Biblical Hebrew Forum

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

Sorry, I meant to send this to the whole group.

When the DSS traveling display visited the local art museum, about a decade 
ago, I found that I was able to read most of the displayed scrolls quite 
easily, knowing only the modern glyphs I learned in school. This was before I 
learned to read archaic script. 

I wonder if the difficulties that modern Israelis have in reading the scrolls 
has more to do with the facct that modern orthography -- spelling and grammar 
-- is so different from ancient usage? Therefore, small differences in 
handwriting styles, as mentioned below, become major barriers to 
understanding? (In other words, the modern Israeli has much the same reaction 
as I have when I attempt to read Ma'ariv or other modern document: many of 
the words look wierd and out of place.)

My 2¢ worth from experience.

Karl W. Randolph.

----- Original Message -----
From: "Yitzhak Sapir" <yitzhaksapir AT gmail.com>

> 
> Peter Kirk wrote:
> > On 22/03/2005 20:23, Yitzhak Sapir wrote:
> 
> > >No it's not.  It's irresponsible to lump together two different
> > >scripts. ...
> > >
> > Precisely. But by what criterion is your "Jewish" different from modern
> > Hebrew?
> 
> Actually, it seems now that Jewish is a class of scripts that
> includes the Modern Hebrew script variety.  But if I use a table of
> Hasmonean script as a guide, I could point out that the Bet has
> no lower right leg, the Dalet has horns and no upper right leg, the
> He has the lower left leg attached to the upper right corner, the
> Zayin has no horizontal line, the Kaf has horns, the Samekh is
> not closed in its lower feet, and the Pe has no clear upper left
> angle corner.  Besides that,  the slant, size, and proportions of
> some of the letters are unclear, but just these make it very hard
> to recognize the letters for the Modern Hebrew reader.
> 
...
> 
> Yitzhak Sapir
-- 
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