Page 252 - History of The Quranic Text | Kalamullah.Com

232 THE HISTORY OF THE QUR'ANIC TEXT

terms of its own concept of the nation-state."!" To him the social and
political concept of an ancient Israel is thus a whimsical ideal, born of
Europe's own preoccupation with the nation-state in the 1800s. IR

2. The Sources Q/Jewish Literary Culture

i. Original Language of the Old Testament was Not Called Hebrew

The pre-exilic language used byJews was a Canaanite dialect not known
as Hebrew. The Phoenicians (or,more accurately, the Canaanites) invented
the first true alphabet c. 1500 B.C.E., based on letters instead of descriptive
images. All successive alphabets are indebted to and derivative of this
Canaanite accomplishment. 19
In general culture the Canaanites are no less remarkable, and not a
little of that culture was taken over by the Hebrews.... The Hebrews
were not great builders,nor very apt in the arts and crafts.As a result
they had to rely heavilyon the Canaanites in this field, and in others
as well. Hlhatever language theHebrews spoke before settling in Palestine, it was
a dialect if Canaanite that became their language after the settlement-"

Some scholars believe that Hebrew and Aramaic are simply two dialects
of Canaanite." The pre-exilicJewish script was in fact Canaanite.i'' although
it is now falsely designated as old Hebrew or paleo-Hebrew. Abraham
and his descendants formed too small a clan in Canaan to establish their
own unique language, and by necessity they must have used the pre-
dominant Canaanite; it is very unlikely that the Israelites, present in such
small numbers and forced to endure hardship and slavery in Egypt, were
in a position conducive to setting up a new language. At best they may
have adopted a particular Canaanite dialect at some point, but certainly
nothing separate and unique. In fact the OT itself never refers to theJewish
language as Hebrew, as illustrated by these two verses from Isaiah 36:

17 ibid, p. 58.
18 Muslims cannot practice such cynicism; they must believe in the existence of
Davidand Solomon, as well as in the Torah (as revealed to Moses and whose traces
maybe found in some books of the OT).
19 Isra'IlWilfinson, Tar'ikh al-Lugat as-Sdmiyya (History if Semitic Languages), Dar al-
Qalam,Beirut, Lebanon,P.O. Box3874, ND,p. 54. Citedthereafter asWilfmson.
20 Dictionary if the Bible, p. 121; italics added.
21 Wilfinsull, p. 75.
22 Wilfmson, p. 91.