Hebraism

Hebraism is the identification of a usage, trait, or characteristic of the Hebrew language. By successive extension

Synecdoche

Synecdoche is a figure of speech in which:* a term denoting a part of something is used to refer to the whole thing , or...

 it is sometimes applied to the Jewish people

Hebrews

Hebrews are an ancient people defined as descendants of the prophet Eber, son of Shelah.In the Bible, the patriarch Abraham is referred to a single time as the ivri, which is the singular form of the...

, their faith

Judaism

Judaism is a set of beliefs and practices originating in the Hebrew Bible , as later further explored and explained in the Talmud and other texts...

, national ideology

Zionism

Zionism is the international political movement that originally supported the reestablishment of a homeland for the Jewish People in Palestine. The area was the Jewish Biblical homeland, called the Land of Israel...

, or culture

Secular Jewish culture

For religious Jewish culture, see Judaism and Yiddishkeit.Secular Jewish culture embraces several related phenomena; above all, it is the culture of secular communities of Jewish people, but it can also include the cultural contributions of individuals who identify as secular Jews, or even those of...

.

There exist in the Hebrew language numerous idiomatic terms that don't translate easily to more widely used languages. To the extent those broader cultures rely for cultural meaning on Hebrew-language-based scriptures

Hebrew Bible

The Hebrew Bible is a term referring to the books of the Jewish Bible as originally written mostly in Biblical Hebrew with some Biblical Aramaic...

, those idioms sometimes prove puzzling.

Writer David Bivin gives examples of some difficult Hebrew idioms: "be'arba enayim, literally 'with four eyes,' means face to face without the presence of a third person, as in, 'The two men met with four eyes.' [The term] lo dubim ve lo ya'ar is literally '[There are] neither bears nor forest,' but means that something is completely false.

Hebraism is the identification of a usage, trait, or characteristic of the Hebrew language. By successive extension

Synecdoche

Synecdoche is a figure of speech in which:* a term denoting a part of something is used to refer to the whole thing , or...

 it is sometimes applied to the Jewish people

Hebrews

Hebrews are an ancient people defined as descendants of the prophet Eber, son of Shelah.In the Bible, the patriarch Abraham is referred to a single time as the ivri, which is the singular form of the...

, their faith

Judaism

Judaism is a set of beliefs and practices originating in the Hebrew Bible , as later further explored and explained in the Talmud and other texts...

, national ideology

Zionism

Zionism is the international political movement that originally supported the reestablishment of a homeland for the Jewish People in Palestine. The area was the Jewish Biblical homeland, called the Land of Israel...

, or culture

Secular Jewish culture

For religious Jewish culture, see Judaism and Yiddishkeit.Secular Jewish culture embraces several related phenomena; above all, it is the culture of secular communities of Jewish people, but it can also include the cultural contributions of individuals who identify as secular Jews, or even those of...

.

Idiomatic Hebrew

There exist in the Hebrew language numerous idiomatic terms that don't translate easily to more widely used languages. To the extent those broader cultures rely for cultural meaning on Hebrew-language-based scriptures

Hebrew Bible

The Hebrew Bible is a term referring to the books of the Jewish Bible as originally written mostly in Biblical Hebrew with some Biblical Aramaic...

, those idioms sometimes prove puzzling.

Writer David Bivin gives examples of some difficult Hebrew idioms: "be'arba enayim, literally 'with four eyes,' means face to face without the presence of a third person, as in, 'The two men met with four eyes.' [The term] lo dubim ve lo ya'ar is literally '[There are] neither bears nor forest,' but means that something is completely false. And taman et yado batsalahat, 'buried his hand in the dish,' means that someone idles away his time."

Hebrew etymologies

The word Hebraism may also describe a word in another language that has Hebrew etymology

Etymology

Etymology is the study of the history of words and how their form and meaning have changed over time.For languages with a long written history, etymologists make use of texts in these languages, and texts about the languages, to gather knowledge about how words were used at earlier stages, and...

. The word "Carob" is an English-language example of this etymology.

Several common-place phrases in English have Hebrew origins. Some examples are "The way of women," "Flowing with milk and honey," and "stiff-necked."

Distinctive language

Beyond simple etymology, both spoken and written Hebrew is marked by peculiar linguistic

Linguistics

Linguistics is the scientific study of natural language. Linguistics encompasses a number of sub-fields. An important topical division is between the study of language structure and the study of meaning...

 elements that distinguish its semitic roots. These Hebraisms include: Word order, chiasmus

Chiasmus

In rhetoric, chiasmus is the figure of speech in which two or more clauses are related to each other through a reversal of structures in order to make a larger point; that is, the clauses display inverted parallelism...

, compound prepositions, and numerous other distinctive features.

At least one writer finds Hebraisms in the New Testament

New Testament

The New Testament is the name given to the second major division of the Christian Bible, the first such division being the much longer Old Testament, both terms being associated with Supersessionism...

, suggesting that the work was originally written in Hebrew, rather than Greek

Greek language

Greek , an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages, is the language of the Greeks. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. In its ancient form, it is the language of classical...

, as others argue.

Systematic Hebraisms

Finally, the word Hebraism describes a quality, character, nature, or method of thought

Jewish philosophy

Jewish philosophy refers to the conjunction between serious study of philosophy, Jewish scholasticism and Jewish theology. In one sense, it refers to all philosophical activity carried out by Jews or in relation to the religion of Judaism...

, or system of religion

Judaism

Judaism is a set of beliefs and practices originating in the Hebrew Bible , as later further explored and explained in the Talmud and other texts...

 attributed to the Hebrew people

Hebrews

Hebrews are an ancient people defined as descendants of the prophet Eber, son of Shelah.In the Bible, the patriarch Abraham is referred to a single time as the ivri, which is the singular form of the...

. It is in this sense that Mathew Arnold (1869) contrasts Hebraism with Hellenism. Feldman's response to Arnold expands on this usage.