Invention of Alphabet (Old Testament)

About the year 1500 BC alphabetic writing was practiced by the Phoenicians, but in Palestine the syllabic Babylonian cuneiform was in use (see ALPHABET). The Israelites probably did not employ any form of writing in their nomadic state, and when they entered Canaan the only script they seem ever to have used was the Phoenicia. This is not disproved by the discovery there of two cuneiform contracts of the 7th century, as these probably belonged to strangers. There is only one alphabet in the world, which has taken many forms to suit the languages for which it was employed. This original alphabet was the invention of the Semites, for it has letters peculiar to the Semitic languages, and probably of the Phoenicians (so Lucan, Pharsalia iii. 220; compare Herodotus v. 58), who evolved it from the Egyptian hieroglyphics.

This biblical study was taken from the International Standard Bible Encyclopedia Edited by James Orr, published in 1939 by Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co