ABSTRACT
The oldest biblical texts are found among the Dead Sea Scrolls, some of which may date to around 100 BCE, while the first complete Hebrew Bible is only from the year 1006 CE. The ancient Israelites did write, of course, but presumably most of what they produced was on perishable material like papyrus and wood and has long since disintegrated. They did sometimes write on stone or pottery, and some of this has survived. The oldest Hebrew inscription is believed to be a short text known as the Gezer Calendar. This text of only about twenty words appears to be a list of months and their associated agricultural activities, and is thought to have been written sometime around 900 BCE. Hebrew inscriptions from the biblical period were written in a form of the Hebrew alphabet known as Paleo-Hebrew. The Paleo-Hebrew script can be traced back to the earliest known alphabetic writing in history, the Proto-Sinaitic script.
