The history of alphabet in Israel - Essay Example

A limestone boulder was found in Jerusalem, some letters written in Hebrew were found on it, the same led to more research in the same and produced results. "Archaeologists digging in July at the site, Tel Zayit, found the inscribed stone in the wall of an ancient building. After an analysis of the layers of ruins, the discoverers concluded that this was the earliest known specimen of the Hebrew alphabet and an important benchmark in the history of writing, they said this week." (A is for Ancient, 23 September 2008).

The results produced in this research has been supported by many a scholar, they believe that the stones found hold the most oldest and at the same time reliable data written in Hebrew language. It was also found that when the research was made, the Hebrew letters were still in transition from its roots. The stone was discovered by American Researchers and it is believed that the stone is 3000 years old. The stone is supposed to have the oldest form of Hebrew written on it. The weight of the stone is 38 pounds and the alphabets found on it were in proper order, if the scholars are t be believed.

"The stone was discovered July 15 in an excavation at TelZayit, Israel, about 35 miles southwest of Jerusalem on the outskirtsof ancient Judah, by a team led by archeologist Ron E. Tappy ofthe Pittsburgh TheologicalSeminary." (Team Digs, 23 September 2008). The whole research by archeologists is regarded as a very big very big breakthrough, scholars highly value the stone found by the archeologists. It is also believed that Tel Zayit is quite close to another city by the name Timnah, the biblical strong man Samson married a woman who was philistine by origin.

Scholars suggest that the stone found would have been used to train scribes but there is no concrete proof to support this statement. "The Israelites adopted a variation of the Canaanite alphabet and began writing down their historical myths. By around 700 BC, innovative priests had collected the best of these myths and woven them together to form a detailed history of the nation of Israel, intended to convince the Israelites that they were God's chosen people. (The history of ancient Israel, 23 September 2008).

The myths which they came up with were followed by the people and they firmly believed in the myths.Earlier in Israel each word or phrase was very beautifully projected as pictures. This also created a problem because the expressions were many and the pictures were less, so people had to come up with new pictures day and day out in order to meet the requirement of the expressions. Around 3000 BC, a group of people by the name of Phoenicians came up, these people did a lot of work in the development of Israel even at that time when there were very less resources known to man.

They were highly skilled people and knew works like construction of boats, building of ports along the coasts etc. These people gradually had inherited writing from the Sumerians and all this was around 1200 BC. They brought in tremendous changes for better by decreasing the number of symbols in the language, the reduced number was 30 of many symbols. Each symbol carries a meaning and represented a different sound. They believed that putting the symbols into sound conveyed their message better.

"The invention of the Phoenician alphabet allowed written words to better