Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Dave Washburn <dwashbur AT nyx.net>]

For the most part, even the alphabetic cuneiform documents from Ugarit used 
word dividers, not spaces but a raised dot between words similar to items 
like the Tel Dan inscription, so the phenomenon we see in the Greek 
manuscripts would seem to have no real precedent in any of the ANE languages 
with which I am familiar.

On Friday 26 August 2005 08:55, Karl Randolph wrote:
> Susan:
>
> The oldest Semitic documents using the Hebrew alphabet that
> I know of had either spaces, or symbols to represent the
> spaces, between words. However, not all of it was carefully
> written, just as handwriting today can make the space so
> small as to make it unrecognizable. Short graffiti is the
> major exception as much of it was not careful.
>
> Karl W. Randolph.
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Susan Jeffers" <susan AT read-the-bible.org>
>
> > Greetings b-hebrew folk --
> >
> > I teach an Introduction to Biblical Studies course, and I've been trying
> > to find out what's the evidence for whether the earliest Hebrew Bible
> > manuscripts were written with or without spaces in between the words. 
> > Can you help?...
> > Susan Jeffers

-- 
Dave Washburn
http://www.nyx.net/~dwashbur
"Well, if I'd wanted a safe life, I guess I wouldn't have 
married a man who studies rocks." - Betty Armstrong (Fay Masterson)