Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Will Parsons <wbparsons AT alum.mit.edu>]

On Mon, 8 Apr 2013 10:03:59 -0700, K Randolph <kwrandolph AT gmail.com> wrote:
> Yigal:
> 
> On Mon, Apr 8, 2013 at 7:21 AM, Yigal Levin <Yigal.Levin AT biu.ac.il> wrote:
>> ...
>> What evidence do you have that the Patriarchs wrote at all?
> 
> What evidence do you have that they didn’t?
> 
> Within Genesis we have the evidence that certain parts of the history were
> authored by certain individuals, names indicated were people who had either
> direct observation, or failing that, contact with the people indicated.
> Many moderns claim that those sections were preserved in oral traditions,
> though there's no reason not to understand them as written records. I think
> that understanding them as written records makes more sense.
> 
>> Where does the Bible mention their writing? Why would you expect pastoral
>> nomads to write?
> 
> Why shouldn't they? Especially if they use a simple to learn alphabetic
> system? There are other examples of nomads writing using alphabetic
> systems, so that is not out of possibility.

No, it's not out of possibility, though writing has not been common
among nomadic cultures.  On one hand, one can look at the various
writing systems (generally syllabaries) that were invented by
Christian missionaries for writing various North American Indian
languages and that never really took hold, and on the other,
exceptions, e.g., the natively invented Cherokee syllabary, or the
writing system adopted by the Mongols, a nomadic people.  There have
been various drivers for taking up writing, one is certainly for
administration (and therefore is associated with a sedentary society),
but another is for the transmission of religious, or culturally
important texts.  (In the latter category, one can point to the
Homeric poems.  Although the Greeks were not nomadic by the time of
their composition, I think it likely that a strong impetus for the
Greek adoption of the alphabet was the desire to be able to write down
Homer's works.)

>> Or slaves, for that matter.
> 
> In the antebellum South, special laws were passed making it illegal for
> slaves to be taught to read and write, because literate slaves were more
> difficult to deal with. But even those laws didn't stop it. So why not
> slaves in Egypt being literate?

I agree.  And unlike the African slaves in early America, the Israelite
slaves may very well have had a tradition of writing using the quite
simple alphabet, and with a cohesive society, a tradition of literacy
could well have been continued.

>> If they wrote at all, the Patriarchs would have written in Canaanite and
>> the Israelite slaves in Egyptian.
> 
> Why? To both of your questions.

Well, I would think that the Patriarchs would have written in
Canaanite because that was their language, but I do think that the
Israelite slaves would be unlikely to write in Egyptian.  For one
thing, it's uncertain how many of them would have known Egyptian.
It's true that after a long sojourn in Egypt it might be expected that
there would be a general adoption of the host language, but it also
appears that the Israelites were to a large extent confined to a
specific area, and largely (though not completely) separate from the
larger Egyptian community.  This would be conducive to maintaining
their ancestral language.  I think it's highly speculative how many
adopted Egyptian as a primary or as a secondary language, but
*writing* in Egyptian would be rare at best.  The Egyptian writing
system is highly complex, and its mastery was confined to an elite
class of scribes.  This type of education would be unlikely to be
available to Hebrew slaves.  On the other hand, alphabetic writing is
much simpler, and can be readily handed down.

In contrast to the African slaves in the antebellum South, who had no
tradition of literacy, yet some at least managed to learn to read and
write, one can point to Greek slaves in the Roman empire, at least
sometimes often highly literate and cultured, but who were reduced to
slavery as the result of military defeat.

> If they had their own language complete with writing system before coming
> to Canaan, and brought both to Egypt, why should they have abandoned both?

I concur.

-- 
Will Parsons