Contact and context: Studies in language contact and literary strata in the Hebrew Bible

This dissertation will exploit a known linguistic method for the comparison of the Hebrew Bible and Mesopotamian literature. "Contact linguistics" has developed as an autonomous discipline in the field of linguistic studies. Previous studies in evaluating interactions between the Hebrew Bible and Mesopotamian literature have lacked a rigorous linguistic method for determining how literary interactions with foreign sources left linguistic traces in the biblical record. I will examine two bodies of literature in the Hebrew Bible, namely the Pentateuch and the Book of Isaiah, which have been the focus of much comparative exploration, to show how contact linguistics adds methodological sophistication to this enterprise. This method results not only in a better linguistic foundation for affirming some previously recognized loanwords but also offers a better socio-linguistic process for understanding the nature of the literary engagement with other literatures visible in these texts.