these kingdoms. Furthermore,
7500-620: The Committee for the Designation of Place-Names in the Negev , referring to Elath , a location in the vicinity mentioned multiple times in the Hebrew Bible , notably as a station during the Israelites' exodus from Egypt , a site where King Solomon built ships, which was later rebuilt by Uzziah of Judah . The ancient site is possibly located at Tell el-Kheleifeh , an archaeological site situated halfway between modern Eilat and Aqaba, on
7650-588: The Eilat bakery bombing killed three civilian bakers. This was the first such attack in Eilat proper, although other terror attacks had been carried out in the area. In 2011, terrorists infiltrated Israel across the Sinai border to execute multiple attacks on Highway 12, including a civilian bus and private car a few miles north of Eilat, in what became known as the 2011 southern Israel cross-border attacks . In order to prevent terrorist infiltration of Israel from
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#17327730529377800-572: The Gospel of Matthew . (See the Hebrew Gospel hypothesis or Language of Jesus for more details on Hebrew and Aramaic in the gospels.) The term "Mishnaic Hebrew" generally refers to the Hebrew dialects found in the Talmud , excepting quotations from the Hebrew Bible. The dialects organize into Mishnaic Hebrew (also called Tannaitic Hebrew, Early Rabbinic Hebrew, or Mishnaic Hebrew I), which
7950-495: The Latin alphabet of ancient Rome . The Gezer calendar is written without any vowels , and it does not use consonants to imply vowels even in the places in which later Hebrew spelling requires them. Numerous older tablets have been found in the region with similar scripts written in other Semitic languages, for example, Proto-Sinaitic . It is believed that the original shapes of the script go back to Egyptian hieroglyphs , though
8100-682: The Maccabean Revolt (167–160 BCE) and the emergence of the Hasmonean kingdom , the Great Jewish Revolt (66–73 CE), and the Bar Kokhba revolt (132–135 CE). The nationalist significance of Hebrew manifested in various ways throughout this period. Michael Owen Wise notes that "Beginning with the time of the Hasmonean revolt [...] Hebrew came to the fore in an expression akin to modern nationalism. A form of classical Hebrew
8250-599: The Mediterranean basin and Europe. This happened in 1956 and again in 1967, when Egypt's closure of the Straits of Tiran to Israeli shipping effectively blockaded the port of Eilat. In 1956, this led to Israel's participation alongside Britain and France in the war against Egypt sparked by the Suez Crisis , while in 1967, 90% of Israeli oil passed through the Straits of Tiran. Oil tankers that were due to pass through
8400-400: The Niqqud , resulting in the word becoming y(a)m . Such occurrences, as well as the fact that the plural, "days", can be read as both yōmîm and yāmîm ( Hebrew : יָמִים ), gives credence to this alternate translation. Another primary epithet of Athirat was qnyt ʾilm , which may be translated as "the creator of the deities ". In those texts, Athirat is the consort of the god ʾEl ; there
8550-422: The Second Aliyah , it replaced a score of languages spoken by Jews at that time. Those languages were Jewish dialects of local languages, including Judaeo-Spanish (also called "Judezmo" and "Ladino"), Yiddish , Judeo-Arabic and Bukhori (Tajiki), or local languages spoken in the Jewish diaspora such as Russian , Persian and Arabic . The major result of the literary work of the Hebrew intellectuals along
8700-509: The high-speed railway to Eilat , a railway line which will serve both passenger and freight trains. It will link Eilat with Beersheba and Tel Aviv , and will run through the Arava Valley and Nahal Zin (see Zin Desert ). The former Eilat Airport was closed on 18 March 2019 after the opening of Ramon Airport . The land occupied by the former airport is to be redeveloped. The new Ramon Airport opened in January 2019, 18 kilometres (11 miles) north of Eilat and replaced both Eilat Airport and
8850-399: The literary and liturgical language into everyday spoken language . However, his brand of Hebrew followed norms that had been replaced in Eastern Europe by different grammar and style, in the writings of people like Ahad Ha'am and others. His organizational efforts and involvement with the establishment of schools and the writing of textbooks pushed the vernacularization activity into
9000-507: The official language of the State of Israel . Estimates of worldwide usage include five million speakers in 1998, and over nine million people in 2013. After Israel, the United States has the largest Hebrew-speaking population, with approximately 220,000 fluent speakers (see Israeli Americans and Jewish Americans ). Modern Hebrew is the official language of the State of Israel, while pre-revival forms of Hebrew are used for prayer or study in Jewish and Samaritan communities around
9150-484: The ostraca found near Lachish , which describe events preceding the final capture of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar and the Babylonian captivity of 586 BCE. In its widest sense, Biblical Hebrew refers to the spoken language of ancient Israel flourishing between c. 1000 BCE and c. 400 CE . It comprises several evolving and overlapping dialects. The phases of Classical Hebrew are often named after important literary works associated with them. Sometimes
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#17327730529379300-441: The 10th century BCE at the beginning of the Monarchic period , the traditional time of the reign of David and Solomon . Classified as Archaic Biblical Hebrew , the calendar presents a list of seasons and related agricultural activities. The Gezer calendar (named after the city in whose proximity it was found) is written in an old Semitic script, akin to the Phoenician one that, through the Greeks and Etruscans , later became
9450-544: The 1960s, most notably in the early 90s as a tropical locale for season 2 of the Canadian production Tropical Heat . It was also used in the films She , Madron , Ashanti and Rambo III . Despite harsh conditions, the region has supported large populations as far back as 8,000 BCE. Several Neolithic sites have been discovered in Eilat in its vicinity. One of them is a late Neolithic burial site with fan scrapers , dated by archaeologists to 5410-4250 BCE. Exploration of ancient sites began in 1861, but only 7% of
9600-454: The 1980s in the USSR , Hebrew studies reappeared due to people struggling for permission to go to Israel ( refuseniks ). Several of the teachers were imprisoned, e.g. Yosef Begun , Ephraim Kholmyansky , Yevgeny Korostyshevsky and others responsible for a Hebrew learning network connecting many cities of the USSR. Standard Hebrew, as developed by Eliezer Ben-Yehuda, was based on Mishnaic spelling and Sephardi Hebrew pronunciation. However,
9750-535: The 19th century was a lexical modernization of Hebrew. New words and expressions were adapted as neologisms from the large corpus of Hebrew writings since the Hebrew Bible, or borrowed from Arabic (mainly by Ben-Yehuda) and older Aramaic and Latin. Many new words were either borrowed from or coined after European languages, especially English, Russian, German, and French. Modern Hebrew became an official language in British-ruled Palestine in 1921 (along with English and Arabic), and then in 1948 became an official language of
9900-403: The 9th. It was one of six very similar contemporary villages discovered in close vicinity, two along the northbound leg of the Darb , and three to the southwest, along the coastal road, all of them depending on the nearby port of Ayla and the Hajj road. Its remains were found and excavated in 1989, between the industrial zone at the northern edge of Eilat and nearby Kibbutz Eilot . During
10050-579: The Aramaized Rabbinic Hebrew of the Talmud. Hebrew persevered through the ages as the main language for written purposes by all Jewish communities around the world for a large range of uses—not only liturgy, but also poetry, philosophy, science and medicine, commerce, daily correspondence and contracts. There have been many deviations from this generalization such as Bar Kokhba 's letters to his lieutenants, which were mostly in Aramaic, and Maimonides' writings, which were mostly in Arabic; but overall, Hebrew did not cease to be used for such purposes. For example,
10200-503: The British Mandate who at the turn of the 20th century were arriving in large numbers from diverse countries and speaking different languages. A Committee of the Hebrew Language was established. After the establishment of Israel, it became the Academy of the Hebrew Language . The results of Ben-Yehuda's lexicographical work were published in a dictionary ( The Complete Dictionary of Ancient and Modern Hebrew , Ben-Yehuda Dictionary ). The seeds of Ben-Yehuda's work fell on fertile ground, and by
10350-438: The Eilat Mountains. Eilat's arid desert climate and low humidity are moderated by proximity to a warm sea. Temperatures often exceed 40 °C (104 °F) in summer, and 21 °C (70 °F) in winter, while water temperatures range between 20 and 26 °C (68 and 79 °F). Eilat averages 360 sunny days a year. The name Eilat was given to the abandoned frontier post of Umm al-Rashrāsh ( أم الرشراش ) in 1949 by
10500-416: The Great conquered Babylon, he allowed the Jewish people to return from captivity. In time, a local version of Aramaic came to be spoken in Israel alongside Hebrew. By the beginning of the Common Era , Aramaic was the primary colloquial language of Samarian , Babylonian and Galileean Jews, and western and intellectual Jews spoke Greek , but a form of so-called Rabbinic Hebrew continued to be used as
10650-432: The Hebrew name of god , Yahweh, as three letters, Yod-Heh-Vav (YHV), according to the author and his team meant that the tablet is Hebrew and not Canaanite. However, practically all professional archeologists and epigraphers apart from Stripling's team claim that there is no text on this object. In July 2008, Israeli archaeologist Yossi Garfinkel discovered a ceramic shard at Khirbet Qeiyafa that he claimed may be
10800-494: The Hebrew Bible in the context of Asherah worship, are traditionally understood to refer to sacred trees called " Asherah poles ". An especially common Asherah tree in visual art is the date palm, a reliable producer of nutrition through the year. Some expect living trees, but Olyan sees a stylized, non-living palm or pole. The remains of a juniper tree discovered in a 7,500 year old gravesite in Eilat has been considered an Asherah tree by some. Asherah's association with fertility
10950-469: The Hebrew Bible is very strong. For example, she is found under trees (1 Kings 14:23; 2 Kings 17:10) and is made of wood by human beings (1 Kings 14:15, 2 Kings 16:3–4). The farther from the time of Josiah's reforms, the broader the perception of an Asherah became. Trees described in later Jewish texts as being an asherah or part of an asherah include grapevines , pomegranates , walnuts , myrtles , and willows . Eventually, monotheistic leaders would suppress
11100-602: The Hebrew Bible. The Masoretes inherited a biblical text whose letters were considered too sacred to be altered, so their markings were in the form of pointing in and around the letters. The Syriac alphabet , precursor to the Arabic alphabet , also developed vowel pointing systems around this time. The Aleppo Codex , a Hebrew Bible with the Masoretic pointing, was written in the 10th century, likely in Tiberias, and survives into
11250-500: The IDF trained in counter-terrorism and hostage rescue in the Eilat area, which has taken part in many counter-terrorist missions in the region since its formation in 1974. The Lotar unit is composed solely of reservists, citizens who must be Eilat residents between the ages of 20 and 60, who are on call in case of a terrorist attack on the city. It is one of only three units in the IDF authorized to free hostages on its own command. In 2007
11400-454: The Israeli population speaks Hebrew as a native language, while most of the rest speak it fluently. In 2013 Hebrew was the native language of 49% of Israelis over the age of 20, with Russian , Arabic , French , English , Yiddish and Ladino being the native tongues of most of the rest. Some 26% of immigrants from the former Soviet Union and 12% of Arabs reported speaking Hebrew poorly or not at all. Steps have been taken to keep Hebrew
11550-580: The Jordanian side of the border. The geology and landscape are varied: igneous and metamorphic rocks , sandstone and limestone; mountains up to 892 metres (2,927 ft) above sea level ; broad valleys such as the Arava, and seashore on the Gulf of Aqaba. With an annual average rainfall of 28 millimetres (1.1 in) and summer temperatures of 40 °C (104 °F) and higher, water resources and vegetation are limited. "The main elements that influenced
11700-477: The Middle East was the closely related Aramaic language, then Greek , scholarly opinions on the exact dating of that shift have changed very much. In the first half of the 20th century, most scholars followed Abraham Geiger and Gustaf Dalman in thinking that Aramaic became a spoken language in the land of Israel as early as the beginning of Israel's Hellenistic period in the 4th century BCE, and that as
11850-539: The Negev maintains a campus in Eilat. The Eilat branch has 1,100 students, about 75 percent from outside the city. The Hebrew University of Jerusalem , also maintains a campus in Eilat. In 2010, a new student dormitory was funded and built by the Jewish Federation of Toronto, the Rashi Foundation, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev and the municipality of Eilat. The SPNI 's Eilat Field School on
12000-533: The Semitic root qdš , meaning "holy". However, there is a shrinking scholarly consensus that sacred prostitution existed, and some argue that sex acts within the temple were limited to yearly sacred fertility rites aimed at assuring an abundant harvest. There are references to the worship of numerous deities throughout the Books of Kings: Solomon builds temples to many deities and Josiah is reported as cutting down
12150-740: The Sinai, Israel has built the Egypt–Israel barrier , a steel barrier equipped with cameras, radar and motion sensors along the country's southern border. The fence was completed in January 2013. During the Israel-Hamas War and ensuing Red Sea crisis , the port saw an 85% reduction in volumes and by 12 July 2024 the port of Eilat declared bankruptcy resulting in it seeing no economic activity or revenue for eight months. In July 2012, Israel signed an agreement with China to cooperate in building
12300-674: The Talmud, the Gemara , generally comments on the Mishnah and Baraitot in two forms of Aramaic. Nevertheless, Hebrew survived as a liturgical and literary language in the form of later Amoraic Hebrew, which occasionally appears in the text of the Gemara, particularly in the Jerusalem Talmud and the classical aggadah midrashes . Hebrew was always regarded as the language of Israel's religion, history and national pride, and after it faded as
12450-460: The Talmud, various regional literary dialects of Medieval Hebrew evolved. The most important is Tiberian Hebrew or Masoretic Hebrew, a local dialect of Tiberias in Galilee that became the standard for vocalizing the Hebrew Bible and thus still influences all other regional dialects of Hebrew. This Tiberian Hebrew from the 7th to 10th century CE is sometimes called "Biblical Hebrew" because it
12600-437: The Ugaritic ʾAṯirat or a later borrowing of the Hebrew ʾĂšērāh or similar form. In any event, Watkins says the root of both names is a Proto-Semitic *ʾṯrt . Pritchard excerpts the mention wšnglʔ wʔšyrʔ ʔlhy tymʔ and differs on the root's meaning. The Arabic root ʾṯr (as in أثر ʾaṯar , "trace") is similar in meaning to the Hebrew ʾāšar , indicating "to tread", used as a basis to explain Asherah's epithet "of
12750-488: The ability to speak the language and attempted to promote its use. According to the Jerusalem Talmud , Megillah 1:9: "Rebbi Jonathan from Bet Guvrrin said, four languages are appropriate that the world should use them, and they are these: The Foreign Language (Greek) for song, Latin for war, Syriac for elegies, Hebrew for speech. Some are saying, also Assyrian (Hebrew script) for writing." The later section of
12900-478: The above phases of spoken Classical Hebrew are simplified into "Biblical Hebrew" (including several dialects from the 10th century BCE to 2nd century BCE and extant in certain Dead Sea Scrolls) and "Mishnaic Hebrew" (including several dialects from the 3rd century BCE to the 3rd century CE and extant in certain other Dead Sea Scrolls). However, today most Hebrew linguists classify Dead Sea Scroll Hebrew as
13050-511: The ancient oasis of Tema , northwestern Arabia, and now located at the Louvre , believed to date to the time of Nabonidus 's retirement there in 549 BC, bears an inscription in Aramaic that mentions Ṣelem of Maḥram ( צלם זי מחרמ ), Šingalāʾ ( שנגלא ), and ʾAšîrāʾ ( אשירא ) as the deities of Tema. It is unclear whether the name would be an Aramaic vocalisation of
13200-446: The area has undergone serious archaeological excavation . Some 1,500 ancient sites are located in a 1,200-square-kilometer (460 sq mi) area. In contrast to the gaps found in settlement periods in the neighbouring Negev Highlands and Sinai, these sites show continuous settlement for the past 10,000 years. Eilat is twinned with: Eilat has streets named after Antibes , Durban , Kamen , Kampen and Los Angeles as well as
13350-561: The average Jew, and that the language had evolved since Biblical times as spoken languages do. Recent scholarship recognizes that reports of Jews speaking in Aramaic indicate a multilingual society, not necessarily the primary language spoken. Alongside Aramaic, Hebrew co-existed within Israel as a spoken language. Most scholars now date the demise of Hebrew as a spoken language to the end of the Roman period , or about 200 CE. It continued on as
13500-547: The beginning of the 20th century, Hebrew was well on its way to becoming the main language of the Jewish population of both Ottoman and British Palestine. At the time, members of the Old Yishuv and a very few Hasidic sects, most notably those under the auspices of Satmar , refused to speak Hebrew and spoke only Yiddish. In the Soviet Union, the use of Hebrew, along with other Jewish cultural and religious activities,
13650-450: The border crossing with Egypt. Egged , the national bus company, provides regular service to points north on an almost hourly basis as well as in-city on a half-hourly basis during daylight hours. In part due to the comparatively long travel times, there are different booking procedures for buses to Eilat, including the option of advance reservations. The Port of Eilat and Eilat Marina allow travel by sea. Future plans also call for
13800-420: The civilian use of Ovda Airport . Hotels and apartment buildings, containing a total of 2,080 hotel rooms and 1,000 apartments will be constructed on the site, as well as 275 dunams of public space and pedestrian paths. The plans also set aside space for the railway line and an underground railway station. The plan's goal is to create an urban continuum between the city center and North Beach, as well as tighten
13950-602: The composition of 1 Maccabees in archaizing Hebrew, Hasmonean coinage under John Hyrcanus (134-104 BCE), and coins from both the Great Revolt and Bar Kokhba Revolt featuring exclusively Hebrew and Palaeo-Hebrew script inscriptions. This deliberate use of Hebrew and Paleo-Hebrew script in official contexts, despite limited literacy, served as a symbol of Jewish nationalism and political independence. The Christian New Testament contains some Semitic place names and quotes. The language of such Semitic glosses (and in general
14100-468: The content of Hebrew inscriptions suggests that the written texts closely mirror the spoken language of that time. Scholars debate the degree to which Hebrew was a spoken vernacular in ancient times following the Babylonian exile when the predominant international language in the region was Old Aramaic . Hebrew was extinct as a colloquial language by late antiquity , but it continued to be used as
14250-568: The dialects of Classical Hebrew that functioned as a living language in the land of Israel. A transitional form of the language occurs in the other works of Tannaitic literature dating from the century beginning with the completion of the Mishnah. These include the halachic Midrashim ( Sifra , Sifre , Mekhilta etc.) and the expanded collection of Mishnah-related material known as the Tosefta . The Talmud contains excerpts from these works, as well as further Tannaitic material not attested elsewhere;
14400-423: The earliest Hebrew writing yet discovered, dating from around 3,000 years ago. Hebrew University archaeologist Amihai Mazar said that the inscription was "proto-Canaanite" but cautioned that "[t]he differentiation between the scripts, and between the languages themselves in that period, remains unclear", and suggested that calling the text Hebrew might be going too far. The Gezer calendar also dates back to
14550-513: The earliest speakers of Modern Hebrew had Yiddish as their native language and often introduced calques from Yiddish and phono-semantic matchings of international words. Despite using Sephardic Hebrew pronunciation as its primary basis, modern Israeli Hebrew has adapted to Ashkenazi Hebrew phonology in some respects, mainly the following: The vocabulary of Israeli Hebrew is much larger than that of earlier periods. According to Ghil'ad Zuckermann : The number of attested Biblical Hebrew words
14700-584: The early 6th century BCE, the Neo-Babylonian Empire conquered the ancient Kingdom of Judah , destroying much of Jerusalem and exiling its population far to the east in Babylon . During the Babylonian captivity , many Israelites learned Aramaic, the closely related Semitic language of their captors. Thus, for a significant period, the Jewish elite became influenced by Aramaic. After Cyrus
14850-484: The famous archaeological site with cannabanoids and massebot. Dever notes: "The only goddess whose name is well attested in the Hebrew Bible (or in ancient Israel generally) is Asherah." Various partial inscriptions found on destroyed seventh century BCE jars in Ekron contain words like šmn "oil", dbl "fig cake", qdš "holy," l'šrt "to Asherah", and lmqm "for the shrine". This has been taken as evidence that Asherah
15000-711: The first Middle East printing press, in Safed (modern Israel), produced a small number of books in Hebrew in 1577, which were then sold to the nearby Jewish world. This meant not only that well-educated Jews in all parts of the world could correspond in a mutually intelligible language, and that books and legal documents published or written in any part of the world could be read by Jews in all other parts, but that an educated Jew could travel and converse with Jews in distant places, just as priests and other educated Christians could converse in Latin. For example, Rabbi Avraham Danzig wrote
15150-566: The former, and, peculiarly, Ἀστάρτη ( Astarte ) for the latter. The Vulgate in Latin provided lucus or nemus , a grove or a wood. From the Vulgate, the King James translation of the Bible uses grove or groves instead of Asherah's name. Non-scholarly English language readers of the Bible would not have read her name for more than 400 years afterward. The association of Asherah with trees in
15300-406: The generic term for these passages is Baraitot . The dialect of all these works is very similar to Mishnaic Hebrew. About a century after the publication of the Mishnah, Mishnaic Hebrew fell into disuse as a spoken language. By the third century CE, sages could no longer identify the Hebrew names of many plants mentioned in the Mishnah. Only a few sages, primarily in the southern regions, retained
15450-474: The historical place of March 1949 was declared a National Heritage Site in 1994. The town developed over the following years. Eilat Airport was built in 1949 and individual ships began arriving in the 1950s, but as there were no dedicated port facilities they unloaded their goods at sea. In the early 1950s, Eilat was a small and remote town, populated largely by port workers, soldiers, and former prisoners. The town's development accelerated in 1955, when it had
15600-462: The language as Ivrit , meaning Hebrew; however, Mishnah Megillah refers to the language as Ashurit , meaning Assyrian , which is derived from the name of the alphabet used , in contrast to Ivrit , meaning the Paleo-Hebrew alphabet . Hebrew ceased to be a regular spoken language sometime between 200 and 400 CE, as it declined in the aftermath of the unsuccessful Bar Kokhba revolt , which
15750-465: The language spoken by Jews in scenes from the New Testament) is often referred to as "Hebrew" in the text, although this term is often re-interpreted as referring to Aramaic instead and is rendered accordingly in recent translations. Nonetheless, these glosses can be interpreted as Hebrew as well. It has been argued that Hebrew, rather than Aramaic or Koine Greek, lay behind the composition of
15900-471: The language. The revival of the Hebrew language as a mother tongue was initiated in the late 19th century by the efforts of Ben-Yehuda. He joined the Jewish national movement and in 1881 immigrated to Palestine , then a part of the Ottoman Empire . Motivated by the surrounding ideals of renovation and rejection of the diaspora " shtetl " lifestyle, Ben-Yehuda set out to develop tools for making
16050-523: The links between the city's neighborhoods, which were separated by the airport. In addition, there are plans to move the Port of Eilat and the Eilat-Ashkelon pipeline terminal to the northern part of the city, as well as to turn it into a university town of science and research, and brand it an international sports city. All these projects are part of a plan to increase Eilat's population to 150,000 people and build 35,000 hotel rooms. Eilat has
16200-727: The newly declared State of Israel . Hebrew is the most widely spoken language in Israel today. In the Modern Period, from the 19th century onward, the literary Hebrew tradition revived as the spoken language of modern Israel, called variously Israeli Hebrew , Modern Israeli Hebrew , Modern Hebrew , New Hebrew , Israeli Standard Hebrew , Standard Hebrew and so on. Israeli Hebrew exhibits some features of Sephardic Hebrew from its local Jerusalemite tradition but adapts it with numerous neologisms, borrowed terms (often technical) from European languages and adopted terms (often colloquial) from Arabic. The literary and narrative use of Hebrew
16350-517: The oldest on earth. An Islamic community of 250–400 residents flourished for one or two generations in the area during the Umayyad period . It dealt in agriculture, copper mining and smelting , as well as trading with pilgrims by taking advantage of the adjacent Darb el-Hajj ('Way of the Hajj ') route in the 8th century CE. There was some sporadic reuse of the abandoned site by pastoralists during
16500-406: The outskirts of Eilat offers special hiking tours that focus on desert ecology , the Red Sea , bird migration and other aspects of Eilat's flora and fauna. The Hesder Yeshiva Ayelet Hashachar, is based in Eilat, established in 1997. Yoseftal Medical Center , established in 1968, is Israel's southernmost hospital, and the only hospital covering the southern Negev . With 65 beds, the hospital
16650-518: The pantheon is unclear; as a separate goddess, Antu , was considered the wife of Anu , the god of Heaven . In contrast, ʿAshtart is believed to be linked to the Mesopotamian goddess Ishtar who is sometimes portrayed as the daughter of Anu. Points of reference in Akkadian epigraphy are collocated and heterographic Amarna Letters 60 and 61's Asheratic personal name. Within them is found
16800-534: The phonetic values are instead inspired by the acrophonic principle. The common ancestor of Hebrew and Phoenician is called Canaanite , and was the first to use a Semitic alphabet distinct from that of Egyptian. One ancient document is the famous Moabite Stone , written in the Moabite dialect; the Siloam inscription , found near Jerusalem , is an early example of Hebrew. Less ancient samples of Archaic Hebrew include
16950-746: The population. Eilat's population includes a large number of foreign workers, estimated at over 10,000 working as caregivers, hotel workers and in the construction trades. Eilat also has a growing Israeli Arab population, as well as many affluent Jordanians and Egyptians who visit Eilat in the summer months. In 2007, over 200 Sudanese refugees from Egypt who arrived in Israel illegally on foot were given work and allowed to stay in Eilat. The educational system of Eilat accommodates more than 9,000 children in eight day-care centers, 67 pre-kindergartens and kindergartens, 10 elementary schools, and 3 six-year high schools. Also, there are some special-education schools and religious schools. Ben Gurion University of
17100-591: The present day. It is perhaps the most important Hebrew manuscript in existence. During the Golden age of Jewish culture in Spain , important work was done by grammarians in explaining the grammar and vocabulary of Biblical Hebrew; much of this was based on the work of the grammarians of Classical Arabic . Important Hebrew grammarians were Judah ben David Hayyuj , Jonah ibn Janah , Abraham ibn Ezra and later (in Provence ), David Kimhi . A great deal of poetry
17250-635: The primary language of use, and to prevent large-scale incorporation of English words into the Hebrew vocabulary. The Academy of the Hebrew Language of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem currently invents about 2,000 new Hebrew words each year for modern words by finding an original Hebrew word that captures the meaning, as an alternative to incorporating more English words into Hebrew vocabulary. The Haifa municipality has banned officials from using English words in official documents, and
17400-452: The proximity of many of these reefs to the shore, non-divers can encounter the Red Sea's reefs with relative ease. Water conditions for SCUBA divers are good all year round, with water temperatures around 21–25 °C (70–77 °F), with little or no currents and clear waters with an average of 20–30 metres (66–98 feet) visibility. Eilat has been utilized by film and television productions – domestic and foreign – for location shooting since
17550-473: The reforms of Josiah . Jeremiah , and Ezekiel blame the goddess religion for making Yahweh "jealous", and cite his jealousy as the reason Yahweh allowed the destruction of Jerusalem. Although their nature remains uncertain, sexual rites typically revolved around women of power and influence, such as Maacah . The Hebrew term qadishtu , formerly translated as " temple prostitutes " or "shrine prostitutes", literally means "priestesses" or "consecrated women", from
17700-478: The region's history were the copper resources and other minerals, the ancient international roads that crossed the area, and its geopolitical and strategic position. These resulted in a settlement density that defies the environmental conditions." Archaeological excavations uncovered impressive prehistoric ( Neolithic ) tombs dating to the 7th millennium BC at the western edge of Eilat, while nearby copper workings and mining operations at Timna Valley are one of
17850-674: The rest of the Middle East; and eventually Greek functioned as another international language with the eastern areas of the Roman Empire. William Schniedewind argues that after waning in the Persian period, the religious importance of Hebrew grew in the Hellenistic and Roman periods, and cites epigraphical evidence that Hebrew survived as a vernacular language – though both its grammar and its writing system had been substantially influenced by Aramaic. According to another summary, Greek
18000-552: The sea may mislead; Yam is the deified sea itself rather than a deity who holds dominion over it.) So some say Athirat's title can be translated as "Lady ʾAṯirat of the Sea", alternatively, "she who walks on the sea", or even "the Great Lady-who-tramples-Yam." This invites relation to a Chaoskampf in which neither she nor Yam is otherwise implicated. Park suggested in 2010 that the name Athirat might be derived from
18150-431: The sea" as "she who treads the ym (sea)." Asherah survived late in remote South Arabia as seen in some common era Qatabanian and Maʕinian inscriptions. Hebrew language Hebrew ( Hebrew alphabet : עִבְרִית , ʿĪvrīt , pronounced [ ʔivˈʁit ] or [ ʕivˈrit ] ; Samaritan script : ࠏࠨࠁࠬࠓࠪࠉࠕ ʿÎbrit ) is a Northwest Semitic language within
18300-459: The so-called Revadim Asherah is rife with potent, striking sexual imagery, depicting Asherah suckling two smaller figures and using both of her hands to fully expose her vagina. Many times, Asherah's pubis area was marked by a concentration of dots, indicating pubic hair, though this figure is sometimes polysemically understood as a grape cluster . The womb was also sometimes used as a nutrix symbol, as animals are often shown feeding directly (if
18450-493: The southern villages of Judea." In other words, "in terms of dialect geography, at the time of the tannaim Palestine could be divided into the Aramaic-speaking regions of Galilee and Samaria and a smaller area, Judaea, in which Rabbinic Hebrew was used among the descendants of returning exiles." In addition, it has been surmised that Koine Greek was the primary vehicle of communication in coastal cities and among
18600-474: The spoken language of the Russian Jews, should be treated as their only national language, while Hebrew was to be treated as a foreign language. Hebrew books and periodicals ceased to be published and were seized from the libraries, although liturgical texts were still published until the 1930s. Despite numerous protests, a policy of suppression of the teaching of Hebrew operated from the 1930s on. Later in
18750-580: The statues of Asherah in the temple Solomon built for Yahweh (2 Kings 23:14). Josiah's grandfather Manasseh had erected one such statue (2 Kings 21:7). The name Asherah appears forty times in the Hebrew Bible, but it is much reduced in English translations. The word ʾăšērâ is translated in Greek as Greek : ἄλσος ( grove ; plural: ἄλση) in every instance apart from Isaiah 17:8; 27:9 and 2 Chronicles 15:16; 24:18, with Greek : δένδρα (trees) being used for
18900-491: The still-problematic interpretation that Ym may also mean day, so "Lady Asherah of the day", or, more simply, "Lady Day". The common Semitic root ywm (for reconstructed Proto-Semitic * yawm- ), from which derives ( Hebrew : יוֹם ), meaning "day", appears in several instances in the Masoretic Texts with the second-root letter ( - w - ) having been dropped, and in a select few cases, replaced with an A-class vowel of
19050-459: The straits were delayed. The straits' closure was cited by Israel as an additional casus belli leading to the outbreak of the Six-Day War . Following peace treaties signed with Egypt in 1979 and Jordan in 1994 , Eilat's borders with its neighbors were finally opened. Eilat is especially defended by its own special forces unit LOTAR Eilat . It is a reservist special forces unit of
19200-620: The sycamore tree goddess in Egypt, and suggests that during the period of Egyptian rule in Palestine the Hathor cult penetrated the region so extensively that Hathor became identified with Asherah. Other motifs in the ewer such as a lion, fallow deer and ibexes seem to have a close relationship with the iconography associated with her. Asherah may also have been associated with the ancient pan- Near Eastern " Master of animals " motif, which depicted
19350-470: The term "Hebrew" generally render its meaning as roughly "from the other side [of the river/desert]"—i.e., an exonym for the inhabitants of the land of Israel and Judah , perhaps from the perspective of Mesopotamia , Phoenicia or Transjordan (with the river referred to being perhaps the Euphrates , Jordan or Litani ; or maybe the northern Arabian Desert between Babylonia and Canaan ). Compare
19500-529: The term "asherah" may refer to a sacred tree or grove used for the worship of Yahweh as this is the meaning that the Hebrew term has in the Hebrew Bible and in the Mishnah . In one potsherd there appear a large and small bovine. This "oral fixation" motif has diverse examples, see figs 413–419 in Winter. In fact, already Flinders Petrie in the 1930s was referring to Davies on the memorable stereotype. It's such
19650-518: The time of the Babylonian captivity . For this reason, Hebrew has been referred to by Jews as Lashon Hakodesh ( לְשׁוֹן הַקֹּדֶש , lit. ' the holy tongue ' or ' the tongue [of] holiness ' ) since ancient times. The language was not referred to by the name Hebrew in the Bible , but as Yehudit ( transl. ' Judean ' ) or Səpaṯ Kəna'an ( transl. "the language of Canaan " ). Mishnah Gittin 9:8 refers to
19800-464: The tree due to its association with Asherah. Deuteronomy 12 has Yahweh commanding the destruction of her shrines so as to maintain purity of his worship. Jezebel brought hundreds of prophets for Baal and Asherah with her into the Israelite court. William Dever's book discusses female pillar figurines , the queen of heaven name, and the cakes. Dever also points to the temple at Tel Arad ,
19950-461: The tree motif. A Hebrew arrowhead from the eleventh century BC bears the inscription "Servant of the Lion Lady". The symbols around Asherah are so many (8+ pointed star, caprids and the like, along with lunisolar, arboreal, florid, serpentine) that a listing would approach meaninglessness as it neared exhaustiveness. Frevel's 1000-page dissertation ends enigmatically with the pronouncement "There
20100-580: The upper class of Jerusalem , while Aramaic was prevalent in the lower class of Jerusalem, but not in the surrounding countryside. After the suppression of the Bar Kokhba revolt in the 2nd century CE, Judaeans were forced to disperse. Many relocated to Galilee, so most remaining native speakers of Hebrew at that last stage would have been found in the north. Many scholars have pointed out that Hebrew continued to be used alongside Aramaic during Second Temple times, not only for religious purposes but also for nationalistic reasons, especially during revolts such as
20250-505: The word Habiru or cognate Assyrian ebru , of identical meaning. One of the earliest references to the language's name as " Ivrit " is found in the prologue to the Book of Sirach , from the 2nd century BCE. The Hebrew Bible does not use the term "Hebrew" in reference to the language of the Hebrew people; its later historiography, in the Book of Kings , refers to it as יְהוּדִית Yehudit " Judahite (language)". Hebrew belongs to
20400-595: The world today; the latter group utilizes the Samaritan dialect as their liturgical tongue. As a non- first language , it is studied mostly by non-Israeli Jews and students in Israel, by archaeologists and linguists specializing in the Middle East and its civilizations , and by theologians in Christian seminaries . The modern English word "Hebrew" is derived from Old French Ebrau , via Latin from
20550-557: The world was by air and sea alone. Further, Egypt denied passage through the Suez Canal to Israeli-registered ships or to any ship carrying cargo to or from Israeli ports. This made Eilat and its sea port crucial to Israel's communications, commerce and trade with Africa and Asia, and for oil imports. Without recourse to a port on the Red Sea Israel would have been unable to develop its diplomatic, cultural and trade ties beyond
20700-528: Was "both," and Winter says the goddess and her symbol should not be distinguished altogether. Beside the obvious connections between goddesses who sometimes cannot be distinguished, some scholars have found an early link between Asherah and Eve , based upon the coincidence of their common title as "the mother of all living" in Genesis 3:20 through the identification with the Hurrian mother goddess , Hebat . Olyan notes that Eve's original Hebrew name, ḥawwā ,
20850-421: Was a spoken language , and Amoraic Hebrew (also called Late Rabbinic Hebrew or Mishnaic Hebrew II), which was a literary language . The earlier section of the Talmud is the Mishnah that was published around 200 CE, although many of the stories take place much earlier, and were written in the earlier Mishnaic dialect. The dialect is also found in certain Dead Sea Scrolls. Mishnaic Hebrew is considered to be one of
21000-457: Was carried out against the Roman Empire by the Jews of Judaea . Aramaic and, to a lesser extent, Greek were already in use as international languages, especially among societal elites and immigrants. Hebrew survived into the medieval period as the language of Jewish liturgy , rabbinic literature , intra-Jewish commerce, and Jewish poetic literature . The first dated book printed in Hebrew
21150-402: Was founded that year. The town's population grew to 5,300 in 1961. Yoseftal Medical Center and the Eilat-Ashkelon pipeline were completed in 1968, and the population increased further, reaching 13,100 in 1972 and 18,900 in 1983. After the 1948 Arab–Israeli War Arab countries maintained a state of hostility with Israel, blocking all land routes; Israel's access to and trade with the rest of
21300-454: Was not limited to her association with trees; she was often depicted with pronounced sexual features. Idols of Asherah, often called ’Astarte figurines’, are representative of Asherah as a tree in that they have bodies which resemble tree trunks, while also further extenuating the goddess' connection to fertility in line with her status as a "mother goddess". The " Judean pillar figures " universally depict Asherah with protruding breasts. Likewise,
21450-491: Was now a more significant written language than Aramaic within Judaea." This nationalist aspect was further emphasized during periods of conflict, as Hannah Cotton observing in her analysis of legal documents during the Jewish revolts against Rome that "Hebrew became the symbol of Jewish nationalism, of the independent Jewish State." The nationalist use of Hebrew is evidenced in several historical documents and artefacts, including
21600-566: Was published by Abraham Garton in Reggio ( Calabria , Italy) in 1475. With the rise of Zionism in the 19th century, the Hebrew language experienced a full-scale revival as a spoken and literary language. The creation of a modern version of the ancient language was led by Eliezer Ben-Yehuda . Modern Hebrew ( Ivrit ) became the main language of the Yishuv in Palestine , and subsequently
21750-629: Was revived beginning with the Haskalah movement. The first secular periodical in Hebrew, Ha-Me'assef (The Gatherer), was published by maskilim in Königsberg (today's Kaliningrad ) from 1783 onwards. In the mid-19th century, publications of several Eastern European Hebrew-language newspapers (e.g. Hamagid , founded in Ełk in 1856) multiplied. Prominent poets were Hayim Nahman Bialik and Shaul Tchernichovsky ; there were also novels written in
21900-531: Was suppressed. Soviet authorities considered the use of Hebrew "reactionary" since it was associated with Zionism, and the teaching of Hebrew at primary and secondary schools was officially banned by the People's Commissariat for Education as early as 1919, as part of an overall agenda aiming to secularize education (the language itself did not cease to be studied at universities for historical and linguistic purposes ). The official ordinance stated that Yiddish, being
22050-551: Was the language of government, Hebrew the language of prayer, study and religious texts, and Aramaic was the language of legal contracts and trade. There was also a geographic pattern: according to Bernard Spolsky , by the beginning of the Common Era, " Judeo-Aramaic was mainly used in Galilee in the north, Greek was concentrated in the former colonies and around governmental centers, and Hebrew monolingualism continued mainly in
22200-408: Was to a certain extent a pidgin . Near the end of that century the Jewish activist Eliezer Ben-Yehuda , owing to the ideology of the national revival ( שיבת ציון , Shivat Tziyon , later Zionism ), began reviving Hebrew as a modern spoken language. Eventually, as a result of the local movement he created, but more significantly as a result of the new groups of immigrants known under the name of
22350-549: Was worshipped in Philistia . Attempts to identify Asherah within the pantheon of ancient Egypt have been met with both limited acceptance and controversy. Beginning during the Eighteenth Dynasty of Egypt , a Semitic goddess named Qetesh ("holiness", sometimes reconstructed as Qudshu ) appears prominently. That dynasty follows expulsion of occupying foreigners from an intermediary period . René Dussard suggested
22500-570: Was written, by poets such as Dunash ben Labrat , Solomon ibn Gabirol , Judah ha-Levi , Moses ibn Ezra and Abraham ibn Ezra , in a "purified" Hebrew based on the work of these grammarians, and in Arabic quantitative or strophic meters. This literary Hebrew was later used by Italian Jewish poets. The need to express scientific and philosophical concepts from Classical Greek and Medieval Arabic motivated Medieval Hebrew to borrow terminology and grammar from these other languages, or to coin equivalent terms from existing Hebrew roots, giving rise to
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