B'reshiyt 14.13, The name of the first book of the Hebrew Bible is "B'reshiyt" from the first word of the book and means "in the beginning". The Greek name is "Genesis" meaning "beginnings".      Back
When a Hebrew word is identified in the text, the word will be written in three ways. First, The word will be written in the modern Hebrew font. Secondly, an English equivelant to the Hebrew consonants with a period seperating each consonant and using the following equivelances; a-aleph, b-bet, g-gimel, d-dalet, h-hey, v-vav, z-zayin, c-chet (pronounced like the name Bach), t-tet, y-yud, k-kaph, l-lamed, m-mem, n-nun, s-samech, a-ayin, p-pey, ts-tsade, q-quph, r-resh, sh-shin, t-tav. Thirdly, a transliteration of the Hebrew word into Englsih. The Hebrew is read from right to left, the English equivalence and transliterations are read from left to right.      Back
Since root words are the "building blocks" for words and not words themselves, there are no transliterations into English.      Back
Merrill F. Unger, "Tower of Babel," Unger's Bible Dictionary, 1977 ed.: 115. (BCE - Before the Common Era, equivalent to BC)      Back
J.I. Packer, Merril C. Tenney, William White, Jr., Nelson's Illustrated Encyclopedia of Bible Facts (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1995) 337.      Back
A word of Greek origin meaning picture-writing where a picture represented a sound or combination of sounds. The Sumerian pictographs evolved into the cuneiform (wedge-shaped) writing familiar to most people.      Back
I believe the flood to be a literal flood that covered the whole earth. See The Genesis Flood by John C. Whitcomb and Henry M. Morris.      Back
The Tenack is the Hebrew name for the Hebrew Scriptures also known as the Old Testament. Tenack is an acronym for it's three parts; Torah (law), Naviyiym (prophets) and the Ketuviym (writings).      Back
This is the pictographic Hebrew alephbet as best as can be reconstructed by comparing ancient Hebrew scripts as well as sister languages of the period.      Back
The Hebrew language attaches letters to the front (prefixes) and back (suffixes) of words to add pronouns, prepositions, etc.      Back
Fred H. Wight, Manners and Customs of Bible Lands (Chicago: Moody, 1983) 78. See the story of Lot and the strangers in Bereshiyt 19.8.      Back
The vowels did not originally exist in the ancient Hebrew but were invented in approximately 700 CE to help unify Hebrew pronunciation.      Back
A prefix is the adding of a letter to a the beginning of a word. A suffix is the adding of a letter at the end of a word. An infix is the adding of a letter in the middle of a word.      Back
Approximately 80% of all the words found in the Tenack are from the parent or child root word, while the remaining 20% are from the combination roots.      Back
The terms "parent root", "child root" and "combination root" are of my own creation and are not to be understood as standard Hebrew terminology.      Back
As more specific words were formed from the parent root, the meanings of the parent root began to take on a more specific meaning, losing the original generic meaning.      Back
The various scripts and dates in this chart are excepted by most scholars. The Hebrew script in this chart only dates to approximately 1,000 B.C.E. since most sources only date Hebrew to this time.      Back
The square is the door and the horizontal line is the pole which the door hangs from. To open the door, the curtain is pushed to the side.      Back
All of the ancient Hebrew letters have an identical or very similar letter in the Egyptian script. The sounds for each Egyptian letter is very different from the Hebrew as in this letter. The Egyptian sound is "ts" equivalent to the Hebrew tsade. A clear picture of the "confusion" of the languages at the Tower of Babel.      Back
When the Hebrews were taken captive into Babylon around 500 BCE, they found the square Aramaic script easier to write and adopted it for their own language. The Samaritans which are half Hebrew and half Gentile remained in the land of Israel and retained the ancient Hebrew script even to this day.      Back
The pictures and what they represent have been compiled by comparing the many ancient scripts of the near east and by consulting the many resources. For a list of the resources, refer to the Bibliography.      Back
Each letter of the alephbet has a name. These names are also Hebrew words which have a meaning related to the picture. If the original picture is uncertain, the defintion of the word (and other words derived from the same root) will help identify the picture. The same is true of the opposite. If the picture is known but the definition of the word is unknown or uncertain, the picture will help define the word.      Back
The child root is followed by a hebraic definition and a chart displaying the Hebrew, English transliteration, Strong's number, definition and the number of times this word is found in the Tenack.      Back