THE HEBREW ALPHABET: CHANGE FROM PHOENICIAN TO JEWISH SCRIPT.

Judith Dillon 2015

After an incubation period of hundreds if not thousands of years, around 3300 BCE both
the Egyptians and Sumerians of Mesopotamia developed the world's first true writing
systems. Earlier symbols, proto-writing, conveyed meaning to their users but could not
yet express thoughts that could travel through time. This was enabled by the new
technology of writing. Egyptian hieroglyphs and Mesopotamian cuneiforms, wedge
shapes inscribed on clay, were flexible systems emerging from roots in earlier pictures.
Now able to convey abstract thoughts, both lands used hundreds if not thousands of
subtle images in their writing systems.

The drawback, apparently never a concern for the scribes of Egypt and Sumer, was that
learning to read and write their numerous symbols took a long period. A priest-scribe's
years of training included a series of initiations into the deeper mysteries of knowledge. It
was therefore confined to an elite group of scholars who jealously safeguarded their
power and skills. As is often stated, a picture is worth a thousand words. An image can
express layers of meaning not possible the later system that became our alphabet. In an
alphabet one letter expresses one sound but this democratic simplicity also allows the
skills of writing among a less educated population.

Then, as now, great trade routes linked the lands around the Mediterranean basin.
Wealthy traders and simple wanderers exchanged both goods and ideas throughout the
ancient world. People eventually known as the Phoenicians, were among the traders.
They were a Semitic people who "having migrated to the Mediterranean and settled in
the parts which they now inhabit, began at once, they say, to adventure on long
voyages, freighting their vessels with the wares of Egypt and Assyria." Herodotus 1:11

Phoenicia is the name given by later Greeks to the Western Semitic people settled in
towns along the coast of what is now Lebanon. In their own tongue they were
Canaanites ((ki-na-ah-na or Kn'n). Culturally and genetically, they were closely related to
people who would separate from these Baal worshipping, bull worshiping Canaanites to
became monotheistic Jews. Western Semites are associated with the creation of what
will eventually develop into the Phoenician and ultimately Israel's Hebrew alphabet.

"Early Israelite culture cannot be separated easily from the culture of "Canaan... The
highlands of Israel in the Iron Age (ca. 1200-587) reflect continuity with the West Semitic
culture [...] both in the highlands and in the contemporary cities on the coast and in the
valleys."2

Around 2000 BCE, a 300-year drought drove peoples throughout the Near East from
their settled city lives. The great cities of Sumer collapsed. Taking advantage of the
power vacuum, a number of Semitic peoples conquered and re-conquered
Mesopotamia: Akkadians, Assyrians, Arameans, and Babylonians. Each maintained a
cultural connection with Sumer's ancient city of Ur, rebuilding temples in the old style and
continuing to rewrite Sumarian stories in the cuneiform script.

1
George Rawlinson translation
2
Mark Smith, Early History of God, Harper & Row, 1990, p. 1.
 2

Driven by failing crops, some city refugees reverted to a Bedouin life, following their
flocks in search of water. Many crossed the sands of Sinai toward the green valley and
delta lands of Egypt. Although periods of famine are not unknown in Egypt, the Nile is a
more reliable source of water than the erratic rivers of Mesopotamia and Arabia.

One god of these wandering Canaanites was a storm god of various names, among
which was Baal. Riding the clouds, he might appear as a bull or serpent-tailed bull. His
spouse Balaat was a cow goddess known as Isis and Hathor in Egypt. Although Baal
seems irrelevant to a paper about the alphabet's origins, I believe he will prove important
to the subsequent evolution as letters finally morph into the ultimate Hebrew script of the
bible's Torah.3

In addition to the rich delta lands, large groups of Semitic immigrants including the
people of Canaan settled in two main areas of Egypt: One was the trade city of Thebes
near the Red Sea. Thebes, known as Was Set by Egyptians, was city of the storm god
Set. Canaanites recognized Set as their Baal. Cadmus, the Phoenician who brought the
alphabet, the Cadmean letters, to the Greeks was said to come from Thebes. His
ancestors include the goddess Isis (Hathor) and the River Nile.4 His letters became the
ultimate source for all later alphabets.

commons. wikimedia.org Wadi el Hol inscription

Another nucleus for Canaanite traders and workers was in Sinai's desert corridor
between Canaan and Egypt. Near rich Sinai turquoise mines was a temple to Egypt's
great cow goddess, Hathor. About 1900 BCE the earliest known pictures that will evolve
into our alphabet appeared at Wadi el Hol near Thebes, and near the Sinai temple of
Hathor.5 Inscribed on an image of the cow goddess are the letters l/balaat (to Balaat).
This is one of the few early Proto Semitic inscriptions that has been firmly translated.

Moses, after receiving the alphabet on two stone tablets, descended from his mountain
in the Sinai to find his tribe worshipping a Golden Calf. This battle against the Baals of
their ancestors appears over and over in the Torah's history of the people evolving into

3
Israel does not separate from Canaanites as a named people until about 1200 BCE. As Jews,
they do not become fully monotheistic until the fall of the Second Temple a thousand years later.
4
"Kadmos was also a citizen of Egyptian Thebes; which implies that he lived in Egypt..."
(Diodoros,) He founded another city named Thebes in Greece.
5
It has not been settled which inscriptions were first. Perhaps more are yet to be discovered.
 3

monotheistic Jews. These early letters eventually appear in a set order (an Abcedarium)

with the bovine leader of the letters: Aleph (ox) .

Early Semitic Script (Proto Sinaitic)6

Although Egypt described its sacred mysteries in beautiful images known as

hieroglyphs, they also possessed 24 simple glyphs representing one sound per one
image. That is, they had an alphabet giving them the ability to write the sounds of their
speech using only 24 letters. Having to learn a mere 24 letters makes writing available to
the common man. This didn't occur during the 3000 years of Egypt's history, but a
scholar would have known the concept of this alphabet.

The dictionary definition of an alphabet is a set of letters or symbols in a fixed order used
to represent the basic sounds of a language. Having noted the importance of the fixed
order defining our alphabet, I have never been able to uncover when the 'Egyptian
alphabet' was ordered. As I explained in earlier papers, the ordering as it appears in
scholarly books cannot be random, but it may reflect a later ordering imitating the mythic
pattern of the Phoenician/Hebrew alphabet. Except for first sound as 'A', neither sound
nor symbol of Egypt's alphabet were directly adopted by the early Semitic alphabet.
There is, however, a relationship in the myths, the attributes associated with the
numbered placement of each chosen letter-as-symbol.

Black and white objects often appear as an undivided One, first symbol of
numerous revolving mystery traditions. First Egyptian letter is a White (and black)
Vulture (A). In Egypt, the Vulture, like the Cow, was a mother goddess. This particular
vulture is the Neophron percnopterus, an androgynous bird sacred to Mother Isis,7 The
many forms of Isis include a cow goddess identified with Hathor. Last 'alphabet' glyph is
a serpent (DjT). Bird goddesses and great serpents whispering wisdom are a
widespread convention symbolizing resurrection.

Orphic Egg 1774 (Serpent & Bird Egg)8

9
Vulture goddess & serpent - Crete, c. 1500 BCE

6
http://www.codex99.com/typography/11.html Currently, the first known ordering of these linear
ABC's is on a potshard from Canaan's Isbet Sartah c. 1300 BCE.
7
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EgyptianVulture
8
Orpheus was another Mystery entering and returning from the dark Underworld. Germanic tribes
also found magic among their 24 letters (runes). In the Norse saga of Bosla (recorded c. 1300
CE), one of the hero’s tasks is to locate a vulture’s egg covered with golden letters. From her egg
emerged a serpent.
 4

Although the age given for early Proto-Semitic letters vary by 200-300 years due to the
imprecision of dating ancient artifacts, around 1900 BCE someone borrowed the idea of
Egypt's alphabet but not Egypt's particular alphabet images. Instead he chose other
hieroglyphs, simplifying their shapes and renaming them in his own language. Egypt's
'house' became Semitic 'beth' as 'B' in the new alphabet.10 The cow/bull head became
A's 'aleph', an androgynous 'ox' as undivided One. The few examples we have of the
early Semitic experiments indicate the final ordering took a number of years to solidify.
The original creators of the alphabet apparently used it only to write their Semitic
language phonetically (a word derived from the Phoenicians).

By the time of its final ordering into 22 letters (c. 1050 BCE), Phoenician symbols
became associated with hidden Mystery Traditions., I believe they became a template
for numerous alchemical paths promising a Phoenix's resurrection. The useful alphabet
acquired a magical quality, the letters becoming 'signs' from heaven: "The word for
“sign” in Aramaic is Atha, in Hebrew ‘oth' and in Arabic Aya, all of which are
etymologically related to the Akkadian word ittu, omen."11

By 1050 BCE the earlier proto-alphabet of perhaps 30 symbols had evolved into a set
order of 22 letters. It is now known as the Phoenician alphabet after the traders
associated with its dissemination. The alphabet suddenly emerged from the shadows of
history to be quickly adopted by numerous peoples including the emerging Hebrews
(Ketav Ivri). As each letter provides the first sound of its picture, it could write any
language, related or not to Semitic. The stories of oral traditions can now enter written
history. It is still a mystery why such a useful technology, the alphabet, should linger for
almost 1000 years before suddenly exploding into history.

Before continuing this paper, I should describe my method of research. I began by

comparing objects representing letters in a couple of early scripts with a reputation for
hiding mysteries: Germanic Runes c. 150 CE (rune actually means 'mystery') and Celtic
Oghams (c. 300 CE) associated with the secretive druids. The shapes of their symbols
and the sounds their letters represent differ widely from each other. I have, as anyone
who has read my papers might notice, a happily non-linear mind quite comfortable with
such apparent differences. I was seeking the reality beyond the perceived differences.
Using cryptic hints from the cultures using their symbols as a path, my concern was how
each culture viewed their own choices of letter-symbols. Most of my sources were from
medieval times and earlier.

Most scholars studying the history of scripts concern themselves with the evolving
shapes of letters as they are adopted and adapted by different peoples. Epigraphers
carefully note how a change of letter shape reflects a new tribe's adaption of earlier

9
Marijja Gimbutas, Language of the Goddess, Harper & Row, 1989, p. 37 (First & Last
Hieroglyph of Egypt's alphabet) Crete had extensive trade connections with Egypt, Greece, and
Phoenicia.
10
The 'house' had several early forms, including that of a 'spirit house'.
11
Amar Annus, On the Beginnings and Continuities of Omen Sciences in the Ancient World, p.
12, oi.uchicago.edu/sites/oi.uchicago.edu/files/uploads/shared/docs/ois6.pdf 'oth' is a ‘letter,
written mark.
 5

Phoenician shapes. This helps flesh out linear histories as people emerge into and
disappear from history. My interest, however, is in comparing and understanding the
rational for the choice and ordering of letter-objects. Beyond a vague sense that the
objects of the various scripts and patterns I studied contained similar attributes, similar
stories, I had no expectations about where my search might take me.12 Realizing the
mystery traditions of Runes and Oghams are broken, I expanded my search.

To arrive at my thesis about the association of these alphabets with an alchemical path
restoring the dark to light, I spread a wider net. My only criteria were that each tradition
must name an object as its symbol and that the symbols must appear in a set order.
That is, above all, number underlies everything. I eventually gathered several traditions
including among others: palmistry, astrology-astronomy, the Kabbalah, the Hebrew
alphabet, Alchemy, the Tao Te Ching, and the I Ching, My research also included the
physical attributes contributing to the mythic qualities of animals, minerals, and trees
naming some letters. Physical characteristics underlie their mythology. Earlier scholars
lived in a far more natural world than that of the modern scholar.13

I found each tradition studied contained a common template controlling the symbol's
placement. Although at first (and second and third) glance, the wide variety of ordered
symbols appeared to have nothing in common, once I studied how each culture viewed
their chosen objects a commonality became transparent. The choice of symbol was
mandated by its position, its number in the series.

Pythagoras, another teacher of Mathematics and Mystery traditions, concurred: "All is

number; and "Number rules the universe.." His father was Phoenician. From another
source, he is the son of Apollo and a Phoenician mother. The ancient world recognized the now
forgotten similarities binding many seemingly disparate traditions; Pythagoras studied 22 years in
Egypt. "Others have him wandering … all over Egypt, Mesopotamia, Phoenicia, India and even
Gaul ... (absorbing) all the knowledge and wisdom of the Hebrews, Persians, the Arabs, and the
14
blue Druids of Britain."

“There are said to be shrines in Southern India where the same secrets are taught under binding
15
pledges as are communicated to us in the Craft.” (Masonic tradition)

The physical characteristics of the object determined its mythic attributes and these
determine placement in the pattern. To phrase this in another way, it is as though
several peoples speaking different languages discuss the same evolving event. They all
describe the same scenario using different words to illustrate the same picture.

12
Re: Black and White Egyptian vulture as first letter, first Ogham is 'birch' a black and white tree.
Birch is a 'pathfinder' like Mercury, another first black and white character. Both, like Aleph's
'denatured bull as 'ox', are androgynous. Birch leads to material fortune as does the fey first rune:
"Feoh id est pecunia" and 'One for the Money."
13
Vulture as an androgynous first symbol as the undivided 1 (One), a mother of creation: they
give good care to their offspring. Also, due to the lack of sexual dimorphism, they were, like
Hermes/Mercury as leader of hermetic traditions, considered only female or at least androgynous,
creating without a partner.
14
Bell, Eric, Magic of Numbers (1946), Dover, 1991, p. 85.
15
C. W. Ledbetter, Ancient Mystic Rites (1926), Quest, 1985, p. 4.
 6

Eventually I traced the template back to the Phoenician alphabet (c. 1050 BCE). There is
undoubtedly an earlier template ordering the evolving symbols, but I have not yet found
the key. A caveat: Although the ultimate template is the same, the use of the path differs
between various cultures. Alchemists attempting to transmute dull lead into gold (aur)
seek a different goal than someone seeking the auras of enlightenment or the fertility
leading to golden harvests in their land.

As the alphabet continued to evolve, the fertile sexuality of Bull gods leading the earliest

path eventually changed into Creation by the Word. The Phoenician bull of letter

transmuted into ‫א‬ of the Jewish script, as monotheistic Jews distanced themselves
from the Baals of their ancestors by the beginning of the Common Era.

When I began my research into the reason for the choice and order of the particular
symbols adopted to represent sounds in a Canaanite language, I was impressed by the
precision of the choices. While any number of images could have represented the
sounds, the choices suggested a mnemonic for a deeper mystery. I believe this is the
reason the Phoenician alphabet from its inception has been associated with the spread
of Mystery Traditions throughout the ancient world.16 The mnemonics also recall hidden
astronomical and mathematical knowledge.17

Phoenicians, whose name implies the resurrection of the Phoenix bird, left Mystery
Traditions in their path where ever they sailed. Greeks attribute the gift of the alphabet to
the Phoenician Cadmus. About Cadmus, later morphing into that man of light as
Kabbalah's Adam Kadmon, Greeks claimed: "[Kadmos], bringing gifts of voice and
thought for all Greece, made tools that echoed the tongue, mingling vowels [azyga
(things that exist in isolation)] and consonants [syzyga (things that connect)], all in a row
[stoichedon] of integrated harmony. He rounded off a gravent [grapton] model of
speaking silence, having learned the ancestral mysteries of the divine art"18

Although the original experiments of proto-Semitic may have been strictly practical, I
believe precise and delicate care was exercised in placing the 22 Phoenician symbols in
their final order. As I began learning Hebrew, I have become even more in awe of the
genius editing the final order the alphabet. Each chosen symbol, hinting at an unfolding
phoenix path toward resurrection also reflects measurements of mathematical secrets
and astronomical cycles. Additionally, the letter-symbols illustrate the use of the spoken
sound of the creator's West Semitic language. The possibility that the Hebrew language
changed and adapted to the meaning of its alphabet's letters is apparently a discarded

16
See MYSTERY RELIGIONS, MASONS & ANCIENT ALPHABET RUNES. Cadmus, the
Phoenician who brought the alphabet to the Greeks, established the Mysteries of the Cabieri. His
grandson, the wine god Bacchus Dionysus is also associated with Mysteries as is the Phoenician
scholar Pythagoras. A late incarnation becomes the Kabbalah’s man of light, Adam Kadman.
17
https://www.academia.edu/4351644/ALCHEMY_OF_ALPHABETS__INCLUDING_HEBREW_
RUNES_and_OGHAM
18
Nonnos 4.259-64 (trans. by B.C. Powell)
 7

opinion.19 However, I find it difficult not to associate the meaning of each letter-symbol
with its grammatical use in the language.

Spoken language precedes writing. If Hebrew (and Phoenician?) did not change and
adapt to the meaning of their letters, then the genius creating the alphabet must have
chosen words specifically representing letters illustrating the use of the sound in speech.
As example: 'Vav' meaning 'nail' represents the word 'and' in Hebrew. That is, 'w' is a
joiner, a nail. Placed as 6th letter, this nail, this hook joins the Sabbath Bride with her
Israel on the 6th day, and marries the sun and moon, the honeymoon of June, our 6th
month. (Six is sex by number tradition)20. In the final editing of the Torah, the joiner of
'vav' appears as center letter of the 5 Books (Leviticus 11:42 in the word 'gachon' /belly).
It also begins the first line of each Torah page attaching the script to its page.

In earlier papers, I traced reasons for the selection and ordering of each letter-symbol in
various traditions. Borrowing from Alchemy of Alphabets, the first 8 letters reflect the
entrance into the world of Earth. The journeyman then rises through the gate (Heth/gate)
of letter 8, entering the passage into the labyrinth of the Underworld on the next stage of
his journey toward the light (Teth/coil, letter 9). Eventually he emerges through the eye of
the 16th letter "ain'/eye. The last letters seem to reflect astronomical knowledge, 20th
letter 'ros' translates 'head'. At the end of each 18-19 year lunar-solar-Mercury cycle, the
Head of a new cycle begins.

Eventually the alphabet reaches #22: Tav ('mark'), the 'mark' saving from death.
Originally written as a X or +
sign, this cross sign, plus sign, multiplication sign of the
Phoenician alphabet is a shape associated with the Bulls of Heaven, including Taurus
and Orion.21

I end the paper with a brief summary of the first and last letters as they change from the
Phoenician shapes to that of Hebrew, the Jewish script still in use. I would eventually like
to add a second chapter describing the other letters of the alphabet and the stories of
their changing shapes as the Hebrew of Judah separated itself from the world of their
ancestor's Baals and Balaats.

1. ALEPH (OX) - The Supreme One

The Bull is the A-shape first used by Paleo-Hebrew (Phoenician) used to write the holy
books (Torah). Shortly before the Common Era, new shapes were adopted as the
Jewish script describing the Torah's path.22 Dark and Light circle each other, yang and

19
It may have been discredited due to the excesses of Victorian gentlemen reincarnating as
ancient pharaohs and devotees of Solomon's Temple.
20
The Tarot cards (c. 1300 CE), claiming roots from Egyptian and Israeli sources, places The
Lovers as 6th card: "The Tarot is an alchemical revelation, revealing the descent and ascent of
Hermes, Mercurius Thoth." Joseph Campbell and Richard Roberts, Tarot Revelations, Vernal
Equinox, 1982, p. 41.
21
Outside this paper, 22 is a number associated with the quartering of the sky by the planet
Mercury, also known as Hermes or Thoth, another deity connected to alphabets and wisdom.
22
Torah, usually translated 'law' can also mean 'path' as does the alchemical path of China's Tao.
 8

yin, on the First Day of Genesis. Once light appears, duality has arrived to begin the
process of the material world's Creation. The bright sky bull and his dark earth cow are
one source of Aleph's androgynous Ox. The early gods of the ancient world, including
Egypt, Mesopotamia, and Canaan often appeared as a bull/cow. As cow, her shape
mirrors a woman's Bottomless Pit, her (A-shaped) womb from which the wealth of the
material world of the Mother emerges.

El, Phoenician Ancient of Days, was known as Bull-El, his son and replacement being
Baal. The fertility of the King, the potent Bull's representative on earth, ensured
continuation of life following each seasonal death. Kings were replaced when either the
king's or the fertility of his land failed. Early Israel, sharing the culture and alphabet of
Phoenicia's Canaan, did not become fully monogamous until the fall of the Second
Temple (70 CE). The Bull (Baal) and his consort, to the dismay of outraged prophets,
were openly worshipped until late in Israel's history.

Yahweh and his Asherah "I have blessed you by Yahweh of

Samaria and his asherah."23 Yaweh as the Bull of a Baal

'For the Judahites of the late 7th and early 6th century, worship of these "other gods",
including the Queen of Heaven, was indeed traditional practice, part of the folk and
traditional state religion of Judah.'24

This is not a paper about the history of the two kingdoms of Israel and Judah, but I
believe a brief history is necessary to understand the final change of script used to write
biblical Hebrew. King David established his kingdom in Jerusalem of Judah (c. 1000
BCE). Like earlier Kings, when his potency failed he abdicated, passing the kingship to
his son.25 His son Solomon built the First Temple, helped by architects from Phoenicia.
Like other Canaanites, he set up Baal altars onhigh places to please his foreign wives.

At Solomon's death, a rebellion split the kingdom into two states: Ten tribes moving to
the more powerful and wealthy north kingdom of Israel. Israel's capital was Samaria.
Judah retained two tribes, keeping the capital and the Temple at Jerusalem. Northern
Israel had close connections with Phoenicia, their royal families intermarrying and setting
up altars to other gods.26 Along with Yahweh (YHVH), Baal was worshipped. Biblical
stories include numerous evidence of Israel/Judah's attachment to older gods in defiance
of the worship of the One God.

In 722, Assyria subjugated Canaan to create a buffer state against the powerful Egyptian
empire. Destroying the wealthy north kingdom of Israel, Assyria, deported Israel's Ten

23
Kuntillet Ajrud, Sinai area, c. 8th Century BCE: Ancient Israel, Hershel Shanks, Editor, Prentice
Hall (BAS), 1999, p. 157. See Jeramiah (44:15-18)
24
Baruch Halpern, academia.edu/9510171 The_Baal_and_the_Asherah_
Yhwhs_Retainers_Retired, p. 2. Also, see Jeremiah 44:15-18
25
I Kings, Ch. 1,
26
Jezebel and her priests of Baal is one such royal princess from Phoenicia.
 9

Tribes, the Ten Lost Tribes. Jews remaining in the area became known as the
Samaritans after Israel's capital city of Samaria. The poorer hill town kingdom of Judah
was not a threat to either Egypt or Assyria at this time.

Based in Jerusalem, Judah now emerged from Israel's shadow to become more
prominent. One hundred fifty years later, victim of continual power struggles between
Egypt and Mesopotamia, Judah fell to the Babylonian successor to the Assyrians. In
586/7 the First Temple was destroyed and the skilled elite of Judah exiled to the waters
of Babylon. Unlike the Assyrians, Babylon allowed Jews to settle in groups and continue
their own culture, many becoming wealthy during their years of Babylonian exile.

Back to the alphabet: In the few hundred years since the introduction of the alphabet, the
shapes of the original Phoenician letters had changed. The script and language of
Babylon was now Aramaic, derived from Phoenician. Although cuneiform was still used,
Aramaic had become the common language. In 539, Persia conquered Babylon and the
Jews were given permission to return home and rebuild the Temple of Jerusalem.
Returning, they brought the Aramaic script with them. Aramaic was now the international
language used throughout the Near East. It had become the language of the Jews,
Hebrew no longer being spoken by the common man.

As exception to the use of Aramaic as the common script, the Torah (Five Books of the
Bible) continued to be written in Old Hebrew (Phoenician shapes) for another 300 years.
The first appearance of Aramaic letters being used to write a verse of the Torah was not
until c. 250 BCE27. Even after this change, the sacred 4-letter name of god (YHVH)
continued to be written in the old script. It wasn't until the fall of the Second Temple (70
CE) that Aramaic letters finally replaced Old Hebrew for all religious as well as secular
writing. Aramaic, still known as the Assyrian script (Ketav Ashuri), evolved into what is
now known as the Jewish script or 'modern' Hebrew.

"We are faced with an extraordinary phenomenon: the Jews, a conservative nation
which adhered strictly to its traditional values, abandoned their own script in favour of a
foreign one."28

When the elite of Judah returned from Babylon, there was open friction between the
Jews of Jerusalem's new temple and the Jews of Samaria. Returning Judahites were
also intolerant of the rural Jews that had remained in Judah. Samaritans did not
recognize Jerusalem’s primacy, having their own temple for worship. The Samaritans
continued to write their Torah with the old Hebrew script, as both peoples had for a
thousand years.

The Jews of Jerusalem were finally becoming fully monotheistic. The old script reflected
images of an earlier people who had worshiped the Golden Calf, Baal worshipers whose
god often took the form of a great bull. I believe the adoption of the Aramaic script and

27
"A Qumran fragment of Exodus in script close to Aramaic c. 250 is the earliest known Hebrew
text written in Jewish (square) characters rather than in Hebrew." Joseph Naveh, History of the
Alphabet, Magens Press, 1987 p. 121.
28
Naveh, Early History of the Alphabet, p. 112.
 10

the final tweaking of the letter shapes reflected Judah's need to express their new vision

of YHVH. A Bull god no longer leads the letters.

Unlike the image of the Bull, the new shape of Aleph is more abstract, as befits The One
who no longer takes a solid form. The sexuality implied in the Creation of the world by
the Phoenician Bull is now changing into a Creation by the Word.

Modern Hebrew (a mere 2000 years old) now illustrates Aleph with the hand of God

stretching between heaven and earth. ‫ א‬as it did on the Torah's first day of Creation.

Hungary, c. 5500 BCE

Aleph's shape connecting Heaven and Earth had existed for several thousand years: A
nail (vav, 6th letter) now joins two hands (yod, 10th letter) reflecting as 'Above so Below'.
Note: as a hermetic pillar, a sundial, the herm as our numeral 1 reflects the dark shadow
of Heaven's bright sun as it traces out the year on the dark earth below.29

On the first day of Genesis, the breath of God moves over the undivided chaos to begin
Creation. Prior to the creation of Heaven and Earth, the alphabet is created (A-T, a word
signifying a direct object precedes 'heaven'). Now the formation of the material world
now begins.

Ah' is the sound that emerges when breath first leaves the throat. In Hebrew, it is a silent
letter and only represents the potential of sound. “Aleph never occurs as a suffix, while
as a prefix it indicates the first person future -- ‘I will’ … this statement indicates his yet
unrealized potential.”30 As soon as the breath moves, the undivided One (1) splits apart;

From a Greek hermetic tradition: "Silence is the cultural instrument employed to honour
the undivided One, and it is the only permitted manner of uttering the deity’s name."31

As above, the Egyptian alphabet has an androgynous White (and black) mother goddess
as first sound 'A'. As an androgynous symbol, she has not yet split apart into duality.
When the wind moves through motherly Mut, she conceives and Creation ensues.
Likewise, first day of Genesis begins with a wind. That is, using completely different
symbols, none-the-less, Creation begins with the breath moving beyond the silent sound
of One's undivided Aleph.

We begin the path into the physical world, the material: "Happy are those whose way is
perfect." (Aleph Psalm 119's alphabet acrostic) And from China's alchemical path as

29
Hermes, youngest of Greek gods (and first planet as Mercury) is the androgynous pathfinder to
the wealth of the material world. Mercury is substance beginning white and darkening with age.
As a sundial, a herm, Hermes was a gnomic pillar of his community.
30
The Bahir, c. 1100 CE, Weiser, 1990, commentary Ayreh Kaplan, p. 25.
31
The Secret World of Hermetism. Paolo Scarpi, libreriauniversitaria.it.edizioni, (trans. Giovanni
Fort) p 51.
 11

Tao, the first verse states: "A way can be a guide, but not a fixed path… (Heaven and
Earth) … come from the same source but differ in name. Both are considered mysteries.
The mystery of mysteries is the gateway of marvels." 32

Taurus as Tav, final shape of Phoenician alphabet & Crete c. 1500 BCE

In any proper Mystery, the end is never final. Last letter is a reflection of the first. White
turns to black and is re-polished white. Numbered position being everything, last shapes

of Phoenician's 'mark' (tav) saving from death has become our plus sign , our +
multiplication sign X, promising an increase, a good return. According to Neo Platonists,
another mystery tradition, Chi (X) represents the Soul of the World linking everything in
the Universe as "a single visible living entity containing all other living entities, which by
their nature are all related." 33

In time, the new Jewish shape saving from death imitates the mark painted over the

doorposts of Hebrew slaves before Exodus into a new life: ‫ת‬ . As a mystical symbol
returning the dark to light, the seal as Tav represents "Reincarnation; The “stamp” of
previous lifetimes."34

Reaching the end, we begin again from T to A.

Examples of alphabet follows below.

I welcome any comments, criticisms, and corrections. Thank you.

jdillon022@gmail.com

32
First verse of China’s Tao Te Ching (Thomas Cleary, trans.)
33
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anima_mundi_ (Plato, Timaeus, 29/30; 4th century BCE)
34
http://www.inner.org/hebleter/tav.htm
 12

EGYPTIAN ALPHABET
12. Wick (Used for Torches) (H)

1. Vulture (A)
13. Placenta (B)

14. Belly of Animal and

Teats (H)
2. (I) or Reed (Y)

15. Bolt (S)

3. Arm (Cubit) (L)

16. Folded Cloth (S)

4. Quail (W)

17. Lake (Sh)

5. Leg (B)
18. Hill (K)

6. Seat or Throne (P)

19. Basket with Handles (X)

7. Cerastes Serpent (F)

20. Stand for Jugs (G)

21. Raised Bread (T)

8. Owl (M)

22. Hobble for Cattle (T)

9. Water (N)

23. Hand (D)

10. Mouth (R)

24. Resting serpent (Dj T)

11. Reed Shelter (H)
 4

PHOENICIAN/OLD HEBREW (c. 1050 BCE Ketav Ivri) and contrasting

JEWISH SCRIPT (c. 200 BCE Ketav Ashuri) WITH FINAL LETTERS

1. ‫א‬ Aleph - Ox,

13. ‫ם מ‬, (final) Mem - Water

2. ‫ב‬ Beth - House

14. ‫ןנ‬ (final form) Nun - Serpent
or Fish

3. ‫ג‬ Giml - Camel or Rope

15. ‫ס‬ Samekh - Prop or Fish

4. ‫ד‬ Dalet - Door 16. ‫ע‬ Ain - Eye

5.. ‫ה‬ Hey - Window or 'Hey' 17. ‫פף‬ (final) Pe - Mouth or

‫ו‬ Commandment

‫ץצ‬
6. Wau - Nail
18. (final) Tsade - Hunt or

‫ז‬ Fishhook

‫ק‬
7. Zain Weapon
19. Qopf _- Monkey or 'Eye

‫ח‬
of Needle'

‫ר‬
8. Heth -Gate
20. Ros - Head

‫ט‬
‫ש‬
9 Tet - Coil
21. Shin - Tooth or 'Bow'
10. ‫י‬ Yod -Hand
22 ‫ת‬ Tau - Mark
11. ‫ךכ‬ (final) Kaf - Palm of
Hand

12. ‫ל‬ Lamd - Ox goad or Rod

of the Teacher