Biblical Hebrew Forum

[James Christian <jc.bhebrew AT googlemail.com>]

A few months back after studying the origins of the Hebrew alphabet I
suggested that the characters were all 90 degrees out of their original. I
wasn't taken very seriously at the time, though.

I think ancient hebrew texts may have been read from top to bottom
columnwise originally and the reason we see modern charaters now 90 degrees
off their original is that they took the texts, turned them 90 degrees
clockwise and started reading from right to left.

James Christian

2010/1/19 K Randolph <kwrandolph AT gmail.com>

> This is very interesting. But I would like more information before
> accepting
> this translation.
>
> A minor detail, from looking at proto-Sinaitic and other early scripts, it
> appears that most pictures posted have the text on its side, that it was
> originally written top to bottom, and that proper orientation should be 90°
> clockwise from the pictures I’ve seen.
>
> Another question, how well preserved are those letters? All the photos I’ve
> seen seem to show that the writing is very faded, almost invisible. Could
> that have resulted in some of the letters being misinterpreted?
>
> What antecedent letter forms is he using to justify his translation? I
> don’t
> recognize some of them, and others don’t appear to support his translation.
>
> Interesting, but too many questions.
>
> Karl W. Randolph.
>
> On Fri, Jan 8, 2010 at 2:38 PM, Hedrick Gary <garyh AT cjfm.org> wrote:
>
> > Interesting story from Jerusalem Post.
> >
> > Gary Hedrick
> > San Antonio, TX
> >
> > >
> >
> www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1262339428603&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
> >
> >
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