The contrast between Classical and Late Biblical Hebrew is best illustrated by juxtaposing two extracts of biblical prose narrative, one from each corpus.It is a challenge to make this case in a popular essay using very little Hebrew. But I think Hendel and Joosten do a pretty good job.
See here for another brief presentation of their case, which is given fully in their book, How Old Is the Hebrew Bible? A Linguistic, Textual, and Historical Study (Yale University Press, 2018). For more online discussion and reviews, start here and follow the links.
Cross-file under Philology.
Visit PaleoJudaica daily for the latest news on ancient Judaism and the biblical world.
