Reformed Egyptian

[PacMan]

I saw the following story and found it rather interesting.  We now have a coin from the 8th century BC that scientists believe was made by King Hezekiah. Of particular note is the ankh on the coin--clearly an Egyptian symbol.

http://www.foxnews.com/science/2015/12/04/seal-found-in-ancient-dump-in-200-turns-out-to-be-remarkable.html?intcmp=ob_article_sidebar_video&intcmp=obinsite

Anyone know how prominently Egyptian characters were used in the Kingdom of Judah over the next 500 years or so?

Edited December 8, 2015 by PacMan

[Crypto]

I remember reading about the use of Egyptian characters in that area around that time, but unfortunately I don't remember the source.

I have however found this, which makes it seem likely that Jewish traders with Egypt would likely have known and used some Egyptian:

http://www.fairmormon.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/mcguire-did-lehi-use-egyptian.pdf

[strappinglad]

The article states it was a seal , not a coin. The writing indicates that the seal was used to stamp ownership of something. It does show the names of both Hezekiah and his father and confirms the actual( not metaphorical ) existence of these Biblical characters. Similar items have been found in the past but this is the first find found in place by a scholarly expedition. 

[Robert F. Smith]

2 hours ago, PacMan said:

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Anyone know how prominently Egyptian characters were used in the Kingdom of Judah over the next 500 years or so?

King Hezekiah also used as his symbols the two- and four-winged scarabs on his many royal-lemelek storage jars in his strategic cities.  Also during this period, one finds heavy use of Egyptian hieratic script for all Israelite weights and measures, a system modeled upon ancient Egyptian metrology -- a system also used in Alma 11.

See Gregory D. Mumford, "International Relations Between Egypt, Sinai, and Syria-Palestine in the LB Age to Early Persian Period (Dynasties 18-26; cf. 1950-525 B.C.): A Spatial and Temporal Analysis of the Distribution and Proportions of Egyptian(izing) Artefacts and Pottery in Sinai and Selected Sites in Syria-Palestine," 4 vols., doctoral dissertation (University of Toronto, 1998).

[nealr]

You may be interested in this article, which talks about Egyptian writing in Israel during Lehi's and Nephi's time.

http://www.mormoninterpreter.com/learning-nephis-language-creating-a-context-for-1-nephi-12/

[halconero]

While much later, there is a precedent with the use of Coptic: the Egyptian language written using Greek characters.

The Reformed Egyptian debate isn't really a big deal for me. With Egyptian hegemony in the region of the ancient Kingdoms of Judah and Israel the existence of an Egyptian alphabet utilized with different languages doesn't surprise me.

[Robert F. Smith]

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-RWeM2Bg233g/Usq5cd1nhPI/AAAAAAAAAok/yqOOg1dwIfY/s1600/th.jpg .

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-SBfa7ZV8PXQ/UstCjRsBY7I/AAAAAAAAAo8/DWPwcx_a2WY/s1600/Hezekiah_seal1.jpg .

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-gWoJFiqo3r0/UstEtXgPTaI/AAAAAAAAApI/ZsNH5c5S_X8/s1600/manasseh.jpg .

Daniel Sarlo, “Winged Scarab Imagery in Judah: Yahweh as Khepri,” paper presented at the EGLBS regional SBL conference in March 2014 in Erie, Pennsylvania; online at http://www.academia.edu/5562359/Winged_Scarab_Imagery_in_Judah_Yahweh_as_Khepri .

[RevTestament]

The history of Hebrew writing before 800 BC is very sketchy. It seems, however, that Israelites adopted the Phoenecian alphabet for their writing - like they adopted the Aramaic alphabet during their Babylonian captivity. So we don't seem to know what language Moses wrote in. My guess is it would have either been cuneiform - the early semitic form - or an Egytian script. If anyone has anything to ad to this, I would love to hear it...

[hagoth7]

Those who have (or are near a library that has) a copy of Jared Diamond's "Guns, Germs and Steel" might want to peruse pages 225 through 227. I would love to post that block of text here for relevant commentary/discussion, but a sampling of that size likely far exceeds fair use exceptions.

Jared basically provides example after example of peoples throughout history who have adopted and riffed upon foreign scripts/alphabets for their own languages.                                 

Edited December 14, 2015 by hagoth7