Oldest Hebrew Text from around 1200 BCE found

A team of archaeologists have claimed to have found the oldest-dated Hebrew text in Israel, including two instances of YHW (a shortened form of YHWH/Yahuweh), in the proto-Hebraic script. This information was announced Thursday 24th March 2022, at a press conference in Houston, Texas, USA.

Albeit it has yet to be independently verified, so as with all “early announcements”, it’s probably best to be a bit sceptical as to the exact age (see, for instance, the hubbub around “first-century Mark”). This does not mean however that it isn’t the oldest; we just require confirmation. Of further interest is the fact this is not the result of a new excavation, but the re-checking of finds from an earlier one in the 1980s. Archaeology isn’t known for its speed.

If this turns out to be as old as stated, the question of “Hebraic literacy” effectively pushes it further back than scholars have been ready to admit.

You may read more about this in the following news articles: Times of Israel | Ha Aretz.

Update! Complete TC Edition & More

I may be cutting it quite close, but as mentioned back in April, I have managed to complete the DSS TC Edition! All Scriptural Books found among the Dead Sea Scrolls will now have their TC Editions online, both as separate books, and also in one giant TC Edition PDF File. Included in this Full publication are a small Preface, along with an Appendix regarding the text of Isaiah 61:1-2.

See the Downloads Page for the files to download/view 🙂

As with all TC Edition’s that have been completed, I end up updating most of the relevant Dead Sea Scrolls Transcriptions along with them. I did keep a ‘sort-of’ list, so may be worth re-downloading any document you’ve already had.

The list that I kept was as such:

4QpaleoDeut^r; 1QDeut^a; 4QDeut^k2; 4QLev^b; 4QLev^d; 11QLev^b; MasLev^b; 1QIsa^a; 1QIsa^b; 4QIsa^a; 4QIsa^b; 4QIsa^c; 4QIsa^d; 4QIsa^e; 4QIsa^f; 4QIsa^g; 4QIsa^h; 4QIsa^k; 4QIsa^l; 2QJer; Leviticus Parallel; Deuteronomy Parallel; Isaiah Parallel.

There is now very little I can do to assist in everyone’s DSS studies. Bar the occasional manuscript that appears once every decade or so, all of them are on TWTY for people to use for their studies!

I will be releasing them in other formats in the future (Bibleworks, E-Sword, even possible The Word), but these will be sporadic and won’t be coming forth any time soon.

I’ll also be taking a little break for at least up until the end of January. Then I will commence completing all the other projects I’ve already started (namely the Ancient Greek Papyri transcriptions & translations, as well as versions 2 and 3 of the Renewed Covenant Translation).

I have also removed a section from TWTY – and that is the Greek-English Interlinears section. I have come to understand that Interlinears don’t help – they rather hinder study, and make people think that they are translating when using an Interlinear to “assist”. They’re not; they’re mainly producing drivel. As such, I will not be producing any interlinear – ever. Plain parallel versions are fine though, so will be keeping those projects alive.

Anyway, apologies for waffling on. I shall stop 🙂

Hope everyone has an enjoyable new year, and I shall be posting again in 2017!

Godcast: Episode 6

The latest episode of Godcast is now up for your listening pleasure 🙂

Godcast Website
Godcast YouTube Page
godcastbible -at – gmail.com

Episode 6

Downtime & Update

First of all, my apologies for the downtime. Unfortunately, TWTY website was compromised by some malicious software, which effectively caused me to have to change webservers, and to also rebuild the website.

Thankfully, I had backups of practically everything, so now the site should be restored in full.

My apologies also to those who’ve had difficulty with the links in the Downloads page. They should now be back to full working order 🙂

I used this opportunity to change the address that the Forums were on (forum.thewaytoyahuweh.com is now http://forums.thewaytoyahuweh.com), and to also revamp the forums with a new look 🙂

Coincidentally, the downtime coincided with a new update that I was going to post up on TWTY, which I am now doing: Questioning Paul Review Part 2: The Eyewitness Accounts/The Messiah’s Words.

There will also be open discussion on this in the forum in the following thread: Forum Discussion.

Downloads Page

Success! Smallest Papyri Complete

I just finished uploading the final “small” Ancient Greek Papyrus of the Renewed Covenant/New Testament writings. All 62 of them are available to download from the Ancient Papyrus webpage 🙂

I still have the “larger” ones to do (100+ pages for most of them): P4, P5, P13, P40, P45, P46, P47, P66, P72, P75, and P115.

But as I said before, I’m now going to be concentrating on looking at the manuscripts found among the caves of Qumran (Dead Sea Scrolls), so check back here soon for some stuff regarding them 🙂

Update! More Ancient Papyrus Transcriptions

Another week, more uploads of Ancient Papyrus Transcriptions and translations. Powering on through them at the moment 🙂

The new ones this week were the following: Uncial 0171, Uncial 0220, P87, P80, P77, P69, P67, P52, and P23.

Please click here to go to the Ancient Papyrus webpage.

And as mentioned last week, this webpage is also accessible via either the sidebar to the right, or the drop down menu under Translation above 🙂

Update! Ancient Papyrus Transcripts & Translations

I just finished uploading the 27th Ancient Papyrus transcription and translation onto the website.

The new ones this week were as follows:

P9, P35, P39, P78, P91, P95, P98, P101, P102, P103, P104, P106, P107, P108, P109, & P113.

Please click here to go to the Ancient Papyrus webpage.

This webpage is also accessible via either the sidebar to the right, or the drop down menu under Translation above 🙂

Update! Greek Basis and Papyrus 64 Transcription

Bit of an early morning (well, for my time zone anyway) update to TWTY: The Greek Basis of the book of Yahuchanon, and a Transcription and Translation of Papyrus 64 (probably the oldest manuscript to contain text from the eyewitness account of MattithYah/Matthew – in this case the text of Matt 26:7-33).

This means I only have three more Greek Basis to complete: MattithYah, Lucus, and Acts. But as it happens, I’m very much in the mood for doing some more transcriptions and translations of all the oldest known Greek manuscripts of the Renewed Covenant books, so I shall be putting the Greek Basis on hold for the time being. Or knowing me, I’ll probably end up doing it in stages and letting you know when I’ve completed them all fully 🙂

Greek Yahuchanon Webpage | PDF
Papyrus 64 Transcription/Transalation PDF

Edit: For the above, please refer to the Downloads Page.

New Blog Post: Yahuweh’s Feasts: Fixing the Dates Part 1

As its Festival season for those of us who follow Yahuweh’s instructions outlined in the Torah, I’ve posted a new blog regarding how we determine the dates of the feasts with regards to the Hebrew calendar.

Please click here to read it, and please go here to discuss it in the TWTY forum 🙂

Yahuweh’s Feasts: Fixing the dates Part 1

Passover, Unleavened bread, Firstfruits, and Weeks

One of the stickiest subjects regarding the Festivals/Feasts of Yahuweh (Passover/Pesach, Unleavened Bread/Matstsah, Firstfruits/Re’shiyth, Weeks/Pentecost/Shabuwa’, Trumpets/Taruw`ah, Reconciliations/Kippuryim, Tabernacles/Sukkah) is when exactly to date them, with regards to both the Hebrew calendar, and our Gregorian calendar.

As with all things it’s probably best to let Yahuweh tell us how this all pans out, so as to make an informed decision.

When it comes to Passover/Pesach, the dating is quite easy. Yahuweh tell us in Leviticus 23:4‑5: These are the appointed feasts of Yahweh, the Set-Apart (qodesh) Assemblies (migra’ (although as this is in its plural form, this is pronounced mirqra’ay)), which you shall proclaim at the time appointed for them. In the first month, on the fourteenth [day] of the month at twilight, is Yahweh’s Passover.

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