Biblical Hebrew orthography refers to the various systems which have been used to write the Biblical Hebrew language

Biblical Hebrew language

Biblical Hebrew , also called Classical Hebrew , is the archaic form of the Hebrew language, a Canaanite Semitic language spoken in the area known as Canaan between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. Biblical Hebrew is attested from about the 10th century BCE, and persisted through...

. Biblical Hebrew has been written in a number of different writing systems over time, and in those systems its spelling and punctuation have also undergone changes.

Proto-Canaanite script

The earliest Hebrew writing yet discovered, dated to the 10th century BCE, was found at Khirbet Qeiyafa

Khirbet Qeiyafa

Khirbet Qeiyafa is the site of an ancient city overlooking the Elah Valley. The ruins of the fortress were uncovered in 2007, near the Israeli city of Beit Shemesh, 20 miles from Jerusalem. It covers nearly six acres and is encircled by a 700-meter long city wall constructed of stones weighing...

 in July 2008 by Israeli archaeologist Yossi Garfinkel

Yosef Garfinkel

Yosef Garfinkel is a professor of Prehistoric Archaeology and of Archaeology of the Biblical Period at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.-Biography:...

. The 15 cm x 16.5 cm (5.9 in x 6.5 in) trapezoid pottery sherd

Sherd

In archaeology, a sherd is commonly a historic or prehistoric fragment of pottery, although the term is occasionally used to refer to fragments of stone and glass vessels as well....

 (ostracon

Ostracon

An ostracon is a piece of pottery , usually broken off from a vase or other earthenware vessel. In archaeology, ostraca may contain scratched-in words or other forms of writing which may give clues as to the time when the piece was in use...

) has five lines of text written in ink written in the Proto-Canaanite alphabet

Proto-Canaanite alphabet

Proto-Canaanite is the name given to the Proto-Sinaitic script when found in Canaan. the early Phoenician script before some cut-off date, typically 1050 BCE. The Phoenician, Hebrew, and other Canaanite dialects were largely indistinguishable before that time...

 (the old form of the Phoenician alphabet). That the language of the tablet is Hebrew is suggested by the presence of the words תעש "to do" עבד "servant".used in the tablet as a verb, unlike in Phoenician where this root is only nominal The tablet is written from left to right, indicating that Hebrew writing was still in the formative stage.

Phoenician and Paleo-Hebrew script

The Israelite tribes who settled in the land of Israel adopted the Phoenician script

Phoenician alphabet

The Phoenician alphabet, called by convention the Proto-Canaanite alphabet for inscriptions older than around 1050 BC, was a non-pictographic consonantal alphabet, or abjad. It was used for the writing of Phoenician, a Northern Semitic language, used by the civilization of Phoenicia...

 around the 12th century BCE, as found in the Gezer calender (circa 10th century BCE). This script developed into the Paleo-Hebrew script in the tenth or ninth centuries BCE. The Paleo-Hebrew alphabet's main differences from from the Phoenician script were "a curving to the left of the dowstrokes in the 'long-legged' letter-signs... the consistent use of a Waw with a concave top, [and an] x-shaped Taw."At times the Moabites, Ammonites, Edomites, and Philistines would also use the Paleo-Hebrew script, see The oldest inscriptions in Paleo-Hebrew script are dated to around the middle of the 9th century BCE, the most famous being the Mesha Stele

Mesha Stele

The Mesha Stele is a black basalt stone bearing an inscription by the 9th century BC ruler Mesha of Moab in Jordan....

 in the Moabite language

Moabite language

The Moabite language is an extinct Canaanite language, spoken in Moab in the early first millennium BC. Most of our knowledge about Moabite comes from the Mesha Stele, as well as the El-Kerak Stela. The main features distinguishing Moabite from fellow Canaanite languages such as Hebrew are: a...

 (which might be considered a dialect of Hebrew). The ancient Hebrew script was in continuous use until the early 6th century BCE, the end of the First Temple period.

In the Second Temple Period the Paleo-Hebrew script gradually fell into disuse. The epigraphic material in the ancient Hebrew script is poor in the Second Temple Period. Pentateuch fragments in the ancient Hebrew script dating to the 3rd or 2nd century BCE were found in Qumran, Hasmonaean coins and coins from the Bar Kokhba revolt (132-135 BCE), and ostraca from Masada

Masada

Masada is the name for a site of ancient palaces and fortifications in the South District of Israel, on top of an isolated rock plateau, or horst, on the eastern edge of the Judean Desert, overlooking the Dead Sea. Masada is best known for the violence that occurred there in the first century CE...

 before its fall in 74 CE are among the youngest finds in the ancient script, as well as the use of divine names in texts otherwise in other scripts. It seems that the Paleo-Hebrew script was completely abandoned among the Jews after the failed Bar Kochba revolt. The Samaritans retained the ancient Hebrew alphabet, which evolved into the modern Samaritan alphabet

Samaritan alphabet

The Samaritan alphabet is used by the Samaritans for religious writings, including the Samaritan Pentateuch, writings in Samaritan Hebrew, and for commentaries and translations in Samaritan Aramaic and occasionally Arabic....

. In fact, the adoption of the script by the Samaritans may have influenced the Rabbis' negative view of the script and lead to its final rejection.As an example of the Rabbis' view of the script, see Sanhedrin 21b "The Torah was originally given to Israel in this [Assyrian] script. When they sinned, it became רועץ."

The only papyrus document from the First Temple period that has survived was found in the Wadi Murabba'at

Wadi Murabba'at

Wadi Murabba'at, also known as Nahal Darga, is a ravine cut by a seasonal stream which runs from the Judean desert east of Bethlehem past the Herodium down to the Dead Sea 18 km south of Khirbet Qumran...

, and is dated to the 7th century BCE. However, fiber impressions on the back of many bullae

Bulla (seal)

Bulla , is a type of seal impression. It comes in two forms: metal and clay.- Clay bullae :The original bulla was a lump of clay molded around a cord and stamped with a seal...

 of that period show that papyrus was in common use in that region. Presumably papyrus was common in the pre-exilic period, while in the Babylonian exile hide scrolls were used, given that papyrus does not grow there.

Aramaic script

By the end of the First Temple period the Aramaic script

Aramaic alphabet

The Aramaic alphabet is adapted from the Phoenician alphabet and became distinctive from it by the 8th century BC. The letters all represent consonants, some of which are matres lectionis, which also indicate long vowels....

, a separate descendant of the Phoenician script, became widespread throughout the region, gradually displacing Paleo-Hebrew. The Jews who were exiled to Babylon became familiar with Aramaic out of necessity, while the Jews remaining in Judea seem to have mostly lost the writing tradition. According to tradition, the Aramaic script became established with the return of Ezra

Ezra

Ezra , also called Ezra the Scribe and Ezra the Priest in the Book of Ezra. According to the Hebrew Bible he returned from the Babylonian exile and reintroduced the Torah in Jerusalem...

 from exile around the 4th century BCE. The oldest documents that have been found in the Aramaic Script are fragments of the scrolls of Exodus, Samuel, and Jeremiah found among the Dead Sea scrolls, dating from the late 3rd and early 2nd centuries BCE. The modern Hebrew alphabet

Hebrew alphabet

The Hebrew alphabet , known variously by scholars as the Jewish script, square script, block script, or more historically, the Assyrian script, is used in the writing of the Hebrew language, as well as other Jewish languages, most notably Yiddish, Ladino, and Judeo-Arabic. There have been two...

, also known as the Assyrian or Square script, is a descendant of the Aramaic alphabet. It seems that the earlier Biblical books were originally written in the Paleo-Hebrew script, while the later books were written directly in the later Assyrian script. Some Qumran texts written in the Assyrian script write the tetragrammaton

Tetragrammaton

The term Tetragrammaton refers to the name of the God of Israel YHWH used in the Hebrew Bible.-Hebrew Bible:...

 and some other divine names in Paleo-Hebrew, and this practice is also found in several Jewish-Greek Biblical translations.Though some of these translations wrote the tetragrammaton in the square script, see

While spoken Hebrew continued to evolve into Mishnaic Hebrew, the scribal tradition for writing the Torah gradually developed. A number of regional "book-hand" styles developed for the purpose of Torah manuscripts and occasionally other literary works, distinct from the calligraphic styles used mainly for private purposes. The Sephardi and Ashkenazi book-hand styles were later adapted to printed fonts after the invention of the printing press.

Polyphonic letters

The Phoenician script had dropped five characters by the twelfth century BCE, reflecting the language's twenty-two consonantal phonemes. As a result, the 22 letters of the Paleo-Hebrew alphabet numbered less than the consonant phonemes of ancient Biblical Hebrew; in particular, the letters <ח, ע, ש> could each mark two different phonemes. After a sound shift the letters ח, ע became uniphonic, but (except in Samaritan Hebrew) ש remained multiphonic. The old Babylonian vocalization wrote a superscript ס above the ש to indicate it took the value /s/, while the Masoretes added the shin dot to distinguish between the two varieties of the letter. The Aramaic script began developing special final forms for certain letters in the 5th century BCE, though this was not always a consistent rule (as reflected in the Qumran practice).

Matres lectionis

The original Hebrew alphabet consisted only of consonants, but gradually the letters א, ה, ו, י, also became used to indicate vowels, known as matres lectionis when used in this function. It is thought that this was a product of phonetic development: for instance, *bayt 'house' shifted to בֵּית in construct state but retained its spelling. While no examples of early Hebrew orthography have been found, older Phoenician and Moabite

Moabite language

The Moabite language is an extinct Canaanite language, spoken in Moab in the early first millennium BC. Most of our knowledge about Moabite comes from the Mesha Stele, as well as the El-Kerak Stela. The main features distinguishing Moabite from fellow Canaanite languages such as Hebrew are: a...

 texts show how First Temple period Hebrew would have been written. Phoenician inscriptions from the tenth century BCE do not indicate matres lectiones in the middle or the end of a word: ז ( = זה), לפנ (= לפני), similarly to the Hebrew Gezer Calendar

Gezer calendar

The Gezer calendar is a tablet of soft limestone inscription, dating to the 10th century BCE. Scholars are divided as to whether the script and language are Phoenician or paleo-Hebrew, which were linguistically very similar in this period....

: שערמ (= שעורים), ירח (= ירחו?). Matres lectionis were later added word-finally, for instance the Mesha inscription has בנתי (= בניני), בללה (= בלילה); however at this stage they were not yet used word-medially, compare Siloam inscription

Siloam inscription

The Siloam inscription or Silwan inscription is a passage of inscribed text found in the Hezekiah tunnel which brings water from the Gihon Spring to the Pool of Siloam, located in the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Silwan. The inscription records the construction of the tunnel in the 8th century...

 זדה versus אש (= איש). The relative terms defective and full/plene are used to refer to alternative spellings of a word with less or more matres lectionis, respectively.Ktiv male

Ktiv male

Ktiv hasar niqqud , are the rules for writing Hebrew without vowel pointers , often replacing them with matres lectionis . To avoid confusion, consonantal ו and י are doubled in the middle of words...

, the Hebrew term for full spelling, has become de rigueur in Modern Hebrew.

The Hebrew Bible was presumably originally written in a more defective orthography than found in any of the texts known today. Of the extant textual witnesses of the Hebrew Bible, the Masoretic text is generally the most conservative in its use of matres lectionis, with the Samaritan Pentateuch

Samaritan Pentateuch

The Samaritan Pentateuch, sometimes called Samaritan Torah, , is a version of the Hebrew language Pentateuch, the first five books of the Bible, used by the Samaritans....

 and its forebearers being more full and the Qumran tradition showing the most liberal use of vowel letters. The Masoretic text mostly uses vowel letters for long vowels, showing the tendency to mark all long vowels except for word-internal /aː/.There are rare-cases of <א> being used medially as a true vowel letter, e.g. דָּאג for the usual דָּג 'fish'. Most cases, however, of <א> being used as a vowel letter stem from conservative spelling of words which originally contained /ʔ/, e.g. רֹאשׁ 'head' from original */raʔʃ/. See . However, there are a number of exceptions, e.g. when the following syllable contains a vowel letters (like in קֹלֹוֹת 'voices' rather than קוֹלוֹת) or when a vowel letter already marks a consonant (so גּוֹיִם 'nations' rather than גּוֹיִים*), and within the Bible there is often little consistency in spelling. In the Qumran tradition, o- and u-type vowels, including short holem (מושה, פוה, חושך), qames hatuf (חוכמה, כול), and hatef qames (אוניה), are usually represented by <ו>. <י> is generally used for both long [iː] and sere (אבילים, מית), and final [iː] is often written as -יא in analogy to היא, הביא, e.g. כיא, sometimes מיא. <ה> is found finally in forms like חוטה (Tiberian חוטא) , קורה (Tiberian קורא), while <א> may be used for a-quality in final position (e.g. עליהא) and in medial position (e.g. יאתום) Pre-Samaritan and Samaritan texts show full spellings in many categories (e.g. כוחי vs. Masoretic כחי in Genesis 49:3) but only rarely show full spelling of the Qumran type (but see Genesis 24:41b Samaritan נקיא vs. Masoretic נקי).

Vocalization

In general the vowels of Biblical Hebrew were not indicated in the original text, but various sources attest them at various stages of development. Greek and Latin transcriptions of words from the Biblical text provide early evidence of the nature of Biblical Hebrew vowels. In particular, there is evidence from the rendering of proper nouns in the Koine Greek

Koine Greek

Koine Greek is the universal dialect of the Greek language spoken throughout post-Classical antiquity , developing from the Attic dialect, with admixture of elements especially from Ionic....

 Septuagint (3rd-2nd centuries BCE), and the Greek alphabet transcription

Transcription (linguistics)

Transcription in the linguistic sense is the systematic representation of language in written form. The source can either be utterances or preexisting text in another writing system, although some linguists only consider the former as transcription.Transcription should not be confused with...

 of the Hebrew Biblical text contained in the Secunda

Secunda (Hexapla)

The Secunda is the second column of Origen's Hexapla, a compilation of the Hebrew bible and Greek versions. It consists of a transliteration of the Hebrew text of the Hebrew Bible into Greek characters, and is the oldest coherent Hebrew text in existence...

 (3rd century CE, likely a copy of a preexisting text from before 100 BCEThe Secunda

Secunda (Hexapla)

The Secunda is the second column of Origen's Hexapla, a compilation of the Hebrew bible and Greek versions. It consists of a transliteration of the Hebrew text of the Hebrew Bible into Greek characters, and is the oldest coherent Hebrew text in existence...

 is a transliteration of the Hebrew Biblical text contained in the Hexapla

Hexapla

Hexapla is the term for an edition of the Bible in six versions. Especially it applies to the edition of the Old Testament compiled by Origen of Alexandria, which placed side by side:#Hebrew...

, a recension of the Old Testament compiled by Origen

Origen

Origen , or Origen Adamantius, 184/5–253/4, was an early Christian Alexandrian scholar and theologian, and one of the most distinguished writers of the early Church. As early as the fourth century, his orthodoxy was suspect, in part because he believed in the pre-existence of souls...

 in the 3rd century CE. There is evidence that the text of the Secunda was written before 100 BCE, despite the later date of the Hexapla. For example, by the time of Origen <η αι> were pronounced [iː ɛː], a merger which had already begun around 100 BCE, while in the Secunda they are used to represent Hebrew /eː aj/, see .). In the 7th and 8th centuries CE various systems of vocalic notation were developed to indicate vowels in the Biblical text. The most prominent, best preserved, and the only system still in use, is the Tiberian vocalization

Tiberian vocalization

The Tiberian vocalization is a system of diacritics devised by the Masoretes to add to the consonantal Masoretic text of the Hebrew Bible; this system soon became used to vocalize other texts as well...

 system, created by scholars known as Masoretes around 850 CE. There are also various extant manuscripts making use of less common vocalization systems (Babylonian

Babylonian vocalization

The Babylonian vocalization is a system of diacritics devised by the Masoretes to add to the consonantal Masoretic text of the Hebrew Bible to indicate vowel quality, reflecting the Hebrew of Babylon...

, and Palestinian

Palestinian vocalization

The Palestinian vocalization is a system of diacritics devised by the Masoretes to add to the consonantal Masoretic text of the Hebrew Bible to indicate vowel quality, reflecting the Hebrew of Palestine...

), known as superlinear vocalizations because their vocalization marks are placed above the letters.The Palestinian system has two main subtypes and shows great variation. The Babylonian vocalization occurred in two main types (simple / einfach and complex / kompliziert), with various subgroups differing as to their affinity with the Tiberian tradition. In the Babylonian and Palestinian systems only the most important vowels were written, see . In addition, the Samaritan reading tradition is independent of these systems, and was occasionally notated with a separate vocalization system.Almost all vocalized manuscripts use the Masoretic Text

Masoretic Text

The Masoretic Text is the authoritative Hebrew text of the Jewish Bible and is regarded as Judaism's official version of the Tanakh. While the Masoretic Text defines the books of the Jewish canon, it also defines the precise letter-text of these biblical books, with their vocalization and...

. However there are some vocalized Samaritan manuscripts from the Middle Ages, see These systems often record vowels at different stages of historical development; for example, the name of the Judge Samson

Samson

Samson, Shimshon ; Shamshoun or Sampson is the third to last of the Judges of the ancient Israelites mentioned in the Tanakh ....

 is recorded in Greek as Σαμψών Sampsōn with the first vowel as /a/, while Tiberian שִמְשוֹן /ʃimʃon/ with /i/ shows the effect of the law of attenuation. All of these systems together are used to reconstruct the original vocalization of Biblical Hebrew.

The Tiberian vowel-sign šwa (ְ) was used both to indicate lack of a vowel (quiescent šwa) and as another symbol to represent the phoneme /ă/, also represented by ḥataf pataḥ (ֲ). Before a laryngeal-pharyngeal, mobile šwa was pronounced as a ultrashort copy of the following vowel, e.g. וּבָקְעָה [uvɔqɔ̆ʕɔ], and as [ĭ] preceding /j/, e.g. תְדֵמְּיוּ֫נִי /θăðammĭjuni/. By contrast, ḥataf pataḥ would only used be used when pronounced [ă]. In the Palestinian system these echo vowels were written with full vowel letters, see . Pronunciation of šwa is attested by alternations in manuscripts like ארֲריך~ארְריך, ואשמֳעָה~ואשמְעָה. Use of ḥataf vowels was considered mandatory under gutturals but optional under other letters.

Punctuation

At an early stage, documents written in the paleo-Hebrew script were divided by short vertical lines and later by dots, as reflected by the Mesha Stone, the Siloam inscription, the Ophel inscription, and paleo-Hebrew script documents from Qumran. Word division was not used in Phoenician inscriptions; however, there is not direct evidence for Biblical texts being written without word division, ass suggested by Nachmanides in his introduction to the Torah. Word division using spaces was commonly used from the beginning of the 7th century BCE for documents in the Aramaic script.

In addition to marking vowels, the Tiberian system also uses cantillation

Cantillation

Cantillation is the ritual chanting of readings from the Hebrew Bible in synagogue services. The chants are written and notated in accordance with the special signs or marks printed in the Masoretic text of the Hebrew Bible to complement the letters and vowel points...

 marks, which serve to mark word stress, semantic structure, and the musical motifs used in formal recitation of the text.

Reading traditions

While the Tiberian, Babylonian, and Palestinian reading traditions are extinct, various other systems of pronunciation have evolved over time, notably the Yemenite

Yemenite Hebrew language

Yemenite Hebrew , also referred to as Temani Hebrew , is the pronunciation system for Biblical and liturgical Hebrew traditionally used by Yemenite Jews. Yemenite Jews brought their language to Israel through immigration. Their first organized immigration to the region began in 1882.It is believed...

, Sephardi

Sephardi Hebrew language

Sephardi Hebrew is the pronunciation system for Biblical Hebrew favored for liturgical use by Sephardi Jewish practice...

, Ashkenazi

Ashkenazi Hebrew

Ashkenazi Hebrew , is the pronunciation system for Biblical and Mishnaic Hebrew favored for liturgical use by Ashkenazi Jewish practice. Its phonology was influenced by languages with which it came into contact, such as Yiddish, German, and various Slavic languages...

, and Samaritan

Samaritan Hebrew language

Samaritan Hebrew , is a reading tradition for Biblical Hebrew as used by the Samaritans for reading the Samaritan Pentateuch. Its pronunciation is highly similar to that of Samaritan Arabic, used by the Samaritans in prayer.-Orthography:...

 traditions. Modern Hebrew

Modern Hebrew

Modern Hebrew , also known as Israeli Hebrew or Modern Israeli Hebrew, is the language spoken in Israel and in some Jewish communities worldwide, from the early 20th century to the present....

pronunciation is also used by some to read Biblical texts. The modern reading traditions do not stem solely from the Tiberian system; for instance, the Sephardic tradition's distinction between qamatz gadol and qatan is pre-Tiberian. However, the only orthographic system used to mark vowels is the Tiberian vocalization.