Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Karl Randolph" <kwrandolph AT email.com>]

Yigal:

You bring up two issues:

I do not deny that the Sin and Shin were different letters as early as late 
Second Temple period, but were they different letters in pre-Galut Babel 
Hebrew? I think the evidence is against it. The same is true for many of the 
other pronunciation shifts that occured after the Galut Babel.

Secondly, when did the ancient Hebrews become literate? I have read 
acheological reports that the 22 letter Sinaitic writing was known in Egypt 
before the Hyksos invasion, about the time Joseph was sold into slavery in 
Egypt. So is it beyond reason to say that the ancient Hebrews were literate 
when they left Egypt and it was they in about 1400 BC who brought the 22 
letter alphabet to Canaan and the Phoenecians, and not the other way around?

Karl W. Randolph.

----- Original Message -----
From: "Yigal Levin" <leviny1 AT mail.biu.a
> 
> Actually, Karl, Shin and Sin were NOT the same letter. They are two distinct
> sounds in most Semitic languages and were in Hebrew as well. However they
> were not in Canaanite, and since the Israelites "took over" the
> Canaanite/Pheonecian alphabet, they used the same letter for both sounds.
> The same was true for Het and Khet, Ain and Ghain and maybe some others.
> (That the Ghain was pronounced as late as the Second Temple period is shown
> by the fact that the LXX knew to use a Gamma in such words as Gaza and
> Gommora). The fact that the Mesoretes knew to invent a diacritical mark to
> differentiate between Shin and Sin is somwhat of a wonder in itself.
> 
> As for the name Shemuel - whatever the original etymology (I would go with
> "El is His name", but there are other possibilities), the explaiantion that
> the writer attributed to Hannah - "for I have asked him of the Lord" does
> not fit. The Hebrew "asked" or "requested" is $)L - "sha)al". This would be
> perfect, as an explanation for the name "Shaul" - Saul. I have long
> suspected that there is a tradition about the birth of Saul "hiding" under
> the Deuteronomistic version of what we now call I Samuel.
> 
> Yigal
-- 
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