That would make it and other very ancient documents possibly decipherable. From Bruce Bower at ScienceNews:
The world’s earliest alphabet, inscribed on stone slabs at several Egyptian sites, was an early form of Hebrew, a controversial new analysis concludes.Israelites living in Egypt transformed that civilization’s hieroglyphics into Hebrew 1.0 more than 3,800 years ago, at a time when the Old Testament describes Jews living in Egypt, says archaeologist and epigrapher Douglas Petrovich of Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo, Canada.
Hebrew speakers seeking a way to communicate in writing with other Egyptian Jews simplified the pharaohs’ complex hieroglyphic writing system into 22 alphabetic letters, Petrovich proposed on November 17 at the annual meeting of the American Schools of Oriental Research. More.
We really don’t know, but who would bet against finding even older writings? Then the big problem is, what do they mean?
See also: Neanderthal artwork: Academic bombshell obliterates “lesser human” theory
Code written in Stone Age art?
and
The search for our earliest ancestors: signals in the noise
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Well, I would imagine they will have trouble getting other scholars to agree with that. No one wants to recognize the possibility of Jews being in Egypt at the time the Bible says. In cases like this, interpretation can easily become bias either way. If confirmed, it would be huge news, but I wouldn’t hold my breath. Still, it is a very interesting idea!
News,
I observe a caption to an illustration:
In the main text:
Note too, this comment in the combox:
This too:
Then, this:
This is almost amusing, but in the end is quite sad:
The scholar has to defend himself (you’re a . . . a . . . CREATIONIST):
If this stuff holds up, it will be the final nail in the coffin for the longstanding JEDP style hypothesis.
(Note my discussion on biblical vs general timelines as a backgrounder for a draft AACCS course here.)
We should not overlook the implicit inferences to intelligently directed configuration as best explaining the scratches on the stones, and also the implications of even tentatively reconstructing text.
So, now, what about the traces of what is obviously the oldest text of all? Namely, that in the heart of the living cell, recorded using molecular nanotechnology?
What does the role of information — and especially textual, digitally coded information — play in understanding our world?
What role should it play?
How are we — individually, institutionally, as a civilisation — responding to this?
Why?
What does that response reveal about the secrets of our hearts?
KF
News,
I happened to run across a work by a Rabbi in my local public library, “Mysteries of the Alphabet,” by Marc-Alain Ouaknin, Abbeville Press 1999, translated from French.
This seems to argue much as the above, though of course there will be updated evidence and argument over the course of 20 years.
On its contents, there has been discussion along these lines for over 100 years, but of course stoutly resisted by the establishment.
This book traces the evolution of each letter, and raises one striking point to me: a connexion to the prohibition on idols in the decalogue. Obviously, Egyptian paganism pervades everything in that culture, including its hieroglyphs. (Think, magical spells and their representation in hieroglyphs as just one illustration. Even the gods are magicians in Egyptian mythology.)
Likewise, we can infer that discomfort at idolatrously tied images and representations would have been present in Hebraic culture long before the Exodus — all they had to do is observe their neighbours and oppressors in Egypt.
So, it makes inherent sense that they would seek to abstract away from tainted stylised drawings to representing sounds, while retaining some degree of connexion to the existing body of learning.
This would of course then trigger the crucial abstraction found in alphabetic writing, and the tendency would continue across generations. Alphabetic text and similar number-symbols, of course, are foundational to digital code; starting with the principle of distinct, recognisable identity so that we can represent sounds, values, and onward colours, signals etc through codes of digital — discrete state — character. So, all of this is very important.
A second major point in this book, is that the alphabetic principle spread far and wide, as far as Java and Cambodia to the E and of course to the N and W in Europe. Egypt itself devised an alphabetic script, demotic IIRC. Though, eventually Coptic script is obviously modified from Greek.
So, let us see how the balance on the merits pans out.
KF