A Philosophy of Interiority: Subjectivity that Leads to Genuine Objectivity

0
528

When the first volume of David Clines’ Dictionary of Classical Hebrew (DCH) was published in 1993, it was called ‘a landmark and a glory for the generation that produced [it]’ (CS Rodd, ExpTim 105 [1994]: 289–291, 291). It was especially two features that proved ground-breaking for the new dictionary project and distinguished it from its successors: First, the editors based the dictionary on all known Hebrew texts, covering the Hebrew Bible, Ben Sirach, the Qumran materials, and Hebrew inscriptions. Secondly, it relied on modern linguistics, and in a synchronic approach set out to study every occurrence of each word in its context. Now, twenty-five years after the publication of the aleph-volume of DCH, the first volume of the revised edition, The Dictionary of Classical Hebrew Revised (DCHR) has appeared and gives an idea about how the project has developed. An obvious new feature is the inclusion of new materials that have been discovered and made available in the last fifteen years; the publishers refer to 540 newly published Dead Sea Scrolls texts and 4000 ancient Hebrew inscriptions, resulting in the DCHR eventually being 25% longer than DCH. Most significantly is the consideration of nearly 3,000 words that had not been included in DCH. For the user, the main differences are easy to spot: First, DCHR will note 3,500 byforms that have been identified for the first time, and the editors introduced the distinction between words used in parallel (<PAR>) and words regarded as synonyms (<SYN>). Rather than focusing on root entries, participles that function as nouns have been given their own entries, resulting in additional articles such as ʾōpeh (‘baker’). The assignation of each word to one of 345 semantic fields (following Reinier de Blois’ Semantic Dictionary of Biblical Hebrew) adds an important dimension and will prove helpful even for the beginner’s student. Finally, the English-Hebrew indices and the word frequency tables will now be presented in the ninth volume of DCHR rather than in the individual volumes. The nine volumes of the revised dictionary are expected to be published at intervals of approximately one year, so that the project should be concluded by 2026. While an electronic version of the DCHR would be a valuable addition and appreciated by many, there is something to be said about the printed version that visually displays the abundance of Classical Hebrew and adds an exciting and valuable reference tool for the field.