Hebrew Was Not The Original Language of Old
Testament!
The pre-exilic language used by the Israelites was a Canaanite
dialect not known as Hebrew. The Phoenicians (or, more accurately, the
Canaanites) invented the first true alphabets c. 1500 B.C.E., based on
letters instead of descriptive images. All successive alphabets are indebted to
and derivative of this Canaanites accomplishment. (See Israel
Wilfinson, Tarikh al-Lugat as- Samiyya (History of Semitic Languages), Dar al-Qalam, Beruit, Lebanon, PO BOX 3874, ND, p. 54)
In general culture the Canaanites are no less remarkable, and not
a little of that culture was taken over by the Hebrews…. The Hebrews were not
great builders, nor very apt in the arts and crafts. As a result they had to
rely heavily on the Canaanites in this field, and in others as well. Whatever
language the Hebrews spoke before settling in Palestine, it was a dialect of
Canaanite that became their language after the settlement. (Dictionary of the Bible p. 121)
In fact OT itself never refers to the Jewish language as Hebrew, as illustrated by these following two verses from Isaiah 36 {KJV}:
36:11
Then said Eliakim and Shebna and Joah unto Rabshakeh, Speak, I pray thee, unto
thy servants in the Syrian language; for we understand it: and
speak not to us in the Jews' language, in the ears of the people that are
on the wall.
36:13 Then Rabshakeh stood, and cried with a loud voice in the Jews' language, and said, Hear ye the words of the great king, the king of Assyria.
The same
phrase is found in the NWT, The Holy Bible from the Ancient Eastern Text, RSV,
and the Arabic edition. These last three substitutes “Aramaic” for ‘Syrian
language’, but none of them designates the other as Hebrew. We find the
same incident and/or same expression in 2 King 18:26 and 2 Chronicle 32:18.
2 Kings
18
18:26 Then said Eliakim the son of Hilkiah, and Shebna, and Joah, unto Rabshakeh, Speak, I pray thee, to thy servants in the Syrian language; for we understand it: and talk not with us in the Jews' language in the ears of the people that are on the wall.
2
Chronicles 32
32:18 Then they cried with a loud voice in the Jews' speech unto the people of Jerusalem that were on the wall, to affright them, and to trouble them; that they might take the city.
In Isaiah 19:18 {KJV} we
read the following:
19:18 In that day shall five
cities in the land of Egypt speak the language of Canaan, and swear to
the LORD of hosts; one shall be called, The city of destruction.
The above citations unanimously agree on this phrasing; surely if
Hebrew had been founded by then the OT would bear testimony to it, instead of
vague wording about the ‘Jews’ language’ or the language of Canaan’. Given that the text makes the reference to
the language of Canaan generically, which simply put, is Canaanite; we
can conclude that the Israelites did not poses a unique tongue at the time of
the Divided Kingdom of Israel and Judah.
In fact the word ‘Hebrew” was indeed in existence, but it
predated the Israelites and did not refer to anything remotely Jewish. The words ‘Ibri (Habiru) and ‘Ibrani
(Hebrew) were in usage even before 2000 B.C.E. and referred to a group of Arab
tribes from the northern reaches of the Arabian Peninsula, in the Syrian
desert. The appellation spread to other Arab tribes in the area until it
became a synonym for ‘son of desert.’ Cuneiform and Pharaonic texts from before
the Israelites also use such words as Ibri, Habiri, Habiru, Khabiru and Abiru.
In this sense the term Ibrani, as described to Abraham in the Bible,
means a member of the ‘Abiru (or nomadic Arab tribes), of which
he was a member. The phrase “Ibrit, denoting Jews, was coined later on by the rabbis in
Palestine. (See Israel
Wilfinson, Tarikh al-Lugat as- Samiyya (History of Semitic Languages), Dar al-Qalam, Beruit, Lebanon, PO BOX 3874, ND, pp. 73-79)
So
what language OT was written in? From the
information cited above we see a process of scriptural evolution: Canaanite,
Aramaic (Assyrian), and finally square, which later on came to be regarded as
Hebrew. We can conclude that
prior to their return from Babylonian exile in 538 B.C.E.; Israelites did not
have any means of written communication distinctly their own since pre-exilic
Jewish script was Canaanite (Ibid p. 91). Ernst Wǜrthwein writes on pp. 1-2 of his book The Text
of the Old Testament (2nd Edition, William B. Eerdmans
Publishing Company, Grand Rapids, Michigan, 1995):
“When Aramaic
became the predominant tongue of the ancient Near East, the Jews adopted this
language and soon assumed its script as well-which was then known as Assyrian.”
Note for readers: There is yet another twist to this history of fabrications as now
in Wadi el-Hol in Egypt, near
Luxor, a ‘Semitic
inscription’ has been discovered dated somewhere between 1900 and 1800 B.C.E.
by Dr. Darnells and his wife Deborah.
Also read: Obvious Variant Readings of the Bible!