On 11/29/06, Bryant J. Williams III wrote: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.
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?
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