Comment by YZF
2 days ago
I read Hebrew and I can more or less read the dead sea scrolls that I think are 250BCE. According to Google's AI from around 800BCE the alphabet was different enough that I won't be able to read those writings but given the translation between the letters you can still understand the words. While I haven't seen them or tried to read them supposedly the 600BCE Ketef Hinnom Silver Scrolls should be readable by a modern Hebrew reader.
Yes... while Hebrew has changed, it has been more of a shift in focus and an expansion and various directions - but the older stuff is still mostly usable. There was the long "Aramaic phase" though, which is weird given that we're talking about Hebrew. Bible Hebrew is, oh, 96-97% easily legible to moder readers I would say.
Of course, typical modern readers may not be able to string a full sentence of modern Hebrew, with clauses and everything, together these days, so maybe I'm overstating my point.
(Also: Free Palestine.)