Peter Kirby

(I, and others, do see the Hebrew letters.)

As a reader, change your Latin-based font to one that supports Hebrew characters, such as Palatino Linotype or Arial Unicode MS.

As a writer, indicate a list of Unicode Hebrew supporting fonts around the text, like [FONT = "Arial Unicode MS", "Palatino Linotype ] Hebrew [ / FONT ].

Does anyone know of other commonly installed fonts that support Unicode Hebrew? I could add that info to the "Recommended Reading" page.

Anyway, the Unicode method is recommended, because you need only have any Unicode font (and most do), instead of having the exact font that the writer uses. Aside from transliteration, Unicode is the standard.

best,
Peter Kirby

Doctor X

Thank you . . . I am still having a problem with my browsers going to "old pages."

I will try your idea as I "clean" my computer.

--J.D.

Doctor X

Erm . . . those two are not in my list of fonts . . . anyway one can get them?

--J.D.

Peter Kirby

Arial Unicode MS comes with Office 2000 and can be downloaded here:

13.3 MB Download

best,
Peter Kirby

Marduk

CJD said:
“I can affirm all that you say except for the derivative bit, because I think said books are connected with ancient Near Eastern myths only in that they serve as a clear polemic against those myths.”

I don’t know, they seem like more of an adaptation of those myths to suit their own purposes. IMHO anyway.

CJD

Marduck, maybe you're reading into my words that I think the stories are totally independent. They are not. My contention, however, is just because certain myths were circulating before biblical writings were actually written down, does not necessarily mean that said writings are mere adaptions. It could, in fact, be the other way around (in that earlier ancient Near Eastern myths got some things right, but other things altogether wrong). In other words, order of appearance, I think, is irrelevant when dealing with anything over-arching, principial, or foundational (i.e., "meta").

What are your reasons for disagreeing with this concept?

Regards,

CJD

Marduk

“What are your reasons for disagreeing with this concept?”

It’s the order of appearance business, you have to go with what you’ve got to look at. For the Babylonian/Sumerian texts we have hard copies going back 4000 years whereas the oldest Old Testament fragments only date to 100 BCE or so. Just as it’s hard to find any traces of Hebrew monotheism dating prior to the Babylonian exile in 570 BCE. Someone already mentioned a very good book on this
Cannanite Myth and Hebrew Epic by Cross. Also “Unearthing the Bible” by Finkelstein.

Jackalope

So what about those of us who aren't Windows users? I was happy that I finally found a generic font named "hebrew" that works. For MacOS of various flavors, you only seem to be able to get the unicode fonts if you install the entire language pack. Anyone have pointers? Apple's support site was useless as far as this issue goes. I'm not downloading the entire OS again just to hunt for font packs.

Peter Kirby

I use Windows, Linux, and Macintosh OS X on my various machines at home. It is possible to install Arial Unicode MS on Linux or on MacOS, since it is just another truetype font. The only problem is that the installer thingy that I linked to above won't work. You need to find the font in a TTF file, either on the web or on a Windows machine. Or you can use another font like Palatino Linotype (I'm sure there are others too). Hope that helps.

best,
Peter Kirby