Michael Everson wrote at 12:15 PM on Wednesday, April 28, 2004:
Because Hebrew is only *one* of Phoenician's descendants and because there is a requirement to distinguish the two in plain text. There exist Hebrew texts and Greek texts which use this script to display the Tetragrammaton, for instance.
This can more be more accurately viewed as a font change.
No, it could not. Even in antiquity, as Mark Shoulson pointed out on this topic months ago, the native users of these scripts distinguished them. Samaritans who did not go into Exile retained their original Phoenician script (though it developed later into something rather different and uniquely Samaritan); Jews in Exile gave up the Phoenician script and adopted its descendant, Aramaic script (which developed later into something rather different and uniquely Hebrew).
Mark quoted the following to me in a private discussion in December. It is from the Mishna ffrom Yadayim:
"The targum [i.e. Aramaic text] in Ezra and Daniel, renders the hands impure [long story; point being that by Rabbinic decree, holy books render one's hands impure in a certain way]. Targum that one wrote in Hebrew [i.e. Aramaic Biblical text translated into Hebrew] or Hebrew written in Targum, and Hebrew script(!), do not render the hands impure. In general, it never impurifies the hands until written in Ashurit script, on skin, with ink."
Mark described this further. I said "That's not font variants." He said:
"Doesn't sound that way to me. The shapes of the leters in the Torah are very closely described, and even if something has an actual mistake (letter broken or touching another or missing), the scroll is unfit, but I think it still has the same sanctity (though THAT we'd have to check). Which would apply to font-variants of Asshurit script."
(Asshurit = Assyrian = Aramaic that became Square Hebrew. Hebrew = Palaeo-Hebrew = Phoenician here.)
--
Michael Everson * * Everson Typography * * http://www.evertype.com
