Biblical Hebrew Forum

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

Hi Nir,

On Tue, 9 Apr 2013 16:43:21 -0200, "Nir cohen - Prof. Mat." 
<nir AT ccet.ufrn.br> wrote:
> chavoux, jim,
> 
> to the best of my knowledge, the proto-sianic alphabet was invented at 
> about 2000 bc. all the evidence indicates that it was used mainly 
> on animal skins. animal skins are not as durable as clay tablets. 
> 
> akkadian, yes, was used in the region, but only in political-economical
> documents between leaders. not, as far as i know, for any religeous 
> purposes.
> 
> now, if we assume that the hebrews did keep a written version of their
> history and faith, which (so far) is just a supposition, i'd rather suppose
> that it was written in proto-sinaic on animal skins than that it was written
> in akkadian. for many reasons, starting with the fact that nobody spoke
> akkadian in the region except one or two scribes.

To be fair, I think you misunderstand what Jim is proposing.  Although
he refers to "Akkadian cuneiform", I think what he means is that the
narrative was written in "cuneiform", i.e., Canaanite/Hebrew written
in cuneiform script, not Akkadian written in cuneiform.  (Jim can
correct me if I'm wrong, but that's *my* understanding.)  After all,
cuneiform was invented for representing Sumerian, and ended up being
used to represent quite a variety of other languages apart from
Akkadian.

-- 
William Parsons
μη φαινεσθαι, αλλ' ειναι.