Letter from Wiley, S. R. to Morais, Sabato. San Francisco, CA; Jul 1874
- Title
- Letter from Wiley, S. R. to Morais, Sabato. San Francisco, CA; Jul 1874
- Date Created
- 23 July 1874
- Format
- 12 pages on 6 sheets
- Language(s)
- English
- Source
- Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies
- Sabato Morais Collection, Box 2, Folder 1
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- https://colenda.library.upenn.edu/items/ark:/81431/p35t3gk3t/manifest.json
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- https://colenda.library.upenn.edu/catalog/81431-p35t3gk3t
- Provenance
- Transfer of Custody from the Hebrew Education Society, 10 March 1913.
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- https://raw.githubusercontent.com/judaicadh/morais/main/TEI/SMBx2FF1_10.xml
- content
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San Francisco July 23d 1874.
Revd. S. Morais
Dear Sir.
Your interesting letter of 4th inst. came duly to hand and I reply thereto, though I have not had much time to hand up matter to cont[?] your arguments, which did not satisfy me in regard to the matter at issue. The subject is so vast I hardly know where to take hold of it, to com-mence my reply. I take it from your letter, that you think it the original tongue, and this is the idea of not only Jews but also many Christians, for instance, Chrysostom, Austin, Origin and Jerome among the Ancient writers, and among the moderns, Bo-chart, Heidegger, seldin and Buxtorf. They employ the argument you do, viz, Adam from Adamah (the ground) &c It is said those are plainly Hebrew names & therefore prove the Hebrew language to have been in use when they were given. Besides it is alleged the names of some nations are derived from Hebrew names: as Sonia, from Savan: and so likewise of some heathen gods; as [?], which seems to be a corruption of Tubal-Cain; as Apollo does of Jubal &c. &c. But [?] and many others will not allow this argument. On this head I find in "Jennings Jewish Antiquities" Edinburgh edition 1808. "There are many more patriarchal names, of which we can find no such Hebrew derivation, than there are of which we can; and it might very likely happen, that among such a multitude of names, some few might answer to the word, which expressed the sense of that original word from whence the name was derived, in whatever language Moses had written. Thus, supposing he had written in Latin, and accordingly translated the name Adam into home, it would have borne as near a relation to humus, (the ground) as it does in the Hebrew to Adamah. We have no reason to conclude the names in the Mosaic history were the original names, and not translated by Moses into the language which he wrote; since we have a plain instance of such a translation in his own name; which as it was given him by Pharaoh's daughter, an Egyptian, cannot be supposed to have been originally Hebrew; therefore, not Mosheh, as he wrote it, but as it is in the Coptic version Moüsi, from Moü, which in that language signifies water, and si, taken. But Moses finding the Hebrew word Mosheh, to "draw out", bearing some resemblance in sound to his name, and in signification to the occasion of it, translated the Egyptian name Moüsi, into the Hebrew Mosheh."
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Thus Jennings writes exhaustively on the subject, and clearly shows that other oriental tongues can lay a better claim than the Hebrew. Again he says "Abeb, or Hebeb, which in Hebrew signifies vanity or a vapour, seems not a name very opposite to Adam's second son, and therefore Moses hat assigned no reason for his being called that name. But if it be derived from the syriac jehab eil, which signifies, Deus dedit, it is very proper and expressive. So the name Babel, which the Hebrew text infroms us was so called because Lord did there balal; that is, confirmed the language of all the earth, may be more naturally derived from the Syriac; in which tongue Babel, or Bobeel, signifies confusion. So that the Syriac, or perhaps any other of the eastern tongues, might be proved by this argument, from the etymology of the names, to have been the original language, as well as the Hebrew.
Le Clere advances the idea, that neither the Hebrew, nor Syriac nor Chaldee, nor any other language now extant, was the true original tongue; but that this and the other Oriental tongues have all sprung from, or are so many different dialects of that first lan-guage, itself now lost among them; as the Italian, French and Spanish, are none of them the language of the Ancient Romans, but all derived from it.
Great diversity of opinion exists about the confusion of tongues at the tower of Babel. Julius Scaliger a modern Jewish writer, understands not a multiplication of tongues, but a confusion of those ideas, which they affixed to words: e. g. one called for a stone, and he mis pre-sented with mortar by one and with sand by another. Other Jews make the number of lan-guages then, seventy, imagining there were seventy different nations then planted in the world; a notion which they ground on the following passage. "When the Most High divided to the na-tions their inheritance, when he separated the sons of Adam, he set the bounds of the people according to the number of the Children of Israel" Deut. 32.8
The mention you make of Jacob calling the heap of stones Gal ed—a Hebrew word, while Laban called it gigar sahadhatha a pure Chaldee word, leads some writers to sup-pose that Hebrew was the language of the Canaanites, which Abraham and his posterity learnt by dwelling among them. This is Le Cleu's idea—but not mine.
I am sorry you have such an indifferent opinion of my favorite author Philo, or rather of his attainments. True he was an Hellenist and worshiped his God in Greek, while he was a Hebrew, and still from his writings I cannot but believe he was well versed in Hebrew literature. I find him in very respectable company, for Jennings commenting on the marginal corrections
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in the original manuscripts, and copies says "Further, it should seem that these margin-al corrections were not in the copies, from whence either the Seventy, the Chaldee Paraphrast, Aquilla, Symmachus or Theodosian made their versions; since they sometimes follow the Kevi, sometimes the chethibh; whereas had these marginal corrections been in their cop-ies, they would doubtless, ordinarily, if not always, have followed them. Neither Josephus, nor Philo, nor Origen, nor Jerome, make any mention of the Kevi and the chethibh; nor does the Mishnah." This must from Philo Hebrew scholar, and give weight to his remarks concerning the origin of the word Israel. Moreover, in Philo, I find a greater number by far, of meanings to Biblical names, than in any book outside a dictionary. True, his reading may have been the Septuagint, but that does not give these definitions, so I am constrained to believe him a Hebrew Scholar.
Bellarmine, in his Hebrew Grammar, maintains that the Hebrew, abounds in the a[?] etymologies and roots of the names both of men and things, and that in its names of brutes, it expresses their nature and properties more significantly and properly and more accurately, than in any other known language in the world. I want you to note this, for I want as a set off to quote from Dr. Clarke something very different. I meant to note, the many various and diverse views ex-pressed by different scholars on this subject, so that what we cannot nail as facts, we can call presumptions, and then perhaps my presumptions, may be as good as any ones.
Your celebrated writer Deutsche, denies that the Hebrew is the original tongue; he says "With regard to its lexical and grammatical position, it occupies that mean between the Aramaic as the poorest and the Arabic as the richest."
I should have mentioned above in speaking of Philo, Dr Clarkes opinion of him; he says, in mentioning his various authorities for his great work--"Among the Jews several eminent commentators appeared at different times, x x x Philo Judaeus, may be reckoned among these. His works contain several curious treatises in ex-plication of the different parts of the Hebrew Scriptures."
Genesis 10 chap 20. v. reads "These are the sons of Ham, after their families, after their tongues, in their countries, and in their nations." Same Chapter v. 31. reads "These are the sons of Shem, after their families, after their tongues, in their lands, after their nations." By this it would seem, that a hundred years after the flood, they had different tongues, to various families;
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You say "The fact that the Alphabet—doubtless of very ancient origin, and according to the sages coeval with creation contains the names of letters like Beth (He) Nam (ar) &c carries out the views generally entertained) Gradually, however, the two languages diverged, so that at the time of Jacob they were entirely distinct." What proof have you of this? Might not the Amaraic, have been impregnated with Hebrew, after the Exodi? I think so. This Aramaic, from Aram, pertains to the language or literature of Syria and Mesopotamia and likewise to Chaldea. "The Chaldee or Chaldaic was the language of the ancient Babylonian and Assyrian Empires, and is supposed to have been derived from the Hebrew which it closely resembles." x x x "The Hebrew language is supposed by many to have been the original language, spoken before the confusion of Babel, though of this we have no positive proof" Parks Pantology, article Glossology.
Now if the Aramaic was Chaldee, and was the mother tongue, of the Hebrew, how is it, as I said before, that the children of the Kingdom of Judah, when captive in Babylon, for seventy years, lost their mother tongue? You say, by their mothers teaching the ver-nacular—but if this vernacular, was derived from the mother tongue, how lose it?
Park, in his Pantology says "The Oriental langauges are doubtless the most an-cient of all. The Hebrew is probably the oldest. X x x The Coptic was the original language of Egypt and it is one of the most ancient known. It was expressed by the characters commonly called Hieroglyphics, from a Greek word signifying a sacred en-graving. The Earliest Hieroglyphics appear to have been imitations, or natural sym-bols of the object which they expressed. Thus an eye, with a sceptre beneath it, signi-fied a King. A flying hawk, represented the ming &c &c. From these hieroglyphics were derived the phonetic characters; and which constituted probably, the earliest al-phabet known." You perceive these deep read authors, deal in probably's and doubtless, but give nothing as facts: no steel-cold facts. Park, also says, "The Arabic, has many words in common with the Hebrew, as the Arabians, through Ishmael are also de-scendants of Abraham; but it is written in a more difficult character &c &c" Clarke says the Hebrew sprung from the Arabic or the Arabic from the Hebrew! Sir William Jones, says positively, the Ara Hebrew sprung from the Arabic! Now, may not the Arabic, have sprung from the Hebrew in after ages, not on account of Ishmael at all, but after the Exodi? The historian Gibbon suspected the Sanscrit to be largely borrowed from
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the Greek, though on the contrary, Park, thinks the Greek borrowed from the Sanscrit.
Mrs Mary Freeman Shepherd, an English lady of genius and knowledge of various languages, among them the Hebrew, in a letter, written fifty years ago to a prominent Minister, to substantiate her views of Moses being the Author of the book of Job, says, "To Israel, Moses conveyed the pure language of their fathers; but rather than the nations should be famished for bread, or die for thirst he put manna in their coarse earthen vessels and wine in their wooden cups." Now to me, the idea is very absurd, that the descendants of seventy persons, enslaved in the heart of a country, for four centuries at least, retained their mother tongue during that time; so that at the end of that period, one born three hundred and twenty years after their entrance therein (for Moses was Eighty when they came out) could write in that language, and when he had been forty years from them, speaking all that time another tongue; The time was long enough for Moses to have lost it entirely. It does not even now, in the age of Books, take long for a language to almost lose its originality—how much easier was it so to do, when there were none? At the late ecumenical council in Rome, the bishops spoke Latin, but the eastern bishops, could not understand the western, and the Roman bishops understood neither!
But speaking of Languages—they are all a compound, and formed from adven-titious circumstances, e. g. The Spanish language is derived from the Phoenician of the early colonists, and of the Carthaginian conquerors, mingled with the Latin of the Romans—from which and the language of the Visigoths, a Romance lan-guage was formed about A. D. 623. this Romance tongue with some Arabic words from the Moors forms the basis of the Castilian tongue, which according to Sismondi, dates back to A. D. 1050, and not until 1252 under Alphonso tenth, was the Spanish Language—so called—acknowledged by a code of laws written in it. Now, here we have, Phoenician, Carthaginian, Latin, Arabic and Visgoth, from-ing the present Spanish language. In my own individual summing up on the origin of the Hebrew—I will incidentally refer to this again.
We will take one instance of the great uncertainty of writing among the ancients, and a much later date than the Aramaic you speak of—Homer--"The most ancient of all the profane writers." According to Paterculus he flourished 968. B. C. According to
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Herodus 8 84. The [?]delian [?] place it 907 B. C. So little known of him, that seven cities contend for the place of his birth, and he is called the author of the Iliad and Odyssey. Smyrna, Chias[?], Colosshon, Salamis, Rhodes, Aryos and Athens, all lay claim to his birth place, and the matter is still in dispute; and he is still for aught we know a fabulous person; and it is getting to be believed, that the Trojan war and Homer, with his Achilles and Ajax, Menelous and Ulysses, Diomedes and Patriclus[?] and his Agamemnor and Nestor were myths. Some late writers, have as-cribed these [?] to Solomon, composed after his disaffection from the true religion to idolatry. The word Homer—Homerus is merely the Hebrew Omerim with a Greek termination, signifying, the sayings or discourses—from Omar—he spoke, and that is what they are—dialogues or conversations of the principal characters. Even the battles of Homer are full of parleys, and the information we get of the poem, is through the conversation of the respective chiefs.
Even nine hundred or a thousand years later, when an event of ten thousand times the importance of the siege of Troy, took place in Bethlehem; neither the day, month nor year was noted, and is not known to the present day. For the sake of argument take this mean time of 907 B. C. according to the Arundelian Marbles, and it takes us back in Biblical times to Elijah, in the first of the Rings and about 580 years from the giving the law on Sinai; while we see that even the Jews had made no gen-eral use of their knowledge of writing untill after the captivity a period of about 960 years. The antiquity of the Pentateuch sets it at the head of all the writings in the world, while its philosophy, jurisprudence, history, geography and chronology, entitle it to the respect of the whole human race.
Dr. Clarke in his notes to chap 34 of Deuteronomy, says, "It is allowed among learned men that where a word occurs not as a verb in the Hebrew Bible, its root may be legitimately sought, in the Arabic. He who controverts this position knows little of the ground on which he stands." And again in the commencement of his work he says "It is a maxim that admits of no controversy that every noun in the Hebrew language is derived from a verb which is usually termed the radix or root; from which not only the noun but all the different flections of the verb spring. x x x The root in Hebrew and in its sister lan-guage the Arabic, generally consists of three letters and every word must be traced to its root &c &c
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In Hebrew and Arabic, this is essentially necessary, and no man can safely criticise on any word in either of these languages who does not carefully attend to this point.
I mention the Arabic with the Hebrew for two reasons 1st because the two languages evidently spring from the same source, and have very nearly the same mode of construction. 2nd because the different roots in the Hebrew Bible are to be sought for in the Arabic lan-guage. The reason of this must be obvious, when it is considered that the whole of the He-brew language is lost except what is in the Bible, and even a part of this Book is written in Chaldee. x x x If a particular form of Hebrew word occur that cannot be traced to a root in the Hebrew Bible, because the word does not occur in the third person singular of the past tense in the Bible, it is expedient, it is perfectly lawful and often it is indispensibly ne-cessary to seek the deficient root in the Arabic. For as the Arabic is still a living language and perhaps the most copious in the universe, it may well be expected to furnish those terms which are deficient in the Hebrew Bible. And the reasonableness of this is founded in another maxim, viz, that either the Arabic was derived from the Hebrew, or the Hebrew from the Arabic. I shall not enter into the controversy; there are great names on both sides, and the decision of the question in either way, will have the same effect on my argument. For if the Arabic were derived from the Hebrew, it must have been when the Hebrew was a living and complete language, because such is the Arabic now; and therefore all its essential roots we may reasonably expect to find there. But if as Sir William Jones supposed the Hebrew were derived from the Arabic, the same expectation is gratified the deficient roots in Hebrew may be sought in the mother tongue. x x x I make these observations at the very threshold of my work, because the necessity of acting on this prin-ciple (seeking deficient Hebrew roots in the Arabic) may often occur, and I wish to speak once for all on the subject." 1 vol. p. 26.
Dr Adam Clarke, was one of the most brilliant oriental scholars, in the galaxy that shone with such splendor on the English horizon in the first half of this century. Arabic, Coptic, Sanscrit, Hebrew, Persian, Chaldee, Greek, Latin, and other oriental languages he was conversant with, as though "native and to the manner born." His greek work, a commentary on the Bible, of six royal octavo volumes of a thousand pages each, is a literary monument of genius, skill and industry, almost unsurpassed in any language, and occupied to the exclusion of all else, forty consecutive years of his life! And I take great pride in
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in being able to enrich my manuscript with his rich thoughts and glowing expressions. So to with Philo, he being so happy in his expressions and elegant in his variety, was termed in his day the "Jewish Plato." Scholars said that Philo Platonises or Plato Philonises. His work written in the reign of Caius, met with such unbounded applause in the Roman senate, when he read it publicly that he was permitted to place it in the public library. His work was divided into three parts, the first relating to the Creation of the world, the second spoke of sacred history, and in the third the author makes mention of the laws and customs of the Jewish nation. This work I have in four volumes of six hundred pages each, and from its great erudition, and the eminence of the author, a proufound Jewish philosopher, and living before the final destruction of Jerusalem, some 1,900 years ago, and before the dispersion of the Jews, leads me to infer he must have been a fine Hebrew scholar.
Perhaps I might have been aided in this work, were I able and could I have consulted such great works as the Targums of Onkelas and Jonathan; or the Massorah; or the Commentarys of such great Jewish lights as Rabbis Kimshi, Jarchi, Levi Ben Gershom, Maimonides, Abarbanal and others too numerous to mention, whose brilliant intellects have been from age to age, digging into that mine of wealth to humanity, the Jewish scriptures. But they are sealed to me.
Dr Winder, in his "History of Knowledge" "thinks it probable that this was the first writing in Alphabetical characters ever exhibited to the world, though there might have been marks in hieroglyphics, cut in wood, stone &c before this time." (In his remarks on the delivery of the Law) "That these tables were written not by the commandment, but by the power of God himself, the following passages seem to prove. 'And the Lord said with Moses, come up to me in the mountain and be thou these, and I will give thee tables of stone which I have written, that thou mayest teach them.' Ex. 24. 12 'And he gave unto Moses upon Mount Sinai, two tables of testimony, tables of stone, written with the finger of God? Exod. 31. 18. 'And Moses went down from the mount; and the two tables of testimony were in his hand; the tables were written on both their sides. And the tables were the work of God, and the writing, was the writing of God, graven upon the tables' Exod 32.15.16 "These words" (the ten commandments) 'the Lord spake in the mount, out of the midst of the fire, of the cloud and of the
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thick darkness, with a great voice; and he added no more, but he wrote to them on two tables of stone." Deut. 5. 22.
I will make but one more quotation. Dr Bayley, in his remarks on this subject, says "In time, seems so proper from whence to date the introduction of letters among the Hebrews as this; for after this period we find continual mention of letters, reading and writing in the now proper sense of those words: e. g. Deut 31.9.27=8 &c &c Moses it is said was educated in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, in all the learning they posessed; but it is manifest that he had not learned of them any method of writing, otherwise there had been no want of God's acts and assistance in writing the two tables of the law, no need of a miraculous writing. Had Moses known this art, the Lord might have said to him, as he did often afterwards, 'write thou these words' Exod 34.27 'Write on the stones the words of this law' Deut. 27.3. 'Write you this song for you' 31.91. Perhaps it may be said, God's writing the law gave it a sanction. True, but why might it not also teach the first use of letters, unless it can be proved that they were in use prior to this transaction? It might be thought too much to assert that letters no more than language were a national discovery: that it was impossible for man to have invented writing, and that he did not invent it: yet this may appear really the case from the following re-flections: 1st. Reason may show us how near to an impossibility it was, that a just and proper number of convenient characters for the sounds in language; should naturally be hit upon by any man for whom it was easy to imitate and vary, but not to invent. 2nd. From evidence of the Mosaic history, it appears that the introduction of writing among the Hebrews was not from Man, but God. 3rd. There are no evident vestiges of letters subsisting among other nations, till after the delivery of the law at Mount Sinai; nor then, among some, till very late."
I said above, I would make but one more quotation: I must here however, make a note of a recollection just come into my mind, bearing upon Dr Bayley's last remark. Kitto, the celebrated English writer, in his work on "The Book of Job, and the other Poetical Books," which I recently read, wants to make out that Moses is its author and that it was written when he was in Midian: and to support that idea, says many writers here asserted there was no writing, before giving the law, but, they are in error, for the contrary has been proved—He does not give he proof.
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Desiring to show the worth of my authorities, from whom I have quoted, I must say a word in Roswell Park, A. M. professor of Natural Philosophy and Chemistry in the University of Pennsyl-vania, and member of Am. Phil. Society. His great work, "Pantology or a systematic survey of Human Knowledge" is one of profound thought, deep study and analytical natural clas-sification of Human Knowledge, in its various branches of, Glossology, Psychology, Nomology, Theology, Geography, Chronography, Biography, Callography, Acrophysics, Idiophys-ics, Anduphysics, Architechnics, Chreotechnics &c &c and is the patient result of years of unremitted labor, in the vast field, he has undertaken to illustrate. He has produced a work unrivalled in its line, and an enduring monument of patient industry and scien-tific research. The work was published thirty five years ago, and is now out of print.
Well, my evidence is all in, and nothing now remains but to give my own per- sonal views on the subject under controversy, viz, The Origen of the Hebrew Language. Of all my authorities, Dr Winder and Dr Bayley come nearest to my views, but neither speak of its Origen. They tell when they think ti was reduced to a written language, and give their reasons, for their views, and which I think are very cogent, but they do not fully meet my ideas on the subject. This is a matter, I have brought years of thought to, and finding that all these authors only deal in surmises, probabil-ities and suppositions, and glittering generalities, I now for the first time produce mine. It has been a lead-ing idea of mine, to embody these views in a book, and for that purpose I have la-bored for a long time collecting data, pertinent thereto; but I have now pretty much given up that idea, and most probably shall write no more on the subject, than is em-braced in these few pages. Not desiring to weary you, I have condensed as much as possible what I had to say, and have let out many of my jottings, that I had in-tended to write, fearing my letter would be too voluminous; but with all my care, I could not make it more brief. And now to the point.
I claim, that the Hebrew originated at the giving the Law on Mount Sinai! That Abraham and all his descendants spoke Chaldee only, for I have no evidence of any Hebrew Language before this time. And my reasons are the following.
Going back to 1656 A. M. the Almighty glancing over the world, saw it filled with corruption and ungodliness, and determined to sweep everything off of its surface. One man, of the many, many millions was found acceptable to God, and he was saved
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from the general destruction and with him his family of seven persons, they being saved through his Godliness, as ten such, at an after period would have saved Sodom.
From Noah and his family the earth was repeopled, but the start[?] being bad, they fell into the same wicked courses, as those before the flood; but as Jehovah had made a covenant not to drown out the world again, He determined to manifest himself to mankind, for their better living and future salvation: and to that end some five hundred years after the flood, called Abram, a very good and God-fearing man to go into Canaan and remain there, taking as it were a pre-emptive right thereto, for it was peopled, but with inhabitants of the worst sort, and whose offenses were so rank, even for that grossly sinful time, that their cup was running over. This land God promised to his descendants, whom he promised him should be exceedingly numerous. The Almighty blessed this man beyond precedent, in the wealth of this world. In due time he had a son, him also as he grew to manhood, was thus blessed in even a more especial manner than his father, and in due course this son had a son, upon whom was showered in a worldly point of view every blessing.
To Abraham, the Almighty had said he would send his descendants into a strange coun-try for four hundred years. Naturally enough, but still Providentially, under the pressure of famine Jacob with his family, flocks and relatives, probably numbering some 5,000 souls, went into Egypt, where after a while, the government, seeing them poor in possess-lation and wealth, perhaps feared an imperium et imperio, by some means not now known reduced them to slavery. Philo, gives a most graphic account of this servitude, which must have been horrible, but from which in Gods time they were released.
Their period of probation having been fulfilled, the Almighty having appointed a leader, with a series of miracles unparalleled in their stupendousness in the annals of the world, brought them forth a consolidated nation of some 5,000,000 souls; and in reavealing himself on Mount Sinai and giving them a code of laws and a system of religion, wrote with his own fingers their laws in Hebrew Characters, now for the first time promulgated to them, and Moses and the people, intuitively and by a miracle were enabled to understand them, as was done centuries later in Jerusalem on the day of Pentecost!
Why should the Jew want to go back in the dead part to find the origen of his language? Is it singular or strange that Jehovah, who from the very first
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inception of their nationality, had as it were, held them in the hollow of his hand, and had protected, guided and cared for them for centuries, should now to guard them still more from the idolatry of the surrounding nations, as they were to take their place in the family of nations, provide them with a strange tongue? Had he not entered into a covenant with each and every Jew, and who bore that symbol in their most secret part, hid from the eye of the world? Was not the whole system of revelation, and this personal covenant, given to the Jew, to separate them from all the peoples of the earth, and to make of them a holy nation and a peculiar people? Had He not given them a country, such a one as no where else existed, a land "flowing with milk and honey?" Had he not with a "mighty hand and an outstretched arm" bro't them out unscathed from the heart of a populous country, and devoted their [?]-ers to destruction? Had he not told Abraham, his descendants should be his cho-sen people, that He would bless those that blessed them, and curse those that cursed them, and up to this time had he not done it? And finally, did He not care for them for a period of forty years in the wilderness, preparatory to their entrance as a nation in the world? Then why wonder that he gave them a distinct, a peculiar and written language?
This is my theory. I here at Mount Sinai, given amid thunders and lightening, proclaim this miracle of the Hebrew language, at the moment the He-brews became a nation, as a God-given and peculiar language to his chose peo-ple, and nothing that I have seen in the writings of the profoundest scholars, has caused me to alter my opinions. Their writings on the subject, are not based on one tangible fact, but are theories and suppositions only, conflicting with each other and unable to bear the scrutiny of the plainest common sense. Those languages, the Aramaic, the Phoenician, the Arabic, Chaldee, Canaanitish and others that resemble it, have become impregnated from the Hebrew, from the intercourse the nations had with the Jews, for our knowledge of these languages is desired long after the exode, and when the Hebrews had made themselves a power in the land.
I remain with respects
Yours truly
S. R. Wiley - Identifier
- p35t3gk3t
- identifier
- SMBx2FF1_10
Part of Letter from Wiley, S. R. to Morais, Sabato. San Francisco, CA; Jul 1874
Wiley, S. R. and Morais, Sabato, “Letter from Wiley, S. R. to Morais, Sabato. San Francisco, CA; Jul 1874”, Sabato Morais Digital Repository, accessed October 18, 2024, https://judaicadhpenn.org/legacyprojects/s/morais/item/90909