The Script that went Ahead
How YaHUaH prepared the way for the Gospel in Greece and Rome
already at the time when Isra’el diverted from Him
Part I.
André H. Roosma
4 August 2015
In this article, I take you back to the time of David and Solomon, the
last kings of the united monarchy of Isra’el. That’s around the
year 1000 BC. The reign of David had been such that all the nations around
Isra’el, and even far beyond, had heard of them, and especially of
their God, known by the glorious four letter Name YaHUaH or the
shortened three letter version: YaHU. 1
As such they had helped to make the great Name of the God of
Isra’el known and revered in the entire world. Archeological
excavations have demonstrated that even centuries later all those peoples
still knew about YaHU, the God of Isra’el.
When the reign of Solomon ended, also the united monarchy of
Isra’el came to an end. This was largely due to unfaithfulness of
Solomon and the Israelites towards YaHUaH. They did not let Him
be King, and as a consequence the son of Solomon was king over only the
southern part of Isra’el: Yehudah. The
Northern tribes got a different king and continued under the name
Isra’el.
After that, we see a line of steady spiritual decline, with only a few
revivals, both in Yehudah and in Isra’el.
The consequence was that first Isra’el, and later Yehudah as well, came under foreign domination.
Their kings were removed from their positions, all their cities were
destroyed to rubble and burned down, their nobles and learned or skillful
men and women were deported cruelly to territories far away. The glorious
Name of their God was blasphemed among the nations because of this. People
remembered His glorious victories in the past, but it seemed the gods
(idols) of the Assyrians and the Babylonians were stronger now. These
extraordinarily sad things happened in the eight (Isra’el) and sixth (Yehudah) centuries BC, respectively.
A parallel development: the Paleo-Hebrew script moving northwest
All of the above is rather well-known. What is little known is a great
historic development that happened in parallel to this. At the time of the
patriarchs up to the Judges, Isra’el had a very wonderful and
uniquely effective, easy to learn script, that was unlike the scripts of
other nations (such as Egyptian hieroglyphs, Babylonian
cuneiform inherited from the Sumerians, etc.).2 It allowed for
easy dissemination of God’s instructions via the Torah and several
later books of the Tanakh (what Christians call the
First Testament).
By the time of David and Solomon, this script had evolved into what is
now known as Paleo-Hebrew. Most of Israel’s neighbors had adopted
some very similar variant of it; early Aramaic, Moabite and Phoenician
being most well-known among those.
At the time of the ninth century BC, the various peoples of Greece had
a plurality of scripts, which largely complicated growing long distance
trade. Observing how this script had served the Semitic peoples for over a
millennium very well, the Greeks adopted this script. Of course they
amended it a little, over time changing also the right-to-left or
boustrophedon writing to left-to-right writing,
thereby mirroring some symbols, and adding symbols or re-using existing
symbols for sounds they had, which the Semites did not have. So in effect,
the Greek alphabet is an amended form of the Paleo-Hebrew alphabet, as used
at the time of David and Solomon. It was adopted at the time when northern
Isra’el was in exile. It is not unlikely, that the flight of
Isra’elite people to Greece, just in front of the Assyrian exile,
contributed to this adoption.
Almost two centuries later, around 600 BC, at the time when the Jews went
into their Babylonian exile, another adoption of this script took place.
This time, it was the Roman, Latin-speaking world that borrowed the script
from the Etruscans, who had borrowed it in the meantime from the Greeks, again
amending it a little. Here too, a flight of Judean people to the West may
well have contributed to the loan.
What makes all this so significant, is that all this prepared the way
for the spread of written versions of the Gospel, some 600 years later.
That in both cases, anxious people from ancient Isra’el unknowingly
may well have contributed to the spread of their script to Europe and later
to the entire world, only demonstrates Who was the architect of all of
this.
What makes the story even more peculiar, is that the Jews, when
returning in part from their Babylonian exile, had not been able to keep
and maintain their wonderful old Paleo-Hebrew script, but had adopted the
Imperial Aramaic script, used by their Babylonian oppressors. This was a
far descendant of Early Aramaic, a sister of Paleo-Hebrew, but had been
amended a lot when many foreign kingdoms and rulers dominated Babylon over
the time from Mosheh (Moses) to the time when the
Jews were there (almost a millennium later!).
The development of the letter signs
Below, I will illustrate how the letters of the old script of
Isra’el (top row in each picture) were at
the basis of our (Latin) letters (bottom, left), such that often our letters resemble
the old characters better than the Hebrew square script letters (bottom right) derived from Imperial Aramaic of the
sixth to fifth century BC.
The first symbol of the old Semitic script from the time of the
Patriarchs and Mosheh was a picture of an ox head. At that time, the
most prominent animal in the animal kingdom was the auroch, the
forefather of most kinds of cows we have today. It had a shoulder height
of up to 2 meters (almost 7 feet) and had
little trouble taking a lion onto its mighty horns and throw it away like
dirt. It signified the first or prime of something and was associated with
the glottal stop, as when you saw one of these mighty animals, your
breadth stopped in your throat...
In early Paleo-Hebrew this symbol got reduced to three straight
strokes. The Greeks put the ox-head on its horns: Α and used it for the continental a-sound, calling it
alpha. The Romans adopted it, calling it just plain A.
By a simple turn I can still recognize the original ox head.
In Aramaic, the three strokes got a bit out of order. In no way I can
recognize the ox head anymore, here.
The second symbol of the old Semitic script was the lay-out of a tent
or small house, mostly drawn with a dividing curtain or wall for the
privacy of the women. It also symbolized the family and family-life.
In early Paleo-Hebrew this symbol got reduced to something resembling
our small b. The Greeks turned it and closed the entrance: Β, calling it beta. The Romans called
it just plain B. By a simple turn I can still recognize the
original house map, albeit that the entrance got closed.
In Aramaic, the dividing wall for the privacy of the women was lost.
The third symbol of the old Semitic script is somewhat uncertain.
Probably it depicted either a foot or a builders tool formed as a bended
stick. It symbolized the basis of something and the notion of carrying.
The Greeks adopted it rather straightforward: Γ, calling it gamma. Via a detour it became the basis
of the somewhat extended letters C and G in the Latin
script (the Etruscans had no G and first formed the C,
later the G was adopted by the Romans as well).
In Aramaic, the letter shape may have been influenced unconsciously by the
name gimel, related to gamal - camel, as it resembles a bit a
camel’s leg and foot.
The next symbol of the old Semitic script depicted a door, either a
triangular one or a rectangular one, on its turning pole. It symbolized
the notions of entrance, entering and movement.
The Greeks adopted the triangular variant rather straightforwardly:
Δ, calling it delta. The Romans
copied more the rectangular shape, mirroring it as they wrote from left
to right: D.
In Aramaic, the letter shape got simplified beyond recognition.
Then comes one of the most occurring and most interesting symbols of
the old Semitic script. It depicted a human figure with hands raised
and bended knees. It symbolized the notions of happiness, joy, awe,
adoration and worship. By the time of the kings it had turned sideways
and lost the body and legs of the figure.
Since the Greeks did not have all the Semitic H-like sounds, they used
this letter for the continental e-sound (aye). Both Greeks and Romans adopted the Paleo-Hebrew symbol rather
straightforwardly, just mirroring it, as in the Greek Ε and the Latin E., calling it epsilon and
just E.
In Aramaic, the letter shape got changed beyond recognition; since
Aramaic and Judaism got heavily influenced by Hellenism, the most likely
original name Ah or Ha got replaced by He
(hay).
The old letter wawu depicted a tent pin. Apart from just
representing any pin, it also symbolized the notions of connection,
security or a plant in the earth. It changed very little over time.
The Greeks used this letter rather straightforwardly for the upsilon: Υ, from which the Latin Y
and U/V (at first one letter!; later also a
double-u became a separate letter: the w) emerged, and as basis for
the digamma: Ϝ (later not used there anymore), from which the Romans adopted the
F. By the way, the fact that the Greeks derived two sets of letters
from the wawu: the vowel Υ
(later splitting in Latin Y and U and the consonants V
and W) and the consonant Ϝ,
reinforces for me that the Semitic wawu served both as consonant w
and vowel u, from very early on. The story of Paleo-Hebrew being a pure
consonant script to me is a fairy tale.
In Aramaic, the letter shape remained rather stable.
The old letter zan or zayit probably depicted some sort
of scythe. It symbolized anything metal or valuable and the notions of
mowing or cutting, and before the invention of metal melting, it was
associated with olive trees and olive oil.
The Greeks used this letter rather straightforwardly for the zeta: Ζ, from which the Latin Z
emerged.
In Aramaic, the letter shape was simplified such that our Z resembles the
original more.
The old letter chet depicted a tent panel/canvas or dividing
curtain. It symbolized just that, any border, and human or animal skin or
flesh.
The Greeks used a simplified form of this letter rather straightforwardly
for the eta: Η, and the Romans
used it as the Latin H. I suspect that the Greeks also adopted their
chi: Χ from another, alternative
early form of the chet that looked like a twisted cord. There, the
sound similarity is more prominent (cf. our ch
as in Scottish loch that is used to teach Westerners both the Greek
chi and the Semitic chet).
In Aramaic and later square Hebrew script, the letter shape was simplified
so much that our Latin H retains more of the original shape.
< to be continued in Part II >
Hallelu YaH !
Notes
| 1 |
The glorious Name of God I present here - as well as
I can - from the oldest Hebrew original, instead of replacing this grand
personal Name of The Most High by a common word, such as ‘Lord’.
For more background information on this see:
André H. Roosma,
‘Life, security and belonging in joyful adoration, from the hand of God’  , brief Hallelu-YaH article about the
Biblical Name of God in the earliest Hebrew (old Semitic) script, January 2011.
André H. Roosma, ‘The Shema‘ – the First Testament declaration of faith (1)’, Hallelu-YaH! web article, February 2012.
André
H. Roosma, ‘The
wonderful and lovely Name of the God Who was there, Who is there, and Who
will be there’ , extensive Accede!
/ Hallelu-YaH! study, July 2009. |
| 2 |
See:
André H. Roosma, ‘The Written
Language of Abraham, Moses and David – A study of the pictographic
roots and basic notions in the underlying fabric of the earliest Biblical
script’ , Hallelu-YaH Draft Research
Report, 1st English version: 18 April 2011 (1st Dutch original: January
2011). |
You have the best information and clearest
proofs concerning the Alef-Bet. Wonderful historical perspectives. Thank you
very much for allowing us to link your site to ours. Our primary goal as
sincere Bible Students is to help each other grow spiritually and to bring
truth to all.
May Yahuah bless you and your organization.
Best
Regards,
Ronald Gambrell
André
Thanks, Ronald, for your compliments!
Yes, I am very thankful to our great heavenly Father for all the magnificent
insights and perspectives He has given me to share for the benefit of us
all!
May YaHUaH bless you as well, both personally and in your
ministry!
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