BIBLE NEWS: Ancient alphabetical inscription discovered in Jerusalem

An ancient earthenware jar has been found in Jerusalem which contains the oldest alphabetical language inscription ever discovered in the region.  In general, there are two kinds of written language.  Alphabetical languages encode the sounds we make as letters - like the English alphabet.  Pictographic languages encode meaning into pictures which represent whole words - like Egyptian hieroglyphics.

Working near the Temple Mount, head archaeologist Eilat Mazar uncovered the 10th century B.C.E inscription, engraved on a large pithos, a necklace ceramic jar, along with six others at the Ophel excavation site.
The inscription is written in the Canaanite language, a Biblical people who lived in the present-day Israel, and is the only of its kind to be found in Israel. The artifact predates the previously oldest inscription found in the area by 250 years and predates the Biblical Israelites' rule.

Hand-Inscribed Bibles in 100 Languages

Most of the Bibles that we see are printed by machines. A few of us who are lucky may see an illuminated manuscript from the Middle Ages. Now, the Bible Valley Society is working from Jerusalem to produce 100 hand-inscribed Bibles written in 100 languages.

To date, thousands of people from 31 countries have participated in the project, dubbed "People of the World Inscribe the Bible."

Accord to organizers' plans, each community hand-inscribes the 23,127 verses of the Jewish Bible, with the goal being to inscribe 100 Bibles in 100 languages.

Among the 31 countries represented so far are Panama, Costa Rica, Brazil, the United States, Argentina, Denmark, India, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Greece, Israel, Poland, Singapore, Finland, Canada, Britain, Germany, Switzerland, Latvia and Ukraine.