Posted on 12/05/2016 8:02:55 PM PST by SeekAndFind
The world’s earliest alphabet, inscribed on stone slabs at several Egyptian sites, was an early form of Hebrew, a controversial new analysis concludes.
Israelites living in Egypt transformed that civilization’s hieroglyphics into Hebrew 1.0 more than 3,800 years ago, at a time when the Old Testament describes Jews living in Egypt, says archaeologist and epigrapher Douglas Petrovich of Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo, Canada. Hebrew speakers seeking a way to communicate in writing with other Egyptian Jews simplified the pharaohs’ complex hieroglyphic writing system into 22 alphabetic letters, Petrovich proposed on November 17 at the annual meeting of the American Schools of Oriental Research.
“There is a connection between ancient Egyptian texts and preserved alphabets,” Petrovich said.
That’s a highly controversial contention among scholars of the Bible and ancient civilizations. Many argue, despite what’s recounted in the Old Testament, that Israelites did not live in Egypt as long ago as proposed by Petrovich. Biblical dates for the Israelites’ stay in Egypt are unreliable, they say.
Scholars have also generally assumed for more than 150 years that the oldest alphabetic script Petrovich studied could be based on any of a group of ancient Semitic languages. But not enough is known about those tongues to specify one language in particular.
Petrovich’s Hebrew identification for the ancient inscriptions is starved for evidence, said biblical scholar and Semitic language specialist Christopher Rollston of George Washington University in Washington, D.C. There is no way to tell which of many Semitic languages are represented by the early alphabetic system, Rollston contended.
The origins of writing in different parts of the world — including that of the alphabet carved into the Egyptian slabs — have long stimulated scholarly debates (SN: 3/6/93, p. 152).
(Excerpt) Read more at sciencenews.org ...
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Well this will light a fire in the Left’s anti-Semitism, I think.
It is an interesting analysis, however.
It’s paleo-Hebrew and fun to learn.
Aren’t the “Hebrew” block letters im the above table really the Aramaic letters employed by scribes to replace the original Hebrew alphabet? Why are we given them here instead?
They are.
Why are we given them here instead?
Dunno that. Seems that next to the "projected" proto-Hebrew letters we might want to see the known paleo-Hebrew ones. The square Aramaic characters should be just for reference.
Besides, iirc, the hieroglyph shown for "m" here is really "n". Just sayin'.
Anyone know how ancient Sumerian fits in here?
Sumerian pre-dates both. However, here we are talking about writing system as opposed to language
Correct me if I’m wrong, but didn’t the Sumerians have that... whaddya call it... ‘cuneiform’ writing done with a triangle-shaped reed?
Seems to me I read that somewhere.
Does this mean Jews were settled in the area long before the Muslims? Who knew?
According to the Bible, the Israelites lived in Goshen. If these texts were found in various places, they are likely to have been found in places where no Israelites were living.
Anyway, how can they tell Hebrew from Canaanite?
The modern letters shown here are not Hebrew. They are from the Aramaic block letters adopted by the scribes circa Jesus’ time or a bit earlier to replace the true Hebrew alphabet, which looks like a bunch of hens scratching the farmyard.
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