James Kass wrote at 7:57 AM on Wednesday, May 26, 2004: >If palaeo-Hebrew and square Hebrew are the same script, then >it couldn't be said that the Jews abandoned the palaeo-Hebrew >script after the exile. Yet, this is what available references say >did happen. (By available, I mean to me. Additional citations >would be welcome.)
The word "script" is not used in most palaeographical literature (in fact, in none that I can think of) in the same way it is used in encoding contexts. Palaeographers, as also almost all non-encoders, use the word "script" very loosely to encompass both minor variations in palaeography and major ones. Here's a modern example for, yes, Fraktur ;-) "Unter den Nazis wurde die Verwendung der Schriften politisiert. Zun�chst wurde die Fraktur als "deutsche" Schrift gegen�ber der "nichtarischen" Antiqua bevorzugt." <http://www.net-lexikon.de/Frakturschrift.html> Such employment of the term "script" should not be used in making encoding decisions. [It's very hard not to use the word "script" in its non-technical sense in palaeographical discussions - it can become tedious to keep using words like "hand", "diascript", etc., or keep quoting "script". And so, I too use "script" often myself in a non-encoding sense, trusting the context will make the intended meaning clear.] >Negative proofs are kind of hard. I've been unable to find >anything which states that the ancient Jews considered >Phoenician and Hebrew to be the same script. If it were >easily found, I'd've found it already. In fairness, I've also >tried to find anything documenting that the ancient Jews >specifically considered Phoenician and Hebrew to be >separate scripts. Maybe it was such a "no-brainer" (either >way) for them that they never recorded their thoughts on >the subject. Or, maybe nothing survived. Or, maybe >nothing's been brought to light yet. > >Or, maybe somebody knows better? The evidence for this of which I am aware includes the contemporaneous use of both diascripts in ancient Judah, some of which evidence I have mentioned in previous emails (See, in particular, the one in response to Peter Constable at 3:06 pm yesterday.) In addition, I might add the continued use of Palaeo-Hebrew by the dialectically close Samaritan neighbors of the Jews to write their Bible and their literature, even to this day. The neighboring Jews also wrote manuscripts, coins, inscriptions, and jar labels in the same Palaeo- Hebrew script used by the Samaritans. Also, not apropos to ancient Jews, but ... someone mentioned much earlier in these threads even seeing a business sign in modern Israel that is written in Palaeo-Hebrew. >Religious scribes had very strict rules. The Word was supposed >to be copied *very* faithfully. Yet, older DSS appear seem to >have been in palaeo- and newer DSS in Hebrew. > >Did the scribes think they were faithfully copying older scrolls >when they "abandoned palaeo-Hebrew script" and made newer >scrolls in Hebrew? Absolutely. >Did they make the newer scrolls because they'd >abandoned the older script and no-one other than scholars could >*read* the older scrolls? Did the very strict rules begin some >time after the older script was abandoned? Does anyone know? The reasons given for the switch from Palaeo-Hebrew to Jewish Hebrew are manifold and sometimes controversial. For certain we know that: 1) Jews exiled in Babylonia adopted both the Aramaic language and Aramaic "script", the lingua et scriptio franca of the Babylonian empire. (This adopted Aramaic "script", also an offshoot of the Canaanite script closely related to Palaeo-Hebrew, is now known as Jewish Hebrew script. See my earlier attachment, Selected West Semitic Scripts, to get some idea how close these diascripts are.) 2) Even major portions of some of the later books of the Jewish Bible, Daniel and Ezra, were authored, not in Hebrew, but in Aramaic, and presumably using the Aramaic script. (The earliest few extant manuscripts of these texts, dated to a few hundred years after their authorship, employ the same Jewish Hebrew script for both the Hebrew and Aramaic portions of the texts.) 3) After the exile, Jews began an "official" program of translating or paraphrasing their entire Bible into Aramaic, the Targums, still using the Jewish Hebrew script. 3) There are Dead Sea biblical scrolls written in both Palaeo-Hebrew and Jewish Hebrew. For what it's worth, I believe the newer script became dominant primarily based on the example and influence of Daniel and Ezra, portions of whose works in the Bible are written in Aramaic language and, presumably, script. Respectfully, Dean A. Snyder Assistant Research Scholar Manager, Digital Hammurabi Project Computer Science Department Whiting School of Engineering 218C New Engineering Building 3400 North Charles Street Johns Hopkins University Baltimore, Maryland, USA 21218 office: 410 516-6850 cell: 717 817-4897 www.jhu.edu/digitalhammurabi
