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Courtesy Esther Eshel

Now I know my l, m, n’s…A student’s work may solve an alphabetical quandary. This ostracon (inscribed potsherd) from Qumran, on the northwest shore of the Dead Sea and near where the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered, contains an alphabet whose two halves reverse the usual order: The first full line (line 2) begins with lamed, while the following line begins with aleph. Other languages provide similar examples. Authors Strugnell and Eshel use such evidence to bolster their claim that Psalms 9 and 10 were originally reversed.