בלשנות ופילולוגיה בחקר החומר האפיגרפי ממדבר יהודה: תמונת מצב עדכנית והרהורים על העתיד

The starting point of the current paper is a review of two recently published books on the language of the epigraphic evidence from the Judean Desert. One focuses on the grammar (U. Mor, Judean Hebrew: The Language of the Hebrew Documents from Judea between the First and the Second Revolts, Jerusalem 2015); the other aims at depicting the level of the literacy in Roman Judea (M. O. Wise, Language and Literacy in Roman Judaea: A Study of the Bar Kokhba Documents, New Haven 2015). Interestingly, there is almost no overlap between the two books. This gives us the opportunity to consider these researches jointly as a case study for examining the intersections between linguistics and philology. I discuss the merits of each book individually, but at the same time address the mutual benefits had each author considered the methodological questions of the other.