Hellenistic philosophy is Ancient Greek philosophy corresponding to the Hellenistic period in Ancient Greece , from the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC to the Battle of Actium in 31 BC. The dominant schools of this period were the Stoics , the Epicureans and the Skeptics .
174-468: Sefer Yetzirah ( Hebrew : סֵפֶר יְצִירָה Sēp̄er Yəṣīrā , Book of Formation , or Book of Creation ) is a book on Jewish mysticism . Early commentaries, such as the Kuzari , treated it as a treatise on mathematical and linguistic theory as opposed to Kabbalah . The word Yetzirah is more literally translated as "Formation"; the word Briah is used for "Creation". The book is traditionally ascribed to
348-685: 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
522-595: 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
696-781: A continuous sensation because of how quickly they move. The epistemology of the Epicureans was empiricist , with knowledge being ultimately sourced from the senses. Epicurus argued that sensory information is never false, though it may be misleading sometimes, and that "If you fight against all sensations, you will not have a standard against to which judge even those of them you say are mistaken". He responded to an objection to empiricism made by Plato in Meno , according to which one cannot search for information without having some pre-existing idea of what to search for, hence meaning that knowledge must precede experience. The Epicurean response
870-661: 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
1044-490: A desire for fame, participation in politics was discouraged. Further, Epicurus sought to eliminate the fear of the gods and of death , seeing those two fears as chief causes of strife in life. Greek philosophical skepticism , as a distinct philosophical movement , began with Pyrrho of Elis and Timon of Phlius in the 3rd century BC. Following the death of Timon of Phlius , When the Platonic Academy became
1218-579: 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
1392-512: A fiery nature by being received into the seminal reason (" logos spermatikos ") of the Universe". Since right Reason is the foundation of both humanity and the universe, it follows that the goal of life is to live according to Reason, that is, to live a life according to Nature . Similarly, space and the Universe have neither start nor end, rather they are cyclical. The current Universe is
1566-594: 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
1740-531: A king at war." To harmonize the Genesis creation narrative , which is a creatio ex nihilo , with the doctrine of the primordial elements, the Sefer Yetzirah assumes a double creation, one ideal and the other real. Their name is possibly derived from the fact that as numbers express only the relations of two objects to each other, so the ten sefirot are only abstractions and not realities. Again, as
1914-468: 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
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#17327718800252088-536: 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
2262-463: A manuscript which was a reorganized copy of the Longer Version, now called the "Saadia Version". This was translated into French by Lambert and thence into English by Scott Thompson. This version and commentary was more philosophical in nature rather than mystical and had virtually no impact on subsequent kabbalists. The Sefer Yetzirah is devoted to speculations concerning God's creation of
2436-614: A minority opinion that Rabbi Akiva authored it, and takes it to mean Abraham wrote it and Akiva redacted it to its current form. Jewish Lore attributes the Kabbalah to Adam , and holds that "[f]rom Adam it passed over to Noah , and then to Abraham, the friend of God." In a manuscript in the British Museum , the Sefer Yetzirah is called the Hilkot Yetzirah and declared to be esoteric lore not accessible to anyone but
2610-407: A mystic work on the six days of creation, and corresponded in part to the small midrash , Seder Rabbah deBereshit . Charles Stansfeld Jones , in his book called The Anatomy of The Body of God has written interpretations of this book from the viewpoint of Thelema , a new religious movement founded by Aleister Crowley early in the 20th century. The Sefer Yetzirah describes how the universe
2784-404: A phase in the present cycle, preceded by an infinite number of Universes, doomed to be destroyed (" ekpyrōsis ", conflagration ) and re-created again , and to be followed by another infinite number of Universes. Stoicism considers all existence as cyclical, the cosmos as eternally self-creating and self-destroying (see also Eternal return ). The foundation of Stoic ethics is that good lies in
2958-559: A plausible guide, the possession of which, however, formed the real distinction between the sage and the fool. Slight as the difference may appear between the positions of the Academics and the Pyrrhonists, a comparison of their lives leads to the conclusion that a practical philosophical moderation was the characteristic of the Academics whereas the objectives of the Pyrrhonists were more psychological. The Academics did not doubt
3132-548: 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
3306-668: 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
3480-472: 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
3654-558: 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
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#17327718800253828-534: Is Academica , written by the Academic skeptic philosopher Cicero . While the objective of the Pyrrhonists was the attainment of ataraxia , after Arcesilaus the Academics did not hold up ataraxia as the central objective. The Academics focused on criticizing the dogmas of other schools of philosophy, in particular of the dogmatism of the Stoics . They acknowledged some vestiges of a moral law within, at best but
4002-518: 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
4176-644: Is a Northwest Semitic language within 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
4350-573: Is a quart of beans and to care for nothing". Stoicism would be based on the ethical ideas of the Cynics . The Cyrenaics , beginning with Aristippus the Younger , the grandson of the founder, argued that the reason pleasure was good was that it was evident in human behavior from the youngest age, because this made it natural and therefore good (the so-called cradle argument ). The Cyrenaics also believed that present pleasure freed one from anxiety of
4524-507: Is ataraxia, it is best known for its epistemological arguments, particularly the problem of the criterion , and for being the first Western school of philosophy to identify the problem of induction and the Münchhausen trilemma . Pyrrhonists (or Pyrrhonist practice) can be subdivided into those who are ephectic (engaged in suspension of judgment), zetetic (engaged in seeking), or aporetic (engaged in refutation). Pyrrhonist practice
4698-567: 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
4872-468: Is for the purpose of achieving epoché , i.e., suspension of judgment . The core practice is through setting argument against argument. To aid in this, the Pyrrhonist philosophers Aenesidemus and Agrippa developed sets of stock arguments known as "modes" or " tropes ." Around 90 BC, Antiochus of Ascalon rejected skepticism, making way for the period known as Middle Platonism , in which Platonism
5046-399: Is frequently printed with this commentary as an appendix to editions of the short Version. In the 13th century, Abraham Abulafia noted the existence of both of these versions. The Mantua 1562 edition was printed with the short version surrounded by commentaries attributed to Abraham ben David (outside of the page), Nachmanides (bottom of the page) and Moses Botarel (inside of the page;
5220-489: Is holy; having created His world by three [derivatives] of [the Hebrew root-word] s f r : namely, sefer (a book), sefor (a count) and sippur (a story), along with ten calibrations of empty space, twenty-two letters [of the Hebrew alphabet], [of which] three are principal [letters] (i.e. א מ ש ), seven are double-sounding [consonants] (i.e. בג"ד כפר"ת ) and twelve are ordinary [letters] (i.e. ה ו ז ח ט י ל נ ס ע צ ק ). A cryptic story in
5394-504: Is impossible . Ideas or notions are never true; nevertheless, there are degrees of truth-likeness, and hence degrees of belief, which allow one to act. The school was characterized by its attacks on the Stoics and on the Stoic dogma that convincing impressions led to true knowledge . The most important Academics were Arcesilaus , Carneades , and Philo of Larissa . The most extensive ancient source of information about Academic skepticism
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5568-441: Is made up of atoms, which are tiny bodies that have only the unchanging qualities of shape, size, and weight. The Epicureans believed that atoms were unchanging because the world was ordered and that changes had to have specific and consistent sources, e.g. a plant species only grows from a seed of the same species, but that in order for the universe to persist, what it is ultimately made up of must not be able to be changed or else
5742-451: Is natural for atoms; however, as their fourth means of motion, atoms can at times randomly swerve out of their usual downwards path. This swerving motion is what allowed for the creation of the universe, since as more and more atoms swerved and collided with each other, objects were able to take shape as the atoms joined together. Without the swerve, the atoms would never have interacted with each other, and simply continued to move downwards at
5916-496: Is necessary for an elucidation of the philosophical speculations of the work. The twenty-two letters of the Hebrew alphabet are classified both with reference to the position of the vocal organs in producing the sounds, and with regard to sonant intensity. In contrast to the Jewish grammarians, who assumed a special mode of articulation for each of the five groups of sounds, the Sefer Yetzirah says that no sound can be produced without
6090-419: Is no phantasia kataleptike ("criterion") of truth. Carneades also assailed Stoic theology and physics . In answer to the doctrine of final cause, of design in nature, he pointed to those things which cause destruction and danger to man, to the evil committed by men endowed with reason, to the miserable condition of humanity, and to the misfortunes that assail the good man. There is, he concluded, no evidence for
6264-460: Is now called Stoicism. The Stoics provided a unified account of the world, constructed from ideals of logos , physics , and ethics . Chrysippus , the third head of the school, developed a system that became known as Stoic logic and included a deductive system, Stoic Syllogistic, which was considered a rival to Aristotle's Syllogistic (see: Syllogism ). The Stoics held that all beings (ὄντα)—though not all things (τινά)—are material . Besides
6438-789: 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. Hellenistic philosophy The Preceding classical period in Ancient Greek philosophy had centered around Socrates (c. 470–399 BC), whose students Antisthenes , Aristippus , and Plato went on to found Cynicism , Cyrenaicism , and Platonism , respectively. Plato taught Aristotle who created
6612-470: Is only through reason that we gain clear comprehension and conviction ( katalepsis ). Certain and true knowledge ( episteme ), achievable by the Stoic sage, can be attained only by verifying the conviction with the expertise of one's peers and the collective judgment of humankind. According to the Stoics, the Universe is a material reasoning substance ( logos ), which was divided into two classes:
6786-443: Is red, it would be because some part of a universal red body had entered the object. The Stoics propounded that knowledge can be attained through the use of reason . Truth can be distinguished from fallacy —even if, in practice, only an approximation can be made. According to the Stoics, the senses constantly receive sensations: pulsations that pass from objects through the senses to the mind , where they leave an impression in
6960-455: Is rendered still greater by the lack of a critical edition, the present text being much interpolated and altered. Hence there is a wide divergence of opinion regarding the age, origin, contents, and value of the book. The history of the study of the Sefer Yetzirah is one of the most interesting in the records of Jewish literature. With the exception of the Bible, scarcely any other book has been
7134-473: Is rewarded or punished for his or her actions. While the ideas of heaven and hell are left unmentioned in the book, it teaches that the virtuous man is rewarded by a favorable attitude of nature, while the wicked man finds it hostile to him. Sefer Yetzirah is similar to various Gnostic systems. As the Sefer Yetzirah divides the Hebrew alphabet into three groups, so the Gnostic Marcus divided
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7308-399: Is that prolepsis (preconceptions) are general concepts which allow particular things to be recognised, and that these emerge from repeated experiences of similar things. When we form judgments about things ( hupolepsis ), they can be verified and corrected through further sensory information. For example, if someone sees a tower from far away that appears to be round, and upon approaching
7482-573: Is the only successful large-scale example of linguistic revival . It 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
7656-457: 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
7830-596: Is to give to man the means by which he is able to understand the unity and omnipotence of God, which appear multiform on one side and, yet, are uniform. The famous opening words of the book are as follows: By thirty-two mysterious paths of wisdom Yah has engraved [all things], [who is] the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, the living God, the Almighty God, He that is uplifted and exalted, He that Dwells forever, and whose Name
8004-429: Is to have a happiness which is self-contained. There would be nothing to fear—for unreason is the only evil; no cause for anger—for others cannot harm you. The wise person ( sophos ) is someone who is free from the passions ( apatheia ). Instead the sage experiences good-feelings ( eupatheia ) which are clear-headed. These emotional impulses are not excessive, but nor are they diminished emotions. Instead they are
8178-493: Is unclear from the surviving evidence how much of its doctrines comprise a revival of older doctrines rather than a development of new ones. Pyrrhonists dispute that the dogmatists – which includes all of Pyrrhonism's rival philosophies – have found truth regarding non-evident matters. For any non-evident matter, a Pyrrhonist makes arguments for and against such that the matter cannot be concluded, thus suspending belief and thereby inducing ataraxia. Although Pyrrhonism's objective
8352-547: 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
8526-650: 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
8700-570: The Stoa Poikile ( Ancient Greek : ἡ ποικίλη στοά), or "painted porch", a colonnade decorated with mythic and historical battle scenes on the north side of the Agora in Athens where Zeno of Citium and his followers gathered to discuss their ideas. Zeno's most influential follower was Chrysippus , who followed him as leader of the school after Cleanthes , and was responsible for molding what
8874-611: 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
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#17327718800259048-514: The Babylonian Talmud states, On the eve of every Shabbat , Rav Hanina and Rav Hoshaiah would sit and engage in study of Sefer Yetzirah , and create a delicious calf and eat it. Mystics assert that the biblical patriarch Abraham used the same method to create the calf prepared for the three angels who foretold Sarah 's pregnancy in the biblical account at Genesis 18:7. All the miraculous creations attributed to other rabbis of
9222-547: 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,
9396-572: 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
9570-495: 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
9744-682: 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
9918-656: The Peripatetic school and in turn, had tutored Alexander the Great . Socrates' thought was therefore influential for many of these schools of the period, leading them to focus on ethics and how to reach eudaimonia . Early Platonism, known as the "Old Academy" begins with Plato, followed by Speusippus (Plato's nephew), who succeeded him as the head of school (until 339 BC), and Xenocrates (until 313 BC). Both of them sought to fuse Pythagorean speculations on number with Plato's theory of forms . The Peripatetic school
10092-536: 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
10266-623: The Sefer Yetzirah , where the pneuma, air, water, and fire are the first four Sefirot . The remaining six Sefirot , or the limitations of space by the three dimensions in a twofold direction, are also found in the Clementina, where God is described as the boundary of the universe and the source of the six infinite dimensions. Hebrew language Hebrew ( Hebrew alphabet : עִבְרִית , ʿĪvrīt , pronounced [ ʔivˈʁit ] or [ ʕivˈrit ] ; Samaritan script : ࠏࠨࠁࠬࠓࠪࠉࠕ ʿÎbrit )
10440-480: The Sefer Yetzirah . As in the latter, God is not only the beginning but also the end of all things, so in the former He is the arche ( Koinē Greek : ἀρχή , Hebrew : ראשית ) and telos ( τέλος , תכלית ) of all that exists; and the Clementine writings furthermore teach that the spirit of God is transformed into pneuma ( πνεῦμα , רוח ), and this into water, which becomes fire and rocks, thus agreeing with
10614-473: The Sefer Yetzirah . This doctrine is based on the assumption that the physical as well as the spiritual world consist of pairs mutually at war, but equalized by the unity, God. Thus in the three prototypes of creation the contrasting elements fire and water are equalized by air; corresponding to this are the three "Rulers" among the letters, the mute Mem contrasting with the hushing Shin, and both being equalized by Aleph. Seven pairs of contrasts are enumerated in
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#173277188002510788-449: The imagination ( phantasiai ) (an impression arising from the mind was called a phantasma). The mind has the ability to judge (συγκατάθεσις, synkatathesis )—approve or reject—an impression, enabling it to distinguish a true representation of reality from one that is false. Some impressions can be assented to immediately, but others can achieve only varying degrees of hesitant approval, which can be labeled belief or opinion ( doxa ). It
10962-462: 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
11136-620: 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
11310-543: 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
11484-607: 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
11658-601: The 16th century, the leader of the school of Safed kabbalists, Moses Cordovero , established a working text based on ten separate manuscripts. His student and successor Isaac Luria further redacted this to harmonize it with the Zohar , and then in the 18th century, the Vilna Gaon , known as "the Gra", further redacted it. This text is called the Gra or ARI-Gra version. In the 10th century, Saadia Gaon wrote his commentary based on
11832-555: 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,
12006-535: 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
12180-439: The 3rd or 4th century; for a work of this nature, composed in the Geonic period, could have been cast only in the form of Jewish gnosis, which remained stationary after the 4th century, if indeed it had not already become extinct. The historical origin of the Sefer Yetzirah was placed by Richard August Reitzenstein in the 2nd century BCE. According to Christopher P. Benton, the Hebrew grammatical form places its origin closer to
12354-495: The 6th century BCE, during 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
12528-766: 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,
12702-687: 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
12876-469: The Dialectical school played an important role in the development of logic, which was an important precursor of Stoic logic . Stoicism was founded by Zeno of Citium in the 3rd century BC, asserting that the goal of life was to live in accordance with Nature . It advocated the development of self-control and fortitude as a means of overcoming destructive emotions . The name Stoicism derives from
13050-474: 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
13224-453: The Greek letters into three classes, regarded by him as the symbolic emanations of the three powers which include the whole number of the upper elements. Both systems attach great importance to the power of the combinations and permutations of the letters in explaining the genesis and development of diversity from unity. The Clementine literature present another form of gnosis that agrees with
13398-432: 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
13572-602: 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
13746-454: 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
13920-477: 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
14094-621: 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
14268-460: 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
14442-500: The Talmudic era are ascribed by rabbinic commentators to the use of the same book. Sefer Yetzirah ' s appendix (6:15) declares that Abraham was the recipient of the divine revelation of mystic lore; so that the rabbis of the classical rabbinic era and philosophers such as Shabbethai Donnolo and Judah HaLevi never doubted that Abraham was the author of the book. In Pardes Rimonim , Moses ben Jacob Cordovero (Ramak) mentions
14616-488: 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
14790-478: 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
14964-623: The active and the passive. The passive substance is matter, which "lies sluggish, a substance ready for any use, but sure to remain unemployed if no one sets it in motion". The active substance is an intelligent aether or primordial fire , which acts on the passive matter. Everything is subject to the laws of Fate, for the Universe acts according to its own nature, and the nature of the passive matter it governs. The souls of humans and animals are emanations from this primordial Fire, and are, likewise, subject to Fate. Individual souls are perishable by nature, and can be "transmuted and diffused, assuming
15138-454: The apparent antagonism between Platonism and Stoicism was because they were arguing from different points of view. From this syncretism emerged the eclectic middle Platonism of Antiochus of Ascalon . Pyrrhonism was revived by Aenesidemus in the 1st century BC. Its objective is ataraxia (being mentally unperturbed), which is achieved through epoché (i.e. suspension of judgment ) about non-evident matters (i.e., matters of belief ). It
15312-506: 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
15486-547: 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,
15660-446: The book as early as the middle of the 10th century. The shorter version (Mantua I.) was annotated by Dunash ibn Tamim or by Jacob ben Nissim , while Saadia Gaon and Shabbethai Donnolo wrote commentaries on the longer recension (Mantua II.). The shorter version was also used by most of the later commentators, such as Judah ben Barzillai and Nachmanides , and it was, therefore, published in the ordinary editions. The longer recension, on
15834-602: 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
16008-519: The connecting-link between essence and form. They are designated as the instruments by which the real world, which consists of essence and form, was produced from the sefirot, which are merely formless essences. In addition to the doctrine of the Sefirot and the letters, the theory of contrasts in nature, or of the syzygies ("pairs"), as they are called by the Gnostics, occupies a prominent place in
16182-468: 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
16356-445: The correct rational emotions. The Stoics listed the good-feelings under the headings of joy ( chara ), wish ( boulesis ), and caution ( eulabeia ). Thus if something is present which is a genuine good, then the wise person experiences an uplift in the soul—joy ( chara ). Epicureanism was founded by Epicurus in the 3rd century BC. Epicurean physics held that the entire universe consisted of two things: matter and void. Matter
16530-568: 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;
16704-460: The doctrine of a divine superintending providence. Even if there were orderly connexion of parts in the universe , this may have resulted quite naturally. No proof can be advanced to show that this world is anything but the product of natural forces. Knowledge being impossible, a wise man should practice epoche (suspension of judgment). He will not even be sure that he can be sure of nothing. He saved himself, however, from absolute skepticism by
16878-502: The doctrine of plausibility, which may serve as a practical guide in life. Ideas or notions are never true, but only plausible; nevertheless, there are degrees of plausibility, and hence degrees of belief, leading to action. According to Carneades, an impression may be plausible in itself; plausible and uncontradicted (not distracted by synchronous sensations, but shown to be in harmony with them) when compared with others; plausible, uncontradicted, and thoroughly investigated and confirmed. In
17052-423: 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
17226-513: 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
17400-532: 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
17574-508: The existence of truth ; they just doubted that humans had the capacities for obtaining it. They based this position on Plato 's Phaedo , in which Socrates discusses how knowledge is not accessible to mortals. Up to Arcesilaus , the Platonic Academy had accepted the principle of finding a general unity in all things, by the aid of which a principle of certainty might be found. Arcesilaus, however, broke new ground by attacking
17748-431: The existing beings they admitted four incorporeals (asomata): time, place, void, and sayable. They were held to be just 'subsisting' while such a status was denied to universals. Thus, they accepted Anaxagoras 's idea (as did Aristotle) that if an object is hot, it is because some part of a universal heat body had entered the object. But, unlike Aristotle, they extended the idea to cover all accidents . Thus, if an object
17922-1006: The external world. This interest in using philosophy to improve life was captured in Epicurus ' claim that "empty are the words of that philosopher who offers therapy for no human suffering". Many of the Socratic schools founded prior to the Hellenistic period continued to exert influence well into it, including the Cynic, Cyrenaic and Megarian school. Cynicism, as begun with Antisthenes, followed by Diogenes and Crates of Thebes , advocated purposefully living an ascetic life with only bare necessities in accordance with nature , rejecting all "unnatural pleasures" that were associated with society or its material benefits. Pleasures provided by nature (which would be immediately accessible) were acceptable, however. Crates hence claimed that "Philosophy
18096-711: 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
18270-425: The first degree there is a strong persuasion of the propriety of the impression made; the second and third degrees are produced by comparisons of the impression with others associated with it, and an analysis of itself. Carneades left no written works; his opinions seem to have been systematized by his pupil Clitomachus , whose works, which included one " on suspension of judgment ," were made use of by Cicero . By
18444-422: The first. The Sefer Yetzirah shows how the sephirot are a creation of God and the will of God in its varied manifestations. Besides these abstract ten sefirot, which are conceived only ideally, the twenty-two letters of the alphabet produced the material world, for they are real, and are the formative powers of all existence and development. By means of these elements the actual creation of the world took place, and
18618-472: The future and regrets of the past, leaving one at peace of mind. These ideas were taken further by Anniceris (fl. 300 BC), who expanded pleasure to include things like friendship and honour. Theodorus (c. 340–250) disagreed with this, and instead argued that social ties should be cut and self-sufficiency be espoused instead. Hegesias of Cyrene (fl. 290) on the other hand claimed that life could ultimately not be overall pleasurable. The dialectical school
18792-406: 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
18966-472: The immediate creation ex nihilo , both works postulate a series of emanations of mediums between God and the universe; and both consider God as the first cause only, and not as the immediate efficient cause of the world. A book of the same name was circulated among the Ashkenazi Hasidim between the 11th and 13th centuries, for whom it became a source of Practical Kabbalah . This book seems to be
19140-401: The influence of the planets, the right eye being under Saturn, the left eye under Jupiter, and the like. The twelve "simple" letters were used to create the twelve signs of the zodiac, whose relation to the earth is always simple or stable; and to them belong the twelve months in time, and the twelve "leaders" in man. The latter are those organs which perform functions in the body independent of
19314-462: 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
19488-465: 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
19662-471: 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
19836-402: The life of man: From these premises the Sefer Yetzirah draws the important conclusion that subjective "good and evil" have no real existence, for since everything in nature can exist only by means of its contrast, a thing may be called good or evil according to its influence over man by the natural course of the contrast. The book teaches that man is a free moral agent, and therefore a person
20010-727: 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
20184-436: The numbers from two to ten are derived from the number one, so the ten Sefirot are derived from one "their end is fixed in their beginning, as the flame is bound to the coal" (i. 7). Hence the Sefirot must not be conceived as emanations in the ordinary sense of the word, but rather as modifications of the will of God, which first changes to air, then becomes water, and finally fire, the last being no further removed from God than
20358-410: The objects perceived. All our sensations are relative, and acquaint us, not with things as they are, but only with the impressions that things produce upon us. Experience, he said, clearly shows that there is no true impression. There is no notion that may not deceive us; it is impossible to distinguish between false and true impressions; therefore the Stoic phantasia kataleptike must be given up. There
20532-456: The observer. All sensations, such as sight, smell, or sound, relied on these particles. While the atoms that were emitted did not have the qualities that the senses were perceiving, the manner in which they were emitted caused the observer to experience those sensations, e.g. red particles were not themselves red but were emitted in a manner that caused the viewer to experience the color red. The atoms are not perceived individually, but rather as
20706-506: The other hand, was little known, the form given in the editio princeps of the Sefer Yetzirah being probably a copy of the text found in Donnolo's commentary. In addition to these two principal recensions of the text, both versions contain a number of variant readings that have not yet been examined critically. As regards the relation of the two recensions, it may be said that the longer form contains entire paragraphs which are not found in
20880-454: The outside world, being the hands, feet, kidneys, gall, intestines, stomach, liver, pancreas, and spleen; and they are, accordingly, subject to the twelve signs of the Zodiac. In its relation to the construction of the cosmos, matter consists of the three primordial elements; they are not chemically connected with one another, but modify one another only physically. Power (δύναμις) emanates from
21054-410: The patriarch Abraham , although others attribute its writing to Rabbi Akiva or Adam . Modern scholars have not reached consensus on the question of its origins. According to Rabbi Saadia Gaon , the objective of the book's author was to convey in writing how the things of our universe came into existence. Conversely, Judah Halevi asserts that the main objective of the book, with its various examples,
21228-509: The period of the Mishnah , around the 2nd century CE. The division of the letters into the three classes of vowels, mutes, and sonants also appears in Hellenic texts. The date and origin of the book can not be definitely determined so long as there is no critical text of it. The editio princeps ( Mantua , 1562) contains two recensions, which were used in the main by the commentators of
21402-534: 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
21576-591: 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
21750-506: The primary advocate of skepticism dating from around 266 BC, Arcesilaus became its head, until the mid-first century BCE. While early Academic skepticism was influenced in part by Pyrrho, it grew more and more dogmatic until Aenesidemus , in the first century BCE, broke with the Academic skeptics and adopted Pyrrhonism, denouncing the Academy as " Stoics fighting against Stoics." The Academic skeptics maintained that knowledge of things
21924-570: 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
22098-448: The principal parts of speech, so those three substances are the elements from which the cosmos has been formed. The cosmos consists of three parts, the world, the year (or time), and man, which are combined in such a way that the three primordial elements are contained in each of the three categories. The water formed the earth; heaven was produced from the fire; and the ruach produced the air between heaven and earth. The three seasons of
22272-399: The printer notes that Botarel followed the first two rabbis and also collected all other commentaries that preceded him). An appendix following this contains a pair of commentaries printed side by side, one attributed to Eleazar of Worms ) on the outside of the pages and the other to Saadia Gaon on the inside of the pages. At the end of the volume is found the long version. In the middle of
22446-535: The really pious. According to modern historians, the origin of the text is unknown, and hotly debated. Some scholars believe it might have an early medieval origin, while others emphasize earlier traditions appearing in the book. Most contemporary scholars date the text's authorship to the Talmudic period. According to the Jewish Encyclopedia, the essential elements of the book are characteristic of
22620-614: 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
22794-400: The root of each passion. Incorrect judgement as to a present good gives rise to delight (hēdonē), while lust (epithumia) is a wrong estimate about the future. Unreal imaginings of evil cause distress (lupē) about the present, or fear (phobos) for the future. The ideal Stoic would instead measure things at their real value, and see that the passions are not natural. To be free of the passions
22968-435: The same speed. Epicurus also felt that the swerve was what accounted for humanity's free will. If it were not for the swerve, humans would be subject to a never-ending chain of cause and effect. This was a point which Epicureans often used to criticize Democritus ' atomic theory . Epicureans believed that senses also relied on atoms. Every object was continually emitting particles from itself that would then interact with
23142-410: The seven and the twelve heavenly bodies, or, in other words, from the planets and the signs of the zodiac. The "dragon" rules over the world (matter and the heavenly bodies); the sphere rules time; and the heart rules over the human body. The author sums up this explanation in a single sentence: "The dragon is like to a king on his throne, the sphere like a king traveling in his country, and the heart like
23316-458: The seven double letters vary, being pronounced either hard or soft, so the seven visible planets are in continuous movement, approaching or receding from the earth. The "seven days," in like manner, were created by the seven double letters because they change in time according to their relation to the planets. The seven apertures in man connect him with the outer world as the seven visible planets join heaven and earth. Hence these organs are subject to
23490-401: The shipping of Aristotle's manuscripts to Rome. The end of the Hellenistic period does not correspond with anything philosophical but gradually during the Roman imperial period the predominance of Ancient Roman philosophy becomes perceptible. According to A. C. Grayling , the greater insecurity and loss of autonomy of the era drove some to use philosophy as a means to seek inner security from
23664-479: The short version, while the divergent arrangement of the material often modifies the meaning essentially. The short version comprises about 1300 words and was annotated by Dunash ibn Tamim , and it formed the basis of the first printed Hebrew edition, published in Mantua in the year 1562, and most main versions printed thereafter. The long version is 2500 words and is present with a commentary by Shabbethai Donnolo . It
23838-570: The shorter, while the divergent arrangement of the material often modifies the meaning essentially. Although the longer recension doubtless contains additions and interpolations which did not form part of the original text, it has many valuable readings which seem older and better than the corresponding passages in the shorter version, so that a critical edition of the text must consider both recensions. The Sefer Yetzirah exists in many manuscripts, generally falling in categories known as: The long version contains entire paragraphs which are not found in
24012-445: The skepticism which was latent in the later writings of Plato . Arcesilaus held that strength of intellectual conviction cannot be regarded as valid, inasmuch as it is characteristic equally of contradictory convictions. The uncertainty of sense data applies equally to the conclusions of reason, and therefore man must be content with probability which is sufficient as a practical guide. "We know nothing, not even our ignorance"; therefore
24186-493: 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
24360-474: 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
24534-458: The state of the soul itself; in wisdom and self-control. One must therefore strive to be free of the passions . For the Stoics, reason meant using logic and understanding the processes of nature—the logos or universal reason, inherent in all things. For the Stoics, passions are evaluative judgements; A person experiencing such an emotion has incorrectly valued an indifferent thing. a fault of judgement, some false notion of good or evil, lies at
24708-482: The subject of so much annotation. An intimate relation exists between the Sefer Yetzirah and the later mystics; and although there is a marked difference between the later Kabbalah and the Sefer Yetzirah (for instance, the sefirot of the Kabbalists do not correspond to those of the Sefer Yetzirah ), the system laid down in the latter is the first visible link in the development of Kabbalistic ideas. Instead of
24882-430: The substances which underlie all existence. According to the Sefer Yetzirah , the first emanation from the spirit of God was the ruach ( רוּחַ rúaħ "spirit", "air") that produced water, which, in its turn, formed the genesis of fire. In the beginning, however, these three substances had only a potential existence, and came into actual being only by means of the three letters Aleph, Mem, Shin; and as these are
25056-399: The suffering incurred by overindulgence in such pleasure. Epicurus actively recommended against passionate love, and believed it best to avoid marriage altogether. He viewed recreational sex as a natural, but not necessary, desire that should be generally avoided. Since the political life could give rise to desires that could disturb virtue and one's peace of mind, such as a lust for power or
25230-419: The ten sefirot and the twenty-two letters. While the sefirot are expressly designated as "abstracts", it is said of the letters: "Twenty-two letters: God drew them, hewed them, combined them, weighed them, interchanged them, and through them produced the whole creation and everything that is destined to come into being" (ii. 2). The letters are neither independent substances nor yet as mere forms. They seem to be
25404-475: The ten sefirot, which before this had only an ideal existence, became realities. This is, then, a modified form of the Talmudic doctrine that God created heaven and earth by means of letters ( Berakhot 58a). The explanation on this point is obscure since the relation of the twenty-two letters to the ten sefirot is not clearly defined. The first sentence of the book reads: "Thirty-two paths, marvels of wisdom, hath God engraved...," these paths being then explained as
25578-470: 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
25752-424: The time of Philo of Larissa , we find a tendency not only to reconcile the internal divergences of the Academy itself, but also to connect it with parallel systems of thought. In general, his philosophy was a reaction against the skeptic or agnostic position of the middle and new Academy in favor of the dogmatism of Plato. Philo of Larissa endeavored to show that Carneades was not opposed to Plato, and further that
25926-449: The tongue, to which the other organs of speech merely lend assistance. Hence the formation of the letters is described as follows: The letters are distinguished, moreover, by the intensity of the sound necessary to produce them, and are accordingly divided into: Besides these three letters, which are called "mothers," a distinction is also drawn between the seven "double" letters, which have two different sounds according to inflection, and
26100-421: The tower they see that it is actually square, they would come to realize that their original judgement was wrong and correct their wrong opinion. Epicureanism bases its ethics on a hedonistic set of values, seeing pleasure as the chief good in life. Hence, Epicurus advocated living in such a way as to derive the greatest amount of pleasure possible during one's lifetime, yet doing so moderately in order to avoid
26274-562: The twelve "simple" letters, the remaining characters of the alphabet which represent only one sound each. Both the macrocosm (the universe ) and the microcosm ( human ) are viewed in this system as products of the combination and permutation of these mystic characters, and such a use of the letters by the Jews for the formation of the Holy Name for thaumaturgical purposes is attested by magic papyri that quote an "Angelic Book of Moses", which
26448-476: The two extremes of the too much and the too little. The Hellenistic period began with the death of Alexander and Diogenes in 323 BC, followed by the death of Aristotle the next year in 322 BC. While the classical thinkers were mostly based in Athens , at end of the Hellenistic period philosophers relocated at Rome or Alexandria. The shift followed Rome's military victories from the middle of the second century. Sulla 's capture of Athens in 87 led to destructions and
26622-410: The universe would be essentially destroyed. Epicurus holds that there must be an infinite supply of atoms, although only a finite number of types of atoms, as well as an infinite amount of void. Epicurus explains this position in his letter to Herodotus: When not prevented by other atoms, all atoms move at the same speed naturally downwards in relation to the rest of the world. This downwards motion
26796-580: 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
26970-414: The very possibility of certainty. Socrates had said, " This alone I know: that I know nothing ." But Arcesilaus went further and denied the possibility of even the Socratic minimum of certainty: "I cannot know even whether I know or not." The doctrines of Arcesilaus, which must be gathered from the writings of others, represent an attack on the Stoic phantasia kataleptike (criterion) and are based on
27144-498: The wise man will be content with an agnostic attitude. The next stage in Academic skepticism was the moderate skepticism of Carneades , which he said owed its existence to his opposition to Chrysippus . To the Stoic theory of perception, the phantasia kataleptike , by which they expressed a conviction of certainty arising from impressions so strong as to amount to science, he proposed the doctrine of acatalepsia , which denied any necessary correspondence between perceptions and
27318-505: 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
27492-595: 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
27666-405: The world. The ascription of its authorship to the biblical patriarch Abraham shows the high esteem which it enjoyed for centuries. It may even be said that this work had a greater influence on the development of the Jewish mind than almost any other book after the completion of the Talmud . The Sefer Yetzirah is exceedingly difficult to understand on account of its obscure style. The difficulty
27840-403: The year—winter, summer, and the rainy season—correspond to water, fire, and ruach in the same way as man consists of a head (corresponding to fire), torso (represented by ruach ), and the other parts of the body (equivalent to water). The seven double letters produced the seven planets, the "seven days," and the seven apertures in man (two eyes, two ears, two nostrils, and one mouth.) Again, as
28014-421: 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
28188-406: 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
28362-402: Was composed of philosophers who maintained and developed the philosophy of Aristotle after his death, beginning with Theophrastus (371–287 BC) and Strato of Lampsacus (335–269 BC). They advocated examination of the world to understand the ultimate foundation of things. The goal of life was the eudaimonia which originated from virtuous actions, which consisted in keeping the mean between
28536-474: Was created by the "God of Israel" (a list of all of God's Hebrew names appears in the first sentence of the book) through "32 wondrous ways of wisdom": The book describes the method for using the ten sefirot and the 22 Hebrew letters to gain Divine Insight/Secret using Abraham's tongue. God's covenant with Abraham is described as being twofold. The philological is discussed first, since it
28710-409: Was full of allusions to biblical names. The linguistic theories of the author of the Sefer Yetzirah are an integral component of its philosophy, its other parts being astrological and Gnostic cosmogony . The three letters Aleph, Mem, Shin, are not only the three "mothers" from which the other letters of the alphabet are formed, but they are also symbolic figures for the three primordial elements,
28884-552: Was fused with certain Peripatetic and many Stoic dogmas . In Middle Platonism, the Platonic Forms were not transcendent but immanent to rational minds, and the physical world was a living, ensouled being, the World-Soul . The eclectic nature of Platonism during this time is shown by its incorporation into Pythagoreanism ( Numenius of Apamea ) and into Jewish philosophy ( Philo of Alexandria ) Hellenistic Judaism
29058-578: Was known for their study of paradoxes , dialectic , and propositional logic. The main philosophers associated with this school were Diodorus Cronus and Philo the Logician Besides studying logical puzzles and paradoxes, the Dialecticians made two important logical innovations, by re-examining modal logic , and by starting an important debate on the nature of conditional statements . Through their development of propositional logic ,
29232-491: 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
29406-566: 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
29580-629: 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
29754-531: 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
29928-551: 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
30102-408: 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
30276-570: 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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