Page 254 - History of The Quranic Text | Kalamullah.Com

234 THE HISTORY OF THE QUR'ANIC TEXT

Cuneiform and Pharaonic texts from before the Israelites also use such
words as 'Ibn, Hobin, Habiru, Khabiru, and 'Abiru. In this sense the term
'Ibrani, as ascribed to Abraham in the Bible, means a member of the 'Abiru
(or nomadic Arab tribes), of which he was a member. The phrase 'Ibru,
denoting Jews, was coined later on by the rabbis in Palestine. 29

ii. The EarlyJewish Script: Canaanite and Assyrian

The pre-exilic Jewish script was Canaanite." When Aramaic became the
predominant tongue of the ancient Near East, theJews adopted this lan-
guage and soon assumed its script as well - which was then known as
Assyrian."

This ''')\!IN :m:J or simply n''')\!JN Assyrian script' was so called because
it was the originally Aramean form of the 'Phoenician script' which had
been coming into use ... since the 8th century B.C. and which was brought
back by Jews returning from the Exile. The 'square script' (YJ.")J J.n:J)
was derived from this form of the alphabet.V

This square script was not formally designated as Hebrew until the writings
of Bin Sira andJosephus in the first century C.E., and in the Mishna and
Talmud.P all of which are very late developments.
So which language wasthe OT originally written in? From the inform-
ation above we see a process of scriptural evolution: Canaanite, Aramaic
(Assyrian), and fmallysquare, which later on came to be regarded as Hebrew.
We can conclude that, prior to their return from the Babylonian Exile in
538 B.c.E.,Jewsdid not have any means of written communication distinctly
their own. Interestingly Wtirthwein annexes the Canaanite alphabet by
declaring, "This was the Phoenician-Old Hebrew script, the ancestor of all
the alphabets of past and present."34

29 Wilfinson, pp. 73-79.
30 Wilfinson, p. 91.
31 Ernst Wurthwein, The Text qf the OldTestament, 2nd Edition, William B. Eerdmans
Publishing Company, Grand Rapids, Michigan, 1995, pp. 1-2. Cited thereafter as
Wurthwein.
32 ibid, p. 2, footnote 4.
33 Wilfinson, p. 75.
34 Wurthwein, p. 2. Italics added. There is yet another twist to this history of fabri-
cations. Now in Wadi el-Hol in Egypt, near Luxor, a 'Semitic inscription' dated some-
where between 1900 and 1800 B.C.E. has been discovered by Dr. Darnells and his wife
Deborah. - cont.