SYNOPSIS: Scholars maintain that the Hebrew alphabet developed long after the Exodus, so Moses could not have written the Torah. Can a closer look at the family tree of the alphabet show that it arose earlier than people think? Might the world’s oldest alphabet actually be Hebrew, which emerged just in time for Moses to use to write the Torah?
“And on the day you cross over the Jordan to the land that the LORD your God is giving you, you shall set up large stones and plaster them with plaster… And you shall write on the stones all the words of this law very plainly.”
– Deuteronomy 27:2, 8 (ESV)
Why the Hebrew Question Is Important
The beginnings of the first alphabet’s family tree are shrouded in mystery. All modern alphabets are believed to have developed from a single parent script, which originated sometime in the second millennium BC. Now, a controversial new theory has proposed that the original alphabet was actually an early form of Hebrew.
If it turns out that the world’s oldest alphabet was Hebrew, and that Moses did, in fact, use it to write the Torah, that would change how the world views the Exodus period, the Bible, and world history.
This is a central question in the new film, Patterns of Evidence: The Moses Controversy. The film will be released in over 900 theaters across America for three days only: March 14th, 16th, and 19th. Look for a sneak peek of a scene from the new film below.
Our last post on the Bible’s link to the alphabet explained how the invention of the alphabet was sheer genius. It took writing, which previously had been extremely complex, and reduced it to a very small set of letters that each stood for the different sounds in language. Different arrangements of these letters could represent every word in a language. This simplicity and flexibility made the alphabet a powerful tool that was easy for common people to learn.
This also fits with the reality that all of the most ancient copies of the Bible (or fragments of it) that have been found were written with a Hebrew alphabet. This makes sense because the ancient Israelites spoke Hebrew.
Additionally, many passages in the Bible make it clear that literacy was not just limited to Moses – many of the Israelites early in their history could read and write, implying that an alphabet was in use, because it alone had the potential to spread literacy to the masses.
“Provide three men from each tribe, and I will send them out that they may set out and go up and down the land. They shall write a description of it with a view to their inheritances, and then come to me.”
– Joshua 18:4 (ESV)
A challenge for the idea that this kind of literacy existed and that Moses wrote the first books of the Bible, is that the Hebrew alphabet is believed by most scholars to have begun around 900 BC. That was about 500 years after Moses was supposed to be writing the Torah, as the Bible claims.
The Alphabet’s Family Tree
In the standard view, the first Hebrew writing is called “Old Hebrew” or “Paleo-Hebrew.” This is known from inscriptions found from about 900 BC in the kingdoms of Israel and Judah until the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem and the exile of many of Judah’s inhabitants to Babylon around 586 BC.
During and after the exile in Babylon, Jewish scholars began to adopt a new style of script in square block form that can from the Aramaic alphabet used by the Persians. This was essentially the same style of Hebrew writing that is used today. However, the Old Hebrew script still continued to be used in limited ways for centuries and even shows up in some of the Dead Sea Scrolls.
Hebrew is a member of a family of ancient languages known as the Northwest Semitic group. All of the languages in this group were similar and several of them developed related styles of script in the first millennium BC, shown in the map above. However, none of these scripts are thought to have gone back as far as the time of the Exodus.
Scholars believe that Hebrew is one of the oldest of these scripts. However, the fact that Old Hebrew is thought to have first emerged around 900 BC contributes to the thinking that the accounts in the first books of the Bible, like the exodus from Egypt, were passed down as oral traditions that became exaggerated and mixed with fiction before being written down centuries later.
Were the Earliest Alphabetic Inscriptions Hebrew?
But, this is not the end of the story. New interpretations are opening up the possibility that we have hard evidence showing that Moses could have authored books like Exodus as an eyewitness account. A strong pattern of evidence is even pointing to the reality that the world’s oldest alphabet was a form of Hebrew invented by the people of Israel while they were in Egypt.
Naturally, this suggestion has raised a firestorm of controversy from mainstream scholars who dismiss any connection between the earliest alphabet, Moses, the Bible’s place in history, and the writing of the Torah.
Some of the world’s oldest alphabetic inscriptions were found more than a century ago on the walls of ancient mines in the Sinai Peninsula that were dug by Egyptian slaves. Further investigation showed that the writing was a Semitic script and it was given the name proto-Sinaitic (proto meaning “first”). In time, about two dozen of these inscriptions using a Semitic alphabet were discovered – all recording short messages. The oldest was dated to Egypt’s Middle Kingdom period.
Where did this technology come from, and when exactly were these etchings made? There is no evidence of local populations near the mines in ancient times, so all the activity there is attributed to seasonal mining parties that came from Egypt.
A series of past Thinker Updates covered Douglas Petrovich’s thesis that Hebrew was the world’s oldest alphabet. He has proposed several new letter identifications for these inscriptions that allowed him to read them as Hebrew messages. Egyptologist David Rohl has made different identifications for the words by using ideas from some of the previous scholars involved in this debate for the letter identifications, and then using Rabbi Michael Shelomo Bar-Ron to read then as Hebrew. Each thinks the Israelites were responsible for the writing.
One clue pertaining to the development of this early script is that it borrowed symbols for the letters from Egyptian hieroglyphics. There are also many hieroglyphic inscriptions from the Egyptian excavation parties around the Sinai mines. However, new strictly phonetic meanings were given to the symbols in the alphabetic inscriptions.
There would have been no motive for Egyptians to create this Semitic script. So, it appears that the genius of a Semitic alphabet was invented by a Semitic person living in Egypt during the Middle Kingdom, who was familiar with Egyptian hieroglyphs – a writing system that was so complicated, only the elite in society could use it. The pattern is beginning to form.
Final Thoughts
Was this script really an early form of Hebrew that allowed Moses to author the Torah as so many passages in the Bible claim? Why do so many scholars reject any connection?
Explore these key crucial questions with your family, friends, and neighbors in the thought-provoking fast-paced production Patterns of Evidence: The Moses Controversy – in theaters 3 days only, March 14th, 16th, and 19th. To find a theater near you, purchase tickets and view the trailer, visit PatternsOfEvidence.com/moses. GROUP TICKETS are available for groups of 10 or more, click the “Get Tickets Now” button to see a link for Group Ticket information.
Now, Here Is a Scene from the New Film:
Moses Controversy – Film Clip 3 – Sir William Petrie
The wait is nearly over and the showings begin this week. So, get ready to experience Patterns of Evidence: The Moses Controversy and keep thinking!
TOP PHOTO: Moses from Patterns of Evidence: The Moses Controversy (copyright 2019, Patterns of Evidence LLC)
