It is one thing to make definitive statements about scripts (even if it is based on a limited scope of things which have been dug up or found), but quite another to make definitive statements about something which leaves no archaeological record behind (spoken language). There is a discussion in the Talmud in tractate Sanhedrin about the various scripts, so it is not as if anyone pretends that they don't exist (I believe one holds that Torah was written in K'tav Ivri with K'tav Ashuri coming into use in Ezra's time; there are other differing opinions as well).

However, if you want to talk about scholarly accuracy (or lack thereof), it is completely inaccurate to call anything emanating from the 2nd millenia BCE "Phoenician". The earliest attestations of the people of the cities of Sidon, Tyre, etc. refer to them as Canaanites, as do - as far as I know - their own identifications of themselves, not distinguishing themselves from the other Canaanites.

The scripts found in the Sinai and in Canaan are called "Proto-Sinaitic" and "Proto-Canaanite". These titles are all well and nice, but they are modern lables, and say nothing about who they were actually carved/written by, and they do nothing to dispute that the language that these symbols identified had already been around the block by that point.

I don't doubt that other peoples spoke versions of what we call Hebrew. I'm sure a Hebrew could go to Tyre, or to Hazor, or Damascus, or to Hebron in the time of Avraham, and they could conserve with the local people - maybe with different accents, a few differences here and there - and largely understand eachother. As far as I know we don't claim to be the only people to have ever spoken this language, or the only people with this alefbet, nor that the vocabulary hasn't expanded over time.

Modern scholarship, archaeology, etc. are all nice, they can serve great purposes, but their ability is limited, and the gaps are filled in with assumptions. Archaerology can show that the tunnel to the water source was built during the reign of Hezekiah, but it can't show that Hashem repelled the Assyrian seige. Archaeology can tell us when written forms or scripts are dated to, but it can't tell us when the languages they represent began being spoken. And as much of a "stretch" as some may believe it to be that G-d created using Hebrew, it is no less a stretch to claim it a historical fact that He didn't. We don't base our belief in this on whether a missionary believes it or would try to use it against us or not.

Netanel

Last Edited By: Netanel Fri, 14-Mar-08 11:53:10. Edited 2 times.