Ohene

As am I, hence this jumpstart..

Sheshbazzar

Most of us "old-timers" here have read hundreds of articles on these subjects, Google search would at least acquaint you with the consensus of most common scholarship on this subject.
Your OP didn't specifically inquire about what form of alphabet was employed in the original composition of The Tanaka, so I did not even attempt to enter that field.

Sarai

This might be of interest to some who posted on this thread, and I didn't see it mentioned in the discussion: Paleo-Hebrew was also used by the authors of the Dead Sea Scrolls, but limited to the Mosaic books, Job, and the Name of God. (Presumably because they were considered ancient and venerable.) The other texts were written in a variety of scripts, but by far the most commonly used one is referred to now as Jewish script, which had only been known to be used for Aramaic until the Qumran scrolls surfaced. Hope this is useful to someone!

semiopen

Thanks Sarai, that's very useful.

Paleo Hebrew Talmud is a good thing to google. There is a discussion in Sanhedrin about the letters, but the sages seemed quite confused about which was first, etc.

This is quite interesting in its own right, but it is a very strong argument for a non Mosaic origin of the Torah and makes the unbroken transmission of the oral law idea quite dubious. These are hardly new revelations for educated people though, but still quite they're worth knowing.

Sarai

Hi Semi-open,

I agree with you. I, myself, have found the argument of Israel Finkelstein very persuasive. He places the likely period of authorship in the 7th century BCE, though he doesn't argue against the texts containing older legends, songs, and story-cycles. For more detailed discussion, his book The Bible Unearthed (with Neil Asher Silberman) is an excellent source. (I'm sorry, I don't know how to do an Amazon link for you--forgive me!)

Clivedurdle

The Talmud may be much later than thought - post Alexander.

Anything earlier that is asserted to be proto - hebrew may actually be a dialect of Phoenician. assume nothing! Especially about fantasy factories!

semiopen

I've read it, but let me try my first Amazon link:

The Bible Unearthed (or via: amazon.co.uk)

Finkelstein used to be considered a radical, but today seems pretty much centrist.

There was a discussion of creation ex nihilo on Chabad and a woman said you can tell it is true by looking at the letters in Bereishit. I asked her how that could be if the letters were different and she reluctantly mentioned it was visible in Paleo Hebrew. Apparently she hesitated because the alphabet change bothers the ultra orthodox (and well it should).

Just a day or so after that, this thread started... a Chabad rabbi would say that proves there is a god.

Sarai

To be honest, the change in the alphabet never registered with me until I started doing some "grunt work" for a Dead Sea Scrolls author. I was so clueless, I didn't even know that the alef-bet I learned in Hebrew school weren't Hebrew letters...at least not originally. But I'm trying to make up for my many years of ignorance now!

Cheers,
Sarai