Free Republic

he world’s earliest alphabet, inscribed on stone slabs at several Egyptian sites, was an early form of Hebrew, a controversial new analysis concludes. Israelites living in Egypt transformed that civilization’s hieroglyphics into Hebrew 1.0 more than 3,800 years ago, at a time when the Old Testament describes Jews living in Egypt, says archaeologist and epigrapher Douglas Petrovich of Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo, Canada. Hebrew speakers seeking a way to communicate in writing with other Egyptian Jews simplified the pharaohs’ complex hieroglyphic writing system into 22 alphabetic letters, Petrovich proposed on November 17 at the annual meeting of the American...

Tel Aviv University researchers are writing a computer program that can read Paleo-Hebrew letters inscribed on First Temple period ostraca. Researchers from Tel Aviv University (TAU) are developing a computer program that can read a script used by the Israelites over 2,600 years ago... The project was begun by TAU Professor of Archaeology Israel Finkelstein and Professor of Physics Eliezer Piasetsky six years ago. Since then, the researchers have enlisted the help of epigraphy, archaeology and math experts along with TAU Ph.D. math students Arie Shaus, Shira Faigenbaum-Golovin and Barak Sober. At the center of this ambitious project are First...

Uncovering Israel’s Past Posted By Christopher S. Carson On August 6, 2013 @ 12:12 am In Daily Mailer,FrontPage | 34 Comments It seems that many educated liberals who wish Israel didn’t exist are turning to archaeologists to succor their agendas. These archaeologists are called biblical “minimalists,” and loosely affiliate themselves with the “Copenhagen School” of archaeology. They believe that the scientific evidence in the dirt is irrefutable—there was no Moses, there was no Exodus, there was no period of the “Judges,” there was not a Conquest of Caanan by Joshua or anyone else, and there was no glorious “United Monarchy”...

3500 years ago slaves toiling in the harsh mines of the Sinai scribbled some graffiti on the desert rocks. One of them wrote: "Moses then provoked astonishment." That, plus a lot of other inscriptions, deserve more than a passing glance. ------ "He sought occasion to cut away to barrenness our great number, our swelling without measure." (Sinai 349) "Our bond servitude had lingered. Moses then provoked astonishment. It is a year of astonishment." (Sinai 361) Anyone familiar with the book of Exodus will immediately spot parallels with the account of Pharaoh's attempt to reduce the number of newborn Israelites; and...

The world’s earliest alphabet, inscribed on stone slabs at several Egyptian sites, was an early form of Hebrew, a controversial new analysis concludes. Israelites living in Egypt transformed that civilization’s hieroglyphics into Hebrew 1.0 more than 3,800 years ago, at a time when the Old Testament describes Jews living in Egypt, says archaeologist and epigrapher Douglas Petrovich of Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo, Canada. Hebrew speakers seeking a way to communicate in writing with other Egyptian Jews simplified the pharaohs’ complex hieroglyphic writing system into 22 alphabetic letters, Petrovich proposed on November 17 at the annual meeting of the American...