IamJoseph,

"What I do know is that the Hebrews did AVOID vowels, but NOT [TYPO] absolutely."

Incorrect. The vowels were always included in the 22 alphabets [eg. the first alphabet ALEF is a vowel]."

"The greeks seperated the vowels, as they did also with the alphabets, when they translated the Septuagint in 300 BCE."

Interesting. I didn't know this dating. Later than I would have thought. My "guess" for Attic Greek, with an alphabet, would gone before Alexander and Philip.

"My "guess" for Attic Greek, with an alphabet, would gone before Alexander and Philip."

There are no greek alphabetical books prior to 300 BCE - the date of the first translation of the OT into another language. Flavius Josephus says the greeks got their alpha beta alphabets from the hebrew alef beth, and many ancient greeks also say so. Democrasy laws, which appears first in the OT, also came to the greeks via this source. There is a widespread agenda of negating the OT history in christian and muslim views - so it is best to deliberate all sources other than christian and islamic ones only to get to the truth of history.

Islamic sources deny the existence of the Jerusalem temple - even though the Arabs were in the front rows destroying this temple, as paid mercenaries of Rome [Josephus]. Christians in turn don't confront this lie because they first erected a church on this site, which was in turn destroyed by Muslims. There is a guilt factor in confronting truth here, and this seeps into reportings of history also. In contrast, I see everything stated in the OT writings to be truthful and archeologically vindicated today - while the reverse applies elsewhere when it contradicts the OT writings.

"Interesting. I didn't know this dating. Later than I would have thought. My "guess" for Attic Greek, with an alphabet, would gone before Alexander and Philip."

There are 9 hebrew alphabets which became the vowels under greek writings. The Alef is the AA sound, as well as the numeral 1: Hebrew is a very pristine and concise writings, taking the absolute shortest route between two points, which is the most advanced form of grammar. The world's first scientific cencus, in the millions, with gender, tribes and age sub-totals, and corresponding sum totals, is in the book of Exodus - this evidences that numerals and arithmetic was active in the OT - a factor which gives the OT alphabetical books a far more transcendent premise than is usually sited in most appraisals.

The greeks also invented the intelligent indexings of verse and paragraphs, apart from seperating the vowels and numerals of the OT.

"The Greeks did apparently borrow the basics for their alphabet -- or alphabets, since until the fourth century B.C. or so, several closely related alphabetic scripts were in use in the Greek-speaking world -- from those adventurous sea-going entrepreneurs, the Phoenicians, at some point during the eighth or possibly ninth century B.C."*

Also,

"Actually, it would appear that the inchoate alphabet first: reached. Crete and the Aegean Islands and was later wafted over the waters to mainland Greece on the local trade winds. One or two earlier local attempts to evolve a reasonable writing system seem to have followed this same maritime course: The syllabic scripts of Minoan Linear A -- as yet undeciphered -- and Linear B, the orthographic embodiment of the language of the Mycenaean empire of the fifteenth to thirteenth centuries B.C., first made their appearance on Crete, whether as native inventions or as tinkered-with borrowings from the Near Eastern mainland."*

*Source: Alpha to Omega: The Life & Times of the Greek Alphabet
by Alexander Humez, 1983 Nicholas Humez & David R. Godine

Secular books in Greek go back at least to 900 BCE.

"Secular books in Greek go back at least to 900 BCE."

Can you give any verifiable info on any Greek 'alphabetical' books or manuscripts or writings prior to 300 BCE - I searched hard for this but found nothing. Also, it should be agreed that if such evidence is not available, it means Josephus is correct.

IamJoseph,

I will have a look. There was some early Greek poetry and Greek plays. Regarding the latter there were instances of the Romans taking fictional plays as literal history.

Side bar: I once sought an account of the names of a Chinese family and a precise date from the before 1600 CE, whom concealed the details of the workings of astronomical instruments. I was researching the penchant to secrecy in cross-cultures. Despite extensive reading, contacting several major universities and a college at the Vatican [Jesuits], it took three months!

There was plenty of everyone knows this happened: But examples were not raining down.

Regards.