From: Mark E. Shoulson (mark@kli.org)
Date: Fri May 28 2004 - 09:08:21 CDT
Simon Montagu wrote:
> Mark E. Shoulson wrote:
>
>> Just for some more confusion to add, I note that with the distaste
>> later Pharisaic Judaism had for the Old Hebrew script, there comes a
>> fairly well-accepted, if unsupportable, thesis that the Law was
>> actually *originally* given in Square Hebrew ("Assyrian Script"),
>> which was then changed/forgotten when Israel sinned, and later still
>> restored. See http://www.sacred-texts.com/jud/t08/t0805.htm for some
>> Talmudic discussion of the matter.
>
>
> "Who are meant by Idiots? Said R. Hisda: The Samaritans."
>
> This passage does make me wonder if there wasn't something like a
> political motive for disunification 2,000+ years ago, and the Old
> Hebrew script was avoided for sacred texts just because the Samaritans
> used it (even though the translation of "Hediotim" by "Idiots" is
> probably too strong)
"Idiots" *is* too strong; "hediot" is more like "the common folk, the
hoi polloi" (yes, I know there's a double article there). As for
politics, well, there certainly was no love lost between the Jews and
the Samaritans back then, and it's quite possible (or likely) that this
was a motivating factor in discrediting the Old Hebrew script: to
strengthen the distinction between the two.
~mark
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