What do you think?
Rate this book
The World’s Oldest Alphabet: Hebrew as the Language of the Proto-Consonantal Script
“. . . 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. . . .”
- From the Introduction by Eugene H. Merrill,
Distinguished Professor of Old Testament Studies (Emeritus)
Dallas Theological Seminary
For about 150 years, scholars have attempted to identify the language of the world's first alphabetic script, and to translate some of the inscriptions that use it. Until now, their attempts have accomplished little more than identifying most of the pictographic letters and translating a few of the Semitic words. With the publication of The World's Oldest Alphabet, a new day has dawned. All of the disputed letters have been resolved, while the language has been identified conclusively as Hebrew, allowing for the translation of 16 inscriptions that date from 1842 to 1446 BC. It is the author's reading that these inscriptions expressly name three biblical figures (Asenath, Ahisamach, and Moses) and greatly illuminate the earliest Israelite history in a way that no other book has achieved, apart from the Bible.
Douglas Petrovich (Ph.D., M.A., Th.M., M.Div.) teaches Ancient Egypt at Wilfrid Laurier University (Waterloo, 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.), where he taught all levels of biblical Hebrew. 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. His research interests include biblical history and exegesis, Egyptology, and ancient Near Eastern history (including archaeology, epigraphy, chronology, and iconography).
- From the Introduction by Eugene H. Merrill,
Distinguished Professor of Old Testament Studies (Emeritus)
Dallas Theological Seminary
For about 150 years, scholars have attempted to identify the language of the world's first alphabetic script, and to translate some of the inscriptions that use it. Until now, their attempts have accomplished little more than identifying most of the pictographic letters and translating a few of the Semitic words. With the publication of The World's Oldest Alphabet, a new day has dawned. All of the disputed letters have been resolved, while the language has been identified conclusively as Hebrew, allowing for the translation of 16 inscriptions that date from 1842 to 1446 BC. It is the author's reading that these inscriptions expressly name three biblical figures (Asenath, Ahisamach, and Moses) and greatly illuminate the earliest Israelite history in a way that no other book has achieved, apart from the Bible.
Douglas Petrovich (Ph.D., M.A., Th.M., M.Div.) teaches Ancient Egypt at Wilfrid Laurier University (Waterloo, 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.), where he taught all levels of biblical Hebrew. 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. His research interests include biblical history and exegesis, Egyptology, and ancient Near Eastern history (including archaeology, epigraphy, chronology, and iconography).
- GenresHistoryNonfiction
262 pages, Hardcover
First published December 1, 2016
6 people are currently reading
167 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
February 8, 2017
This book is one paradigm-shifting title. Douglas Petrovich is a diligent scholar who is considered an expert in “epigraphy, palaeography, lexicography, and comparative linguistics and literature”. The scholarly world has been in an ongoing debate for many years over what language has the world’s first alphabetic script. Mr. Petrovich has worked through the ancient specimens that we have with their proto-consonantal script and has proven conclusively that it is Hebrew. He has even translated these previously untranslated specimens. That the highly-respected scholar Eugene Merrill has studied his work and given it the highest recommendation proves its trustworthiness.
The beautiful thing about this new book is the boon this it is to those of us who believe in the complete veracity of the Bible. I don’t mean it’s a substitute for faith, but that it is another help to doubters. A quick Google search will show you that several major news organizations have already carried stories on Mr. Petrovich’s work. While many of us so appreciate this book, it will probably be something like a bomb going off in the scholarly world where so many do not believe the Bible they study. Going forward, all doubters should be sent to this book.
Though this book has all the necessary minute data to prove its thesis, non-specialists like me can still follow the argument. He well presents the history of what has been thought over the years and carefully outlines what he went through to reach his conclusions. He is not just pulling his conclusions out of the sky. No, he put an incredible amount of work into solving this long-standing puzzle.
The book itself is attractive and has the design of other fine Carta Jerusalem titles. The maps and illustrations are outstanding and really help you to follow what Mr. Petrovich is saying. This book will be discussed for many years and will likely reach the status of one of the most important volumes ever in its field. I highly recommend it.
I received this book free from the publisher. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255.
The beautiful thing about this new book is the boon this it is to those of us who believe in the complete veracity of the Bible. I don’t mean it’s a substitute for faith, but that it is another help to doubters. A quick Google search will show you that several major news organizations have already carried stories on Mr. Petrovich’s work. While many of us so appreciate this book, it will probably be something like a bomb going off in the scholarly world where so many do not believe the Bible they study. Going forward, all doubters should be sent to this book.
Though this book has all the necessary minute data to prove its thesis, non-specialists like me can still follow the argument. He well presents the history of what has been thought over the years and carefully outlines what he went through to reach his conclusions. He is not just pulling his conclusions out of the sky. No, he put an incredible amount of work into solving this long-standing puzzle.
The book itself is attractive and has the design of other fine Carta Jerusalem titles. The maps and illustrations are outstanding and really help you to follow what Mr. Petrovich is saying. This book will be discussed for many years and will likely reach the status of one of the most important volumes ever in its field. I highly recommend it.
I received this book free from the publisher. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255.
March 20, 2021
My Original Short Review: "This book only serves as an apologetic for the early exodus view and does a poor job at that. The work is filled with sloppy scholarship and replete with logical fallacy. Those knowledgeable in modern methods of epigraphy will not recognize the methodology used in this book. It is a deeply unsatisfying read where the conclusions do not follow from the premises and the work does not advance the field of scholarship."
I wasn’t intending to make a long review since Petrovich's book is already out of print [retracted?]. It is very strange that a book from Carta Jerusalem published only in 2016 would now be out of print. This is especially odd today given that electronic editions can remain in print for more than a decade after bound copies are no longer being sold.
However, this book is still of interest to some readers, and I was recently asked to expand upon my original review in the comments. I have decided to move my reply up into the main review window with some additional background info so that my long review can be seen without drilling down into the comments.
Furthermore, I should state that I did not receive a gratis or free review copy of this book--I paid full price for the book. Ouch!!! In a highly unusual decision, the publisher did not send out review copies of this book to the peer-review journals. So in this case, anyone wanting to review this book actually had to buy their own copy of it, then seek permission from a journal editorial board to publish that review. Not being a cheap book, and since the review process under these special circumstances would be exceptionally rigorous, few reviewers were willing to go through the hassle. This effectively shut out a wide swath of subject matter experts from reviewing the book.
The handful of free review copies that were sent out were targeted to prescreened sympathetic reviewers. Thus, honest reviews by qualified reviewers who actually read the book are rare. And as for qualifications, I hold 4 graduate degrees (3 masters and a PhD) in ancient Near Eastern disciplines.
So, at the request of another GoodReads reader, here are my reasons for not liking this book:
UNDELIVERED PROMISES: The author promises to prove that Hebrew was the underlying language of the proto-consonantal script (abbr. PCS). You would expect from such a book a technical work that compares Semitic languages and inscriptions from across the Ancient Near East (Ugaritic, Akkadian, Moabite, Amorite, Hurrian, etc.) to prove that the language of PCS was Hebrew. But if that's what you are expecting, you will be disappointed.
NO LINGUISTIC ARGUMENTS: Petrovich doesn't compare any of the inscriptions to the comparative Semitic languages at all. His so-called proofs that PCS was Hebrew are: (a) The presence of the noun “Hebrews” in Sinai 115, (b) Each early alphabetic letter has a Middle Egyptian “hieroglyphic exemplar.” (c) The presence of “Three biblical figures who have names used of only one person in the Bible” (p. 191). He doesn't even address his point (b) until the appendix where he defers to the work of Goldwasser and Hamilton, which in turn does not support his case. So the proofs he provides are really points (a) and (c). But what does any of these points have to do with the language being Hebrew? Nothing at all. We find biblical names in languages other than Hebrew, so that proves nothing. And even if he had found the noun “Hebrews” in Sinai 115, that proves exactly what? Isn’t Habiru a common Semitic term found across the Ancient Near East? And doesn't Meroitic use characters based upon Egyptian glyphs? The conclusions he makes do not follow from the premises.
In the end, Petrovich doesn’t prove anything using linguistics but instead asserts the PCS was Hebrew. And he does this in order to take the next step to show the exodus took place during the early date (1446 BC) (p. 195).
This is a disappointing performance given that Eugene Merrill, who wrote the preface, lauded Petrovich for “His acclaimed expertise in … comparative linguistics and literature” (p. vi). Why doesn't an "expert" in comparative linguistics and literature actually compare what he is writing about to other languages and literature? If you are strong in those fields, shouldn't you leverage your strengths instead of resorting to flawed historical arguments? It makes no sense at all unless Petrovich isn't really an expert in these fields, and this is just made-up puffery by Merrill.
CIRCULAR REASONING: This book is a thinly veiled apologetic to prove an early exodus date. But in performing his apologetic exercise he uses circular reasoning a number of times.
For example, he starts with the premise that the name Ahisamach only appears in the book of Exodus (p. 181). Then he begs the question leaping from “if the Ahisamach of Sinai 375a is the same man as the lone biblical personage of that name” (p. 182) to “The significance of Sinai 375a to the present study cannot be underestimated… due to its identification of an obscure biblical character [Ahisamach] of this latter date in an historical context” (p. 182), without actually showing that it is the same man.
Not content to stop there, he assumes an early exodus view, dates the stela according to that assumption, then claims the date of the stela as proof for an early exodus. According to Petrovich, the Exodus dates to 1446 BC. So, he claims that Sinai 375a must date to about 30 years earlier to ca. 1480 BC (p. 182). Then, he concludes that the dating of the early alphabetic inscriptions “is the refutation of errant views of Biblical chronology, such as the late exodus view” (p. 195). This is textbook circular reasoning. Did anyone even read this book before publication?
SPECIAL PLEADING: Many readings are strange and show confirmation bias. He reads Sinai 115 as entirely Egyptian characters except for one character. That one character is an Egyptian-P that he reads as a Semitic-B to get the reading “Hebrews.” That one character would be more reasonably read as an Egyptian character since all the rest of the characters are also Egyptian, and there is no compelling reason to think that any Semitic characters were ever used in this text. What the author did was special pleading.
FAULTY METHODOLOGY: Much of his book is based upon comparing the epigraphic readings of a handful of scholars to his own readings. Petrovich takes low-resolution publication photographs and blows them up to 400% in MicroSoft PowerPoint, then traces over them to get his reading (pp. xii, 86). He doesn’t use any modern epigraphic tools: no multi-spectral photography, no high-res images or RTI (reflectance transformation imaging), not even DStretch, Photoshop, or a strobe light. No modern epigrapher would accept his methods as valid.
POORLY CITED: Petrovich cites himself 39 times, which shows inadequate interaction with prior scholarship. Some citations refer to ideas that other authors said long ago; e.g., “the exodus pharaoh (Exod 5:1) is Amenhotep II (Petrovich 2006)” (p. 197) when that same idea was claimed by James Orr and J. W. Jack. If the author had cited Orr and Jack’s identification of Amenhotep II in the 2006 article, then these citations may have only been weak scholarship. Neither this book nor the 2006 article cite Orr or Jack.
Some of the self-citations conceal the original source (pp. 28, 74, 152, 195); e.g., compare “which totaled 101,128 (Petrovich 2006: 102, 104-106)” (p. 28) with “The figures given totaled 101,128” taken from ANET. Petrovich cited original sources in an article then cited his own article with no reference to the original sources. Source materials with easily available citations were handled in a sloppy manner.
18 self-citations are to an unpublished, unfinished work. This is regrettable. Given the bold claims of the book, having so many citations dependent upon a work that may not come to fruition is deeply unsatisfying. Some of these come at critical junctures in the book when evidence would have been really useful.
For example, “Asenath was the wife of Joseph and the mother of Ephraim and Manassah, the two sons who departed from their father’s house when their grandfather (Jacob) informed Joseph that he was confiscating them and taking them to live among their uncles as their equals (Gen 48:5, 15-20), which can be demonstrated archaeologically (Petrovich: in prep).” (p. 70) If it can be “demonstrated archaeologically,” surely an adequate citation must exist. Wouldn’t that evidence be germane to his central argument?
Don’t have the evidence you need? No problem. Just say that you are writing a book in the future and vaguely cite yourself without a page number. It’s a cheat that Petrovich did way too often in this book.
SMALL SAMPLE SIZE: There are hundreds of proto-consonantal inscriptions from not just the Sinai but many additional ones also found in the neighboring Levant. And yet, Petrovich limits himself to only 16. That can be seen as cherry-picking the data or not having a firm grasp upon the scope of the evidence. Either way this is not a good look for a scholar.
INADVERTENTLY SHOWS PCS IS NOT HEBREW: For a book claiming that Hebrew was the underlying language of the PCS, his readings of this so-called ancient Hebrew are idiosyncratic. Several of his transcriptions demonstrate non-standard Hebrew use (e.g. Sinai 346b, Sinai 357, Sinai 361, Sinai 375a). And he even admits that he has to break the rules of Hebrew in order to read “Moses” in Sinai 361 (p. 165). If his readings deviate from Hebrew and he has to break the rules of Hebrew to get the reading of names he wants, then he is inadvertently showing that the PCS is not Hebrew writing.
DEFENSIVE POSTURING: A significant portion of the book is used to state why his views are immune from criticism. He claims that only those with his specialized education have “the ability to contribute to the topic in any truly significant manner” (p. 188). By this he means that he is the only person in the world to have the education needed to really appreciate his own arguments. It's a false appeal to authority, i.e., I'm smart, more educated than you, and an authority figure, so believe what I say. Yeah, I don't think so. Of course, his claim to being the only person in the world with an education like his is false—other people have educations similar to his. And even so, that would not make his arguments (if they are coherent at all) beyond question.
Moreover, he states, “even if someone were to receive the appropriate training… archaeologists and ANE scholars would then turn around and accuse that researcher of applying improper methodology.” (p. 188) This defensive posture really draws attention to his faulty methodology, when he might have been better off saying nothing at all.
I don’t get why he feels the need to posture. If his arguments are as strong as he claims they are, just state them with lots and lots of evidence, and let the chips fall where they may. If he knows his views are going be regarded as fringe, being defensive still doesn’t help his case. This defensiveness only opens him up to more criticism.
CONCLUSIONS: I know some people like this book, but it is my impression that their like is based upon the conclusion Petrovich draws, i.e., his support of an early exodus date. And if Petrovich wanted to write a book about the early exodus theory, that’s what he should have done instead of this hot mess.
I feel it is important that, if you make a claim, you should provide sound evidence and reasoning to prove that claim. This book makes hypobolic claims but does not give the reader the evidence to warrant those claims. This work is deeply flawed with many examples of logical fallacy and failure to engage the existing scholarship. The translations are based upon an inadequate methodology, a doubtful epigraphy, and a poor understanding of ancient languages. And the tone of the writing does not seek to convince as much as forcefully assert its conclusions.
The problems with the book are plentiful and serious, and that is why I cannot recommend this book.
I wasn’t intending to make a long review since Petrovich's book is already out of print [retracted?]. It is very strange that a book from Carta Jerusalem published only in 2016 would now be out of print. This is especially odd today given that electronic editions can remain in print for more than a decade after bound copies are no longer being sold.
However, this book is still of interest to some readers, and I was recently asked to expand upon my original review in the comments. I have decided to move my reply up into the main review window with some additional background info so that my long review can be seen without drilling down into the comments.
Furthermore, I should state that I did not receive a gratis or free review copy of this book--I paid full price for the book. Ouch!!! In a highly unusual decision, the publisher did not send out review copies of this book to the peer-review journals. So in this case, anyone wanting to review this book actually had to buy their own copy of it, then seek permission from a journal editorial board to publish that review. Not being a cheap book, and since the review process under these special circumstances would be exceptionally rigorous, few reviewers were willing to go through the hassle. This effectively shut out a wide swath of subject matter experts from reviewing the book.
The handful of free review copies that were sent out were targeted to prescreened sympathetic reviewers. Thus, honest reviews by qualified reviewers who actually read the book are rare. And as for qualifications, I hold 4 graduate degrees (3 masters and a PhD) in ancient Near Eastern disciplines.
So, at the request of another GoodReads reader, here are my reasons for not liking this book:
UNDELIVERED PROMISES: The author promises to prove that Hebrew was the underlying language of the proto-consonantal script (abbr. PCS). You would expect from such a book a technical work that compares Semitic languages and inscriptions from across the Ancient Near East (Ugaritic, Akkadian, Moabite, Amorite, Hurrian, etc.) to prove that the language of PCS was Hebrew. But if that's what you are expecting, you will be disappointed.
NO LINGUISTIC ARGUMENTS: Petrovich doesn't compare any of the inscriptions to the comparative Semitic languages at all. His so-called proofs that PCS was Hebrew are: (a) The presence of the noun “Hebrews” in Sinai 115, (b) Each early alphabetic letter has a Middle Egyptian “hieroglyphic exemplar.” (c) The presence of “Three biblical figures who have names used of only one person in the Bible” (p. 191). He doesn't even address his point (b) until the appendix where he defers to the work of Goldwasser and Hamilton, which in turn does not support his case. So the proofs he provides are really points (a) and (c). But what does any of these points have to do with the language being Hebrew? Nothing at all. We find biblical names in languages other than Hebrew, so that proves nothing. And even if he had found the noun “Hebrews” in Sinai 115, that proves exactly what? Isn’t Habiru a common Semitic term found across the Ancient Near East? And doesn't Meroitic use characters based upon Egyptian glyphs? The conclusions he makes do not follow from the premises.
In the end, Petrovich doesn’t prove anything using linguistics but instead asserts the PCS was Hebrew. And he does this in order to take the next step to show the exodus took place during the early date (1446 BC) (p. 195).
This is a disappointing performance given that Eugene Merrill, who wrote the preface, lauded Petrovich for “His acclaimed expertise in … comparative linguistics and literature” (p. vi). Why doesn't an "expert" in comparative linguistics and literature actually compare what he is writing about to other languages and literature? If you are strong in those fields, shouldn't you leverage your strengths instead of resorting to flawed historical arguments? It makes no sense at all unless Petrovich isn't really an expert in these fields, and this is just made-up puffery by Merrill.
CIRCULAR REASONING: This book is a thinly veiled apologetic to prove an early exodus date. But in performing his apologetic exercise he uses circular reasoning a number of times.
For example, he starts with the premise that the name Ahisamach only appears in the book of Exodus (p. 181). Then he begs the question leaping from “if the Ahisamach of Sinai 375a is the same man as the lone biblical personage of that name” (p. 182) to “The significance of Sinai 375a to the present study cannot be underestimated… due to its identification of an obscure biblical character [Ahisamach] of this latter date in an historical context” (p. 182), without actually showing that it is the same man.
Not content to stop there, he assumes an early exodus view, dates the stela according to that assumption, then claims the date of the stela as proof for an early exodus. According to Petrovich, the Exodus dates to 1446 BC. So, he claims that Sinai 375a must date to about 30 years earlier to ca. 1480 BC (p. 182). Then, he concludes that the dating of the early alphabetic inscriptions “is the refutation of errant views of Biblical chronology, such as the late exodus view” (p. 195). This is textbook circular reasoning. Did anyone even read this book before publication?
SPECIAL PLEADING: Many readings are strange and show confirmation bias. He reads Sinai 115 as entirely Egyptian characters except for one character. That one character is an Egyptian-P that he reads as a Semitic-B to get the reading “Hebrews.” That one character would be more reasonably read as an Egyptian character since all the rest of the characters are also Egyptian, and there is no compelling reason to think that any Semitic characters were ever used in this text. What the author did was special pleading.
FAULTY METHODOLOGY: Much of his book is based upon comparing the epigraphic readings of a handful of scholars to his own readings. Petrovich takes low-resolution publication photographs and blows them up to 400% in MicroSoft PowerPoint, then traces over them to get his reading (pp. xii, 86). He doesn’t use any modern epigraphic tools: no multi-spectral photography, no high-res images or RTI (reflectance transformation imaging), not even DStretch, Photoshop, or a strobe light. No modern epigrapher would accept his methods as valid.
POORLY CITED: Petrovich cites himself 39 times, which shows inadequate interaction with prior scholarship. Some citations refer to ideas that other authors said long ago; e.g., “the exodus pharaoh (Exod 5:1) is Amenhotep II (Petrovich 2006)” (p. 197) when that same idea was claimed by James Orr and J. W. Jack. If the author had cited Orr and Jack’s identification of Amenhotep II in the 2006 article, then these citations may have only been weak scholarship. Neither this book nor the 2006 article cite Orr or Jack.
Some of the self-citations conceal the original source (pp. 28, 74, 152, 195); e.g., compare “which totaled 101,128 (Petrovich 2006: 102, 104-106)” (p. 28) with “The figures given totaled 101,128” taken from ANET. Petrovich cited original sources in an article then cited his own article with no reference to the original sources. Source materials with easily available citations were handled in a sloppy manner.
18 self-citations are to an unpublished, unfinished work. This is regrettable. Given the bold claims of the book, having so many citations dependent upon a work that may not come to fruition is deeply unsatisfying. Some of these come at critical junctures in the book when evidence would have been really useful.
For example, “Asenath was the wife of Joseph and the mother of Ephraim and Manassah, the two sons who departed from their father’s house when their grandfather (Jacob) informed Joseph that he was confiscating them and taking them to live among their uncles as their equals (Gen 48:5, 15-20), which can be demonstrated archaeologically (Petrovich: in prep).” (p. 70) If it can be “demonstrated archaeologically,” surely an adequate citation must exist. Wouldn’t that evidence be germane to his central argument?
Don’t have the evidence you need? No problem. Just say that you are writing a book in the future and vaguely cite yourself without a page number. It’s a cheat that Petrovich did way too often in this book.
SMALL SAMPLE SIZE: There are hundreds of proto-consonantal inscriptions from not just the Sinai but many additional ones also found in the neighboring Levant. And yet, Petrovich limits himself to only 16. That can be seen as cherry-picking the data or not having a firm grasp upon the scope of the evidence. Either way this is not a good look for a scholar.
INADVERTENTLY SHOWS PCS IS NOT HEBREW: For a book claiming that Hebrew was the underlying language of the PCS, his readings of this so-called ancient Hebrew are idiosyncratic. Several of his transcriptions demonstrate non-standard Hebrew use (e.g. Sinai 346b, Sinai 357, Sinai 361, Sinai 375a). And he even admits that he has to break the rules of Hebrew in order to read “Moses” in Sinai 361 (p. 165). If his readings deviate from Hebrew and he has to break the rules of Hebrew to get the reading of names he wants, then he is inadvertently showing that the PCS is not Hebrew writing.
DEFENSIVE POSTURING: A significant portion of the book is used to state why his views are immune from criticism. He claims that only those with his specialized education have “the ability to contribute to the topic in any truly significant manner” (p. 188). By this he means that he is the only person in the world to have the education needed to really appreciate his own arguments. It's a false appeal to authority, i.e., I'm smart, more educated than you, and an authority figure, so believe what I say. Yeah, I don't think so. Of course, his claim to being the only person in the world with an education like his is false—other people have educations similar to his. And even so, that would not make his arguments (if they are coherent at all) beyond question.
Moreover, he states, “even if someone were to receive the appropriate training… archaeologists and ANE scholars would then turn around and accuse that researcher of applying improper methodology.” (p. 188) This defensive posture really draws attention to his faulty methodology, when he might have been better off saying nothing at all.
I don’t get why he feels the need to posture. If his arguments are as strong as he claims they are, just state them with lots and lots of evidence, and let the chips fall where they may. If he knows his views are going be regarded as fringe, being defensive still doesn’t help his case. This defensiveness only opens him up to more criticism.
CONCLUSIONS: I know some people like this book, but it is my impression that their like is based upon the conclusion Petrovich draws, i.e., his support of an early exodus date. And if Petrovich wanted to write a book about the early exodus theory, that’s what he should have done instead of this hot mess.
I feel it is important that, if you make a claim, you should provide sound evidence and reasoning to prove that claim. This book makes hypobolic claims but does not give the reader the evidence to warrant those claims. This work is deeply flawed with many examples of logical fallacy and failure to engage the existing scholarship. The translations are based upon an inadequate methodology, a doubtful epigraphy, and a poor understanding of ancient languages. And the tone of the writing does not seek to convince as much as forcefully assert its conclusions.
The problems with the book are plentiful and serious, and that is why I cannot recommend this book.
March 21, 2022
After reading Prof. Petrovich's book, I also read the reviews and critiques by Christopher Rollston, Alan Millard, Thomas Schneider, and Robert Holmstedt, along with Petrovich's responsae to Rollston, Millard, and Schneider.
Although I lack the scholarly background -- including knowledge of ancient Hebrew, ancient Semitic languages and script, and ancient Egyptian (both language and heiroglyphics) -- that would enable me properly to evaluate this work, I have long been an amateur student of Holy Scripture, biblical history, and biblical and Ancient Near Eastern archaeology. So, although I'm no credentialed expert, over the years I have read a fair amount of the experts' works. Though my opinion is probably not worth that much, I will say that I very much enjoyed Petrovich's book and am impressed with the painstaking diligence and the mastery of the relevant disciplines that is very evident on every page. I think he makes a very powerful case, and while I'm not someone who can properly appraise the accuracy of his translations, it does appear to me that he is correct to identify the language of the 15 inscriptions as an early form of Hebrew, and that the authors of the inscriptions were Israelites of the 430-year Egyptian Sojourn.
Certainly if one accepts the Bible's chronological data as accurate, then based on what we know of the history of the ancient Near East, the Exodus must be dated to 1446 B.C. as Petrovich does. This book isn't about the Exodus, and Petrovich makes his case for the 1446 B.C. in other papers he's written, and his forthcoming book is supposed to make that case at greater length and detail. In any case, I have never found the attempts to shift the Exodus to the 1200s B.C. to be even close to convincing, and I find it implausible to the point of absurdity to argue that the Israelites of Solomon's day would have been ignorant of how many years it had been since their founding event, the Exodus. It seems to be that there is no more chance of everyone in Israel forgetting how and when they escaped from Egypt than there is a chance that most Americans wouldn't know that the United States declared independence on 4 July 1776 (245 years ago). Why wouldn't Solomon have chosen to commence the construction of the Temple on a significant national anniversary (12 x 40 years since the Exodus -- 12, the number of founding, for the 12 tribes -- and 12 x 100 years since Abraham's birth)?
Petrovich argues that it is surely significant that the earliest alphabet appeared in Egypt not all that long after Israel had migrated to Goshen, and that these inscriptions in this particular script stop at about the time the Bible indicates that Israel left Egypt. It's potentially a great discovery to find a contemporary epigraphic reference to Moses -- one would expect never to find any extant Egyptian reference to Moses, since ancient rulers didn't brag about the times when they got their rear-ends stomped on; but surely the Hebrews themselves could have mentioned him. (This is assuming Petrovich is right about that inscription.)
Now, having read the reviews/critiques of Rollston, Millard, and Schneider, I think Petrovich's responsae more than adequately rebutted them. But then they hadn't even read his book yet, so there is no way they could have crafted anything like a coherent and cogent critique or rebuttal of his thesis.
Holmstedt at least read the book before writing a review/critique. I have not been able to find a response to Holmstedt's review. Perhaps Petrovich has written one and I'm just looking in the wrong place. I would be very interested to see what Petrovich have to say in response to Holmstedt's assertions regarding gemination in ancient Hebrew. Oddly, Rollston and Petrovich seem to have the same or similar understanding of gemination, as opposed to what Holmstedt claims or argues in his review.
I'm generally unimpressed with Holmstedt's review, as he makes it blazingly clear (he mentions it toward the start and dwells on it in the conclusion of his review) that the real reason he opposes Petrovich's thesis isn't that Petrovich doesn't understand ancient Hebrew grammar, but simply that he doesn't accept the Bible's historical and chronological data ("a naive reading of the Bible," he calls it, though he seems not to understand that the Christian doctrine of biblical inerrancy does not exclude later scribal errors creeping into biblical manuscripts). Holmstedt alleges that Petrovich takes a "pugilistic stance towards contemporary scholars when their conclusions do not match" Petrovich's, but that his is "strangely fawning" toward earlier scholars such as Gardiner. I did not find Petrovich to be "fawning" toward Gardiner et al. As for Gardiner, after reading serious works of Egyptian history and archaeology, I'd say only a fool wouldn't praise and express gratitude for Gardiner's work, even though it is at times outdated and must inevitably in the course of time be shown to sometimes be in error. I also thought Holmstedt's objection to Petrovich's "pugilistic stance" towards scholars with whom Petrovich disagrees was rather a case of someone living in a glass house throwing stones, seeing that his very review is openly hostile and insufferably condescending. "Oh no, we dare not criticise other expert scholars -- but, why, you're nothing but a dilettante! Your intellect and thesis are not time-tempered and are immature!" Pugilism for me, but not for thee? Anyway his accusation is false, full stop -- Petrovich sometimes criticises, but he explicitly praises and expresses gratitude for the contributions of modern scholars, even those with whom he disagrees. Here Holmstedt is guilty of misleading his readers. He has misrepresented Petrovich on this point.
Unfair as Holmstedt's personal attacks are, perhaps the silliest and most unfair of his accusations is "he often cites sources in an exaggerated way as if he wants to impress the reader with their authority." I have no idea what he's talking about, for I have found no such instances where he did that. He does cites plenty of sources, but then how could he not have done so? In what way is his manner of source citation substantially different from the way other serious academics cite sources? I think his book would have been worse than useless if he hadn't. Imagine what Holmstedt would have said if Petrovich hadn't cited all his sources, if Petrovich hadn't interacted with all the important, relevant scholarship pertaining to this subject? I got the impression that he wasn't really presenting a fair and dispassionate review of Petrovich's monograph at all, only seeking to discourage people from reading what he has to say and giving his thesis a fair hearing.
So, as I said, I think Petrovich makes a compelling case. Whether it holds up in the face of serious critiques and further studies and discoveries remains to be seen, but the critiques of Petrovich's book that I read were less than impressive to me.
******
Addenda - March 2022: Regarding some of the criticisms offered by another reviewer above: there is nothing wrong when a scholar provides a citation to one of his published papers if it is just so readers may learn more about a point the scholar has previously addressed at greater length. The comparatively few times Petrovich does that in his book does nothing to establish that he has failed to interact with all of the relevant scholarship regarding the subject of his book.
Nor is there anything wrong with mentioning in passing that some of his controversial statements that do not bear directly on the subject of his book will be addressed at length in his next book which he was at that time working to finish (it's now in print -- "Origins of the Hebrews," though Carta could not publish it due to Israel's pandemic disruptions). The reviewer alleges that Petrovich's real purpose in writing "The World's Oldest Alphabet" was to argue in favor of a 1446 B.C. Exodus -- but the book isn't about that at all (making it unnecessary for him to mention who had first/previously identified Amenhotep II as the Exodus Pharaoh), though it's related to it, and thus he does not go off on a tangent when he and others have already offered very compelling arguments and evidence to support that reconstruction. Instead he focused his book on trying to make his case that the language of the Sinaitic script was an early form of Hebrew rather than any of the other candidate languages that have been proposed.
As for Dr. Petrovich's first book going out of print early in 2020 -- no, neither Dr. Petrovich nor Carta have retracted his work. The pandemic lockdown in Israel interrupted Carta's operations. Dr. Petrovich has a "how to order" page at his Academia profile, where he said, "My first book, The World’s Oldest Alphabet: Hebrew as the Language of the Proto-Consonantal Script, which went out of print in the first couple of months of 2020, should be back in print by early in December of 2021, if all goes well." Those interested in buying a copy would need to contact Carta-Jerusalem.com.
A final comment about Dr. Petrovich's "defensive posturing." The reviewer has chosen to put a pejorative cast on Petrovich's plea to be given a fair and thorough hearing and not to be dismissed without due consideration of his thesis. Given the academic bias against scholarship that substantiates biblical history, and given the fact that three scholars attacked and dismissed his book without reading it first and before it was published (similarly, his peer reviewed paper making the case for Amenhotep II as the Exodus pharaoh was all but ignored by adherents of the late-Exodus hypothesis), defensiveness and a plea for fairness on his part is not inappropriate or unsurprising. Petrovich's reference to his prior study and his credentials was clearly not a claim that no one else is qualified to have an opinion on the matter -- rather, he was pointing out that he cannot be ignored or dismissed as unqualified to address himself to this subject.
Although I lack the scholarly background -- including knowledge of ancient Hebrew, ancient Semitic languages and script, and ancient Egyptian (both language and heiroglyphics) -- that would enable me properly to evaluate this work, I have long been an amateur student of Holy Scripture, biblical history, and biblical and Ancient Near Eastern archaeology. So, although I'm no credentialed expert, over the years I have read a fair amount of the experts' works. Though my opinion is probably not worth that much, I will say that I very much enjoyed Petrovich's book and am impressed with the painstaking diligence and the mastery of the relevant disciplines that is very evident on every page. I think he makes a very powerful case, and while I'm not someone who can properly appraise the accuracy of his translations, it does appear to me that he is correct to identify the language of the 15 inscriptions as an early form of Hebrew, and that the authors of the inscriptions were Israelites of the 430-year Egyptian Sojourn.
Certainly if one accepts the Bible's chronological data as accurate, then based on what we know of the history of the ancient Near East, the Exodus must be dated to 1446 B.C. as Petrovich does. This book isn't about the Exodus, and Petrovich makes his case for the 1446 B.C. in other papers he's written, and his forthcoming book is supposed to make that case at greater length and detail. In any case, I have never found the attempts to shift the Exodus to the 1200s B.C. to be even close to convincing, and I find it implausible to the point of absurdity to argue that the Israelites of Solomon's day would have been ignorant of how many years it had been since their founding event, the Exodus. It seems to be that there is no more chance of everyone in Israel forgetting how and when they escaped from Egypt than there is a chance that most Americans wouldn't know that the United States declared independence on 4 July 1776 (245 years ago). Why wouldn't Solomon have chosen to commence the construction of the Temple on a significant national anniversary (12 x 40 years since the Exodus -- 12, the number of founding, for the 12 tribes -- and 12 x 100 years since Abraham's birth)?
Petrovich argues that it is surely significant that the earliest alphabet appeared in Egypt not all that long after Israel had migrated to Goshen, and that these inscriptions in this particular script stop at about the time the Bible indicates that Israel left Egypt. It's potentially a great discovery to find a contemporary epigraphic reference to Moses -- one would expect never to find any extant Egyptian reference to Moses, since ancient rulers didn't brag about the times when they got their rear-ends stomped on; but surely the Hebrews themselves could have mentioned him. (This is assuming Petrovich is right about that inscription.)
Now, having read the reviews/critiques of Rollston, Millard, and Schneider, I think Petrovich's responsae more than adequately rebutted them. But then they hadn't even read his book yet, so there is no way they could have crafted anything like a coherent and cogent critique or rebuttal of his thesis.
Holmstedt at least read the book before writing a review/critique. I have not been able to find a response to Holmstedt's review. Perhaps Petrovich has written one and I'm just looking in the wrong place. I would be very interested to see what Petrovich have to say in response to Holmstedt's assertions regarding gemination in ancient Hebrew. Oddly, Rollston and Petrovich seem to have the same or similar understanding of gemination, as opposed to what Holmstedt claims or argues in his review.
I'm generally unimpressed with Holmstedt's review, as he makes it blazingly clear (he mentions it toward the start and dwells on it in the conclusion of his review) that the real reason he opposes Petrovich's thesis isn't that Petrovich doesn't understand ancient Hebrew grammar, but simply that he doesn't accept the Bible's historical and chronological data ("a naive reading of the Bible," he calls it, though he seems not to understand that the Christian doctrine of biblical inerrancy does not exclude later scribal errors creeping into biblical manuscripts). Holmstedt alleges that Petrovich takes a "pugilistic stance towards contemporary scholars when their conclusions do not match" Petrovich's, but that his is "strangely fawning" toward earlier scholars such as Gardiner. I did not find Petrovich to be "fawning" toward Gardiner et al. As for Gardiner, after reading serious works of Egyptian history and archaeology, I'd say only a fool wouldn't praise and express gratitude for Gardiner's work, even though it is at times outdated and must inevitably in the course of time be shown to sometimes be in error. I also thought Holmstedt's objection to Petrovich's "pugilistic stance" towards scholars with whom Petrovich disagrees was rather a case of someone living in a glass house throwing stones, seeing that his very review is openly hostile and insufferably condescending. "Oh no, we dare not criticise other expert scholars -- but, why, you're nothing but a dilettante! Your intellect and thesis are not time-tempered and are immature!" Pugilism for me, but not for thee? Anyway his accusation is false, full stop -- Petrovich sometimes criticises, but he explicitly praises and expresses gratitude for the contributions of modern scholars, even those with whom he disagrees. Here Holmstedt is guilty of misleading his readers. He has misrepresented Petrovich on this point.
Unfair as Holmstedt's personal attacks are, perhaps the silliest and most unfair of his accusations is "he often cites sources in an exaggerated way as if he wants to impress the reader with their authority." I have no idea what he's talking about, for I have found no such instances where he did that. He does cites plenty of sources, but then how could he not have done so? In what way is his manner of source citation substantially different from the way other serious academics cite sources? I think his book would have been worse than useless if he hadn't. Imagine what Holmstedt would have said if Petrovich hadn't cited all his sources, if Petrovich hadn't interacted with all the important, relevant scholarship pertaining to this subject? I got the impression that he wasn't really presenting a fair and dispassionate review of Petrovich's monograph at all, only seeking to discourage people from reading what he has to say and giving his thesis a fair hearing.
So, as I said, I think Petrovich makes a compelling case. Whether it holds up in the face of serious critiques and further studies and discoveries remains to be seen, but the critiques of Petrovich's book that I read were less than impressive to me.
******
Addenda - March 2022: Regarding some of the criticisms offered by another reviewer above: there is nothing wrong when a scholar provides a citation to one of his published papers if it is just so readers may learn more about a point the scholar has previously addressed at greater length. The comparatively few times Petrovich does that in his book does nothing to establish that he has failed to interact with all of the relevant scholarship regarding the subject of his book.
Nor is there anything wrong with mentioning in passing that some of his controversial statements that do not bear directly on the subject of his book will be addressed at length in his next book which he was at that time working to finish (it's now in print -- "Origins of the Hebrews," though Carta could not publish it due to Israel's pandemic disruptions). The reviewer alleges that Petrovich's real purpose in writing "The World's Oldest Alphabet" was to argue in favor of a 1446 B.C. Exodus -- but the book isn't about that at all (making it unnecessary for him to mention who had first/previously identified Amenhotep II as the Exodus Pharaoh), though it's related to it, and thus he does not go off on a tangent when he and others have already offered very compelling arguments and evidence to support that reconstruction. Instead he focused his book on trying to make his case that the language of the Sinaitic script was an early form of Hebrew rather than any of the other candidate languages that have been proposed.
As for Dr. Petrovich's first book going out of print early in 2020 -- no, neither Dr. Petrovich nor Carta have retracted his work. The pandemic lockdown in Israel interrupted Carta's operations. Dr. Petrovich has a "how to order" page at his Academia profile, where he said, "My first book, The World’s Oldest Alphabet: Hebrew as the Language of the Proto-Consonantal Script, which went out of print in the first couple of months of 2020, should be back in print by early in December of 2021, if all goes well." Those interested in buying a copy would need to contact Carta-Jerusalem.com.
A final comment about Dr. Petrovich's "defensive posturing." The reviewer has chosen to put a pejorative cast on Petrovich's plea to be given a fair and thorough hearing and not to be dismissed without due consideration of his thesis. Given the academic bias against scholarship that substantiates biblical history, and given the fact that three scholars attacked and dismissed his book without reading it first and before it was published (similarly, his peer reviewed paper making the case for Amenhotep II as the Exodus pharaoh was all but ignored by adherents of the late-Exodus hypothesis), defensiveness and a plea for fairness on his part is not inappropriate or unsurprising. Petrovich's reference to his prior study and his credentials was clearly not a claim that no one else is qualified to have an opinion on the matter -- rather, he was pointing out that he cannot be ignored or dismissed as unqualified to address himself to this subject.
September 29, 2017
Douglas Petrovich has a Ph.D. from the University of Toronto, with a major in Syro-Palestinian archaeology, and minors in both ancient Egyptian language and ancient Near Eastern religions. Petrovich is the former academic dean and professor at Novosibirsk Biblical-Theological Seminary and currently teaches Ancient Egypt at Wilfrid Laurier University. He is the author of numerous academic, peer-reviewed articles and the groundbreaking new book The World’s Oldest Alphabet: Hebrew as the Language of the Proto-consonantal Script (Carta Jerusalem, 2016).
The World’s Oldest Alphabet is divided into four sections: (1) background matters to the proto-consonantal inscriptions, (2) the inscriptions of the period of Egypt’s Middle Kingdom, (3) the inscriptions of the period of Egypt’s New Kingdom, and (4) concluding thoughts. Most readers will do well to spend time in the initial section of the book. Petrovich does a phenomenal job introducing the issues and methodology of the book, including the placement of the first alphabet among the earliest written scripts, the Semitic language of the proto-consonantal scripts, and the methodological information the reader will need to follow along.
Petrovich presents 16 proto-consonantal inscriptions: (1) the Caption on Sinai 115, (2) Sinai 337, (3) Wadi el-Hôl 1, (4) Wadi el-Hôl 2, (5) Lahun Bilingual Ostracon, (6) Sinai 376, (7) Sinai 345a and Sinai 345b, (8) Sinai 346a and Sinai 346b, (9) Sinai 349, (10) Sinai 351, (11) Sinai 353, (12) Sinai 357, (13) Sinai 360, (14) Sinai 361, (15) Sinai 375a, and (16) Sinai 378. Each inscription is addressed individually as Petrovich walks the reader through the necessary background information, the translation methodology, and the potential historical value of the inscriptions. Readers will find numerous full-color maps, photographs, and illustrations of the inscriptions. The visual aspect of the book complements the meticulously detailed information that Petrovich provides, and readers will appreciate every page. Furthermore, Petrovich includes a number of helpful supplemental items, such as an alphabetic chart of proto-consonantal Hebrew, and index material that provides additional information concerning the original letters of proto-consonantal Hebrew, grammatical guides for proto-consonantal Hebrew, and a chronological chart of relevant ancient Egyptian dynasties.
The World’s Oldest Alphabet is fascinating. Petrovich has broken academic ground that few have been willing to walk, and done so while yielding faithful witness to the biblical narrative. One of the most exciting, and subsequently controversial findings of the study, is the explicit mention of three biblical figures: (1) Asenath, (2) Ahisamach, and (3) Moses. Hence, not only has Petrovich claimed to have uncovered the oldest alphabet, he also has claimed to have discovered the oldest (1842-1446 BCE) mention of Moses and others. Of course, Petrovich is not without his critics, and for good reason. If The World’s Oldest Alphabet is accurate (and Petrovich presents a convincing case), then Petrovich could be liable for one of the most significant archaeological realizations in the last century. It fits the biblical narrative and further establishes the reliability of the biblical record.
The World’s Oldest Alphabet is detailed and judicious in its research and presentation, and readers will benefit greatly from Petrovich’s efforts. This is an academic work with a particular audience in mind. That said, while it may require more time to read than anticipated, it could be easily understood by a trained or interested layperson. The thesis is simple, explanation is clear, and the implications are enormous. Critics will inevitably argue that Petrovich found that which he was intending to find, but the meticulous work done therein appears to demonstrate otherwise. This isn’t to say that Petrovich deserves (or will get) wholesale support from every reader. It is simply an acknowledgement that Petrovich has done the necessary work to substantiate his conclusions, and for that reason The World’s Oldest Alphabet: Hebrew as the Language of the Proto-consonantal Script comes strongly recommended!
The World’s Oldest Alphabet is divided into four sections: (1) background matters to the proto-consonantal inscriptions, (2) the inscriptions of the period of Egypt’s Middle Kingdom, (3) the inscriptions of the period of Egypt’s New Kingdom, and (4) concluding thoughts. Most readers will do well to spend time in the initial section of the book. Petrovich does a phenomenal job introducing the issues and methodology of the book, including the placement of the first alphabet among the earliest written scripts, the Semitic language of the proto-consonantal scripts, and the methodological information the reader will need to follow along.
Petrovich presents 16 proto-consonantal inscriptions: (1) the Caption on Sinai 115, (2) Sinai 337, (3) Wadi el-Hôl 1, (4) Wadi el-Hôl 2, (5) Lahun Bilingual Ostracon, (6) Sinai 376, (7) Sinai 345a and Sinai 345b, (8) Sinai 346a and Sinai 346b, (9) Sinai 349, (10) Sinai 351, (11) Sinai 353, (12) Sinai 357, (13) Sinai 360, (14) Sinai 361, (15) Sinai 375a, and (16) Sinai 378. Each inscription is addressed individually as Petrovich walks the reader through the necessary background information, the translation methodology, and the potential historical value of the inscriptions. Readers will find numerous full-color maps, photographs, and illustrations of the inscriptions. The visual aspect of the book complements the meticulously detailed information that Petrovich provides, and readers will appreciate every page. Furthermore, Petrovich includes a number of helpful supplemental items, such as an alphabetic chart of proto-consonantal Hebrew, and index material that provides additional information concerning the original letters of proto-consonantal Hebrew, grammatical guides for proto-consonantal Hebrew, and a chronological chart of relevant ancient Egyptian dynasties.
The World’s Oldest Alphabet is fascinating. Petrovich has broken academic ground that few have been willing to walk, and done so while yielding faithful witness to the biblical narrative. One of the most exciting, and subsequently controversial findings of the study, is the explicit mention of three biblical figures: (1) Asenath, (2) Ahisamach, and (3) Moses. Hence, not only has Petrovich claimed to have uncovered the oldest alphabet, he also has claimed to have discovered the oldest (1842-1446 BCE) mention of Moses and others. Of course, Petrovich is not without his critics, and for good reason. If The World’s Oldest Alphabet is accurate (and Petrovich presents a convincing case), then Petrovich could be liable for one of the most significant archaeological realizations in the last century. It fits the biblical narrative and further establishes the reliability of the biblical record.
The World’s Oldest Alphabet is detailed and judicious in its research and presentation, and readers will benefit greatly from Petrovich’s efforts. This is an academic work with a particular audience in mind. That said, while it may require more time to read than anticipated, it could be easily understood by a trained or interested layperson. The thesis is simple, explanation is clear, and the implications are enormous. Critics will inevitably argue that Petrovich found that which he was intending to find, but the meticulous work done therein appears to demonstrate otherwise. This isn’t to say that Petrovich deserves (or will get) wholesale support from every reader. It is simply an acknowledgement that Petrovich has done the necessary work to substantiate his conclusions, and for that reason The World’s Oldest Alphabet: Hebrew as the Language of the Proto-consonantal Script comes strongly recommended!
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews