A researcher has found ancient inscriptions in Egypt that he claims are Hebrew transliterations of Egyptian hieroglyphics. These would constitute the world’s oldest alphabet–representations of sounds, not ideas or words as in Egyptian writing–and the predecessor of later Hebrew letters.
Moreover, this finding, if true, would prove that the ancient Hebrews were in Egypt around the time that Exodus says they were, something denied by many liberal Bible critics. The inscriptions, as translated, also give Hebrew names such as Joseph and Moses.
The findings are controversial, to say the least, but they rate a write-up in Science News.
From Bruce Bower, Oldest alphabet identified as Hebrew | Science News:
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 Schools of Oriental Research.
“There is a connection between ancient Egyptian texts and preserved alphabets,” Petrovich said.
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Image: public domain
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