– Back Cover, Inside –
Excerpts from a book-review
concerning the
TORAH OF
THE ALPHABET in
Orientalia
Christiana Periodica VOL.
51, NO. 1 (1985)
pp.
188–89, edited by the Pontifical
Institute
for Oriental Studies in Rome, Italy.
*
“Eliyahu MOZIANI, Torah of the Alphabet
or
How
the Art of Writing was Taught
under
the
Judges of Israel (1441–1025).
Translated
from
the 2nd German edition by the
author;
2nd English
edition, Baalschem Press
Herborn
1985, pp.
120.
The author,
a retired judge, publishes here,
in a
verypedagogical way – clarity and
illustrative
material are prominent
–, his findings on
the
early use of alphabetic Hebrew.
We are shown,
in clear graphical
representations, what the suc-
cessive
early alphabets looked like . . .
Moziani
develops the theory that
the text of the Deca-
logue –
the ten words of Ex 34 : 27–28 –
figures
among the
earliest monuments of
alphabetic
writing, only a few decades (p.
35) later than the
sphinx protosinaitic
inscriptions of Petrie. Moziani
does
not explain how he
can reconstruct the
original
writing of the
Decalogue, for which
no evidence has
survived, outside the wording of it
preserved
in the Hebrew Bible, in
two slightly
different versions
(Exodus and Deuteronomy).
However, Moziani promises to lay out in
a future
publication the
procedures he has followed
to
obtain his unexpected results
(p.19). We
can
already suppose he depends heavily on
the model
of the Petrie
inscriptions. . . . It is,
however,
Moziani's claim that the
Hebrew alphabet, used
by Moses, lies at
the root of the whole alphabetic
writing. . . .
L. SABOURIN
S.J.”
*
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