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Kenneth A. Kitchen<\/a>, eminent Egyptologist and archaeologist, summarizes the evidence for an early form of Hebrew or proto-Hebrew prior to Moses, and a plausible written Pentateuch by his time (possibly written by him):<\/p>\n The starting point is that the patriarchal narratives do retain much data faithfully preserved from the early second millennium [Dave: see many examples in a recent paper of mine<\/a>: with a long citation from Kitchen]. A tenacious oral transmission to later times is possible . . . at least to start with.\u00a0 But written records are the securer route in most cases. . . . In Egypt two options then existed. The first, widely practiced, was Egypt\u2019s own hieroglyphic and hieratic scripts. We have already met Semites using it by circa 1600 [BC], namely, Abdu on his coffin and Nahman on a dagger . . . In the large household of Potiphar, Joseph would either become trained in these scripts himself or work with scribes using them\u00a0 (compare Papyrus Brooklyn 35.1446 of ca. 1730, listing over forty Semites among seventy servants in such a household). But unless he trained some of his (or his brothers\u2019) offspring to read these scripts, any patriarchal tradition in them would have become (literally!) a closed book to their descendants before Moses\u2019 time.<\/p>\n The other option was the recently invented West Semitic alphabet, a vehicle deigned by and for Semitic speakers (and writers). The oldest known examples have been the Lachish dagger epigraph from a seventeenth century tomb and the Tell Nagila sherd (Middle\/Late Bronze, ca. 1600); we now have also the Wadi Hol graffiti in Egypt from northwest of Thebes, about the seventeenth century. These oldest examples occur in homely, informal contexts, showing that it could be, and was, readily utilized by anyone who cared to do so, and not solely by government elites. To these must be added the proto-Sinaitic inscriptions of disputed date \u2014 circa 1800 or circa 1500. This system of not more than thirty simple, semipictographic letters would have been very easy to use in writing up (on papyrus) a \u201cfirst written edition\u201d of the patriarchal traditions from Abraham to Jacob, to which a Joseph account could be added. This set of basic narratives could then be recopied from circa 1600 to the thirteenth century, then given a \u201clate Canaanite\u201d editing in that phase of the script, eventuating into early standard Hebrew language and script from the united monarchy [c. 1000 BC] onward. At the Late Bronze (e.g., \u201cland of Rameses\u201d), Early Iron IIA (e.g., Laish > Dan), and final phases of transmission (e.g., \u201cChaldean\u201d Ur), the handful of retouches would be incorporated. This straightforward view is at least consistent with all the factual<\/em> data that we currently possess, and keeps theorizing to a minimum. (On the Reliability of the Old Testament<\/a><\/i>, Grand Rapids and Cambridge: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2003, 370-371)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Elsewhere in the same book, Kitchen addresses the topic of the plausibility of Moses, or someone like him, writing much of the Pentateuch. I believe that the life and death dates of Moses were c. 1370-c. 1250 BC, extrapolating from the data in the article, \u201cMoses\u201d<\/a>\u00a0in\u00a0Encyclopedia Britannica<\/em>. Dr. Kitchen makes his extra-biblical case:<\/p>\n [T]o explain what exists in our Hebrew documents we need a Hebrew leader who had had experience of life at the Egyptian court . . . including knowledge of treaty-type documents and their format, as well as of traditional Semitic legal\/social usage more familiar to his own folk. In other words, somebody distressingly like that old \u201chero\u201d of biblical tradition, Moses, is badly needed at this point, to make any sense of the situation as we have it. . . . On the basis of the series of features in Exodus to Deuteronomy that belong to the late second millennium and not later<\/em>, there is, again, no other viable option. (Ibid<\/em>., 295)<\/p>\n Exod. 2:10 notes the full adoption of the boy [Moses] by his princess patron; that implies his becoming a member of the ruling body of courtiers, officials, and attendants that served the pharaoh as his government leaders under the viziers, treasury chiefs, etc. Such a youth would need to be fully fluent in Egyptian (not just his own West Semitic tongue); so he would be subjected to the Egyptian educational system, learning the hieratic and hieroglyphic scripts. This is typical enough during the New Kingdom, especially in the Nineteenth (Ramesside) Dynasty of the thirteenth century. . . .<\/p>\n Both Sethos I [r. c. 1290-1294-1279 BC<\/a>] and Ramesses II signed treaties with the Hittite kings; the surviving one of Ramesses I shows the format so familiar in the whole \u201cHittite\u201d corpus. What is more, the documents in this case were not just sent to Egypt by the Hittites for Egypt\u2019s approval. The scribes at both<\/em> courts produced drafts to be exchanged for mutual approval or amendment before the final document was settled. So anyone in Egypt\u2019s \u201cforeign office\u201d would be able to learn of such documents in this epoch. . . . This . . . does explain how a Hebrew leader might later come to use this convenient and appropriate framework for the Sinai covenant.(Ibid<\/em>., 297-298)<\/p>\n As for the role of a Moses, there is no factual<\/em> evidence to exclude such a person at this period, or his having played the roles implied in Exodus to Deuteronomy. A large amount of inconclusive discussion by biblical scholars in almost two hundred years has established next to nothing with any surety . . . The basic reason for the endless shilly-shallying and lack of real result is the massive failure to seek and use external, independent controls such as have been applied here and throughout. Merely churning over and over the biblical texts exclusively in terms of subjective opinion will never be able to settle anything. (Ibid<\/em>., 299)<\/p>\n [S]pecific books such as Deuteronomy and Joshua (and precursors such as Exodus and Leviticus) . . . could not then have been written in classical, standard biblical Hebrew as we know it in the present-day Hebrew Bible . . .<\/p>\n But in what form and language? . . . from the fourteenth\/thirteenth century onward, the [Canaanite] alphabet could be freely used for any form of communication. The contemporary north Semitic texts found at Ugarit in north Phoenicia illustrate this to perfection . . . the Amarna evidence [c. 1360-1332 BC<\/a>] and handful of pottery finds prove clearly that Canaanite was the dominant local tongue and could be readily expressed in alphabetic writing . . . Thus we should consider a Moses or a Joshua writing on papyrus, skins, or even waxed tablets in alphabetic late Canaanite. During the two centuries that followed, circa 1200-1000, standard Hebrew evolved out of this form of Canaanite, probably being fully formed by David\u2019s time. Copies of older works such as Deuteronomy or Joshua would be recopied, modernizing outdated grammatical forms and spellings, a process universal in the ancient Near east during the period from 2500 to Greco-Roman times. (Ibid<\/em>., 304-305)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n The key concepts to understand from the above are the notions of 1) appropriation of existing cultural forms<\/em>, and 2) the inherently evolving nature of language<\/em>. Thus, many scholars inclined to be skeptical towards the bible will say things like \u201cHebrew didn\u2019t exist until the 10th century BC; therefore, neither Moses nor anyone else prior to the 10th century could have written the Pentateuch.\u201d This involves a disingenuous sleight-of-hand. It disregards ever-evolving language and also the universally accepted later editing and slight modifications (Grammar, spelling, changing geographical names, etc.) of the Bible.<\/p>\n Wikipedia (\u201cPaleo-Hebrew alphabet\u201d<\/a>) makes the salient point:<\/p>\n Paleo-Hebrew script<\/b>\u00a0(Hebrew:\u00a0\u05d4\u05db\u05ea\u05d1 \u05d4\u05e2\u05d1\u05e8\u05d9 \u05d4\u05e7\u05d3\u05d5\u05dd<\/span>\u200e), also\u00a0Pal\u00e6o-Hebrew<\/b>,\u00a0Proto-Hebrew<\/b>\u00a0or\u00a0Old Hebrew<\/b>, is the name used by modern scholars to describe the script found in\u00a0Canaanite inscriptions<\/a>\u00a0from the region of Biblical\u00a0Israel\u00a0and\u00a0Judah. It is considered to be the script used to record the original texts of the\u00a0Hebrew Bible\u00a0due to its similarity to the\u00a0Samaritan script<\/a>, as the\u00a0Talmud<\/a> stated that the Hebrew ancient script was still used by the Samaritans. . . .<\/p>\n Like the\u00a0Phoenician alphabet<\/a>, it is a slight regional variant and an immediate continuation of the\u00a0Proto-Canaanite script<\/a>, which was used throughout\u00a0Canaan<\/a>\u00a0in the\u00a0Late Bronze Age<\/a>.<\/sup>\u00a0The\u00a0Phoenician language<\/a>,\u00a0Hebrew language<\/a>, and all of their sister\u00a0Canaanite languages<\/a> were largely indistinguishable dialects before that time. . . .<\/p>\n The Paleo-Hebrew and Phoenician alphabets developed . . . out of their immediate predecessor script\u00a0Proto-Canaanite<\/a>\u00a0(Late\u00a0Proto-Sinaitic<\/a>) during the 13th to 12th centuries BCE, and earlier Proto-Sinaitic scripts.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Likewise, Wikipedia (\u201cProto-Sinaitic script\u201d<\/a>) concurs:<\/p>\n Proto-Canaanite<\/i>\u00a0is also used when referring to the ancestor of the Phoenician or\u00a0Paleo-Hebrew script<\/a>, respectively, before some cut-off date, typically 1050 BC, with an undefined affinity to proto-Sinaitic.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n I list below various archaeological evidences of proto-Hebrew, paleo-Hebrew (pick your term) writing and use of the alphabet, before the time of Moses:<\/p>\n Newly deciphered Egyptian symbols on a 3,400-year-old limestone ostracon from Luxor\u2019s Tomb of Senneferi appears to be the first written evidence of the ABC letter order of the early Semitic alphabet, according to a University of British Columbia Egyptologist.<\/p>\n In his article, \u201cA Double Abecedary? Halaham and \u2018Abgad on the TT99 Ostracon,\u201d Prof. Thomas Schneider concludes that a small (approximately 10 x 10 centimeters, or about 4 x 4 inches) double-sided limestone flake was used by Egyptian scribes as a mnemonic device to remember the letter orders of not one, but two forms of early Semitic alphabets.<\/p>\n On one side of the flake is Schneider\u2019s recent discovery: the transliteration into cursive Egyptian writing of the sounds that signify the beginnings of today\u2019s Hebrew alphabet (Aleph, Bet, Gimel). On the other, a contemporary, though now lesser-known letter order, called \u201cHala\u1e25am,\u201d which was deciphered in 2015, on the same limestone flake, by Leiden University\u2019s Dr. Ben Haring.<\/p>\n The limestone piece is dated to the Egyptian 18th dynasty, from the excavation of Theban Tomb 99 from the necropolis on the west bank of the Nile at Luxor, known as the Tombs of the Nobles. Director of the\u00a0Cambridge Theban Tombs Project<\/a> Dr. Nigel Strudwick found the object back in 1995, in what he calls \u201ca later tomb shaft,\u201d dating to about 1450 BCE.\u00a0(\u201cFirst written record of Semitic alphabet, from 15th century BCE, found in Egypt\u201d<\/a>, by Amanda Borschel-Dan, The Times of Israel<\/em>, 5-22-18)<\/p>\n On the track of an ancient road in the desert west of the Nile [Wadi el-Hol], where soldiers, couriers and traders once traveled from Thebes to Abydos, Egyptologists have found limestone inscriptions that they say are the earliest known examples of alphabetic writing.Their discovery is expected to help fix the time and place for the origin of the alphabet, one of the foremost innovations of civilization.<\/p>\n Carved in the cliffs of soft stone, the writing, in a Semitic script with Egyptian influences, has been dated to somewhere between 1900 and 1800 B.C., two or three centuries earlier than previously recognized uses of a nascent alphabet. The first experiments with alphabet thus appeared to be the work of Semitic people living deep in Egypt, not in their homelands in the Syria-Palestine region, as had been thought. . . .<\/p>\n \u201cThese are the earliest alphabetic inscriptions, considerably earlier than anyone had thought likely,\u201d Dr. John Coleman Darnell, an Egyptologist at Yale University, said last week in an interview about the discovery.<\/p>\n \u201cThey seem to provide us with evidence to tell us when the alphabet itself was invented, and just how.\u201d . . .<\/p>\n \u201cBecause of the early date of the two inscriptions and the place they were found,\u201d said Dr. P. Kyle McCarter Jr., a professor of Near Eastern studies at Johns Hopkins University. \u201cit forces us to reconsider a lot of questions having to do with the early history of the alphabet. Things I wrote only two years ago I now consider out of date.\u201d<\/p>\n Dr. Frank M. Cross, an emeritus professor of Near Eastern languages and culture at Harvard University, who was not a member of the research team but who has examined the evidence, judged the inscriptions \u201cclearly the oldest of alphabetic writing and very important.\u201d He said that enough of the symbols in the inscriptions were identical or similar to later Semitic alphabetic writing to conclude that \u201cthis belongs to a single evolution of the alphabet.\u201d<\/p>\n The previously oldest evidence for an alphabet, dated about 1600 B.C., was found near or in Semitic-speaking territory, in the Sinai Peninsula and farther north in the Syria-Palestine region occupied by the ancient Canaanites. These examples, known as Proto-Sinaitic and Proto-Canaanite alphabetic inscriptions, were the basis for scholars\u2019 assuming that Semites developed the alphabet by borrowing and simplifying Egyptian hieroglyphs, but doing this in their own lands and not in Egypt itself. (\u201cDiscovery of Egyptian Inscriptions Indicates an Earlier Date for Origin of the Alphabet\u201d<\/a>, by John Noble Wilford, The New York Times<\/em>, 11-13-99)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n ***<\/p>\n Photo credit<\/strong>: pottery sherd found at Lachish in southern Israel with proto-Hebrew alphabetic text, dating to 1450 BC<\/span> [article in Haaretz<\/em><\/a> \/ Antiquity Publications Ltd<\/a>\/\/J. Dye, Austrian Academy of Sciences]<\/p>\n ***<\/p>\n Summary<\/em>: Archaeological evidence shows an origin of a proto-ancient Hebrew alphabet as far back as 1800 BC, and various evidences suggest the plausibility of Moses writing the Pentateuch.<\/p>\n ***<\/p>\n Tags<\/em>: alphabet,\u00a0ancient Egypt,\u00a0ancient Hebrew,\u00a0ancient Hebrew language,\u00a0ancient Hebrews,\u00a0Ancient Hebrews & writing,\u00a0ancient Israel,\u00a0ancient Israelites,\u00a0ancient Jews,\u00a0archaeology & the Bible,\u00a0Bible & History,\u00a0biblical accuracy,\u00a0biblical archaeology,\u00a0Bronze Age Canaan,\u00a0Canaan,\u00a0Canaanite language,\u00a0Canaanites,\u00a0evolution of language,\u00a0Genesis,\u00a0Hebrew alphabet,\u00a0Hebrews,\u00a0Holy Bible,\u00a0Israelites & Hebrew,\u00a0Israelites & writing,\u00a0Moses,\u00a0Paleo-Hebrew,\u00a0Paleo-Hebrew alphabet,\u00a0Pentateuch,\u00a0Phoenicians,\u00a0Proto-Sinaitic script,\u00a0Torah,\u00a0written Hebrew Bible,\u00a0written Pentateuch<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" + a Plausible Scenario for Moses Gaining Knowledge of Hittite Legal Treaties in His Egyptian Official Duties\u00a0 Kenneth A. Kitchen, eminent Egyptologist and archaeologist, summarizes the evidence for an early form of Hebrew or proto-Hebrew prior to Moses, and a plausible written Pentateuch by his time (possibly written by him): The starting point is that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2331,"featured_media":58803,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31,448],"tags":[14428,14467,14458,14434,13772,14449,800,13769,13766,13841,170,1661,638,14359,14356,14470,3521,14461,435,14425,3141,535,14443,14446,1722,14437,14440,14431,14464,14422,2835,14455,14452],"class_list":["post-58818","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bible-and-tradition","category-jews-judaism-old-testament","tag-alphabet","tag-ancient-egypt","tag-ancient-hebrew","tag-ancient-hebrew-language","tag-ancient-hebrews","tag-ancient-hebrews-writing","tag-ancient-israel","tag-ancient-israelites","tag-ancient-jews","tag-archaeology-the-bible","tag-bible-history","tag-biblical-accuracy","tag-biblical-archaeology","tag-bronze-age-canaan","tag-canaan","tag-canaanite-language","tag-canaanites","tag-evolution-of-language","tag-genesis","tag-hebrew-alphabet","tag-hebrews","tag-holy-bible","tag-israelites-hebrew","tag-israelites-writing","tag-moses","tag-paleo-hebrew","tag-paleo-hebrew-alphabet","tag-pentateuch","tag-phoenicians","tag-proto-sinaitic-script","tag-torah","tag-written-hebrew-bible","tag-written-pentateuch"],"yoast_head":"\n