The Oldest Hebrew Script and Language
Christopher Rollston examines the Qeiyafa Ostracon, Gezer Calendar and other candidates for the oldest known Hebrew inscription
Christopher Rollston examines the Qeiyafa Ostracon, Gezer Calendar and other inscriptions to examine the interplay between the oldest Hebrew script and language.
In the BAR article What’s the Oldest Hebrew Inscription*, epigraphy scholar Christopher Rollston asks a seemingly straightforward question: What is the oldest Hebrew inscription? His examination requires him to address the fundamental questions of epigraphy. Is a text written in Hebrew script necessarily in the Hebrew language? And was the Hebrew language originally written in an alphabet that predates Hebrew script? Christopher Rollston examined four contenders for the oldest Hebrew inscription—the Qeiyafa Ostracon, Gezer Calendar, Tel Zayit Abecedary and Izbet Zayit Abecedary—to explore the interplay between early Hebrew script and language.
In his study, Christopher Rollston distinguishes between purely Hebrew script and other visually similar alphabets while examining relationships between alphabets and languages. Not only can a single language be written in various scripts, but a single script can be used for dozens of languages. English shares the Latin script with most Western languages; finding Latin letters does not necessarily mean that a text is English.
Old Hebrew script derived directly from Phoenician, and Christopher Rollston contends that Old Hebrew script did not split off from its Phoenician predecessor until the ninth century B.C.E. The Hebrew language existed well before then; the oldest extant Hebrew language texts are recorded in Phoenician script. Identifying the oldest combination of Hebrew script and language is hindered by a diverse set of complications including the poor condition of texts, the existence of cognates, regional variation, partial language preservation, limited number of artifacts and myriad other difficulties.
Become a BAS All-Access Member Now!
Read Biblical Archaeology Review online, explore 50 years of BAR, watch videos, attend talks, and more
The Qeiyafa Ostracon and Gezer Calendar are the best known contenders that Christopher Rollston examines. The five-line Qeiyafa Ostracon** has garnered a great deal of attention since its 2008 excavation at Khirbet Qeiyafa, the fortified tenth century B.C.E. Judahite city located on the border of Judah and Philistia. The faded text on the Qeiyafa Ostracon has challenged potential translators; what is known is that its variations and left-to-right orientation signal a pre-Hebrew script deriving from Early Alphabetic rather than Phoenician writing. Most scholars agree with Christopher Rollston about the type of script, but he suggests that the language may not be Hebrew. The lexemes, or word roots, could come from one of several Semitic languages. This interpretation of the Qeiyafa Ostracon raises a new set of questions. Could the Qeiyafa Ostracon be from a non-Judahite site? Or could another language have been the lingua franca of the period? More simply, could the text have been imported from elsewhere, or written by a foreigner? The Qeiyafa Ostracon is a significant puzzle piece in the development of Hebrew writing, but there are still too many unanswered questions for the Qeiyafa Ostracon to be considered the oldest Hebrew inscription.
Visit the BAS Scholar’s Study page Three Takes on the Oldest Hebrew Inscription.
The Gezer Calendar is a small limestone tablet listing seasonal agricultural activities in seven lines of uneven letters. Scholarly opinions on the Gezer Calendar have shifted over the past century of scholarship. In 1943, William Foxwell Albright stated that “the Gezer Calendar is written in perfect classical Hebrew.” More recent scholarship questioned the idea that the Gezer calendar has distinctively Hebrew script or language. Christopher Rollston contends “there is no lexeme or linguistic feature in the Gezer Calendar that can be considered distinctively Hebrew” and Joseph Naveh says that “No specifically Hebrew characters can be distinguished.” Christopher Rollston concludes that the Gezer Calendar is written in Phoenician rather than Hebrew script, though the late tenth or early ninth century B.C.E. includes elements described by Frank Cross as “the first rudimentary innovations that will mark the emergent Hebrew script.”
Christopher Rollston
Rollston continues his analyses on some other contenders for the oldest Hebrew inscription. He finds the Tel Zayit Abecedary to be fully Phoenician script, despite the excavation epigrapher claiming that the abecedary indicates the transition between the scripts. Finally, the oldest contender, the Izbet Sartah Abecedary, which dates to roughly 1200 B.C.E., predates the development of any Hebrew script, and appears to be written in Early Alphabetic script, which is not closely related to Old Hebrew script. While some scholars have presented these and other Iron Age I inscriptions as Hebrew script, Rollston suggests that we have to look to a slightly later period to find the first Hebrew language recorded in a purely Hebrew script.
Subscribers: Read Christopher Rollston’s detailed analysis of the Gezer Calendar, Qeiyafa Ostracon and several other inscriptions in What’s the Oldest Hebrew Inscription? in the May/June 2012 issue of Biblical Archaeology Review.
Not a BAS Library or All-Access Member yet? Join today.
Notes
* What’s the Oldest Hebrew Inscription? from the May/June 2012 issue of Biblical Archaeology Review.
** To read more on the Qeiyafa Ostracon’s inscription, read Gerard Leval’s Ancient Inscription Refers to Birth of Israelite Monarchy from the May/June 2012 issue of Biblical Archaeology Review.
Not a BAS Library or All-Access Member yet? Join today.
Related reading in Bible History Daily:
This Bible History Daily feature was originally published on June 4, 2012.
Related Posts
Must-Read Free eBooks
Want more Bible history?
Sign up to receive our email newsletter and never miss an update.
All-Access Membership
All-Access Membership
Dig into the illuminating world of the Bible with a BAS All-Access Membership. Get your print subscription to BAR and your online access to the BAS Library—as well as FREE online talks and Travel/Study discounts. Start your journey into the biblical past today!
There is some disagreement among some scholars who believe that the Hebrew script was available before nine hundred BC. The evidence is provided for me in a recent video, Patterns of Evidence: “The Msses Controversy” by the flim makerTimothy Mahoney.
The ostracon from isbet sarta and ostracon from qeiyafa. Two earthenware plates used for learning. Both 12th century BC there is similarity between the letters that the two pottery sherds, written apparently by counting trainees, found in two distant sites as 50 km.
For a people whose ancestors were brought here as slaves against their will, their history matters and finally we are learning its pros and cons. so skin color /tone does matter. Rev, 2:9 and 3:9 tells us that our history is from the beginning and it is a colored people as we have been called.
Prepare Esau…
The sons of Jacob
Returning. ..
And The Lion of the Tribe of Judah will protect us this time
The True Israelites are coming home…
So you know the true twelve tribes are people of color right …
Rebecca had twins two nations…
Why does Scripture describe Esau’s looks?? And not Josephs?
Joseph was Negro
Esau Caucasian. ..
Esau, the Edomites ruling now
The Twelve Tribes will inhabit the land once more and forevermore…
Sons of Jacob returning…
Prepare Edom ites for the Lion of the Tribe of Judah…
Every time we roll the Torah before replacing it into the arc, we point at it and chant respectfully, “This is the Torah that Moses gave to Israel, written by the mouth of God and the hand of Moses.” We accept that it is unchanged from its original, and this seems so far correct, by examination of the oldest texts discovered. The content of the Torah must place the actual writing of the script into the 12th century BCE, at a time when Philistines dominated SW Canaan and at a time within the Iron Age. I do not believe there is a record of Hebrew script that predates the Torah.
What does a buffalo head sign mean to the Hebron
To attempt to link abcedaries and fragmentary inscriptions to a specific language is fruitless. If I find a paper with the modern Roman alphabet how do I know if it is being used to write Latin, English, French, Turkish or any of a dozen other languages? This is another example of imposing ones prejudices on the evidence.Z.B. Who says Moses,raised an Egyptian prince, did not write the Pentateuch in Egyptian?
I’m very pleased to discover this web site.
I want to to thank you for your time just for this wonderful read!!
I definitely really liked every bit of it and i also have
you book-marked to check out new stuff in your website.
It’s a pity you don’t have a donate button! I’d without a doubt donate to this brilliant blog!
I guess for now i’ll settle for book-marking and adding your RSS
feed to my Google account. I look forward to new updates and will talk about this blog with my Facebook group.
Talk soon!