Because They Can’t See a Difference, They Assert No One Can
To my surprise, they cite the excellent study of Hasmonean and Roman paleo-Hebrew scripts by Mark McLean. McLean traces the typology of this archaizing script and is able to date by centuries and sometimes by half centuries paleo-Hebrew inscriptions, coin legends and manuscripts of the Hellenistic and Roman periods—including the paleo-Hebrew manuscripts from Qumran. Apparently, Rogerson and Davies did not learn from McLean’s study the characters of paleo-Hebrew and its evolution—assuming that they read it. They do not cite the paleographical literature on the development of the eighth- to sixth-century Old Hebrew scripts, and obviously have not been deterred by it.
The list of significant features differentiating Old Hebrew from paleo-Hebrew can be extended to most, if not all, letters of the alphabet. To identify them requires an eye and memory for form, gifts that make the paleographer. Without such gifts, a scholar is in the same straits as the tone-deaf musician who wishes to conduct an orchestra.
Paleo-Hebrew vs. Old Hebrew: The Long and the Short of It
By Frank Moore Cross
In the script chart above, I have drawn examples of a number of letters. This chart, I believe, allows even the untrained eye to see evolutionary changes that permit paleographers to date scripts typologically. The top line, from right to left, presents characters in Old Hebrew script of c. 700 B.C.E.: ’alep, he, kap, lamed, mem,
The ’alep at Siloam is drawn with a long vertical and three horizontal strokes, two on the right of the vertical, one on the left, a familiar cursive and lapidary pre-Exilic form. The ’alep of the late paleo-Hebrew scripts is made with a short vertical and two horizontal strokes, the upper one breaking through to the left of the vertical. In the latest of the paleo-Hebrew manuscripts, 11QpaleoLev, the top horizontal is written first, and the vertical breaks through only slightly, if at all, above the horizontal.
In the case of kap, Siloam preserves the archaic form derived from the trident: a horizontal v against the sloping vertical. The paleo-Hebrew scripts have a late form in which the top horizontal of the v has migrated out to the end of the lower horizontal.
Lamed in the Siloam text has the archaic loop at the bottom. The paleo-Hebrew scripts preserve the L-form lamed that appeared first in sixth-century B.C.E. scripts.
The mem’s of Siloam and of the paleo-Hebrew scripts could not be more different in how they are made (and look). How letters are made drives typological change. If the manner in which a letter is penned changes, it signals a change in form. The Siloam form is made with two ticks, the second reaching the top of the vertical. The right side of each tick approaches the horizontal in direction. The form is well known in pre-Exilic scripts. The late paleo-Hebrew mem is written with a zig-zag horizontal, the pen not being lifted.
S
Qop at Siloam is made with a looping top in eighth-century B.C.E. style. In the paleo-Hebrew of the Hellenistic and Roman periods, the loop is gone, and another form, influenced perhaps by Aramaic writing styles, has replaced it with an open top.