Mayerhofer Kerstin, Sander Ruth. Retrograde Hebrew and Aramaic Dictionary

Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2010. — 260 p. — (Journal of Ancient Judaism Supplements 1).The present Retrograde Hebrew and Aramaic Dictionary now offers an updated list of Kuhn's Hebrew lemmata and in addition an independent Aramaic section as well as an appendix, presenting documents from the island of Elephantine, i.e. various papyri including the Words of Ahiqar alongside others. It does not only contain the vocabulary of manuscripts and scrolls, but also of various inscriptions dating from the 7th century B.C.E up to 135 C.E. The words of the Retrograde Hebrew and Aramaic Dictionary are arranged in alphabetical order according to the reverse sequence of their characters. It is therefore a tool for the reconstruction of ancient Jewish manuscripts. Its main purpose is to help reconstruct gaps and lacunae in texts, especially the Dead Sea Scrolls found in Qumran and the inscriptions from surrounding areas. The Retrograde Hebrew and Aramaic Dictionary presents words only from texts which are of Jewish origin, written in Hebrew or Aramaic. Another requirement for the incorporation of a text was its provenance from ancient Palestine. The main sites in question are Qumran, Wadi el Daliyeh, Wadi Muraba'at and Nahal Hever. The manuscripts of Ben Sira, which are also included in the present dictionary, come only in part from Masada. As an exception to the above mentioned rule for the incorporation of a text the Words of Ahiqar and other documents from the island of Elephantine were also taken into account. These texts are neither of Palestinian provenance nor of Jewish origin, but read by Jews. The texts incorporated are limited in their dating from the 7th century B.C.E up to 135 C.E. Hebrew and Aramaic vocabulary of the rabbinic period is not recognized due to reasons of usability. With an enlarged geographical and time frame, the present dictionary would have ceased to be a tool for working on Jewish manuscripts and inscriptions from CoileSyria.