Page:Jewish Encyclopedia Volume 1.pdf/487

439 "

Yoma. 696 and Sauh. 64n, the following is re"The men of the Great Synagogue prayed God to remove from the earth the Evil Spirit, as

In

latiil:

to

the cause of

the

all

manifestly an expansion of

.strokes J. (D) is

nOX

W

('I'ruth)

written

thereon, and theren ])on a tiery lion eame out of the sanetiiary. It wa.s the

of Idolatry

Spirit Aiilir|ue Flnfrer-RlnR Bearinir the

Alpha and OmeKa, Fcmiul at lUuue. (From Vlporoni, "

Dli-t.

dc

U

Blblf.")

leaving sjiid

legend show.s. H. llanina. "that

the seal of

— Truth."

More light

the earth.

" Thi.s

God

is

nON

thrown on the passage (Yer. Y'el). xii. 13rt. Gen. K. l.xxxi.), where the verse (Dan X. 21), "I sliall show thee what is marked iiiion the writing of truth

lowing "

" {luketn/j

emet)

is

(iXAamvd in the

fol-

Whateverdeeree bears thi'signum of iinmutable for. .Siiys Simon lien I.akish

niaiuier:

nON.

N is

is

the ali^habet

is



first.

D the middle, andn the last letter of

— this

the

being the name of God according to 6 explained Yer. Sanh. i. ISa: 'I am the first Ihavinghad none from whom to receive the kingdom] I am the miildle. there being none who .shares the kingdom with me; [audi am the last], there being none to whom 1 shall hand the kingdom of the world.'" Evidently the original utterance in the Apocalypse referred to (!od (and not to Jesus). careful investigation of the j^assage. however, makes it quite probable that the whole was originally writ ten in Hebrew with reference to the verse in Daniel, anil owing to its being translated into Greek, the connection between vers, riandjfi, viz., the reference to nOK, was lost. Cimipare Justin's "Address to tlie Greeks." xxv.. which says: " Plato, when mystically (•xpressing the attributes of God's etcrniiy. sjud. 'God i.s, as the old tradition runs, the end and the middle of all things' plainly alluding to the law of Moses. " Compare also Irenieus, " Ad versus HasreIsa. xliv.

^

©

(fl);

(O)

la Calle

is

merely

X (n). enclosed in a circle: again In' the addition of a horizontal line between the top and bottom

trouble. Iinnicdiately u seriill fell fmin hciiM'M « ilh Ihi- word

Go).

may

it

from

(v)

be impossible to determine

what mcc the inventor of these letwas. Iliealiibabet undoubtedly received these ex-

with certainty ters

fif

pansions from a Semite. If it lie conceded that the names of the letters of the alphabet originated with the sjune man. then, since their form is Aramaic, one could say that he was an Aramean but they may also have arisen .somewhat later. The names for the characters were chosen with reference to near-by things, such as jiarls of the body and other objects of tile daily life ]ieculiar to the Bedouins, the name of each of which began with the very sound the letter indicated. In a few cases the ntimes seem to have lieen diTived from the form which the sign represented. These names, as well as the order of the letters, certainly existed at least one thousand years n.c., for they were known when the Greeks adopted their alphabet from the Semites. At this period the alphabet must already have undergone local variations among the different ethnical groups of the northern



A



ses," xiv.

3.

BtBLIOORAPHY



GfrOrer, GtMliichte dex VrchrUttenthtimn.

ALPHABET, THE HEBRE'W



ij.

The chanic

the lletinw AI|ihulM-t arc derived from the 8o-<-alled Phenician or Old .Scmilie letters, to which almost all systems of letters now in use, even the Koman, can be traced. But this latter is in mediate relation only In the original source, while the Hebrew Alphaiiet has kept closer to the primitive signs. In spite of the great progress made in Senntie paleogniphy during the last decades, which enables the student to follow, step by step, the sevenil styles of <huracter8 used by the various Semitic peoples from the ninth century n.c. down to the iiresent day. no opinion can as yet lie expressed with any certainty as to the origin of llie.s<' eharaeters. Attempts have repiiitedly been made to derive them Oripin of from the Egyptians (see nibliogni|iliy Alphabet. 1. at end), or fnun lh<' Habyloinan l!iblioi;raphy '*». lint with indifferent success. The ri'ason for this uncerlainty lies per liaps in the fact that the oldest known fnrms of these letters come from a time that had been preceded by II long period of developiiK'ni. during which time the chariKtirs themselves may have undergone important nicMliliealions It may also be siud with a certain amount of probability that the alphabet did not possess from tlie l)eginning all the lers

lit

Semites.

The most important monument

written in alpha-

betical characters of this epoch comes from a territory closely bordering on Palestine. Not only does the language of this section greatly resemble the Hebrew, but the writing already exhibits a coloring which a])|)roaches theepigraphic monumentsof Palestine. This is the famous Moabite stone, which was discovered in lS(s by the Alsjitian missionary Klein Various governnear Dibon in the land nf Moab. ments attempted to obtain posses.sion of this valuable stone: and when Turkey began to participate in ihe strife, the Bedouins, from intense Moabite hatred of the Turks, broke it into bits.

greater part of the fragments were, however, recovered and placed This monuin the ^luseum of the Louvre in Paris. ment dates from Jlesha. king of Moab. mentioned in II Kings, iii. 4. who describes upon it his victorious wars a.gainst Israel and his doings in the interior of his land. The language, with slight deviations, is Hebrew, and reads almost like a chapter from the Book of Kings. The form of the letters is already One iieculiarity which the ines.sentially cursive.

The

Stone.

monument have

scriptions on this

common with

in

latter idiom has developed namily, the tendstill further, is of special interest ency to bend the stems of the letters which slant to the left, so as to bring them nearer to the letter that follows, and also to extend the letters more in the width than in their length or i>erpendicular di-

Hebrew, and which the



These are the eigiil lines of Ihe inscription transliterati'd into the later Hebrew chaniclers, according to Lid/barski's "Hundbucli." Plate I. See mension.

Mo.MiiTK Stonk. and Bibliography

3.

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cimnicters that

it

now

contains.

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8

Palestinian monuments of the earliest antiquity arc very rare. From the preexilic time there exists but