Complimentary Story
Editor, Wisconsin Christian News:Year-End 2025
I am loosely linking this to WCN publisher Rob Pue’s article, “Knowledge Increasing” (Aug. 2025). I agree that secular technological knowledge has been ever more rapidly increasing. Yet, my topic is upon Biblical ignorance. Many have written about the decline of Bible reading and study that seems to shadow the secular knowledge increase, Rob notes. He quotes from Daniel 12:4, “... and knowledge shall be increased.” Rob’s first sentence reads, “One could spend an entire lifetime in deep study and never fully digest or comprehend all that’s shared with us in the book of Daniel.” Again, I agree.
How, then, can I connect Daniel to Biblical ignorance? For that, I quote a portion of The Lord’s response to the Sadducees in Matthew 22:29, “You do err not knowing the scriptures, nor the power of GOD.” Nearly all of HIS disputes are with such persons, the Bible scholars of that time. These were not the common people that one might expect to be ignorant, but the rabbis, teachers. How could this be?
To gain an idea, let’s go to the origins of the Scriptures. Exodus 9:14, “And The LORD said unto Moses, Write this for a memorial in a book, and rehearse it in the ears of Joshua...” First note that Moses was simply writing as The LORD instructed him. All the prophets as Daniel acknowledged, related GOD’s Words not theirs with phrases as, “Thus saith The LORD.” Yet, why did Moses need to rehearse what was written in the ears of Joshua? Part of that lies in how it was written, a running script of all capital letters, no vowels, no word spacing, no punctuation. Most of literary refinements were not in use, even Jesus’ time. Some might ask why would GOD have Moses and others write HIS WORD in such a primitive way? Simple, HE wanted them to learn it and know it by heart. Such writing, in combination with vocal instruction, requires more than casual reading.
Joshua was not Moses’ only student, but all the leaders, especially the Levite priests. Their primary role was to learn the Scriptures by heart, and then instruct the common people. None of the ritual practices or observances were possible until they understood them from GOD’s Word. The Bible is full of examples where failure to hear and heed HIS WORD, resulted in calamity for the Israelites.
A prime example is the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple with the people being taken captive to Babylon, and Daniel was one. The book of Daniel, indeed, has a lot to teach upon Scriptural ignorance, not that which led to their captivity, but ignorance which followed them out, Biblical ignorance that persists even to our times. Just as the tower of Babel story relates the confusion of languages, this second Babel resulted in confusion upon the Hebrew language used in the Scriptures. How so?
Are you familiar with the story of Hananiah, Mishael and Azariah? They were Daniel’s three companions thrown into the fiery furnace. Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, as Daniel 1:6 & 7 clearly point out were the names given them by the Babylonians. Trivial? Not at all, for it is indicative of the Hebrew language ignorance that still persists. Daniel 1:4 indicates that all four were chosen, because they were good students, able to serve in the royal court of Babylon. It ends, “... whom they might teach the learning and the language of the Chaldeans.” (Or “Aramaic”).
Until the discoveries of the Dead Sea Scrolls, most Bible scholars thought and taught that this was the common language in Judea when Jesus was teaching. The Scrolls showed that Hebrew was far from a dead language, replaced by Aramaic. Perhaps taking their cue from verses in Nehemiah upon Ezra reading The Book of The Law to the returning Jews. Verse 8:8 seems to imply that Aramaic had become so ingrained among them, many no longer understood Hebrew.
Careful examination of Daniel’s text is interesting. Consider Daniel 2:4. My Green’s Interlinear translates the first part as, “And the Chaldeans spoke to the king in Aramaic...” Just as nearly all of The Hebrew Scriptures up to that point, Daniel is written in Hebrew, but all the verses from then until 8:1 are written in Aramaic. From 8:1 until the end they are again written in Hebrew. Why? I see it as rather simple, GOD employed this temporary change of language in Scripture to indicate just that, it was temporary. While the use of Aramaic for the captives was acceptable, indeed a necessity for Daniel and company to occupy their positions in the Babylonian court. When they returned to Judea they were to return to Hebrew.
That last may seem to contradict my assertion of Biblical ignorance or confusion coming out from Babylon, but the ignorance was far more subtle. Hebrew and Aramaic are closely related languages. Recall, Abraham was called out from these lands by GOD. His son, Isaac’s wife was chosen from his extended family still living there. Jacob easily converses with Laban, who even invokes The Hallowed Name in his oath. It seems there was little language distinction in their times. In the roughly 1200 years from then to the time of Daniel’s captivity, a lot of changes had occurred there and writing was among them.
The script or fonts are especially noteworthy. Those that would have been familiar to Moses, David, Isaiah and others are now termed, “paleo-Hebrew.” While the Aramaic fonts which came out from Babylon many ignorantly call Hebrew. Daniel and his companions knew the difference, they learned the Hebrew letters in Judea and the Aramaic in Babylon, while both forms may be used to write the same words in either language. The individual letters look completely different and that change of letter shapes alone has led to much confusion, persisting among the highest levels of Bible scholarship. In fact my, “Basics of Biblical Hebrew” by Pratico and Van Pelt in, “Chapter 1: The Hebrew Alphabet” begins with a letter chart. Similar charts are in every Hebrew study resource as Strong’s Concordance and Green’s Interlinear.
In my textbook, chapter 7 begins, “Easily Confused Letters. For the beginning student, certain pairs or groups of consonants can sometimes look alike and be confused (just as in English with the capital I and lowercase l in the word “Idol”).” They list ten examples. None of which could be confused in the fonts of the earlier Hebrew scripts.
This might seem trivial until one learns just how often The Hebrew Biblical text is questioned due to these potential errors in discerning individual Aramaic letters. For example, while the Aramaic forms for, “Bet” and “Kaf” may be easily confused, those in the earlier script would be as mistaking a ”B” for a “K” in English. Confusion comes from Babel, Babylon.
Curiously, two of the main schools of scribes producing copies of the Hebrew Scriptures from ancient times are termed, “the Babylonian” and “the Palestinian.” I prefer, “Judeaen.” Both use Aramaic style scripts, yet such great care has been taken, even with those confusing letters, that in Genesis only 19 letter variations are found between them. My calculations based on the total number of letters in Genesis, come to a 99.99% accuracy in transmission. While the variants amount to spelling, “liter” as “litre” or “light” as “lite.”
In conclusion, I will ask you to look particularly at the last part of Jesus’ rebuke of those Bible scholars, “... nor The Power of GOD.” Careful, in-depth study of the Scriptures should not be “ignored,” but all of them studied as deeply as you are able. As John’s Gospel starts, “In the beginning was The Word ...”
Have you studied it lately, or are you listening to babblers?
-Bill Behringer,
Winneconne, Wis.
