Syllabus - The History of the Alphabet from its Invention in 2000 BCE through Arabic Writing (25933)

Required Reading:
Textbook: JosepH naveh, Early History of the Alphabet: An Introduction to West Semitic Epigraphy and Paleography (Jerusalem: Magnes, 1997 [first edition 1982]).

1. What is “writing”?
I. J. Gelb, A Study of Writing (rev. ed.; Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1963), 1-59.

Typology
Frank Moore Cross, “Alphabets and Pots: Reflections on Typological Method in the Dating of Human Artifacts,” Maarav 3 (1982), 121-136, reprinted in Cross, From Epic to Canon: History and Literature in Ancient Israel (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998), 233-245.
Naveh, Early History of the Alphabet, 1-12 &eq; ראשית תולדותיו 1-12.
Stephen A. Kaufman, “The Pitfalls of Typology: On the Early History of the Alphabet,” Hebrew Union College Annual 57 (1986), 1-14.

2. Major non-alphabetic writing systems of the Ancient Near East
Mesopotamian cuneiform
Egyptian hieroglyphs and hieratic
Naveh, Early History of the Alphabet, 13-22 &eq; ראשית תולדותיו 13-22.

3. The invention of the alphabet in an Middle Kingdom Egyptian context
Alan Gardiner, “The Egyptian Origin of the Alphabet,” Journal of Egyptian Archaeology 3 (1916), 1-16.
Gordon J. Hamilton, The Origins of the West Semitic Alphabet in Egyptian Scripts (CBQMS 40; Washington, D.C.: Catholic Biblical Association, 2006), 269-322.
Orly Goldwasser, “Canaanites Reading Hieroglyphs: Horus is Hathor? – The Invention of the Alphabet in Sinai,” Ägypten und Levante 16 (2006), 121-160.
Benjamin Sass, “הכתיבה המצרית של שמות זרים בימי הממלכה התיכונה וראשית האלפבית השמי-מערבי,” Eretz Israel 20 (1989), 44-50.
Benjamin Sass, “The Genesis of the Alphabet and its Development in the Second Millennium B.C.: Twenty Years Later,” de Kêmi à Birīt Nāri: Revue internationale de l’Orient Ancien 2 (2004-2005), 147-166.

4. Wadi el-Ḥôl inscriptions
John Darnell, F. W. Dobbs-Allsopp, Marilyn J. Lundberg, P. Kyle McCarter, Bruce Zuckerman, and Colleen Manassa, Two Early Alphabetic Inscriptions from the Wadi el-Hol: New Evidence for the Origin of the Alphabet from the Western Desert of Egypt (Annual of the American Schools of Oriental Research 2005), 63-124.
David S. Vanderhooft, “Wadi el-Ḥôl Inscription 2 and The Early Semitic Alphabetic Graph *ģ, *ģull-, ‘yoke’,” Hebrew Bible and Ancient Israel 2 (2013), 125-135.

5. Proto-Sinaitic inscriptions
Naveh, Early History of the Alphabet, 23-42 &eq; ראשית תולדותיו 23-41.
William F. Albright, The Proto-Sinaitic Inscriptions and Their Decipherment (Harvard Theological Studies 22; Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1966).
Frank M. Cross, “The Invention and Development of the Alphabet,” in The Origins of Writing (ed. Wayne M. Senner; Lincoln: University of Nebraka Press, 1989), 77-90.
Joseph Lam, “The Invention and Development of the Alphabet,” in Visible Language: Inventions of Writing in the Ancient Middle East and Beyond (ed. Christopher Woods; Oriental Institute Museum Publications 32; Chicago: The Oriental Institute, 2010), 189-195.
Aren Wilson-Wright, “Interpreting the Sinaitic Inscriptions in Context: A New Reading of Sinai 345,” Hebrew Bible and Ancient Israel 2 (2013), 136-148.

6. Proto-Canaanite texts and the second millennium BCE
Frank Moore Cross, Jr. and Thomas O. Lambdin, “A Ugaritic Abecedary and the Origins of the Proto-Canaanite Alphabet,” Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research 160 (1960), 21-26.
Byblos syllabary
Itamar Singer, “Cuneiform, Linear, Alphabetic: The Contest Between Writing Systems in the Eastern Mediterranean,” in Mediterranean Cultural Interaction (ed. Asher Ovadiah; Howard Gilman International Conferences II; Tel Aviv: Tel Aviv University Press, 2000), 23-32.

The Ugaritic adaptation of the alphabet
Dennis Pardee, “The Ugaritic Alphabetic Cuneiform Writing System in the Context of Other Alphabetic Systems,” in Studies in Semitic and Afroasiatic Linguistics Presented to Gene B. Gragg (ed. Cynthia L. Miller; SAOC 60; Chicago: Oriental Institute, 2007), 181-200.

El-Khadr arrowheads
Lachish, Bet Shemesh, and Izbet Ṣarṭah inscriptions

Ryan Byrne, “The Refuge of Scribalism in Iron I Palestine,” Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research 345 (2007), 1-31.
“The Satire on the Trades: The Instructions of Dua-Khety.” In The Literature of Ancient Egypt. Edited by William Kelly Simpson.
Seth L. Sanders, “What Was the Alphabet For? The Rise of Written Vernaculars and the Making of Israelite National Literature,” Maarav 11 (2004), 25-56.
Seth L. Sanders, “Writing and Early Iron Age Israel: Before National Scripts, Beyond Nations and States,” in Literate Culture and Tenth-Century Canaan: The Tel Zayit Abcedary in Context (ed. Ron Tappy; Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2008), 97-112.

7. The Phoenicians and the spread of the alphabet
Advantages to the alphabet?
Naveh, Early History of the Alphabet, 52-63 &eq; ראשית תולדותיו 51-60.
Phoenician trade and communication
Phoenician royal inscriptions
Christopher A. Rollston, “The Dating of the Early Royal Byblian Phoenician Inscriptions: A Response to Benjamin Sass,” Maarav 15 (2008), 57-93, 109-112.

Israel Finkelstein and Benjamin Sass, “The West Semitic Alphabetic Inscriptions, Late Bronze II to Iron IIA: Archeological Context, Distribution and Chronology,” Hebrew Bible and Ancient Israel 2 (2013), 149-210.

8. The alphabet in ancient Israel
Naveh, Early History of the Alphabet, 64-78 &eq; ראשית תולדותיו, 61-76.
Haggai Misgav, “אל"ף–שוֹר, בי"ת–זה בית: כנענים, פיניקים וישראלים,” in עת מקרא 3 (2015).

Ophel pithos
Eilat Mazar, David Ben-Shlomo, and Shmuel Ahituv, “An Inscribed Pithos From The Ophel, Jerusalem,” Israel Exploration Journal 63 (2013), 39-49.
Qeiyafa inscriptions
For the first inscription, from among the many articles, see Reinhard Achenback, “The Protection of Personae Miserae in Ancient Israelite Law and in the Ostracon from Khirbet Qeiyafa,” Semitica 54 (2012), 93-125.
For the second, short, inscription, see Yosef Garfinkel, Mitka Ratzaby Golub, Haggai Misgav, and Saar Ganor, “The ʼIšbaʻal inscription from Khirbet Qeiyafa,” Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research 373 (2015), 217-233.

Adoption of the Phoenician script
Kefar Veradim bowl: Yardenna Alexandre, “A Canaanite-Early Phoenician inscribed bronze bowl in an Iron Age IIA-B burial cave at Kefar Veradim, northern Israel,” Maarav 13 (2006), 7-41.
Gezer Calendar(?)
Christopher A. Rollston, Writing and Literacy in the World of Ancient Israel (Archaeology and Biblical Studies 11; Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2010), 19-82.

Mismatches between the Phoenician alphabet and the Hebrew phonological system: Richard C. Steiner, “On the dating of Hebrew sound changes (ḫ> ḥ and ģ > ‘) and Greek translations (2 Esdras and Judith),” Journal of Biblical Literature 124 (2005), 229-267.

Literacy and scribal education in ancient Israel:
Richard S. Hess, “Writing About Writing: Abecedaries and Evidence for Literacy in Ancient Israel,” Vetus Testamentum 56 (2006), 342-346.
Rollston, Writing and Literacy in the World of Ancient Israel, 91-114, and in greater detail, Rollston, “Scribal Education in Ancient Israel: The Old Hebrew Epigraphic Evidence,” Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research 344 (2006), 47-74.

9. Early Aramaic scripts
Naveh, Early History of the Alphabet, 79-100 &eq; ראשית תולדותיו, 76-99.

10. Other Iron Age Levantine scripts
Naveh, Early History of the Alphabet, 100-112 &eq; ראשית תולדותיו, 100-110.

11. The alphabet as an alphabet, and not a writing system
Ugaritic evidence
Reinhard Lehmann, “27 – 30 – 22 – 26: How Many Letters Needs an Alphabet? The Case of Semitic,” in The Idea of Writing: Writing Across Borders (ed. Alex de Voogt and Joaquim Fredrich Quack; Leiden: Brill, 2012), 11-52.
Abcedaries
Andreas Willi, “Cows, Houses, Hooks: The Graeco-Semitic Letter Names as a Chapter in the History of the Alphabet,” The Classical Quarterly 58 (2008), 401-423.
Biblical acrostics
Mitchell First, “Using the Pe-Ayin Order of the Abecedaries of Ancient Israel to Date the Book of Psalms,” Journal for the Study of the Old Testament 38 (2014), 471-485.
Robert B. Salters, “Acrostics and Lamentations,” On Stone and Scroll (2011) 425-440
Babylonian text

12. The South Semitic scripts
Naveh, Early History of the Alphabet, 43-51 &eq; ראשית תולדותיו, 42-50.

13. The Greek alphabet
Naveh, Early History of the Alphabet, 175-186 &eq; ראשית תולדותיו, 169-180.
Roger D. Woodard, “Greek-Phoenician Interaction and the Origin of the Alphabet,” in Mediterranean Cultural Interaction (ed. Asher Ovadiah; Howard Gilman International Conferences II; Tel Aviv: Tel Aviv University Press, 2000), 33-51.
Barry B. Powell, Homer and the Origin of the Greek Alphabet (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996).
Philippa M. Steele, “Greek Writing Systems,” in Encyclopedia of Ancient Greek Language and Linguistics (ed. Georgios K. Giannakis; Leiden: Brill, 2014), 2.140-146.

14. Developments within Jewish society in the first millennium BCE
Lachish 3
Naveh, Early History of the Alphabet, 112-124 &eq; ראשית תולדותיו, 111-121.
David S. Vanderhooft, “el-mĕdînâ ûmĕdînâ kiktābāh: Scribes and Scripts in Yehud and in Achaemenid Transeuphratene,” in Judah and the Judeans in the Achaemenid Period: Negotiating Identity in an International Context (ed. Oded Lipschits, Gary N. Knoppers, and Manfred Oeming; Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2011), 529-544.
Rabbinic traditions about Ezra; Shlomo Naeh, “על כתב התורה בדברי חז"ל (א): המסורת על החלפת הכתב בידי עזרא,” Leshonenu 70 (2008), 125-143.

15. Latin script and writing
Rex Wallace, “The Origins and Development of the Latin Alphabet,” in The Origins of Writing (ed. Wayne M. Senner; Lincoln: University of Nebraka Press, 1989), 121-135.
W. Sidney Allen, “Appendix C: The Names of the Letters of the Latin Alphabet,” in Vox Latina — a guide to the pronunciation of classical Latin (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1978).

Punic: Phoenician in the Roman world
Robert M. Kerr, “Phoenician–Punic: The View Backward—Phonology versus Paleography,” in Linguistic Studies in Phoenician: In Memory of J. Brian Peckham (ed. Robert D. Holmstedt and Aaron Schade; Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2013), 9-29.

16. Jewish scripts through the Roman period
Naveh, Early History of the Alphabet, 162-174 &eq; ראשית תולדותיו, 157-168.

17. Development of Aramaic scripts
Naveh, Early History of the Alphabet, 125-153 &eq; ראשית תולדותיו, 122-147.
Ryan Byrne, “Asia, Ancient Southwest: Middle Aramaic Scripts,” in Encyclopaedia of Language and Linguistics (2nd edition; ed. Keith Brown; Boston: Elsevier, 2006), 1.505-509.

Syriac
Early inscriptions
Dura Europos

18. Nabatean and Arabic
Naveh, Early History of the Alpbabet, 153-162 &eq; ראשית תולדותיו, 148-156.

Nabatean
Babatha
Petra

Arabic
Beatrice Gruendler, The Development of the Arabic Scripts: From the Nabatean Era to the First Islamic Century (Harvard Semitic Studies 43; Cambridge: Harvard Semitic Museum, 1993).
Beatrice Gruendler, “Arabic Script: Origin,” in Encyclopedia of Arabic Language and Linguistics (ed. Kees Versteegh; Leiden: Brill, 2006), 1.148-155.
David Testen, “On the Arabic of the ‘En ‘Avdat Inscription,” Journal of Near Eastern Studies 55 (1996), 281-292.
James A. Bellamy, “The Arabic Alphabet,” in The Origins of Writing (ed. Wayne M. Senner; Lincoln: University of Nebraka Press, 1989), 91-102.Early from Israel?

Earliest Qur'an
Dan Bilefsky, “A Find in Britain: Quran Fragments Perhaps as Old as Islam,” New York Times, July 22, 2015.

19. Jewish thought about the alphabet
Jewish encounter with the Greek alphabet: Number of books in the Bible – Darshan, Tarbiz
Albert van der Heide, “Mem and Samekh Stood by a Miracle: The Sugya on the Hebrew Script (Shabbat 103a-104a),” Studia Rosenthaliana 38/39 (2005/2006), 137-143.
Sid Z. Leiman, “מקורותיו הרבניים של האלפבית הלטיני: עקבותיה של אגדה ימי-ביניימית אבודה” in תא שמע: מחקרים במדעי היהדות לזכרו ישראל מ' תא-שמע (ed. Avraham [Rami] Reiner, Moshe Idel, Moshe Halbertal, Joseph Hacker, Ephraim Kanarfogel, and Elhanan Reiner; Alon Shvut: Tevunot/Herzog, 2011), 525-531.
Felicia Waldman, “The Mystical and Magical Power of Numbers and Letters in the Jewish Tradition,” Biblische Notizen 137 (2008) 75-104.
Moshe Idel, “Kabbalah, Hieroglyphicity and Hieroglyphs,” Kabbalah 11 (2004), 11-47.