Kerstin Mayerhofer

Ruth Sander

This volume provides scholars with a singular device for the reconstruction and decipherment of Jewish ancient and rabbinic manuscripts, as well as inscriptions. How to reconstruct what broke away? Which word was once attested where only few characters are left? Questions like these emerge from working on ancient texts, for example the scrolls of Qumran, and can be solved with the dictionary presented. All the words of the retrograde dictionary are arranged alphabetically, beginning with the last letter up to the first. The dictionary does not add translations or meanings of words in any language. This retrograde dictionary takes into account all the ancient Hebrew and Aramaic texts in form of scriptures, scrolls, seals, ossuaries and documents reported in Palestine and dating up to 135 A.D, as well as the Words of Ahikar and other texts from the island of Elephantine. Karl Georg Kuhn was the first to compile the vocabulary of ancient Hebrew in reversed form in 1958. But Kuhn knew only a small part of the Dead Sea Scrolls and did not recognize any other Hebrew or Aramaic texts except for the Qumran manuscripts and the texts of the Hebrew Bible. Therefore, Kuhn's retrograde dictionary is limited in its extent and outdated by the many texts published in the last 50 years. Now, the Retrograde Hebrew and Aramaic Dictionary offers an updated list of Kuhn's Hebrew Lemm0ata, and in addition an independent Aramaic section as well as an appendix, presenting the Elephantine Papyri, including the Words of Ahikar. It does not only contain the vocabulary of manuscripts and scrolls, but also of various inscriptions from the mentioned period.

Ruth Sander

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