The Ancient Hebrew Lexicon of the BibleTHE ANCIENT HEBREW ALPHABET
EVOLUTION OF THE HEBREW ALPHABET...................................................................
The Hebrew alphabet was written with a script belonging to the Semitic family of
languages. The Semitic script followed three basic stages of development, Early,
Middle and Late.
The Early Semitic script was pictographic (fig. 1) where each letter represented an
object. In figure 1, the top left corner letter is a picture of water representing the sound
“M”. The second letter from right at the bottom is a picture of a shepherd staff
representing the sound “L”.
The Middle Semitic script (fig. 2) is an evolved form of the original pictographic script
into a simpler form and used by the different Semitic groups including the Hebrews
(fig. 2), Moabites (fig. 3), Ammonites (fig. 4), Arameans (fig. 5) and others.
The Aramaic script of the Arameans in Babylon evolved into the Late Semitic script
independently from other Semitic scripts (fig. 6). When the Hebrew people were taken
into Babylonian captivity, they adopted the Aramaic script (fig. 7) and is still in use
today (fig. 8).
While the majority of the Hebrew texts of the first century BCE and into the first
century CE were written in the Late Semitic or Aramaic script, the Middle Semitic
script was not lost. It was still used on occasion such as on many of the Jewish coins as
well as some religious scrolls such as those found in the Dead Sea caves (fig. 9).
The Samaritans lived in the land of Samaria, a region of Israel, at the time of Israel's
captivity; they were not taken into Babylon with Israel. As a result of their isolation
they are the only culture to retain a script (fig. 13) similar to the Middle Semitic script
and is still used to this day in the Samaritan community.
Around 1000 BCE, the Greeks adopted the Middle Semitic script (fig. 11) and began to
evolve independently over the centuries to become the Greek script (fig. 12) used
today.