Dictionary of Epigraphic Hebrew

A Dictionary of Epigraphic Hebrew by J. P. Kang is the only dedicated dictionary of the Hebrew inscriptions of the Iron Age (ca. 1000–586 B.C.E.). Since this period is contemporary with the monarchical period described in the Hebrew Bible and the texts largely originate in mundane settings, the work is of linguistic and cultural interest to students of the Bible and the ancient Near East.

The nearly four hundred dictionary entries are comprised of the common words contained in the corpus of inscriptions of known provenance established by F. W. Dobbs- Allsopp et al.’s Hebrew Inscriptions: Texts from the Biblical Period of the Monarchy with Concordance (Yale University Press, 2005).

Several specific design decisions enhance the usefulness of the work for research. Latin transliteration and modern grammatical terminology is used throughout for ease of comparison of cognate evidence. The order of the entries is alphabetic by Semitic root so that the productivity of roots can be conveniently gauged and compared. Longer citations of words in context as well as full translations reduce the difficulty of working with the epigraphic material.

See blog article on use of lexicons.

A Dictionary of Epigraphic Hebrew
Author: J. P. Kang