The World's Oldest Alphabet: Hebrew as the Language of the Proto-consonantal Script

For close to 150 years, scholars have attempted to identify the language of the world's oldest alphabetic script and to translate the inscriptions that use it, which were found in the Sinai Peninsula and date from 1842 to 1446 BCE. Until now, scholars have accomplished little more than identifying most of the pictographic letters and translating a few of the Semitic words. In The World's Oldest Alphabet, however, Douglas Petrovich presents a thorough, detailed defense of his bold new claims concerning these writings. Petrovich claims to have resolved all of the disputed letters and to have identified the language as Hebrew, which allows him to translate all of the inscriptions. Furthermore, he argues that they explicitly name three biblical figures and greatly illuminate the earliest Israelite history in a way that nothing else has, apart from the Bible.

"The breakthrough as to the question of the origins of the alphabet represented in this volume is the fruit of the author's intensive and extensive research and fastidious attention to detail. His acclaimed expertise in epigraphy, paleography, lexicography, and comparative linguistics and literature has led him to the conviction that of all options one can currently advance as to the ultimate origins of the alphabet, the identification of proto-Hebrew is the very best candidate." --Eugene H. Merrill, Distinguished Professor of Old Testament Studies (Emeritus), Dallas Theological Seminary

Douglas Petrovich (Ph.D., M.A., Th.M., M.Div.) teaches on Ancient Egypt at Wilfrid Laurier University (Canada). He formerly was the academic dean and a professor at Novosibirsk Biblical-Theological Seminary (Russia), as well as at Shepherds Theological Seminary (U.S.A.). He earned a Ph.D. from the University of Toronto, with a major in Syro-Palestinian Archaeology, a first minor in ancient Egyptian language, and a second minor in ancient Near Eastern religions.