A Brief History

The text of the Bible passed down to us has been through a series of intentional changes. To fully understand the work we're doing with the Bible Languages project requires the understanding of the Bible's text we've been handed. This article explores the history of that text.

Testimony

In 2004 we moved to the Cor d'Alene area of Northern Idaho. Once we had arrived we found a small Messianic Jewish group that was offering Hebrew Language lessons. We had wanted to learn the Hebrew Language, and here was our chance. Over the following years our understanding of the problems presented by the text of the Bible would grow considerably, and we would not deal with all the topics in the same way, but this was the way it all began.

Typical college level language textbooks, no matter what language, begin in a predictable way. The first chapter starts by introducing the Alphabet. The student is expected to learn the letter forms as the first step towards learning the language. If you were learning, say, Russian, the first lesson would be to learn the Cryllic alphabet. Similarly Greek or Spanish or any other western language, you would have to learn the Greek, Spanish or whatever alphabet for that language.

It is easier when the student knows English and is learning another language based on the Latin alphabet, harder when the alphabet has more unusual letter forms.

Hebrew, of course, has a radically different alphabet, so the student must learn a completely new alphabet. Hebrew is about as difficult as learning Russian because the letter forms are not derived from Latin. This means that the student must learn a completely new set of letters before they can begin learning the language.

All of the college level textbooks that we've found begin as would any other language textbook. The first chapter dutifully introduces the letter forms and expects the students to learn to recognize those forms before they can proceed with learning the rest of the language. In a typical college level language course that Hebrew alphabet is expected to be learned within the first week of the class.

The reason for this typical quick treatment of the alphabet is because most college level Hebrew instructors make a false assumption that the Hebrew alphabet is to Hebrew as the alphabets of all other western languages are to their respective languages.

Our language instructor in Idaho was so focused on breaking through this false assumption that the course had a separate alphabet textbook and what would turn into weeks of instruction on the alphabet itself.

This was such a radical idea that we ended up on an extended study of the Alphabet well beyond anything found in that first class. We had a series of tools available to us with which we could both audit that early work and also complete what was for that Messianic community an incomplete study.

It was only after we were able to reconstruct the original alphabet from first principles that we felt we were ready to work on the rest of the problem, a reconstruction of the Bible itself.

Alphabet As Language

The Hebrew letter forms as we know them now are not their oldest, nor best, form. About 10 percent of the Dead Sea Scrolls are written in a different, older, form. That older form is known to modern scholars as both proto-Canaanite and as Phoenician.

In an essentially arbitrary time split, inscriptions from about 1500 BC through about 1000 BC are called proto-Canaanite. The name is used because the known examples from history are only found in Canaan. Before 1500 BC (some claim 1800 BC) the only significant written language is Egyptian Hyroglyphics.

After 1000 BC the proto-Canaanite language is called Phoenician because this alphabet is found in places following Phoenician trade routes, and in time it spreads across the globe. Despite the name change at 1000 BC, these two names apply to the same alphabet, the same drawn letter forms.

At around 500 BC, the Hebrew letter forms that we know today as the Hebrew alphabet are first introduced. After that point Hebrew is both a distinct language and a distinct alphabet. Previously to that time it shared the Phoenician alphabet with several other languages including Aramaic. This sharing of a common alphabet was very much like the way various European languages today share the Latin alphabet.

Phoenician, as a written alphabet, can be found on inscriptions through the early 300s AD. The letter forms of Phoenician in the 300s are quite distorted, and don't represent the more common forms of 1000 BC. After the early 300s AD, all languages that had been written using that alphabet have been shifted to other alphabets, not just Hebrew. Importantly this includes Aramaic, which we'll deal with later.

These three times in history, 1500 BC, 1000 BC, and 500 BC, track very closely to three key times in Biblical history, and in fact the Bible explains what is going on linguistically that shows up as artifacts found by archaelogists.

Exodus

9501 AA, or around 1500 BC, is the time of the Exodus from Egypt. Proto-Canaanite inscriptions are found from 1500 BC forward.1 Before this time written inscriptions are found, but using Egyptian Hieroglyphics. After this time there is a new language found in Canaan.

Why?

Jacob's descendants arrived in Canaan writing in a new language, a language not known when they left Egypt.

In a review of scripture for clues that there had been a language change at the Exodus we found several passages that basically explain that this happened.

The first is an odd story where the people ask Moses to mediate and God is happy with this. In general God was angry with the people for not wanting to be intimate with him when he rescued them from Egypt, but in this case alone he agreed it was better to have Moses mediate.

Why? Because Moses was also learning this new language, but was ahead on that learning curve and so could mediate. Moses alone was going up and down the mountain, and was apparently taking a long time in part because he was learning a new language.

The book of Hebrews reinforces this idea, and suggests the people were afraid when God spoke. Not because they heard his voice, but because they realized they could not speak his language.

There is one final passage that is insightful when we think of a new language being introduced. In this story 70 of the Elders from Israel are taken up to have a meal with Yahvah.

The purpose of the meal is not well documented. But in light of a language introduction this is a key event. If Moses had been the only teacher of this new language then his spoken language impediments2 would have been transferred to the entire community. With 70 people learning proper pronunciation at the same time they can return home and have a good chance of picking up the correct sounds.

Learning new languages is hard, especially for people who have grown up learning a different language. One lesson of the Exodus is that a new generation of people will grow up in the wilderness. This generation will not know Egypt, nor its ways. They will not know Egypt's language either.

When the Israelites finally settled down in Canaan, they were using this new phonetic language. As they went about life, writing each other, some of that written record was left behind in the dirt, becoming the archaological record that was later found and given the name proto-canaanite, since Canaan is where the Israelites lived.

Solomon

At about 1000 BC the numbers and locations where samples of proto-Canaanite are found suddenly go way up. The change is dramatic enough that modern scholars arbitrarily change the name of this alphabet to Phoenician, because even the center of the alphabet shifts up the coast to Tyre.

For the next 1000 years the alphabet will spread out following trade routes from cities like Tyre. It will also be adopted for use by many other languages. In this time what is now called Phoenician will become the basis for the written letter forms for languages like Greek and Latin. In fact some have argued that all phonetic languages on earth derive in various ways from this same alphabet given to Israel at the Exodus.

The question to ask of scripture is why, at 1000 BC, did the alphabet shift from being the Israelite's own alphabet, to the alphabet of Tyre and then the rest of the world?

A review of Biblical history at 1000 BC finds Solomon active in his building projects, including his palace and the temple at Jerusalem. This period also finds the world coming to visit and hear his wisdom.

Note the difference. The secular world is ascribing the movement of this language from Tyre as an effect of Phoenician traders. The Bible is suggesting the root reason for this is the world wide fascination with Solomon, who is using this language to express his wisdom.

The text of the Bible also goes on to single out Hiram, the king at Tyre. We're told the Hiram and Solomon exchanged letters before they engaged in a specific timber trade in order to supply Solomon with the logs he needed to build the temple.

The inference here is easy to draw. Solomon is suddenly on the world stage and his language, an ancient form of Hebrew, the form given Moses at the Exodus, is the language he is using. Everyone who comes to listen, and perhaps learn to read what he has written, must also learn his language and alphabet. This is what everyone is learning and reading. That language is picked up by Hiram and his trading ships and spreads from the eastern Mediterranian through the rest of the world.

Assyrian Invasion

Soon after the reign of Solomon the ancient kingdom which he ruled began to collapse from within. At Solomon's death civil war broke out between the northern and southern kingdoms. When the war was over the bulk of the population was no longer ruled out of Jerusalem, but from a capital that would eventually be Samaria.

King Jeroboam, the first king of the northern kingdom, was concerned his people would give their alligance to the king at Jerusalem. To prevent this he tore apart the structure of society. He reordered the religious system of the country, he changed the calendar, and he moved the capital. Without biblical underpinnings the leadership of the country was unstable, and had 5 different monarchies before the country was eventually overrun and hauled away.

The written biblical record is skimpy, but around 720 BC, this kingdom finally collapsed as the Assyrians invaded. At this point all of the tribal groups, both northern and southern, were disbursed into the world and the record of their movements becomes undocumented.

The tribes that had left Egypt, and received a new language, were now spreading into the world. They were carrying with them the seeds of phonetic language and when they surface much later in history they will be shown to be carrying around the same basic language principles as the Phoenician alphabet they were using in Canaan. Even, it will turn out, to most of the letters in that alphabet.

The Time of Daniel

What remained in Jerusalem after the Assyrian invasion was a remnant, small enough to to be fully contained within Jerusalem's walls. Though the Assyrian army commander would stand outside the city and call to the elders, he never entered the city. This Jerusalem remnant is the seed for what would become the Jews of today.

The Jerusalem remnant remained in Canaan until the time of Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon. The Babylonians had been generally conquering the world, and at the same time made the king at Jerusalem into a vassal. This arrangement lasted 19 years until the king at Jerusalem rebelled. The Babylonians invaded again, burned down the city, and took fewer than 5000 living survivors to Babylon.

Later European history teaches that at times of massive loss of life, the language and customs of society generally collapse as well, and it is at this time that the Jews in Babylon change the written form of their alphabet. No longer would copies of the Biblical scrolls be found written with the Phoenician alphabet. A new letter form was introduced in this era, what we know of as the modern Hebrew alphabet.

There are several candidate Bible books where we might expect to find details of this language change. Ezra, especially, is normally credited with establishing the canon of the Old Testament. The problem is Ezra does not mention language issues. The prophet who does write about language is Daniel. In fact there are numerous passages in the book that suggest that Daniel was not only aware of the Hebrew language transformation, but took part in the work for reasons explained in his book.

At the start of the book we are told that Daniel was responsible for learning the Babylonian language. This establishes a context for the book, and bears on nearly every story throughout the rest of his account.

Daniel would remain in the royal court, eventually operating in an office similar to Joseph in Egypt, what today would be called a Prime Minister.

In the 5th chapter of his book we find Daniel called to interpret handwriting on the wall. It seems a divine hand has appeared, with the same finger that wrote the 10 commandments at the Exodus. A finger using the same language as it always uses, the same language as given at the Exodus. 3

Neither the young king, 1000 nobles, nor his wise men can read this writing. Understand that Hebrew, as a spoken language, is still known. The Jewish remnant would already have assimilated, and as today would be occupying key places in government. There are Hebrew speakers in the room. But there is a problem. The finger did not speak, it wrote, and no one in the room can read the letter forms written by the same finger at the Exodus from Egypt. Only someone who knows the old form will be able to read this writing, and only Daniel is available to read the story.

Daniel, of course, knows the old Phoenician, a language no longer current in the royal court. He reads it readily and soon the prophecy written on the wall comes to pass.

The handwriting on the wall was a test, not just of the king, but of everyone in the room. The language that God used to write his word at the Exodus was now effectively lost. Not even 1 in 1000 people would be able to decipher it. The people had passed a test, they were now cut off from the full power of God's written word forms. It would be another 1500 years before the king and his nobles were cut off from the spoken form.

By the end of the Book of Daniel there is another clue, that this letter form change was done intentionally with Daniel's help. Just as the temple articles were hidden, just at Jerusalem was left in ruins, the text itself was sealed away for a future time.

The Book of Daniel ends with a promise, that these words, the entire language itself, would eventually be unsealed.

In Ezra's Day

After 70 years of captivity, the decree is issued to rebuild Jerusalem. The work is stop-and-go, but eventually it gets done. The temple is reopened on Temple Mount.

A second wave of work involves rebuilding the city wall. Great difficulty faced the generation that returned, there was opposition all around. Eventually that wall was also rebuilt and the city returned to some semblance of normality. It is this restoration that lay in the foundation for Jesus' eventual visit about 500 years later.

At the time of the Exodus Moses was careful to give a copy of the law to the priest, and another to the elders. The elders were expected to know and use the written text as a basis for carrying out their duty as lawgivers in ancient Israel.

At the time of Ezra something has changed. The way the Bible discusses the use of the text changes. Instead of being something that the elders use as a basis for carrying out national laws, the text is now used by priests to inform the people. In effect there has been a separation between church and state. Only unusual national leaders, like Nehemiah himself, will be seen using sacred scripture in their daily routine. From the time of Ezra forward the text is only carried and used by priests. And then, unlike the time of Moses, not anyone can read the text. Those priests must have had special instruction in use of the text and it becomes much harder for the average person to read what it has to say.

The most telling example is given in Nehemiah where a special platform is erected for the purpose of preaching from the text. Ezra then reads from and explains the text and what it means. Ezra is apparently surrounded by elders, but they listen in just like an average person in the crowd.

The text of the Bible is now effectively sealed. Only the few with the time and resources to carefully study it are able to understand what it has to say, and then only superficially.

At this point only the letter shapes have changed, and the ability to read and digest the text has been significantly attenuated. Why? Why would changing the letter forms matter at all?

The answer must be that the letter forms carry some percentage of the original intended meaning. Changing the letter form cuts out that meaning, and reduces the ability of the average reader to understand the rest.

In the 1920s the Soviet Union planned a complete alphabet replacement, dropping centuries of Cryllic use in favor of Latin letter forms. 50 of the 75 Soviet national languages needing alphabet conversion rules were finished before the plan was dropped. That alphabet conversion plan is an example of the issue. In all modern western languages the letter form is inconsequential. No so in the language God used to pen the 10 commandments. The letter forms matter, and they carry some of the meaning found in the text.

At the time of Ezra, soon after the conversion to a Babylonian letter form, the task of comprehension suddenly became much more difficult. To anyone who thinks they understand modern languages, the difference in letter form should be inconsequential. It wasn't inconsequential in Ezra's day. Something about the shapes of the letters mattered, something that will become apparent when those letter forms are fully understood.