Ancient Hebrew & related matters

[andrew]

What do you guys mean by "government church"?

I mean simply a church that is organized and operates under the authority of the secular government—in other words, (in the U.S.) any incorporated 501(c)(3) church.

Any legal corporation is a department of the government as a matter of law. Did you think that grant of limited liability from the State (formerly, the Crown) came with no strings attached? Any 501(c)(3) corporation comes under further regulation by the IRS that limits its operations and specifically its finances and the content of its preaching.

In other words, corporate churches (another term I use frequently*) occupy approximately the same space in the U.S. that the state church did in the U.S.S.R.—they are authorized and controlled by the government for the benefit of the government.

Again, no judgment (yet), just straight basic legal doctrine.

Anecdote: About 25 years ago, I was looking something up under the Corporation entry in an Encyclopedia Americana of a 1940s-ish vintage, and I saw something that about knocked me out of my chair. I was investigating the origins of the theory of corporations, and found a real gem. Quoting some legal beagle (name long ago forgotten by me) of several centuries ago: "The state forms the corporation from the dust of the ground, and breathes into its nostrils the breath of life." I kid you not.

Ask me sometime about what I see as the difference between "incorporation" and "incarnation"....

Anyway, @IshChayil, hope that answers your question.

-------

* Other terms include ChurchCorp and MacChurch....

 

[FollowingHim]

Although the majority of scholars do hold to a view that Genesis was either authored by Moses from direct inspiration and/or oral accounts, or authored by later scribes and attributed to Moses, I find this difficult to accept. Why would mankind live for thousands of years without getting around to figuring out how to write? Why would the pre-flood men who invented tools and even musical instruments, not write anything down? It just doesn't make sense to me.

On the other hand, the Tablet Theory, that Genesis is a series of tablets belonging to Adam, Noah, Terah and others that were then compiled into a single volume by Moses, makes a whole lot more sense, because it does appear to agree with the internal structure of Genesis itself (which is broken into many sections divided by "these are the generations of", which no other book is). It also agrees with Genesis 5:1, which states "this is the book of the generations of Adam". What book is being referred to here? The whole of Genesis, or a smaller document that is just about "the generations of Adam" and has been compiled into Genesis? For more info click here and here.

If so, then writing pre-dated Egyptian civilisation. The first writers were not Egyptian scribes, but rather the early patriarchs - Adam, Enoch, Noah etc. If so, they must have had a written alphabet. What was this alphabet? Could it be what is termed "paleo-hebrew"? Moses undoubtebly learned to write in Egypt, it was where he was educated, but his source material could have been far more ancient.

Josephus states that before the flood, Seth's descendents made two pillars, of stone and brick, and wrote on those all they knew about astronomy. This account is preserved with a few differences in other ancient documents also. If this has any basis in fact, then again, writing pre-dated the flood.

The book of Job appears to be set before Moses. There is a lot of disagreement about when it was actually written, but if it was written at the ancient time that the book itself would suggest, that too would require writing to pre-date Moses. If Job was written originally in Hebrew, then Hebrew writing pre-dated Moses.

The book of Enoch could well be inaccurate and written later - but if it was authored by Enoch, then that too requires much earlier writing.

These examples just show that the Tablet Theory is plausible, because there is other evidence of writing at that early stage. If so, this must have been in a language that Moses understood. Given that Abraham's line was chosen to deliver the scriptures to mankind, it would make sense for them to be allowed to keep the original pre-flood language, while all others were changed at Babel, to ensure no knowledge of God was lost and there would always be a witness for Him on the earth. This again would mean that Hebrew was the original written language.

If the original tablet outlining Genesis 1 was written by God and given to Adam, so he would know how the world was created, then Adam may have actually been given both written and oral language at the same time, and may have not had to invent it at all. If so, there could be expected to be a strong linkage between the written form and the meanings of the words.

I don't know if this is correct, we really cannot know. But I am a scientist, and I know that science is not decided by majority opinion, but rather the simplest hypothesis that explains all the evidence tends to be correct. The idea that Adam was given written and oral language, and that this language was Hebrew, with the Israelites chosen to preserve this ancient language, just makes so much sense.

 

[IshChayil]

I mean simply a church that is organized and operates under the authority of the secular government—in other words, (in the U.S.) any incorporated 501(c)(3) church.

Any legal corporation is a department of the government as a matter of law. Did you think that grant of limited liability from the State (formerly, the Crown) came with no strings attached? Any 501(c)(3) corporation comes under further regulation by the IRS that limits its operations and specifically its finances and the content of its preaching.

In other words, corporate churches (another term I use frequently*) occupy approximately the same space in the U.S. that the state church did in the U.S.S.R.—they are authorized and controlled by the government for the benefit of the government.

Again, no judgment (yet), just straight basic legal doctrine.

Anecdote: About 25 years ago, I was looking something up under the Corporation entry in an Encyclopedia Americana of a 1940s-ish vintage, and I saw something that about knocked me out of my chair. I was investigating the origins of the theory of corporations, and found a real gem. Quoting some legal beagle (name long ago forgotten by me) of several centuries ago: "The state forms the corporation from the dust of the ground, and breathes into its nostrils the breath of life." I kid you not.

Ask me sometime about what I see as the difference between "incorporation" and "incarnation"....

Anyway, @IshChayil, hope that answers your question.

-------

* Other terms include ChurchCorp and MacChurch....

Yikes!!!!

You know I did study abroad for a half year in college in Russia, interned with non-profit groups and stayed on doing non-profit work leave of absence from school for a while. WHen I was a student there, I had to write a paper on Pyotr Veliky, Peter the Great. The equiv. to Encylopedia Britanica was the
"Soviet Encyclopedia". NO internet back then, just usenet.
I looked up Peter the great and stumbled across The Apostle Peter. I'll never forget that introduction line. In Russian it said
"Fiktivniy posledovatel mifologicheskogo Xrista" = "Fictitious follower of the mythological Christ"!!!!!
Talk about state church. Same Satan different country.

 

[Verifyveritas76]

I did some more research and realized that I was calling Paleo Hebrew was actually Ancient Hebrew or more accurately Proto Semitic. The proto semitic does predate the phonecian by several hundred years and is pictographic while not being hieroglyphic. And it is alphabetical.

 

[Mojo]

I did some more research and realized that I was calling Paleo Hebrew was actually Ancient Hebrew or more accurately Proto Semitic. The proto semitic does predate the phonecian by several hundred years and is pictographic while not being hieroglyphic. And it is alphabetical.

That's what I remembered reading. Where? I can't recall.

In summary, no matter how much we think we know about human civilization/language/ancient cultures, etc. we probably know only half of what we think we know.

Regardless, my simple answer to women preaching??? No.

 

[Verifyveritas76]

That's what I remembered reading. Where? I can't recall.

In summary, no matter how much we think we know about human civilization/language/ancient cultures, etc. we probably know only half of what we think we know.

The book I referenced by Dr Miles Jones is an excellent resource for history about Sinai.

I know what you mean about ancient history. Realizing that Hebrew was essentially a dead language that has been resurrected in recent history, it always amazes me how academics projext that because they have been more educated on a subject that they (or people that they recognize to be) are now the "authority" on the topic. As you stated, if collectively, we know only a portion of that history, what hubris to compare credentials or to attempt to discredit another based on someone not being "credentialed" by a particular group. It reminds me of the Gamaliel/Hillel controversy. Kind of laughable really!

 

[Verifyveritas76]

Sir Isaac Newton for example was despised by his so called peers because he didn't care what they thought of his methods. Funny how nobody even knows who they were unless they research them!

 

[IshChayil]

I did some more research and realized that I was calling Paleo Hebrew was actually Ancient Hebrew or more accurately Proto Semitic. The proto semitic does predate the phonecian by several hundred years and is pictographic while not being hieroglyphic. And it is alphabetical.

Both terms are acceptable.
You're right about timing and terms. Often when I reply here my response is a page long so I choose my battles to make the response bearable.

The book I referenced by Dr Miles Jones is an excellent resource for history about Sinai.

I know what you mean about ancient history. Realizing that Hebrew was essentially a dead language that has been resurrected in recent history, it always amazes me how academics projext that because they have been more educated on a subject that they (or people that they recognize to be) are now the "authority" on the topic. As you stated, if collectively, we know only a portion of that history, what hubris to compare credentials or to attempt to discredit another based on someone not being "credentialed" by a particular group. It reminds me of the Gamaliel/Hillel controversy. Kind of laughable really!

Thanks for the Jones reference; he in no way makes any claim that the original shapes of the letters bear any meaning on the words right? Isn't Jones more about Sinai is really in Saudi etc? ....

Well so far...I agree with you in principle...this is how people become successful in business; doing the opposite of what the majority says is true (often)..but in the case of semitic linguistics there hasn't been any evidence to suggest how we can overturn the status quo linguistic position.
If you have some credible evidence I'd love to see it and I'd love to be wrong on this.
Sometimes, and just sometimes, the experts really do know what they are talking about...
but when we refer to an expert who bases his work on STrong's concorance for Hebrew definitions; I've personally seen numerous mistakes in Strongs when people sent me definitions or questions who were using an interlinear based on strongs.
So if our evidence is coming from a supposed expert (Benner and his Paleo-Hebrew site) who is using bad data as his foundation.
It's OK to not have credentials, but if someone comes without credentials to play with the big boys, he really better bring it. Strong bibliography, and strong references.
Not shoddy work based on a the weak foundation that is strongs exhaustive concordance.
I have to call foul. You feel me?

---- let's be sure we are still discussing the same thing... do pictures that letters originally represented have any bearing on a language that was spoken before it was written? -----

 

[IshChayil]

Sir Isaac Newton for example was despised by his so called peers because he didn't care what they thought of his methods. Funny how nobody even knows who they were unless they research them!

Newton was despised because he was a weirdo who never married and had bad social skills and refused to admit that Liebnez shared ideas in mail regarding his and Liebnez' ideas on Calculus.
Liebnez openly admitted he had contact with Newton but Newton couldn't handle the fact that someone else was as brilliant as he was.

 

[IshChayil]

Although the majority of scholars do hold to a view that Genesis was either authored by Moses from direct inspiration and/or oral accounts, or authored by later scribes and attributed to Moses, I find this difficult to accept. Why would mankind live for thousands of years without getting around to figuring out how to write? Why would the pre-flood men who invented tools and even musical instruments, not write anything down? It just doesn't make sense to me.

On the other hand, the Tablet Theory, that Genesis is a series of tablets belonging to Adam, Noah, Terah and others that were then compiled into a single volume by Moses, makes a whole lot more sense, because it does appear to agree with the internal structure of Genesis itself (which is broken into many sections divided by "these are the generations of", which no other book is). It also agrees with Genesis 5:1, which states "this is the book of the generations of Adam". What book is being referred to here? The whole of Genesis, or a smaller document that is just about "the generations of Adam" and has been compiled into Genesis? For more info click here and here.

If so, then writing pre-dated Egyptian civilization. The first writers were not Egyptian scribes, but rather the early patriarchs - Adam, Enoch, Noah etc. If so, they must have had a written alphabet. What was this alphabet? Could it be what is termed "paleo-hebrew"? Moses undoubtebly learned to write in Egypt, it was where he was educated, but his source material could have been far more ancient.

Josephus states that before the flood, Seth's descendents made two pillars, of stone and brick, and wrote on those all they knew about astronomy. This account is preserved with a few differences in other ancient documents also. If this has any basis in fact, then again, writing pre-dated the flood.

The book of Job appears to be set before Moses. There is a lot of disagreement about when it was actually written, but if it was written at the ancient time that the book itself would suggest, that too would require writing to pre-date Moses. If Job was written originally in Hebrew, then Hebrew writing pre-dated Moses.

The book of Enoch could well be inaccurate and written later - but if it was authored by Enoch, then that too requires much earlier writing.

These examples just show that the Tablet Theory is plausible, because there is other evidence of writing at that early stage. If so, this must have been in a language that Moses understood. Given that Abraham's line was chosen to deliver the scriptures to mankind, it would make sense for them to be allowed to keep the original pre-flood language, while all others were changed at Babel, to ensure no knowledge of God was lost and there would always be a witness for Him on the earth. This again would mean that Hebrew was the original written language.

If the original tablet outlining Genesis 1 was written by God and given to Adam, so he would know how the world was created, then Adam may have actually been given both written and oral language at the same time, and may have not had to invent it at all. If so, there could be expected to be a strong linkage between the written form and the meanings of the words.

I don't know if this is correct, we really cannot know. But I am a scientist, and I know that science is not decided by majority opinion, but rather the simplest hypothesis that explains all the evidence tends to be correct. The idea that Adam was given written and oral language, and that this language was Hebrew, with the Israelites chosen to preserve this ancient language, just makes so much sense.

Hardly the easiest solution as it begs the question "why does the bible never make mention of this?" Much of the torah is painfully literal; even mentioning the manna put in a jar and carried around; I have to think Moses would have written at least once regarding these "generational tablets".

In ancient times it was not so strange for someone to have the entire tanakh memorized.
There are people today who have done this. Many children in Israel have the Torah memorized.
Today our bodies and mind function are degraded as we are farther and farther from the fall.
In science, we can have a hypothesis but there has to be evidence to back it up. We can't just say "I think it's the easiest solution therefore true" and count that as an observation (OK maybe in some of the soft sciences like Biology or Geology)

Furthermore, you don't take a geologist and have him critique a physics paper. Specialization increasingly makes cross-discipline work harder and harder to do. In the past Chemistry and Physics were closely related now they are not; how much more so any traditional mode of science and comparitive linguistics. Worlds apart.
I accept the possibility that perhaps the alphabet used in Hebrew may have actually been invented by non-pagans and we just haven't found much evidence yet but some day we may. We can see, however, that for our faith this is unnecessary as we can clearly agree that the New Testament has been passed down in a language invented by pagans, Greek and we still benefit from it. How much more so is it not a problem for just the alphabet of the other part of the bible to have been invented by pagans.
I don't understand why so much attention has been focused on this aspect in this thread. We are talking about an alphabet verses an entire language.
We accept Greek so why is it a liberal conspiracy suddenly for Hebrew to use someone else's alphabet? But if it's important for whatever reason, then we can accept that hypothesis. It may be true and I would like that it was true but more so I'd prefer that we had the Hebrew/Aramaic New Testament than the Greek. That's a much much larger problem than which alphabet changed when.
entire language (Greek) vs alphabet only (Hebrew)

The only light I wished to shed was that linguistically there has been no credible claim to the OLD Hebrew alphabet original pictures having any bearing on the meaning of a word. As a student of Egyptian which did function this way I don't see how any of the loose claims about "Paleo Hebrew" letters affect the words in any way. They are pretty to look at and hold peoples' attention but IMHO that would be time better spent actually studying the word or the biblical languages even if there aren't pretty pictures in those books.

peace
***offense disclaimer-I don't know which field of science you are in so if you happen to be a geologist or biologist I just randomly selected 2 fields of soft science that came to mind; it's not aimed at you. Feel free to make fun of the applied sciences-I'll laugh along with you, Dilbert style ***

 

[Mojo]

Sir, I am smart enough to know not to bring a pocket knife to a nuclear war. You, sir, have a linguistic arsenal I cannot dream of competing with. But I think what vv76 and I are positing just from a theoretical standpoint is that expertise in a certain field (linguistics, anthropology, even theology) is limited to exposed, discovered, or revealed evidence and knowledge.

Every generation changes in "how" it uses words, and even we English speakers might have a hard time understanding each other completely should we travel from Belize, to Australia, to New Zealand, to India, and then Great Britain, not even accounting for accent and dialect! Unless we lived then, we are limited in our complete understanding of not only language but culture.

I believe the reference to Newton was really in regards to those who bring a paradigm shift to a certain field are often ridiculed by the elite experts of their day. The prophets of old, down to Yeshua Hamashiach himself can attest to this.

In terms of experts in a field (linguistics included) those experts are not immune to tunnel vision and mieopia. The Einstellung effect attests to this. We can become so "expert" that we close out all other modes of thinking or problem solving. I don't need to be a meteorologist, physicists, or astronomer to see that "climate change science" seems to be bad science. But, the elite experts cannot be told otherwise without claiming heresy upon others.

Paul, the Apostle and John the Revelator talked of seeing through a glass darkly, or not being able to fully explain the spiritual revelations they were given, because mere words could not do them justice. These men were theologians of the very first order, but both knew their limitations. Humility to know how much you just don't know is the mark of a great expert.

So, just trying to give you our perspective from the plebeian/layman side of the coin.

 

[rustywest4]

I've always loved and leaned towards the "Tablet Theory" mentioned by FH...

Adam was homeschooled by YHVH Himself in the garden? ... come on... that rocks! Lol

:bible:

 

[IshChayil]

Sir, I am smart enough to know not to bring a pocket knife to a nuclear war. You, sir, have a linguistic arsenal I cannot dream of competing with. But I think what vv76 and I are positing just from a theoretical standpoint is that expertise in a certain field (linguistics, anthropology, even theology) is limited to exposed, discovered, or revealed evidence and knowledge.

Every generation changes in "how" it uses words, and even we English speakers might have a hard time understanding each other completely should we travel from Belize, to Australia, to New Zealand, to India, and then Great Britain, not even accounting for accent and dialect! Unless we lived then, we are limited in our complete understanding of not only language but culture.

I believe the reference to Newton was really in regards to those who bring a paradigm shift to a certain field are often ridiculed by the elite experts of their day. The prophets of old, down to Yeshua Hamashiach himself can attest to this.

In terms of experts in a field (linguistics included) those experts are not immune to tunnel vision and mieopia. The Einstellung effect attests to this. We can become so "expert" that we close out all other modes of thinking or problem solving. I don't need to be a meteorologist, physicists, or astronomer to see that "climate change science" seems to be bad science. But, the elite experts cannot be told otherwise without claiming heresy upon others.

Paul, the Apostle and John the Revelator talked of seeing through a glass darkly, or not being able to fully explain the spiritual revelations they were given, because mere words could not do them justice. These men were theologians of the very first order, but both knew their limitations. Humility to know how much you just don't know is the mark of a great expert.

So, just trying to give you our perspective from the plebeian/layman side of the coin.

You made me laugh out loud with that "pocket knife to a nuclear war" comment.
Thanks for that; I think I'll co-opt it if you don't mind.

Yes, I agree with you all of those statements you made make perfect sense and are often true.

In this case though, the language just does not function pictorially. It never has. Even if we just do a thought experiment we can see how silly the idea is.
Adam, is talking to G-d.
He hears and understands the words. He decides to invent an alphabet to write them down.
He and G-d have fairly deep conversations in the garden.
So Adam makes a picture of a head. "this will make the sound 'r'" he says.
And he uses it to write the word head, mountain peak (head of the mountain) etc. So far so good.
First letter is picture of a head, first sound is an "r" (kind of), and it makes sense symbolically and phonetically.
now fast forward... He wants to write down about the wicked Satan, or one of his descendants does.
So he thinks ... "hmmmm what picture should I use to make the 'r' sound in 'rasha' (wicked)? "I Know, I'll pick the only letter in the 22 letter alphabet that makes that sound, the head thingy"
"But wait" Adam pauses. I don't want to imply any head or mountain peak qualities to the word "wicked". "Oh no, I'm stuck because I already said 'head-shape' makes an 'r' sound so now EVERY SINGLE WORD WITH AN 'R' ***MUST**** use the HEAD sign!"
Wow I sure was silly to pick this system. But wait, I can do like the Egyptians did; I'll just make tons of signs that all can make an 'r' sound so then I REALLY CAN add nuance to my words by choosing which 'r' sound to make!

Only Adam, or whoever didn't do that with Hebrew/ Paleo-Hebrew/ Proto-semetic / whatever.
Do you see the absolute absurdity of this method?

Years later someone comes along and says "hey cool these were once pictures" and tries to apply deeper meanings to the words based on those pictures but we only have 22!
If Adam, or whoever created this alphabet of 22 letters did intend to use the things this way, to give a extra nuanced meaning to a word based on the pretty pictures,
then it may have worked for the first 10 words he made or so... but as you can see unless you scale it like Egyptian or other languages with writing systems that can support this structure (Khanji, etc) then he's out of luck after the first 10 or so words because now, each letter makes a unique sound different from all the rest (some argue samekh and sin don't but we have shin for that... another discussion).
Can you see the problem? Forget deep linguistic research, etc. .. It just won't work.

It's kind of like, those Nostradamas prophecies that keep popping up *AFTER* something happens. People get fascinated "oh wow the 2 brothers are the 2 towers in 911...etc".
it's similar with this sort of word interpretation based on the original pictures the letters represented.
Every single word is written with the letters that were used becuase...wait for it....
*THERE WAS NO OTHER CHOICE TO MAKE A 'd' sound or 'th' sound or 'sh' sound****!!!
The shin looked like teeth because that's what the name of the letter implies (not breasts, teeth btw).
Shin means "tooth".

I hope this message brings it on home. If there really is a deeper significance to the pictures of the letters then we should be able to apply that system today.
Write for me the word "tablet" in Hebrew, and please pick symbols to make it have a nuance about Head of household (because it's a judgement table or whatever)
You can't do it because there is only one way to write that word... PHONETICALLY. I don't get to choose to use the Aleph for the strength of an Oxe or the Reish for the "HEAD".
We don't get to choose those signs because ... wait for it... SEMITIC LANGUAGES DON"T WORK THAT WAY.
It's an alphabet, much more phonetic than English. Spelling is dead easy in Hebrew. You write it like it sounds. No trickery, there are no spelling bees in Israel because everyone can spell. It's not hard to spell like English is.
If you can hear it, you can spell it. And there are only 22 letters to worry about not 26.
I taught one student, years ago, to read and write Hebrew in 45 minutes (just focusing on the sounds the letters make not the names of the letters to streamline). Then we'd leave notes on the whiteboard in the lab to each other in Hebrew letters (representing English) about our coworkers---humorously.

If you want to make a language where the pictographic overtones have a bearing on the word, you MUST MUST MUST provide ample variants of pictures for EACH sound.
In ancient Egyptian they had tons of pictures that made an 'r' sound so you can actually pic a variant spelling in order to get your overtone across.
You can write the king's name as snakes and phallus (yep that's a sing) and a vulva (yep another sign) and a terd (yep lots of signs of terds)
to get your point across about how you feel about that king.
Can't do anything like that in Hebrew because you only have 22 letters.
So now, I am no longer appealing to the silly linguists, I've illustrated why the principle doesn't work with so few signs.
You just need more, many many more signs to make this principle work.

Blessings, this is written in love and I do appreciate the deep desire by many to make it work (the pictures add nuances to Hebrew words thingy) and the thoughtful back and forth and the bravery of bringing a "pocket knife to a nuclear war" love it

 

[IshChayil]

I've always loved and leaned towards the "Tablet Theory" mentioned by FH...

Adam was homeschooled by YHVH Himself in the garden? ... come on... that rocks! Lol

:bible:

So was Chavah (Eve) in a public school?
muhahahaha

 

[IshChayil]

A very interesting book on the events and significance of the Ten Commandments from Sinai and the history or etymology behind much of the Proto-Semitic alphabet is "The Writing of God, the Secret of the Real Mt. Sinai" by Miles R. Jones PH.D.
Dr. Jones was the Paleo Hebrew linguistics expert brought in by James and Penny Caldwell to examine the symbols and all around Mt Jebal aw law. His book can be purchased online at writingofgod.com. It has lots of incredible photos and diagrams from around the mountain including the massive cleft rock with major signs of erosion coming from the base of it located in an area that receives 1" of rain per 20 years, the altar, sheepfold, columns at the base of Sinai that would have been used to sacrifice, pictures of the cave and the cleft in the rock and looking out from the cave. Lots of incredible information.

No way, Dr. Jones????
Indiana?
That's my kind of professor!
Here on out I will refer to him lovingly as "Indie".

He's a "Doctorate in Foreign Language Education" right? Like rapid methods for learning Italian, accelerated learning.
I want to make sure I got the PHD right as Jones isn't exactly an uncommon name.
I'd rather read his research publications; more terse and cheaper shipping (often available online).

I tried to find him and couldn't find any peer-reviewed publications on the topic of Hebrew, or Paleo-Hebrew.

I did find the book you mentioned on Amazon, published by:
CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 3rd edition 2016, with 1 review on it (was it yours?),
$74 hard back, $20 paperback

Do you know if he published any thing else, like a paper or anything reviewed by peers on this topic?
Probably the inside of the dust jacket on his book will list them.

Thanks
(gotta love it. "Dr. Jones" I keep hearing the Raider's of the Lost Ark theme in my head now, thanks for that @Verifyveritas76 )

 

[Mojo]

You made me laugh out loud with that "pocket knife to a nuclear war" comment.
Thanks for that; I think I'll co-opt it if you don't mind.

Yes, I agree with you all of those statements you made make perfect sense and are often true.

In this case though, the language just does not function pictorially. It never has. Even if we just do a thought experiment we can see how silly the idea is.
Adam, is talking to G-d.
He hears and understands the words. He decides to invent an alphabet to write them down.
He and G-d have fairly deep conversations in the garden.
So Adam makes a picture of a head. "this will make the sound 'r'" he says.
And he uses it to write the word head, mountain peak (head of the mountain) etc. So far so good.
First letter is picture of a head, first sound is an "r" (kind of), and it makes sense symbolically and phonetically.
now fast forward... He wants to write down about the wicked Satan, or one of his descendants does.
So he thinks ... "hmmmm what picture should I use to make the 'r' sound in 'rasha' (wicked)? "I Know, I'll pick the only letter in the 22 letter alphabet that makes that sound, the head thingy"
"But wait" Adam pauses. I don't want to imply any head or mountain peak qualities to the word "wicked". "Oh no, I'm stuck because I already said 'head-shape' makes an 'r' sound so now EVERY SINGLE WORD WITH AN 'R' ***MUST**** use the HEAD sign!"
Wow I sure was silly to pick this system. But wait, I can do like the Egyptians did; I'll just make tons of signs that all can make an 'r' sound so then I REALLY CAN add nuance to my words by choosing which 'r' sound to make!

Only Adam, or whoever didn't do that with Hebrew/ Paleo-Hebrew/ Proto-semetic / whatever.
Do you see the absolute absurdity of this method?

Years later someone comes along and says "hey cool these were once pictures" and tries to apply deeper meanings to the words based on those pictures but we only have 22!
If Adam, or whoever created this alphabet of 22 letters did intend to use the things this way, to give a extra nuanced meaning to a word based on the pretty pictures,
then it may have worked for the first 10 words he made or so... but as you can see unless you scale it like Egyptian or other languages with writing systems that can support this structure (Khanji, etc) then he's out of luck after the first 10 or so words because now, each letter makes a unique sound different from all the rest (some argue samekh and sin don't but we have shin for that... another discussion).
Can you see the problem? Forget deep linguistic research, etc. .. It just won't work.

It's kind of like, those Nostradamas prophecies that keep popping up *AFTER* something happens. People get fascinated "oh wow the 2 brothers are the 2 towers in 911...etc".
it's similar with this sort of word interpretation based on the original pictures the letters represented.
Every single word is written with the letters that were used becuase...wait for it....
*THERE WAS NO OTHER CHOICE TO MAKE A 'd' sound or 'th' sound or 'sh' sound****!!!
The shin looked like teeth because that's what the name of the letter implies (not breasts, teeth btw).
Shin means "tooth".

I hope this message brings it on home. If there really is a deeper significance to the pictures of the letters then we should be able to apply that system today.
Write for me the word "tablet" in Hebrew, and please pick symbols to make it have a nuance about Head of household (because it's a judgement table or whatever)
You can't do it because there is only one way to write that word... PHONETICALLY. I don't get to choose to use the Aleph for the strength of an Oxe or the Reish for the "HEAD".
We don't get to choose those signs because ... wait for it... SEMITIC LANGUAGES DON"T WORK THAT WAY.
It's an alphabet, much more phonetic than English. Spelling is dead easy in Hebrew. You write it like it sounds. No trickery, there are no spelling bees in Israel because everyone can spell. It's not hard to spell like English is.
If you can hear it, you can spell it. And there are only 22 letters to worry about not 26.
I taught one student, years ago, to read and write Hebrew in 45 minutes (just focusing on the sounds the letters make not the names of the letters to streamline). Then we'd leave notes on the whiteboard in the lab to each other in Hebrew letters (representing English) about our coworkers---humorously.

If you want to make a language where the pictographic overtones have a bearing on the word, you MUST MUST MUST provide ample variants of pictures for EACH sound.
In ancient Egyptian they had tons of pictures that made an 'r' sound so you can actually pic a variant spelling in order to get your overtone across.
You can write the king's name as snakes and phallus (yep that's a sing) and a vulva (yep another sign) and a terd (yep lots of signs of terds)
to get your point across about how you feel about that king.
Can't do anything like that in Hebrew because you only have 22 letters.
So now, I am no longer appealing to the silly linguists, I've illustrated why the principle doesn't work with so few signs.
You just need more, many many more signs to make this principle work.

Blessings, this is written in love and I do appreciate the deep desire by many to make it work (the pictures add nuances to Hebrew words thingy) and the thoughtful back and forth and the bravery of bringing a "pocket knife to a nuclear war" love it

Ok, here's my pocket knife:
Just because we know of those 22 letters/symbols now, could there to have been more letters/symbols before? Could Hebrew (ancient, paleo, proto....anything) have derived from a pictographic/heirogliphic written language long since abandoned, say post diluvian? Maybe it was refined to make scrolls, etc. without massive space taken? Just thinking out loud. Could there be some sort of Rosetta Stone no one has found yet?

 

[IshChayil]

Ok, here's my pocket knife:
Just because we know of those 22 letters/symbols now, could there to have been more letters/symbols before? Could Hebrew (ancient, paleo, proto....anything) have derived from a pictographic/heirogliphic written language long since abandoned, say post diluvian? Maybe it was refined to make scrolls, etc. without massive space taken? Just thinking out loud. Could there be some sort of Rosetta Stone no one has found yet?

*********short answer******
Sure it's possible but how does that help us?
We're still stuck with the Hebrew bible made of 22 letters, unable to express the deeper nuanced pictorial meanings that this missing writing system would convey.
So even if such a system existed as you suggest, and even if we found it, the current form of the bible would not have those deeper meanings captured in our textus-receptus.
Still we are stuck with 22 phonetic sounds, no choices to nuance words, and no special pictorial meaning to the words.
************* detailed illustrative answer *******
To allude to Egyptian again. there is a monosyllabic alphabet that is a subset of the Ancient Egyptian writing system which tourists get tricked into thinking if they just learn that wow they can read and write egyptian! You can get your name on a shirt, etc... (When I was there I asked them to spell my name in the way I wanted using biliteral and triliteral signs but they were only able to do the dumbed down, mono-alphabet "letters".)

It would be theoretically possible to take an Egyptian text, and convert it all over to the monosyllabic alphabet and then transmit the text that way.
(Coptic has been preserved in such a fashion; it is the latest form of Ancient Egyptian, written in derived Greek alphabet because the Christians rightfully didn't want phallus pictures and god pictures in translations of sacred writings).
Years later if we find that text written with the mono-letter alphabet (this is our bible analogy), and then we discovered later the deeper writing system but we did not have that text (i.e. bible) written in the deeper system; discovery of the deeper system would add no value to our rendering of the text because we would not be able to put that alphabetic rendering back into the deeper Rebus-principled / determinative categorized system (pictures at end of a word not read to classify the word) of writing.

The only hope for the scenario you describe would be to find some sort of Meta-Dead-sea scroll finding which had this hypothesized deeper writing (not the paleo-Hebrew Brenner stuff but an actual Egyptian like system like you are hoping for) with the biblical text PRESERVED in that system. Then coolio!!!! That would be totally awesome and the find of history.
OK I installed my Ancient Egyptian word processor and wrote the Hebrew word:
שלחן (shulchan) meaning table.
I wrote it 3 different ways using Egyptian Hieroglyphic signs, I could have made many, many more permutations but this should illustrate my point. The signs in red are not read-don't make a sign in the word but just help catogorize the word. These all say "Shulchan", the Hebrew word spelled in Egyptian. The last rendering on the far right is simply spelled alphabetically. This is the closest to what we have in Hebrew; no real choices, just gotta pick the monosyllabic letters that make those sounds.

If you have trouble viewing the BIG pic (should be very big not small icon)
click this link: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B3XC2HgsUayRQW14dUVVNHRpQTQ/view?usp=sharing

 

[andrew]

I must be missing something, IC. The Norse runes comprise a phonetic alphabet of a coupla dozen characters and each character has a profound symbolic significance. So Hebrew doesn't map to Egyptian hieroglyphs (or Asian pictographs or whatever), but I don't see why you see phonics and symbols as mutually exclusive. Seems like a false dichotomy to me. What am I missing?

 

[Mojo]

*********short answer******
Sure it's possible but how does that help us?
We're still stuck with the Hebrew bible made of 22 letters, unable to express the deeper nuanced pictorial meanings that this missing writing system would convey.
So even if such a system existed as you suggest, and even if we found it, the current form of the bible would not have those deeper meanings captured in our textus-receptus.
Still we are stuck with 22 phonetic sounds, no choices to nuance words, and no special pictorial meaning to the words.
************* detailed illustrative answer *******
To allude to Egyptian again. there is a monosyllabic alphabet that is a subset of the Ancient Egyptian writing system which tourists get tricked into thinking if they just learn that wow they can read and write egyptian! You can get your name on a shirt, etc... (When I was there I asked them to spell my name in the way I wanted using biliteral and triliteral signs but they were only able to do the dumbed down, mono-alphabet "letters".)

It would be theoretically possible to take an Egyptian text, and convert it all over to the monosyllabic alphabet and then transmit the text that way.
(Coptic has been preserved in such a fashion; it is the latest form of Ancient Egyptian, written in derived Greek alphabet because the Christians rightfully didn't want phallus pictures and god pictures in translations of sacred writings).
Years later if we find that text written with the mono-letter alphabet (this is our bible analogy), and then we discovered later the deeper writing system but we did not have that text (i.e. bible) written in the deeper system; discovery of the deeper system would add no value to our rendering of the text because we would not be able to put that alphabetic rendering back into the deeper Rebus-principled / determinative categorized system (pictures at end of a word not read to classify the word) of writing.

The only hope for the scenario you describe would be to find some sort of Meta-Dead-sea scroll finding which had this hypothesized deeper writing (not the paleo-Hebrew Brenner stuff but an actual Egyptian like system like you are hoping for) with the biblical text PRESERVED in that system. Then coolio!!!! That would be totally awesome and the find of history.
OK I installed my Ancient Egyptian word processor and wrote the Hebrew word:
שלחן (shulchan) meaning table.
I wrote it 3 different ways using Egyptian Hieroglyphic signs, I could have made many, many more permutations but this should illustrate my point. The signs in red are not read-don't make a sign in the word but just help catogorize the word. These all say "Shulchan", the Hebrew word spelled in Egyptian. The last rendering on the far right is simply spelled alphabetically. This is the closest to what we have in Hebrew; no real choices, just gotta pick the letters that make those sounds.

Hey the image is not showing up?
@FollowingHim any idea what's up? I shared it as a google drive image, viewable by anyone. Is there some image moderation that needs to be approved? I hope you can show the image it took me a fair amount of time to make this to demonstrate the principle.

Here is a work around until the image gets included inline (it's a bit complicated so I'm hoping people will be able to see the image embedded without having to click and go to another window).
Workaround link for now:
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B3XC2HgsUayRQW14dUVVNHRpQTQ

Whoa! That's a lot of info there. I will try to process it little by little later.

My question (asking lots of questions is my usual style around here) was not necessarily to aid in the micro details of the argument about symbolism vs phonetics. On a macro-level, I asked this question to highlight my point about experts seeing things from a bias of known knowledge, but not stopping to think about unknown knowledge. Just because the Hebrew we now know (paleo or modern) appears to be phonetic, does that mean it always was? Is it an absolute? I don't have the answer, but it's an interesting prospect to me.

My head is spinning in all this. I'm having trouble wrapping my head around it. I think I will tap out now.

 

[Verifyveritas76]

Ill post more later but I'll just add this here for now.

According to the documented evidence at the base of Sinai in Midian, the Proto-Semitic/Ancient Hebrew letter kaph is presented over and over as a pair of sandal soles with the earliest form of Proto-Semitic K included in the arch of the sole or alongside. The reason is that it is both phonetic and pictographic. The picture is a reference to a land deed referencing the promise made to Abraham that wherever the soles of your feet trod, I will give it to you.

By the time Paleo Hebrew or Middle Script comes into existence around 1000 BC, someone (obviously smarter than God) changed the pictographic/alphabetical early form to alphabetical script only.