A History of Hebrew Part 7: Old Hebrew to Greek and Aramaic

This is a segment of a much larger video production that I am working on and am looking for feedback (positive and negative) on the layout and content.

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The old-Hebrew alphabet , also called paleo-Hebrew, was adopted by the Greeks around the 12th century BC. While Hebrew is written from right to left, Greek was written from left to right. For this reason, the letters were reversed in the Greek alphabet.

Over the centuries, these ancient Greek letters evolved into their modern Greek forms. Our English alphabet is Roman, and because the Romans adopted the Greek alphabet, we are able to see our own modern English alphabet in these ancient Hebrew turned Greek letters, the A, B, C, D and E.

As previously mentioned, the old Hebrew alphabet was used by all Semitic peoples including the Arameans (also called the Chaldeans), but evolved independently from the Hebrew. By the 5th century BC, the time of the Israelites captivity in Aramea (also called Babylon), it longer resembled the old Hebrew it came from and it is this Aramaic "square" script that Israel adopted during their captivity. With the Aramaic alphabet in use by the Israelites, it continued to evolve into the modern Hebrew letters we are familiar with today.

By the end of the 19th century, the translation of the Semitic alphabet was well established. The only mystery was the origin of this alphabet as mentioned in the 1922 "New Larned History for Ready Reference, Reading and Research" in its entry for the letter A. "A, the initial letter of the English and almost all other alphabets The Phoenicians called the letter "aleph" seemingly because of the resemblance of the character to the head of an ox. Although nothing is known with any degree of certainty concerning the ultimate origin of this letter." --The New Larned History for Ready Reference, Reading and Research, Pub. 1922, Page 1

What the editors of the "New Larned History" did not know, was that this mystery was solved just a few years earlier.

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Credits

Narration: Jeff A. Benner

Graphics: Jeff A. Benner

Music: Callen Clark

Photos: Henri Sivonen

Category:

Education

Tags:

• old
• hebrew
• ancient
• greek
• alphabet
• letters
• aramaic
• aramean

[MrWillieWester]

I don't believe this video because the word Hebrew does not mean language culture or  ethinicity it is a word meaning to cross over...evolved from eber..the crossing or crosser that's trick knowledge People

[ancienthebreworg]

@MrWillieWester I never said the word "Hebrew" means language, culture or ethnicity. I never defined the word "Hebrew" in this series. But you are correct, it does mean to cross over.

[MR1EAR]

@ancienthebreworg Is the word Hebrew defined in the Bible as to 'crossover.' I always wondered why all of a sudden Abram was called the Hebrew...and then the Jews in Egypt were called Hebrews... I understand Israel and Jewish but not Hebrew, Thank you

[ancienthebreworg]

@MR1EAR We know the word eevriy (Hebrew) comes from the root avar, which means "to cross over." The "iy" suffix to eevriy means "one of," so eevriy means "one of Ever (Eber). Abram is called an eevriy because he was descended from Ever. Israelite (or Israeliy in Hebrew) is one descended from Israel (Jacob) and a Yehudiy (Jew) is one descended from Yehudah (Judah).

[1robinsong]

What archeological evidence can you present to prove that the "square script" was adopted during the Babylonian captivity? I'm confused, also, because it seems you said this square script was adopted during their captivity in Aramea? What Bible verses talk about an Aramian captivity? There was an Assyrian captivity, a couple Babylonian captivities, but I have read of no Aramean captivity.

[ancienthebreworg]

@1robinsong The evidence for the adoption of the Aramaic script is found by following what script was used in the history of Israel. Prior to their Babylonian Captivity Israel always used the Old Hebrew script. It is not until the Babylonian captivity that we find Israel using the Aramaic square script. Aramea is another name for Babylon, so the Aramean captivity is the same thing as the Babylonian captivity.

[4anuvis4]

@ItsameAlex Αν είσαι Έλληνας, τότε καλύτερα να μου απαντάς στα Ελληνικά!

[gurgioo]

In my opinion this video is incorrect

Or more accurate to say it's confusing the Hebrew with Phoenician

Ancient Israel was a very minor culture in that period

[marisiram1]

@MrWillieWester

thats correct but you only had half the truth - its only today we call it Hebrew in the Bible its refered to as Judean [see 2 Kings 18) Judean being the word which later became corrupted to Jew for the Jewish People which as u know is ethnic and culture -

[MrAntonios17]

so the hebrows who were nomads had an alphabet before greeks???

and how does the video explain that greeks gave birth to such an enormous civilisation while the hebrows remained nomads???? i mean, they had an alphabet before greeks and....didn't evolve??

so ridiculous!!! we all know how the hebrows like to steal things and make them their own!!

as nomads, wandering around, they adopted things like the phoenician alphabet and others!! videos like this one promote anti-semitism!!

[OKandNOWwhat]

@shaharmos

None. But if your statement were taken as a syllogism, the use of the same alphabet and a concurrent development do not equate two languages. If the words are different, the language is different. Hebrew & Aramaic share many words, as do French and English. But they sound different because they are. Bless you

[Biblehastheanswer]

man this is great! I'd love to learn all of this! I may not get too far before the Lord comes back though.:) not setting dates just saying. Great work! Man I wish I knew this stuff. thanks for the videos. YHWH God bless you in Messiah Jesus.

[shaharmos]

@11111Movie

OLD HEBREW =  ARAMIC

[shaharmos]

@OKandNOWwhat

so what is the connect to SEMITE  LANGUAGES ?