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b-hebrew - Re: [b-hebrew] Acrostic Psalms

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  • From: Peter Kirk <peter AT qaya.org>
  • To: Yitzhak Sapir <yitzhaksapir AT gmail.com>
  • Cc: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Acrostic Psalms
  • Date: Wed, 29 Nov 2006 10:46:00 +0000

On 29/11/2006 04:38, Yitzhak Sapir wrote:
On 11/29/06, Bryant J. Williams III wrote:
Dear Peter, Yitzhak, et al,

I wonder if the acrostic Psalms are early enough to indicate the separation
or non-separation of sin and shin? It is apparent that most of the Psalms
are Pre-exilic to Exilic (Post-exilic?) and that they may give some
indication of the debate on the alphabet. Besides inscriptions wouldn't
Hebrew poetry retain early grammar and syntactical features to help in this
debate?

An acrostic psalm like Psalm 119 interchanges the Shin and Sin in the 21st
position. However, why do you think that the acrostic would necessarily
place together verses that begin with the same phonetical variants as opposed
to the same graphical letter?

It is of course proof, if any were needed, that at the time these psalms were written Hebrew was written in a 22 letter alphabet, and not (as I suggested to Karl concerning the Torah) in an Egyptian or proto-Sinaitic type script with more than 22 letters. But then it is already well known that by the late monarchy period Hebrew was written with 22 letters, and I don't think anyone dates these acrostic poems much earlier. But acrostics are of course based on letter forms, not on pronunciations.

I note the following from Peter Craigie's excursus on acrostic psalms (p.129) in his Word commentary on Psalms 1-50:

"In almost every case the alphabetic sequence is followed carefully (Pss 37, 111, 112, 119) and the apparent omission of a letter (and its unit) can sometimes be restored on the basis of manuscript evidence or the versions (e.g. Ps 145). Pss 25 and 34 pose a problem in the absence of the /waw/ and the addition of a פ [pe]-unit at the end. It is probable that the two psalms reflect a particular stage (or deviation) in the history of the alphabet, in which consonantal /waw/ had been repressed and replaced by a secondary /pe/ at the end of the alphabet, for which there are analogies in the derivation of Greek letters from the cursive Phoenician script..." I note that Psalms 25 and 34 (also Psalm 37 which is a complete acrostic and Pss 9-10 which form a modified acrostic, see below) are titled "for David". So, if we give any credence to such titles, we might conclude that this alphabet with no waw but an extra pe was in use in David's time; but then we might have to judge Psalm 37 as a later or modified composition - could the textually doubtful repeated YPL+M in the over-long v.40 be a trace of an original extra pe section?

Craigie continues by discussing the modified acrostic in Pss 9-10, in which dalet and mem are missing, nun, samekh and tsayin are "restored", and ayin and pe are reversed.

Craigie also mentions the "Proto-Canaanite" abecedary text from Tel Aphek in Israel (p.130). "If this abecedary is Israelite, as seems possible, it provides further indication of the abstract knowledge of the sequential alphabet in Israel from a very early date, namely the time of the Judges", and also might be a small hint of a paper trail showing us the alphabet in which the Torah might originally have been written.


--
Peter Kirk
E-mail: peter AT qaya.org
Blog: http://speakertruth.blogspot.com/
Website: http://www.qaya.org/





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