Paleo-Hebrew & More

[Gregory Matthews]

Stinsonmarri has often mentioned Paleo-Hebrew in her posts.  So, I thought that I would post a bit about it.

It is important that we understand the differences between a language, an alphabet and a script.  

A language has words with defined meanings, a grammar that tells us how those words are put together to communicate ideas, an alphabet that tells us how the sounds of the language   are communicated and a script that   is the actual manner in which the sounds of the language are represented in written form.

The English language, as we speak it today, has 26 letters in an alphabet.  Five (5) of those letters are considered to be vowels.  Twenty of the letters are considered to be consonants and one letter may be either a vowel or a consonants.

The alphabet of the English language is generally called either a Latin alphabet or a Roman alphabet.

As you know if you use a computer, there are many scripts in which the alphabet of the English language may be written.  Times-Roman is one common script today.  There are a multitude of other common scripts.

The Biblical language of the Old Testament books was mostly an ancient language which is sometimes called Biblical  Hebrew along with a few places where the language was Aramaic.  That ancient Hebrew was used for several hundred years around 1000 BCE.   With the passage of time, it fell out of use and it is much different from what we call modern Hebrew today.  In reality, modern  Hebrew is a different language from that of the Biblical language.  

Over time languages develop into dialects.  An example of this is the difference that exists between the English that we speak in the U.S and as it is spoken in England.  On one of my assignments in South Korea, I had a secretary who had learned her English as spoken in England.  There are differences.  Even in the U.S. we have some different dialects.

It is also true that the Biblical languages had their dialects.   Qumran Hebrew was one dialect and Nabatean Aramaic was another.

So, what was Paleo-Hebrew?  Was it a language, an alphabet or a script?  Contrary to what some people may think, Paleo-Hebrew was not a language.  However, Paleo-Hebrew is thought to be quite important by the so called Sacred Name translators of the Bible.   Paleo-Hebrew is not an alphabet that is separate from the alphabet of the Biblical Hebrew.  Paleo-Hebrew is simply a script that is used to write the letters of the alphabet of Biblical Hebrew.  

The article below illustrates this.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paleo-Hebrew_alphabet

 

 

 

 

[8thdaypriest]

A video which some may find interesting is titled "The Moses Controversy - Patterns of Evidence" .

It is by the same filmmaker who did "Patterns of Evidence - Exodus" which came out in 2014.

"The Moses Controversy" makes the case for a written pre-Hebrew by the end of the middle kingdom of Egypt, which (he contends) is the Pharaoh of the plagues and the escape of the Israelites (1400BC).  The video is long, but makes some good points. 

He asks whether the LORD could have given a written language to Joseph for his monumental task, and hence to Moses for writing down the Torah. 

[stinsonmarri]

On 7/6/2019 at 7:07 AM, Gregory Matthews said:

Stinsonmarri has often mentioned Paleo-Hebrew in her posts.  So, I thought that I would post a bit about it.

It is important that we understand the differences between a language, an alphabet and a script.  

A language has words with defined meanings, a grammar that tells us how those words are put together to communicate ideas, an alphabet that tells us how the sounds of the language   are communicated and a script that   is the actual manner in which the sounds of the language are represented in written form.

The English language, as we speak it today, has 26 letters in an alphabet.  Five (5) of those letters are considered to be vowels.  Twenty of the letters are considered to be consonants and one letter may be either a vowel or a consonants.

The alphabet of the English language is generally called either a Latin alphabet or a Roman alphabet.

As you know if you use a computer, there are many scripts in which the alphabet of the English language may be written.  Times-Roman is one common script today.  There are a multitude of other common scripts.

The Biblical language of the Old Testament books was mostly an ancient language which is sometimes called Biblical  Hebrew along with a few places where the language was Aramaic.  That ancient Hebrew was used for several hundred years around 1000 BCE.   With the passage of time, it fell out of use and it is much different from what we call modern Hebrew today.  In reality, modern  Hebrew is a different language from that of the Biblical language.  

Over time languages develop into dialects.  An example of this is the difference that exists between the English that we speak in the U.S and as it is spoken in England.  On one of my assignments in South Korea, I had a secretary who had learned her English as spoken in England.  There are differences.  Even in the U.S. we have some different dialects.

It is also true that the Biblical languages had their dialects.   Qumran Hebrew was one dialect and Nabatean Aramaic was another.

So, what was Paleo-Hebrew?  Was it a language, an alphabet or a script?  Contrary to what some people may think, Paleo-Hebrew was not a language.  However, Paleo-Hebrew is thought to be quite important by the so called Sacred Name translators of the Bible.   Paleo-Hebrew is not an alphabet that is separate from the alphabet of the Biblical Hebrew.  Paleo-Hebrew is simply a script that is used to write the letters of the alphabet of Biblical Hebrew.  

The article below illustrates this.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paleo-Hebrew_alphabet

 

 

 

 

Pastor Matthew: I notice that you wanted to clarify why I used the word “Paleo Hebrew language.” You stated; “It is important that we understand the differences between a language, an alphabet and a script.” Sir, the reason why I stated that I would also be a voice to the truth about racism even within the SDA Church. I do not believe that most Seventh Day Adventist European in their mind believe that they are racist. But if you taught something incorrect which has been pass down so long, it is thought to be true. Then the other problems is how many say they accept the Bible, but sir, they accept what they want or choose to believe. The next problem is Seventh Day Adventist Minister rely on writers of Biblical History that is bias to the Hamitic people; whether intentionally or innocently. It is time to accept the truth and to deal with what you stated; “the so-called Sacred Name translators of the Bible.” This is so very bias and I will prove it and I cannot understand why you would make this type of statement without facts?

It is very important as Bible students to know and understand words and also syntax and context of the English language from ancient Biblical languages. All ancient people after YAHWEH confounded their unified language at Babel, in which they actually lost their ability to write and even to communicate with each other. They had to start all over using some form of pictograph and cuneiform writing that consist of wedges and lines. Many begin to develop writings in order to trade to other people. They then started to form or invent symbol that we know today as letters or the alphabet others used a combination cuneiform and pictograph together call the hieroglyph. The ancient Egyptians hieroglyphic script is still used today the the Asiatic people of China, Japan, and Korea. It was truly the Afrikan people who gave to the world all of the writings symbols that we used today.

The history of the alphabet started in ancient Egypt. By 2700 BCE, Egyptian writing had a set of some 22 hieroglyphs to represent syllables that begin with a single consonant of their language, plus a vowel (or no vowel) to be supplied by the native speaker. These glyphs were used as pronunciation guides for logograms, to write grammatical inflections, and, later, to transcribe loan words and foreign names.

However, although seemingly alphabetic in nature, the original Egyptian uniliteral were not a system and were never used by themselves to encode Egyptian speech. In the Middle Bronze Age an apparently "alphabetic" system known as the Proto-Sinaitic script is thought by some to have been developed in central Egypt around 1700 BCE… This script eventually developed into the Proto-Canaanite alphabet, which in turn was refined into the Phoenician alphabet. It also developed into the South Arabian alphabet, from which the Ge'ez alphabet (an abugida) is descended. Note that the scripts mentioned above are not considered proper alphabets, as they all lack characters representing vowels. These early vowelless alphabets are called abjads, and still exist in scripts such as Arabic, Hebrew and Syriac. Alphabet by Ancient History Encyclopedia

In short, the Hebrew language and script known as Ketav Ivri or Paleo-Hebrew today was a Canaanite Phoenician language a script that was written from right to left. Scholars do confirm this when  you go back, you will find out that there is no difference at all between the word I call Paleo-Hebrew is actual a name they used instead using the true name Phoenician that the Old Testament verifies. It is time to state that the language and script of the original Bible should be called Biblical Phoenician Language and Script.

The Biblical Phoenician was dead and modern Hebrew language and script does not have much of the polish style of the ancient Afrikan Biblical Phoenician Language. Yes, they are still close in some of their meanings and the oral form, but not in their written form. That is why is not a surprise that the Phoenician we read today would sounds and similar to the Hebrew but not in everything.

The problem that still exist today is that Europeans superiority over the Afrikan people and everything they accomplish. The Ashkenazi an European German people adopted through marriages for centuries the Rabbinic Judaic Religion. What need to be understood is that from the time that the true Hebrews kingdom was destroyed be their own cousins the Chaldean many did not return to IsraEL. When Cyrus allowed them to return many didn’t return and then Greece took over the world. The Hebrews spread all over the Grecian Empires. The Persians were harsh and the Greek general that took over the Persians lands they had conqueror; religion was forced on the Hebrews. The revolt of the Maccabean’ s history proves the turmoil and again the lack of faith of Israel before Rome became their ruler.

But we need to understand that after Nimrod it was the Afrikan language that would rule and be used even today.

The Hebrew people were more intimately associated with the Hamitic races than with the descendants of Japheth. Cush, or Kush, is ancient Ethiopia, which was in classical times called Nubia. It was not Abyssinia but included a part of Egypt and a part of the Sudan, extending from the first cataract of the Nile, at Aswan, as far south as Khartoum. In Egyptian inscriptions this land is called Kash, in Assyrian cuneiform texts, Kusu. Cush, however, included not only African Nubia but also the western part of Arabia bordering on the Red Sea. Some of the sons of Cush are known to have settled there. The SDA Bible Commentary Vol. 1, p. 273; edited by F. D. Nichol

Now here the Seventh Day Adventist Commentary provides the truth and yet; modern Adventist Ministers, Historians, Anthropologist, Archeologist and Linguist are not listening, and I truly wonder why? Maybe that’s why they refuse to accept THE SACRED NAMES?

The Persians tribes are the following: Alans, Bactrians, Dahae, Khwarezmians, Massagetae, Medes, Parthians, Persians, Sagartians, Sakas, Sarmatians, Scythians, Sogdians and the Cimmerians (or Germans, the word Cimmerians or Celtic derives from the word Gomer in the Bible).

The Cimbri were a tribe settled on Jutland peninsula in Germania (now Denmark) ca. 200 BC, who were variously identified in ancient times as Cimmerian, Germanic or Celtic. In later times, some scholars connected them with the Welsh people, and descendants of Gomer. Among the first authors to identify Gomer, the Cimmerians, and Cimbri, with the Welsh name for themselves, Cymri, was the English antiquarian William Camden in his Britannia (first published in 1586). In his 1716 book Drych y Prif Oesoedd, Welsh antiquary Theophilus Evans also posited that the Welsh were descended from the Cimmerians and from Gomer;[9] this was followed by a number of later writers of the 18th and 19th centuries. Camden's Britannia, Vol. 1 p. 17, 19; A History of Wales from the Earliest Times to the Edwardian Conquest. By John Edward Lloyd

The Cushites are known to live in the land of the Semitic people and many of them became rulers of the land.  

In speaking of the Elamites, H. G. Wells H. H. Johnston, to have been Negroid in type. There is a strong Negroid strain in the modern people of Elam.” (Outline of History, p. 166.) Archaeological evidence favors this view. Reginald S. Poole, the English Egyptologist noted that: “There is one portrait of an Elamite (Cushite) king on a vase found at Susa.

Elam was an ancient Pre-Iranian civilization centered in the far west and southwest of what is now modern-day Iran, stretching from the lowlands of what is now Khuzestan and Ilam Province as well as a small part of southern Iraq. The modern name Elam stems from the Sumerian transliteration elam (a), along with the later Akkadian elamtu, and the Elamite haltamti. Elamite states were among the leading political forces of the Ancient Near East. In classical literature Elam was also known as Susiana. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The most important is the true Elamite language:

Elamite is regarded by the vast majority of linguists as a language isolate, as it has no demonstrable relationship to the neighboring Semitic languages, Indo-European languages, or to Sumerian, despite having adopted the Sumerian-Akkadian cuneiform script.

Elamite is an agglutinative language, and its grammar was characterized by a well-developed and pervasive nominal class system. Animate nouns have separate markers for first, second and third person, a rather unusual feature. It can be said to display a kind of Suffixaufnahme in that the nominal class markers of the head are also attached to any modifiers, including adjectives, noun adjuncts, possessor nouns and even entire clauses.

Because of the limitations of the language's scripts, its phonology is not well understood.

As can be seen from a Bible atlas, we should imagine the sons of Shem stretching at one time from Asia Minor, through the mountains to the north of the Tigris, to Sumerian Ur, the Persian Gulf, and across into North India. If these people were all viewed as belonging to one language group, of which only Elamite remained as a spoken language, we can understand the significance of the famous inscriptions of Darius and Xerxes. These were written in three languages, Old Persian representing the Japhethites, Elamite for the Shemites, and Akkadian from the Hamitic (wrongly called Semitic) group of languages. The Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics; Journal of Linguistics; by William Bright

The Elamite language is not discuss a lot all though there is plenty of research about the hidden language. The reason is very simple, if discuss and study it would open up a can of worms that Christians Europeans do not want open. This will show that this language is the true Semitic language of Shem and that Abraham did not come from Babylon. This is so obvious because his brother moved with him and died in Haran which is a suburb Syria. Also, the Bible states that Abraham asked his servant to go to his homeland in Mesopotamia called Padanaram. Now if you look us the word Mesopotamia Strong also calls it Aham-naharaim, but the Bible calls it the city of Nahor.

Josephus and Rabbi Maimonides believed that Ur Kasdim was in Northern Mesopotamia, in what is today Syria or Turkey.

There is no debate over where Haran is located, 10 miles north of the Syrian border in Turkey along the Balikh River, a tributary of the Euphrates River. Haran is an important Hurrian center, mentioned in the Nuzi tablets. The moon god, Sin was worshiped here.

There are two cities not far from Haran; Ura and Urfa. Local tradition says that Abraham was born in Urfa. Northern Ur is mentioned in tablets at Ugarit, Nuzi, and Ebla, which refers to Ur, URA, and Urau (See BAR January 2000, page 16).

And the servant took ten camels of the camels of his master and departed; for all the goods of his master were in his hand: and he arose, and went to Mesopotamia, unto the city of Nahor. Gen 24:10 

And Isaac was forty years old when he took Rebekah to wife, the daughter of Bethuel the Syrian of Padanaram, the sister to Laban the Syrian. Gen 25:20

All of the above have to be explain in order to truly understand about the Biblical Phoenician language that Moses wrote and most of the children Shem adopted.

All this and much else becomes clear if we stick to the biblical model and call Abraham a Shemite and avoid the misleading term Semitic for the Akkadian and Canaanite peoples among whom he lived. The Curse of Ham: Capsule of Ancient History; by Robert Brow

And in this language, both ancient and modern, as well as in the Ethiopic (Axumite) ancient and modern, and likewise in many other languages on either side of the Red Sea, and even far into the interior of Eastern Africa, the word “warkh,” or something closely resembling it, signifies “moon.”

In the cognate northern Syro-African usually but erroneously called “ Semitic,” the of the word “warkh,”  is replaced by “yod.”

Masudi, one of the earliest and most celebrated of them, who flourished in the tenth century of our era, was thoroughly acquainted not only with the works of Ptolemy, but also with those (now lost) of Marinus of Tyre ; and nothing is more natural than that he should have adopted from them the “ Mountains of the Moon,” in common with much more which he is to be regarded merely as provincialisms, and not as constituting distinct dialects. The language spoken by the Israelites must therefore have been acquired by them during their residence in the Land of Canaan; and it should consequently be denominated Canaanitish, as a member of the Hamitish, Hametic, or Syro African class of languages, and not “Semitic;” which name, though it may designate the lineage of the descendants of Abraham, is wrongly given to the language spoken by the Hebrews after they had quitted their native country. I learn from my friend Mr. Edwin Norris that, “in a fragment of an old Assyrian syllabary found at Nineveh, the monogram -;;: , which means month, is read phonetically <1»! \<'>l<l arrhu: possibly it means moon.” Assuming the language in question to be the earliest spoken at Nineveh, it may be called “ Nimrodic," after the Hamite founder of that city. THE SOURCES OF THE NILE; HISTORY OF NILOTIC DISCOVERY. By CHARLES T. BEKE, PH.D.

Yet, to make confusion worse confounded, he elsewhere speaks of the "Hamitic language of Kanaan, (falsely called Hebrew) and, conformably with the 10^th Genesis, assigns to Kanaan a Hamitic origin." "Quatremere," says he, "objects to the opinion which attributes a Semitic origin to the Kanaanites (aside from its opposition to 10^th Genesis, which he considers of Mosaic editorship) that it reposes uniquely upon the resemblance of the tongue spoken by the Kanaanites with the languages in vogue among other peoples to whom general consent now applies the name of Shemitish. He holds this basis to be unsafe, because all the affiliations of Shem did not speak one language, notably the Elamites of Persia ; whose tongue differed entirely from that of Aramaeans or Arabs ; at the same time, surrounded as the KNAaNI ever were by Semitic influences, their language would necessarily imbibe such exotic idioms." And elsewhere Mr. Gliddon classes the Hebrew, together with the Aramaean and Arabic, among the Semitic dialects, and treats its study as a matter of " Semitic paleography." He even charges the " Hebrew chorographer" with being "ignorant of the first elements of Hamitic tongues." The Church Review – Nathaniel Smith Richardson

The Negro's place in nature was the subject of great debate at that time. One of the crucial issues of this debate was the question of unity in mankind, or monogenism, as opposed to the separate creation of races or polygenism. The concept of the Negro-Hamite was steadily losing ground because theological interpretation of the peopling of the world did not satisfy the men of the Enlightenment. The myth was now kept alive mainly by the clergy, who tried to keep their hold on the laity by discrediting the savants as infidels.

So, it came to pass that the Egyptians emerged as Hamites, Caucasoid, uncursed and capable of high civilization.

Linguistic classifications were based on geography, racial characteristics and occupation, rather than on rigorous methodology pertaining solely to language. Grammatical gender became the main diagnostic of the so-called Hamitic languages. Although grammatical gender exists in many unrelated languages of the world, it was not found in the languages of the 'true' Negro (racial category again). Thus, linguistic typologies had racial bases just as racial typologies were based on linguistics. THE HAMITIC HYPOTHESIS; ITS ORIGIN AND FUNCTIONS IN TIME PERSPECTIVE; BY EDITH R. SANDERS

Now, I want it to be understood that Canaan was curse and I truly believe it because of this fact, this could also contribute to the way the Europeans felt as they translated the Bible. However, my question would be why would YAHWEH THE SACRED NAME sir, you dismiss would be what HE chose Moses to write and why would the Semitic most of them speak this Afrikan language? I truly believe that YAHWEH wanted to test the faith of the Europeans today who claim they love and worship HIM. I also feel the same way HE called out to Cain, that we are all our brother’s or sister’s keeper! Pride cause both the Afrikan and Semitic people to fall and now do not let pride cause the same today! I want to make it clear; I should say pre-Hebrew language or the Afrikan Phoenician language of the Bible.

I would like to close by saying that the alphabet is a script and it used to speak the English language. But, did you know that the alphabet script is actually the ancient Phoenician script.

Although the Phoenicians used cuneiform (Mesopotamian writing) in what we call Ugaritic, they also produced a script of their own. The Phoenician alphabetic script of 22 letters was used at Byblos as early as the 15th century B.C. This method of writing, later adopted by the Greeks, is the ancestor of the modern Roman alphabet. Phoenician Canaanite Encyclopedia -- © Phoenician Encyclopedia -- © Punic Encyclopedia -- © Canaanite Encyclopedia -- © Encyclopedia Phoeniciana, Encyclopedia Punica, Encyclopedia et. It was the Phoenicians' most remarkable and distinctive contribution to civilization.

Finally, I don't know if you are aware that Solomon Temple was built by a Phoenicians- Hiram of Tyre. Also, it appears at this time that the King Hiram gave David Timber and other supplies for the Temple.

Now Hiram king of Tyre sent messengers to David, and timber of cedars, with masons and carpenters, to build him an house. 1 Ch 14:1 

And it came to pass, when Hiram heard the words of Solomon, that he rejoiced greatly, and said, Blessed be YAHWEH this day, which hath given unto David a wise son over this great people. And Hiram sent to Solomon, saying, I have considered the things which thou sentest to me for: and I will do all thy desire concerning timber of cedar, and concerning timber of fir. My servants shall bring them down from Lebanon unto the sea: and I will convey them by sea in floats unto the place that thou shalt appoint me, and will cause them to be discharged there, and thou shalt receive them: and thou shalt accomplish my desire, in giving food for my household. So, Hiram gave Solomon cedar trees and fir trees according to all his desire. And Solomon gave Hiram twenty thousand measures of wheat for food to his household, and twenty measures of pure oil: thus gave Solomon to Hiram year by year. And YAHWEH gave Solomon wisdom, as HE promised him: and there was peace between Hiram and Solomon; and they two made a league together. And king Solomon raised a levy out of all Israel; and the levy was thirty thousand men. 1 King 5:7-13 

It shows, that though this kingdom and people eventually came under the curse, yet King Hiram appeared to believe in YAHWEH! This Phoenician King language became the international language because of their knowledge of trade and how they kept accurate records. They left their imprint alway to South America and now it time to set the record straight! YAHWEH made HIS NAME SACRED through their language!

I present this to you in love that you will pray in your heart the truth!

Blessings!

[Gregory Matthews]

Stinsonmarri:  I do not attempt to clarify what another person said, unless and on a rare occasion I am responding to a very clear typo.  I do attempt to clarify something that I have said when I find that I have poorly stated my thoughts.

In your post above, there is much that I agree with, that I already knew and even that was included in a prior post of mine.

But, your post was so massive and covered so many areas and not centrally focused that I can not properly respond to it and I must simply ignore it and not respond.

 

[stinsonmarri]

16 hours ago, Gregory Matthews said:

Stinsonmarri:  I do not attempt to clarify what another person said, unless and on a rare occasion I am responding to a very clear typo.  I do attempt to clarify something that I have said when I find that I have poorly stated my thoughts.

In your post above, there is much that I agree with, that I already knew and even that was included in a prior post of mine.

But, your post was so massive and covered so many areas and not centrally focused that I can not properly respond to it and I must simply ignore it and not respond.

 

That is sad because you could take a portion at a time. Technology today gives us that advantage of click, copy and paste. I was giving you my material which was not as long as the material you gave. I read yours, appreciated it even though I did not agreed with it. The reason I stated I have a book that is so similar to it. The only difference the writer was not an Adventist and your's is! Oh, I will keep what you gave me for references which are important!

Blessings on you Sir!