Blackwell Reference Online

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The literary tradition of Hebrew spans some 3,000 years. The oldest known inscription in Hebrew is the Gezer Calendar dating from the late eleventh or early tenth centuries bce ( figure 6 ). The script of this period is generally known as Old Hebrew to distinguish it from the later Hebrew square script. Old Hebrew is a consonant script derived from the Phoenician script, now often called Old north Semitic. It is essentially a graphic variation of the 22-letter Old north Semitic alphabet ( table 2 ). The Hebrews used this script until the sixth century bce when it was supplanted by the Aramaic script and then its offshoot, the Hebrew square script or kětāb mĕrubbā ‘. In later times a stylized variety of Old Hebrew was used on Jewish coins from 135 bce to 132 ce ( figure 7 ). Figure 6 The Gezer Calendar, an ancient Hebrew record of the annual agricultural cycle, tenth century bce (Israel Museum, Jerusalem) Table 2 The Old Hebrew alphabet Figure 7 Coins dating from the early second century ce with Old Hebrew legend Initially the square script did not differ structurally from the Old Hebrew script ( table 3 ). Both systems represented all Hebrew Cs and none of the Vs. The absence of V letters did not at first impede the comprehensibility of written texts, since the core of the Hebrew lexicon is formed by consonant roots , while Vs mainly indicate inflections which ... log in or subscribe to read full text