Biblical Hebrew Forum

[JimStinehart AT aol.com]

Karl:

 

Prior to the Iron Age, the amount of alphabetical pre-Hebrew writing is tiny.  Yes, it existed, but it was rare and in a rudimentary developmental stage.  There’s no way that the glorious, lengthy, detailed, truly ancient Patriarchal narratives could have been recorded by a contemporary of the events using alphabetical pre-Hebrew writing in the Bronze Age.  Not.

 

I have provided the “missing link” to get us from the 7^th century BCE classic Hebrew alphabetical narrative prose of the received text way back to the Bronze Age, via a writing by a contemporary [that is, a written account commissioned by one of the tent-dwelling first Hebrews].  That “missing link” is using cuneiform, à la the Amarna Letters, to write west Semitic words in the Late Bronze Age Patriarchal Age.

 

Jim Stinehart

Evanston, Illinois