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The origin of the idea of a separate language called Hebrew is based upon
nothing but a religious tradition arising from the stories in the
Septuagint. Because of this tradition the adventurers and archaeologists of
Bibleland have taken pains to separate the extremely few examples spread
across centuries into Hebrew, Moabite, Phoenician and others even when there
is nothing intrinsic to the inscription which indicates an origin.
Prior to the 18th c. there was no serious question as to the general
outlines of the Septuagint stories. This included a belief in Moses and
Hebrews in Egypt. It was also believed Moses wrote the first five books of
the Septuagint. As it was assumed he wrote them in the language of the
Hebrews the language was called Hebrew.
That is the sole basis for calling the language Hebrew. Today we know
Hebrews in Egypt and Moses and Exodus are all myths. As such the sole
reason for calling this a separate language Hebrew has also vanished into
mythology.
So what should it be called? There really is no good answer for that. By
analogy today we refer to the these as dialects of a common tongue. The
ancient language we call Greek was spread from the Greek peninsula, north
into Macedonia and east along the southern coast of Turkey (Anatolia) to the
Bosporus and to some extent across the Dardenelles. The dialects in this
region were much greater than anything found in bibleland yet we refer to
them all as Greek.
By analogy the single, widely used language that became common from
bibleland to Persia is called Aramaic. Thus Hebrew, Phoenician, Moabite
should be considered as dialects of Aramaic if we treat them as we treat the
ancient dialects of Greek.
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