ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the matter of methodology and offers an evaluation of the criteria of linguistic distribution, opposition, extra-biblical attestation and accumulation. It responds to Polak's work on styles of Biblical Hebrew (BH). In particular, standard methodology is rarely pointed out that the vast majority of Early Biblical Hebrew (EBH) and Late Biblical Hebrew (LBH) features are found in all alleged chronological phases of Biblical Hebrew (BH). The chapter acknowledges that Polak seems to have discerned differences between texts which are based on either an oral or 'writerly' substratum. However, his discovery regarding style does not convert into a chronological scheme which clearly periodises BH language and literature largely into either the preexilic or postexilic period. Polak finds that the complex-nominal style is characteristic of late monarchic inscriptions and also that the rhythmic-verbal style is found in postbiblical sources such as the later Midrashim and some mediaeval narratives.
