What was the language of the country of Palestine?

6. What was the language of the country of Palestine?

Another galling question, considering the “Jews” have lost or forgotten their language (and their Torah) so many times. The ancient Hebrew language that the Old Testament was written in, hasn’t existed since the time of its writing. In fact, that particular Hebrew language exists mainly in the Bible and nowhere else.

According to the Bible itself, the entire Torah was lost and forgotten for hundreds of years before a priest called Hilkiah rediscovered it in the Temple Treasury (c640 BCE, just three and a half centuries after David and Solomon). King Josiah was astonished, apologized to the Lord, and immediately changed the laws of the land to adhere to the Torah. What had they been doing in the meantime? They don’t say. They forgot. They lost the “Ark of the Covenant” too. Forgot where they left it!

Modern Jews don’t follow the laws of the Bible. Their New Year is supposed to be celebrated in Spring (see Exodus Chapter 12), but they celebrate it in the fall. They don’t remember when they changed it or why. They forgot the ancient names of the months of their year and renamed them all. They don’t remember when they did that or why.

Only four original months are listed in the Old Testament:

“Abib (1st month)” — Ex 13:4 & 23:15
“Zif” (2nd month) — 1Kings 6:1
“Ethanim” (7th month) — 1Kings 8:2
“Adar (12th month)” — Ezra 6:15 / Esther 3:7,13 & 6:15 & 8:12 and more.

These names and the other eight (whatever they were) have all gone down a collective memory hole.

The “Masoretic Text” was a new writing of the Old Testament circa the 9th Century CE. The ancient original scrolls were written in Consonantal Hebrew (no vowels) and the meaning of each sentence was determined by the reader, since words with no vowels can be interpreted to say many different things. The original meanings had been lost; no one remembered what certain passages meant anymore, so the Masoretes wrote a new version, which included vowels in all the words. It was a modern Hebrew, and it froze the meanings of all the sentences, into what the Masoretes thought they meant or should mean. It remains one of the “authoritative” versions of the Bible. Modern Hebrew had to be created, because Ancient Hebrew had been lost … somewhere.

Had there ever been a steady succession of Jewish priests, like we’re supposed to believe, none of these screw-ups would have happened.

Arabs all over the Middle East have always spoken various Arab dialects. In fact, Hebrew derives from ancient Arabic. Yiddish is merely a watered-down, simple-man’s version of Hebrew (from ancient Arabic) mixed with European languages. Therefore, by the logic of the Palestine Quiz’s author, the Jews don’t exist. They don’t have a single language, and the languages they call their own come from older non-Israelite sources. Claiming that Hebrew is the Jewish language is silly. Jews don’t speak or teach ancient Hebrew except in Torah class. The “Hebrew” spoken today is a new version. Even the word “Hebrew” is an Arabic word (means: to cross over, or the one who crossed over — and refers to the travels of Abraham as he crossed the desert and the rivers Tigris and Euphrates, in his move to Canaan to start his colony). Today many Jews speak the dialects of the countries where they live and don’t speak any other language. They may learn a bit of Hebrew at sabbath school, but they forget it and don’t speak it among themselves. Collectively, all who call themselves Jews (regardless of what that means to them) have lost their own “past” and lost their language so many times that there’s little reason to believe they ever had any actual connection to it.