Why was Chronicles Written in Hebrew? Language Choice as a Group Identity Marker
Keywords:
Chronicles, Identity formation, Ethnicity, Post-Exilic Yehud, Hebrew and AramaicAbstract
Why was the book of Chronicles written entirely in Hebrew in a multilingual Persian-period environment in which Aramaic increasingly functioned as the language of administration and communication? This article argues that conventional explanations do not suffice, as linguistic choice carries broader ideological significance. Drawing on sociolinguistic theory and ethno-symbolic approaches to identity formation, it examines Hebrew in Chronicles as a symbolic cultural resource within Persian-period Yehud. After reviewing the linguistic realities of the period and debates concerning the status of Hebrew and Aramaic, the article analyzes the Chronicler’s exclusive use of Hebrew in relation to ethnicity, collective memory, and communal boundary formation. In contrast to Ezra–Nehemiah and Daniel, which incorporate Aramaic sections and explicitly reflect multilingual realities, Chronicles constructs a linguistically unified conceptual world centered on Jerusalem, temple, genealogy, and “All Israel.” The article proposes that Hebrew functions as a form of symbolic space through which the Chronicler reconstructs continuity with Israel’s past and articulates a durable sense of peoplehood within the context of Persian imperial rule.
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