Paleo-Hebrew alphabet
Encyclopedia
The Paleo-Hebrew alphabet , is an abjad
offshoot of the ancient Semitic alphabet, identical to the Phoenician alphabet
. At the very least it dates to the 10th century BCE. It was used as the main vehicle for writing the Hebrew language
by the Israelites, both Jews
and Samaritans.
It began to fall out of use by the Jews
in the 5th century BCE when they adopted the Aramaic alphabet
as their writing system for Hebrew, from which the present Jewish "square-script" Hebrew alphabet
descends. The Samaritan
s, who now number less than one thousand people, continue to use a derivative of the Old Hebrew alphabet, known as the Samaritan alphabet
.
, in the Beth Guvrin Valley in the lowlands of ancient Judea
. The 22 letters were carved on one side of the 38 lb stone (17 kg) - which resembles a bowl on the other. Next would be the Gezer calendar
dated to the late 10th century BCE. The script of the Gezer calendar bears strong resemblance to the akin contemporaneous Phoenician inscriptions from Byblos
. Clear Hebrew features are visible in the scripts of the Moabite inscriptions of the Mesha Stele
. The 8th-century Hebrew inscriptions exhibit many specific and exclusive traits, leading modern scholars to conclude that already in the 10th century BCE the Paleo-Hebrew alphabet was used by wide scribal circles. Even though very few 10th-century Hebrew inscriptions have been found, the quantity of the epigraphic material from the 8th century onward shows the gradual spread of literacy among the people of the Kingdom of Israel and the Kingdom of Judah
.
In 1855 a Phoenician inscription in twenty-two lines was found among the ruins of Sidon
. Each line contained about forty or fifty characters. A facsimile copy of the writing was published in United States Magazine in July 1855. The inscription was on the lid of a large stone sarcophagus
carved in fine Egyptian style. The writing was primarily a genealogical history of a king of Sidon buried in the sarcophagus. It was in the Hebrew language except for a few words.
, numerous tomb inscriptions from Jerusalem, the Ketef Hinnom
amulets, a fragmentary Hebrew inscription on an ivory which was taken as war spoils (probably from Samaria
) to Nimrud
, and the hundreds of 8th to 6th-century Hebrew seals from various sites. The most developed cursive script is found on the 18 Lachish
ostraca, letters sent by an officer to the governor of Lachish just before the destruction of the First Temple in 586 BCE. (cf. the Mesad Hashavyahu
petition for favorable judgment.)
After the Babylonian capture of Judea, when most of the nobles were taken into exile, the Paleo-Hebrew alphabet continued to be used by the people who remained. One example of such writings are the 6th-century BCE jar handles from Gibeon, on which the names of winegrowers are inscribed. Beginning from the 5th century BCE onward, when the Aramaic language and script became an official means of communication, the Paleo-Hebrew alphabet was preserved mainly for writing the Tanakh
by a coterie of erudite scribe
s. Some Paleo-Hebrew fragments of the Torah
were found among the Dead Sea Scrolls
: manuscripts 4Q12, 6Q1: Genesis. 4Q22: Exodus. 1Q3, 2Q5, 4Q11, 4Q45, 4Q46, 6Q2: Leviticus. The vast majority of the Hasmonean coinage
, as well as the coins of the First Jewish-Roman War
and Bar Kokhba's revolt
, bears Paleo-Hebrew legends. The Paleo-Hebrew alphabet fell completely out of use only after 135 CE.
began to diverge from the Jewish one. Unlike the Jews, the Samaritans have continued to use this script for writing both Hebrew and Aramaic texts until the present day. A comparison of the earliest Samaritan inscriptions and the medieval and modern Samaritan manuscripts clearly indicates that the Samaritan script is a static script which was used mainly as a book hand.
) was lost. According to both opinions, Ezra the Scribe (circa 500BCE) introduced, or reintroduced the Assyrian script to be used as the primary Alphabet for the Hebrew language
. The arguments given for both opinions are rooted in Jewish scripture and/or tradition.
A third, yet less accepted opinion in the Talmud states that the script never changed altogether. It would seem that the Sage who expressed this opinion did not believe that Paleo-Hebrew ever existed, despite the strong arguments supporting it. His stance is rooted in a scriptural verse, which makes reference to the shape of the letter vav. The Sage argues further that, given the commandment to copy a Torah scroll directly from another, the script could not conceivably have been modified at any point.
: including Zikarown Say’fer, The Besorah and the Halleluyah Scriptures. These translations use it for writing the Tetragrammaton
and other divine names, incorporating these name written in this script in the midst of the English text.
Standard in July, 2006 with the release of version 5.0.
The Unicode block for Paleo-Hebrew, called Phoenician, is U+10900–U+1091F. It is intended for the representation of text in Palaeo-Hebrew, Archaic Phoenician, Phoenician, Early Aramaic, Late Phoenician cursive, Phoenician papyri, Siloam Hebrew, Hebrew seals, Ammonite
, Moabite
, and Punic
.
Abjad
An abjad is a type of writing system in which each symbol always or usually stands for a consonant; the reader must supply the appropriate vowel....
offshoot of the ancient Semitic alphabet, identical to the Phoenician alphabet
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...
. At the very least it dates to the 10th century BCE. It was used as the main vehicle for writing the Hebrew language
Hebrew language
Hebrew is a Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Culturally, is it considered by Jews and other religious groups as the language of the Jewish people, though other Jewish languages had originated among diaspora Jews, and the Hebrew language is also used by non-Jewish groups, such...
by the Israelites, both Jews
Jews
The Jews , also known as the Jewish people, are a nation and ethnoreligious group originating in the Israelites or Hebrews of the Ancient Near East. The Jewish ethnicity, nationality, and religion are strongly interrelated, as Judaism is the traditional faith of the Jewish nation...
and Samaritans.
It began to fall out of use by the Jews
Jews
The Jews , also known as the Jewish people, are a nation and ethnoreligious group originating in the Israelites or Hebrews of the Ancient Near East. The Jewish ethnicity, nationality, and religion are strongly interrelated, as Judaism is the traditional faith of the Jewish nation...
in the 5th century BCE when they adopted the Aramaic alphabet
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....
as their writing system for Hebrew, from which the present Jewish "square-script" 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...
descends. The Samaritan
Samaritan
The Samaritans are an ethnoreligious group of the Levant. Religiously, they are the adherents to Samaritanism, an Abrahamic religion closely related to Judaism...
s, who now number less than one thousand people, continue to use a derivative of the Old Hebrew alphabet, known as the 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....
.
Letters
| Hebrew letter | Paleo-Hebrew letter | English Name |
|---|---|---|
| א | Aleph | |
| ב | Beth | |
| ג | gimel | |
| ד | daleth | |
| ה | hey | |
| ו | vav | |
| ז | zayin | |
| ח | het | |
| ט | tet | |
| י | yod | |
| כ/ך | kaph | |
| ל | lamed | |
| מ/ם | mem | |
| נ/ן | nun | |
| ס | samekh | |
| ע | ayin | |
| פ/ף | pe | |
| צ/ץ | tsadik | |
| ק | quph | |
| ר | resh | |
| ש | shin | |
| ת | tav |
Origins
The earliest known inscription in the Paleo-Hebrew alphabet was discovered on the stone on a wall at Tel ZayitZayit Stone
The Zayit Stone is a 38-pound limestone boulder excavated from Tel Zayit in southwest Israel...
, in the Beth Guvrin Valley in the lowlands of ancient Judea
Judea
Judea or Judæa was the name of the mountainous southern part of the historic Land of Israel from the 8th century BCE to the 2nd century CE, when Roman Judea was renamed Syria Palaestina following the Jewish Bar Kokhba revolt.-Etymology:The...
. The 22 letters were carved on one side of the 38 lb stone (17 kg) - which resembles a bowl on the other. Next would be the 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....
dated to the late 10th century BCE. The script of the Gezer calendar bears strong resemblance to the akin contemporaneous Phoenician inscriptions from Byblos
Byblos
Byblos is the Greek name of the Phoenician city Gebal . It is a Mediterranean city in the Mount Lebanon Governorate of present-day Lebanon under the current Arabic name of Jubayl and was also referred to as Gibelet during the Crusades...
. Clear Hebrew features are visible in the scripts of the Moabite inscriptions of 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....
. The 8th-century Hebrew inscriptions exhibit many specific and exclusive traits, leading modern scholars to conclude that already in the 10th century BCE the Paleo-Hebrew alphabet was used by wide scribal circles. Even though very few 10th-century Hebrew inscriptions have been found, the quantity of the epigraphic material from the 8th century onward shows the gradual spread of literacy among the people of the Kingdom of Israel and the Kingdom of Judah
Kingdom of Judah
The Kingdom of Judah was a Jewish state established in the Southern Levant during the Iron Age. It is often referred to as the "Southern Kingdom" to distinguish it from the northern Kingdom of Israel....
.
In 1855 a Phoenician inscription in twenty-two lines was found among the ruins of Sidon
Sidon
Sidon or Saïda is the third-largest city in Lebanon. It is located in the South Governorate of Lebanon, on the Mediterranean coast, about 40 km north of Tyre and 40 km south of the capital Beirut. In Genesis, Sidon is the son of Canaan the grandson of Noah...
. Each line contained about forty or fifty characters. A facsimile copy of the writing was published in United States Magazine in July 1855. The inscription was on the lid of a large stone sarcophagus
Sarcophagus
A sarcophagus is a funeral receptacle for a corpse, most commonly carved or cut from stone. The word "sarcophagus" comes from the Greek σαρξ sarx meaning "flesh", and φαγειν phagein meaning "to eat", hence sarkophagus means "flesh-eating"; from the phrase lithos sarkophagos...
carved in fine Egyptian style. The writing was primarily a genealogical history of a king of Sidon buried in the sarcophagus. It was in the Hebrew language except for a few words.
Further development
The independent Hebrew script evolved by developing numerous cursive features, the lapidary features of the Phoenician alphabet being ever less pronounced with the passage of time. The aversion of the lapidary script may indicate that the custom of erecting stelae by the kings and offering votive inscriptions to the deity was not widespread in Israel. Even the engraved inscriptions from the 8th century exhibit elements of the cursive style, such as the shading, which is a natural feature of pen-and-ink writing. Examples of such inscriptions include the Siloam inscriptionSiloam 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...
, numerous tomb inscriptions from Jerusalem, the Ketef Hinnom
Ketef Hinnom
Ketef Hinnom is an archaeological site southwest of the Old City of Jerusalem, adjacent to St. Andrew's Church of Scotland. The site consists of a series of rock-hewn burial chambers based on natural caverns...
amulets, a fragmentary Hebrew inscription on an ivory which was taken as war spoils (probably from Samaria
Samaria
Samaria, or the Shomron is a term used for a mountainous region roughly corresponding to the northern part of the West Bank.- Etymology :...
) to Nimrud
Nimrud
Nimrud is an ancient Assyrian city located south of Nineveh on the river Tigris in modern Ninawa Governorate Iraq. In ancient times the city was called Kalḫu. The Arabs called the city Nimrud after the Biblical Nimrod, a legendary hunting hero .The city covered an area of around . Ruins of the city...
, and the hundreds of 8th to 6th-century Hebrew seals from various sites. The most developed cursive script is found on the 18 Lachish
Lachish
Lachish was an ancient Near East town located at the site of modern Tell ed-Duweir in the Shephelah, a region between Mount Hebron and the maritime plain of Philistia . The town was first mentioned in the Amarna letters as Lakisha-Lakiša...
ostraca, letters sent by an officer to the governor of Lachish just before the destruction of the First Temple in 586 BCE. (cf. the Mesad Hashavyahu
Mesad Hashavyahu
Meṣad Hashavyahu is an ancient fortress on the border of ancient Judea facing the Philistine city of Ashdod near the Mediterranean Sea. It lies 1.7 km south of Yavne-Yam and 7 km northwest of Yavne . The original name of the fort is unknown, but was given the name found on several...
petition for favorable judgment.)
Decline of use
Tanakh
The Tanakh is a name used in Judaism for the canon of the Hebrew Bible. The Tanakh is also known as the Masoretic Text or the Miqra. The name is an acronym formed from the initial Hebrew letters of the Masoretic Text's three traditional subdivisions: The Torah , Nevi'im and Ketuvim —hence...
by a coterie of erudite scribe
Scribe
A scribe is a person who writes books or documents by hand as a profession and helps the city keep track of its records. The profession, previously found in all literate cultures in some form, lost most of its importance and status with the advent of printing...
s. Some Paleo-Hebrew fragments of the Torah
Torah
Torah- A scroll containing the first five books of the BibleThe Torah , is name given by Jews to the first five books of the bible—Genesis , Exodus , Leviticus , Numbers and Deuteronomy Torah- A scroll containing the first five books of the BibleThe Torah , is name given by Jews to the first five...
were found among the Dead Sea Scrolls
Dead Sea scrolls
The Dead Sea Scrolls are a collection of 972 texts from the Hebrew Bible and extra-biblical documents found between 1947 and 1956 on the northwest shore of the Dead Sea, from which they derive their name...
: manuscripts 4Q12, 6Q1: Genesis. 4Q22: Exodus. 1Q3, 2Q5, 4Q11, 4Q45, 4Q46, 6Q2: Leviticus. The vast majority of the Hasmonean coinage
Hashmonean coinage
Hasmonean coinage are the coins minted by the Hasmonean kings. Only bronze coins in various denominations have been found; the smallest being a prutah or a half prutah. Two Roman silver denarii are associated with the Hashmoneans; one has the inscription "BACCIUS JUDAEAS"; with its exact meaning...
, as well as the coins of the First Jewish-Roman War
First Jewish-Roman War
The First Jewish–Roman War , sometimes called The Great Revolt , was the first of three major rebellions by the Jews of Judaea Province , against the Roman Empire...
and Bar Kokhba's revolt
Bar Kokhba's revolt
The Bar Kokhba revolt 132–136 CE; or mered bar kokhba) against the Roman Empire, was the third major rebellion by the Jews of Judaea Province being the last of the Jewish-Roman Wars. Simon bar Kokhba, the commander of the revolt, was acclaimed as a Messiah, a heroic figure who could restore Israel...
, bears Paleo-Hebrew legends. The Paleo-Hebrew alphabet fell completely out of use only after 135 CE.
Use of Paleo-Hebrew by Samaritans
Sometime in the last two centuries BCE the Samaritan alphabetSamaritan 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....
began to diverge from the Jewish one. Unlike the Jews, the Samaritans have continued to use this script for writing both Hebrew and Aramaic texts until the present day. A comparison of the earliest Samaritan inscriptions and the medieval and modern Samaritan manuscripts clearly indicates that the Samaritan script is a static script which was used mainly as a book hand.
According to the Babylonian Talmud
The Talmudic sages did not share a uniform stance on the subject of Paleo-Hebrew. Some stated that Paleo-Hebrew was the original script used by the Israelites at the time of the Exodus, while others believed that Paleo-Hebrew merely served as a stopgap in a time when the original script (The Assyrian ScriptAshuri alphabet
Ashuri alphabet means Assyrian alphabet and also refers to the Assyrian script which is a traditional name for the Hebrew alphabet and a term that was first used in the Mishnah to refer to either the Aramaic alphabet or the formal script used in certain Jewish ceremonial items, including Sefer...
) was lost. According to both opinions, Ezra the Scribe (circa 500BCE) introduced, or reintroduced the Assyrian script to be used as the primary Alphabet for the Hebrew language
Hebrew language
Hebrew is a Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Culturally, is it considered by Jews and other religious groups as the language of the Jewish people, though other Jewish languages had originated among diaspora Jews, and the Hebrew language is also used by non-Jewish groups, such...
. The arguments given for both opinions are rooted in Jewish scripture and/or tradition.
A third, yet less accepted opinion in the Talmud states that the script never changed altogether. It would seem that the Sage who expressed this opinion did not believe that Paleo-Hebrew ever existed, despite the strong arguments supporting it. His stance is rooted in a scriptural verse, which makes reference to the shape of the letter vav. The Sage argues further that, given the commandment to copy a Torah scroll directly from another, the script could not conceivably have been modified at any point.
Current use in Sacred Name Bibles
The Paleo-Hebrew script has been recently revived for specific use in several Sacred Name BiblesSacred name Bibles
The term Sacred Name Bibles and the term sacred-name versions are used in general sources to refer to editions of the Bible that are usually connected with the Sacred Name Movement...
: including Zikarown Say’fer, The Besorah and the Halleluyah Scriptures. These translations use it for writing the Tetragrammaton
Tetragrammaton
The term Tetragrammaton refers to the name of the God of Israel YHWH used in the Hebrew Bible.-Hebrew Bible:...
and other divine names, incorporating these name written in this script in the midst of the English text.
Unicode
The Paleo-Hebrew alphabet was unified with the Phoenician alphabet and added to the UnicodeUnicode
Unicode is a computing industry standard for the consistent encoding, representation and handling of text expressed in most of the world's writing systems...
Standard in July, 2006 with the release of version 5.0.
The Unicode block for Paleo-Hebrew, called Phoenician, is U+10900–U+1091F. It is intended for the representation of text in Palaeo-Hebrew, Archaic Phoenician, Phoenician, Early Aramaic, Late Phoenician cursive, Phoenician papyri, Siloam Hebrew, Hebrew seals, Ammonite
Ammonite language
The Ammonite language is the extinct Canaanite language of the Ammonite people mentioned in the Bible, who used to live in modern-day Jordan, and after whom its capital Amman is named. Only fragments of their language survive - chiefly the 9th century BC , the 7th-6th century BC Tell Siran bronze...
, 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...
, and Punic
Punic language
The Punic language or Carthagian language is an extinct Semitic language formerly spoken in the Mediterranean region of North Africa and several Mediterranean islands, by people of the Punic culture.- Description :...
.