________________
ARAMAIC BRANCH
261
CLASSICAL HEBREW ALPHABET
Origin
It is generally believed, in accordance with Jewish tradition, that the early Hebrew alphabet-see preceding chapter-was superseded by the Aramaic alphabet during the Babylonian exile, and the Aramaic script therefore became the parent of the "square Hebrew" and so of the modern Hebrew alphabet. This opinion is only partly right; the ketab meruba or "square script," or "Assyrian" writing, although based mainly on the Aramaic alphabet, seems to have been strongly influenced by the Early Hebrew alphabet,
A sepulchral inscription (Fig. 129, 1) from 'Araq el-Emir (Wadi es-Sir, to the south-east from es-Sait, Transjordan) can be considered as written in a transition script from the early Hebrew character to the square Hebrew. This inscription has been variously attributed to dates between the late sixth century B.C. and 176 B.C.
At any rate, a distinctive Palestinian Jewish variety of script can be traced from the second and first centuries B.C. (Fig. 129, 2). According to Professor Albright, it became standardized just before the Christian era. It is from this script that the modern Hebrew alphabet letter shapes eventually, though gradually, developed.
Inscriptions and Manuscripts
Square Hebrew inscriptions (Fig. 129) have been found on Palestinian ossuaries of the Maccabaan period and later, on some few tomb-monuments in various countries, in catacombs near Rome and Venosa, and in ancient synagogues in Palestine and other countries. The Biblical manuscripts belong to a much later date, with the exception of some fragments written on papyrus, the earliest being the famous "Nash-papyrus." This important document, which had been attributed by S. A. Cook to the second and by F. C. Burkitt to the first century A.D., is dated by W. F. Albright to the Maccabean age, between 165 and 37 8.c. (A Biblical Fragment from the Maccabean Age: The Nash Papyrus, "JOURN. OF BIBL. LITER," 1937). The Nash papyrus is now at Cambridge; see below.
Many thousands of fragments of Hebrew "Babylonian" and other Biblical MSS. were discovered in the famous Cairo Genizah, and these partly belong to the seventh and eighth centuries A.D. One of the earliest Hebrew manuscripts of which the date is known is that of the Later Prophets, dated A.D. 916, now preserved at Leningrad. The "Cairo Codex" of Prophets is dated in the ninth century; the earliest Hebrew manuscript preserved in England is a British Museum MS. (Or. 4445), undated, but belonging to the ninth century A.D. The majority of Hebrew manuscripts are of the twelfth to sixteenth centuries.
"The greatest manuscript discovery of modern times" (Albright): mention must be made of the recent sensational find, in a cave near the northern end of the Dead Sea, of eleven parchment or leather manuscripts, including hitherto unknown books and a scroll containing the text of Isaiah, assigned to the second century B.C.
