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The distribution of wayyiqṭol throughout the Hebrew Bible is far from uniform. In much of Archaic Biblical Hebrew, it is altogether absent. In other portions, it is present, but not uniform in tense/aspect semantics. In the book of Job, wayyiqṭol is common, but behaves as a freely chaining verb (continuing the tense and aspect of a preceding situation) rather than as a preterite. This brief inventory of the uses of wayyiqṭol is not well reflected in traditional definitions of it as a perfective past. An exclusively semantic definition might not be adequate to define wayyiqṭol.

Most of the papers in this volume originated as presentations at the conference Biblical Hebrew and Rabbinic Hebrew: New Perspectives in Philology and Linguistics, which was held at the University of Cambridge, 8-10th July, 2019. The aim of the conference was to build bridges between various strands of research in the field of Hebrew language studies that rarely meet, namely philologists working on Biblical Hebrew, philologists working on Rabbinic Hebrew and theoretical linguists. The volume is the published outcome of this initiative. It contains peer-reviewed papers in the fields of Biblical and Rabbinic Hebrew that advance the field by the philological investigation of primary sources and the application of cutting-edge linguistic theory. These include contributions by established scholars and by students and early career researchers.

Twenty five scholars and profesionals working with ancient texts have spent a week at the Lorentz Center Leiden in order to discuss the state of the art of researching ancient text corpora. It was not only about research, but also about better ways to teach domain knowledge: ancient languages, history, and archaeology. It was not only about domain knowledge, but also about the expertise of employing digital tools for the jobs, and how to transfer it to every new student generation and to ourselves.