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  • From: James Read <J.Read-2 AT sms.ed.ac.uk>
  • To: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [b-hebrew] The hebrew letter Taw
  • Date: Tue, 05 May 2009 22:44:23 +0100

Hi all,

I've been visiting a lot of byzantine museums and a lot of byzantine sites of archaeological importance in my research lately. This has led me to places like ancient Phillipi, Thessaloniki, Veria, Athens and even the Athos peninsula. Amongst other things one of the things I've been trying to trace is the origin of the cross and its many variations. In icons depictions seem to vary from anything T shaped to anything + (plus) shaped with lots of degrees of variation in between but as all the extanct icons are late I've been paying closer attention to things like coins and carved images in ancient 4th century basilica.

One bapistry of note is to be found near the octagon basilica at Philipi. The baptistry is sunk into the ground, large enough to fit a whole adult in, and is kind of plus shaped (with curly edges and the arms widening out) like a cross pattee http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cross_pattée

In fact, plus shapes seem to be prevalent in the early byzantine stuff (except for the really early stuff which is filled with peacocks and vines and flowers but pretty scarce on crosses of any description).Also, in the Byzantine museum in Athens there is in fact a 4th century wooden cross about a metre in height and breadth in the plus shape. Another interesting observation I have made is the Orthodox custom of drawing a plus shape with oil on the foreheads of their faithful.

So then I started to look at the literature. The earliest explicit mention of anything which describes the shape of the instrument of Roman execution is Barnabas epistle where he likens it the Greek letter Tau which is very much T shaped. Also, some other early Christian reference to how Moses was foreshadowing a T shape when he kept his arms raised to his sides while Israel was doing battle with Joshua (Yehoshua, Yoshua, Isus) doing battle.

Anyway, it was just this evening when my research turned to the origins of writing that I saw that the Phoenician symbol which the Greek Tau has evolved from is actually also plus shaped:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proto-Canaanite_alphabet

Digging further on the Tau symbol I found this interesting paragraph in wikipedia:

Ezekiel 9:4 depicts a vision in which the Tav plays a Passover role similar to the blood on the lintel and doorposts of a Hebrew home in Egypt.[1] In Ezekiel?s Old Testament vision, the Lord has his angels separate the demographic wheat from the chaff by going through Jerusalem, the capital city of ancient Israel, and inscribing a mark, a Tav, ?upon the foreheads of the men that sigh and that cry for all the abominations that be done in the midst thereof.?
In Ezekiel's vision, then, the Lord is counting Tav Israelites as worthwhile to spare, but counts the people worthy of annihilation who lack the Tav and the critical attitude it signifies. In other words, looking askance at a culture marked by dire moral decline is a kind of shibboleth for loyalty and zeal for God.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taw_(letter)#In_Judaism

Could this be the origin of the Orthodox custom of painting a plus shape on its faithful's foreheads? Could this also be the origin of the prevalent use of a plus shaped symbol in Byzantine archaeology? Could all of this combined with Barnabas epistle using a T shape description account for the great variation in understanding of the shape of the Roman implement of execution.

I apologise in advance if anybody does not sees a relation to Biblical Hebrew in this question. The relation is that of the original meaning of the individual symbols used in the Biblical Hebrew alphabet which according to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proto-Canaanite_alphabet Taw meant signature.

Regards

James



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