RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Writing, Hebrew
Mishna tract Yadayim, iv. 5, where the statement is that the Aramaic in Ezra and Daniel is sacred; but Aramaic which is written in Hebrew speech (script) and Hebrew which is written in Hebrew, and what is written (de novo] in Hebrew is not sacred. The Hebrew text (of the Old Testament) is sacred only when it is written in the square character with ink on the skins of beasts. Origen also gives testimony to the continuance in use of the old character in his remark on Ps. ii. 2 (in Montfaucon, Hexaplorum Origenis que supersunt, i. 86, Paris, 1713; in the Benedictine edition, ii. 39; and in Lommatzsch’s edition, xi. 396, 25 vols., Berlin, 1831-48), also in his Prologus galeatus (q.v.), where he says that the name of God is in some Greek manuscripts ‘‘up to this day ”’ written in the old characters. Fragments of the translation of Aquila from I Kings xx.; II Kings xxiii.; and several of the Psalms are known in which the name of deity (the tetragrammaton Yhwh) is written in the early character, but evidently copied mechanically by ascribe who did not understand it (cf. F. C. Burkitt, Fragments of the Books of Kings according to the Translation of Aquila, Cambridge, 1897; and C. Taylor, Hebrew-Greek Cairo Genizah Palimpsests, ib., 1900). But this is the last trace of the use of the old forms of letters. The fact, so far as it is obtainable, seems to be that after the quelling of the revolt of Bar Kokba the ancient script went out of use among the people, and ceased altogether to exist as a means of writing after the fourth Christian century.
So that some centuries before Christ the Aramaic forms began to make their way into Palestine, and by the end of the second century the Old Hebrew
script was discarded by the Jews. The
3. Sacred- explanation of this complete disappearness of the ance may possibly lie in an early Square conception that the Aramaic was Character. sacred and the old Hebrew secular. The passage already cited above from
the Mishna and other passages indicate that Biblical codices were regarded as sacred only when they were written in the square character with mk upon leather, and were not sacred if in the old Hebrew forms. But why was this script considered to be sacred? Testimony from the second century is important in this matter, it being to the effect that Ezra brought the square character from Assyria (Palestinian Talmud, Megilla, 1. 71b, lines 56 sqq.; Babylonian Talmud, Sanhedrin, 21b), to which there may be added the statement of Epiphanius (De XI gemmis, § 63) to the effect that Ezra did this to distinguish the Israelites from the other peoples, while Jerome, in the Prologus galeatus, says that “it is certain that Ezra found in use characters others than those now in use.” ‘To be sure, this tradition is not historical, since the Aramaic forms came in with the Aramaic language; but it is highly probable that after Ezra’s time that form of writing was used in making copies of the law. The opposition to the Samaritans was such as to facilitate the introduction of a style of writing different from theirs. From various expressions in the Talmud (e.g., Sabbath, 103-104) it appears that the square character had long before reached its full development, while the forms as seen in the manuscripts and in print are
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essentially the same (A. Berliner, Beitrdge zur hebraischen Grammatik, pp. 15-26, Berlin, 1879). This stability is explained by the unique estimate placed upon the law which was written in these characters. Yet, without prejudice to the uniformity just asserted, from the peculiarities evident in the Biblical codices it is often possible to decide from which region a manuscript came and in some cases to tell those which are by the same scribe (it is easy to discriminate, for instance, between Spanish and German Biblical manuscripts). To a far lesser degree can one safely assert the age of a codex.
Early witnesses to the nature of the Hebrew script in early times are (a) inscriptions. ‘There are the sarcophagus of Queen Zaddah (Queen Helena of Adiabene?); the words thm gzr found in five places near Gezer to indicate the Sabbath limits; two small
inscriptions on sarcophagi from the
4. Docu- period before 135 a.p. (in Lidzbarski,
mentary Nordsemitische EHpigraphik, ut sup.,
Testimony table 43); there are inscriptions on to Hebrew three stone sarcophagi found in 1905 Script. on the site of the Syrian orphan asylum at Jerusalem, on one of the smaller sides appear Papias in Greek and Hebrew, Hanyn and ’byh, before each of which is prefixed the adjective Hbsny, written defectively and meaning “who belonged to Beth Shean” (i.e., Scythopolis), indicating that they are of a period prior to the fall of Jerusalem, since it is hardly likely that after that event people would remove from Beth Shean to settle at Jerusalem. The script on these last is very like that given in Lidzbarski (Nordsemitische Epigraphik, table xlii., no. 6); the Yodh is the smallest letter, and parts have so fallen away that it is not unlike the Resh of the early writing. The inscription over the door of the synagogue at Kefr Bir‘im was written in the third Christian century (also in Lidzbarski, ut sup). To the same period belong the synagogue inscriptions found in Palmyra containing the Shema’ (cf. P. Berger, Hist. de l’écriture dans Vantiquité, 2d ed., p. 259, Paris, 1892); Jewish catacomb inscriptions from Rome and Venosa should be dated in the third to the sixth centuries according to Ascoli, while ten dated inscriptions from Venosa, Lavello, and Brindisi are of the period 810-846 .p. (G. J. Ascoli, Iscrizione inedite 0 mal note greghe, latine ebraiche, di antichi sepolchri giudaiche del Napolitano, Turin, 1880).
There does not come into account here the epitaph found in Aden (given in The Paleographical Society. Facsimiles of Ancient Manuscripts, Oriental Series, ed. W. Wright, London, 1875-83, part i., p. 29), for to the apparent date 29 of the Seleucid must be prefixed the numerals making it read 1029 (=717 a.D.); nor very many “‘ finds ’’ of the year 1874 at Chufut-Kale in the Crimea by A. Firkovitch, published by Firkovitch in Hebrew at Vilna, 1872 [cf. for the story JH, v. 393-394].
The Oriental Series of the Paleographical Society (ut sup.) contain facsimiles of many Hebrew manuscripts: i. 13, a
page from a Hebrew dictionary by Menahem
: ben Saruk of the year 1091; i. 14, the same
5. Printed from the year 1189; i. 15, from Rashi’s com- Documents, mentary on the Talmud, of the year 1190; ii. 30 has a sheet from a work by Moses ben
Shem Tob of the year 1363-64; iii. 40-41,
and iv. 54 contain facsimiles of Biblical manuscripts; iv. 55, a sheet from Al-Harizi, year 1282; iv. 56, one from the Baby-
lonian Talmud of the year 1288-89; v. 68 has a selection from Isaac ben Joseph, of 1401; vii. 79, a piece copied by
Writing, Hebrew Wherttemberg