Concerning the Language Spoken Among the Jews of the Diaspora- Part 2

The following is excerpted from page 314 of
The Blackwell Companion to Jewish Culture:
 

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
  The Blackwell Companion to Jewish Culture
From the Eighteenth Century to the Present
     Ed.   Glenda Abramson
     Pub. Blackwell References, Cambridge, Mass.  1989
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

 
    “We can reconstruct the full sound of biblical Hebrew only by assumptions based upon Canaanite words written in the Babylonian script in the Tell-Amarna tablets, c.1400 BCE, writing of proper names in Assyrian and Babylonian texts and in the Greek translations (the “ Septuagint”, third century BCE), as well as remnants of a complete transliteration into Greek letters about 300 CE. The present Hebrew Bible (Old Testament) indicates the vowels by signs added to the letters, the so-called pointing, which represent the pronunciation used at Tiberius c 900 CE. These signs were read differently in different countries. The way it is read in academic circles is based upon the “Sephardic” pronunciation of Jews of Spanish origin, as is also the Israeli Hebrew of our own day.”   Pg. 314 


Further Quotations from Blackwell's with comments

 
 “…and probably a large part of the Jews of Palestine spoke Aramaic or Greek.”  Pg. 314
 Editor's Note: The Bible student has observed that Jews of the Diaspora spoke the local languages, as the phrase "our own language wherein we were born" would indicate. (See Acts chapter 2)
 
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
“…some scholars still consider it [Mishnaic Hebrew] to be an unsuccessful attempt of Aramaic speaking Jews to write Hebrew.” Pg. 314
Editor's  Note: It would seem that if the Jews of the First Century in Palestine spoke and wrote Hebrew, it would have been Mishnaic Hebrew not Biblical (Old Testament) Hebrew.