Hasmonean Use of Paelo-Hebrew
Besides invoking defense of the ancestral customs the Hasmoneans
further connected themselves with tradition by subtly referencing the united
monarchy of David and Solomon through their use of paleo-Hebrew script on their
coins. All the Hasmoneans utilized this script on their coinage, even though it
had not been commonly used since the end of the Davidic monarchy and the
majority of Judeans could not read it. Instead, the Aramaic script, also known
as square script of Syrian script, was the common script during the first
century B.C.E. It was used for writing both Hebrew and Aramaic, which was the
lingua franca of Judaea. It is certainly true that some scrolls written in
paleo-Hebrew had survived the destruction of the first Temple, and some of the
priests and scribes knew how to read it. Furthermore, in some of the
first-century scrolls written in Aramaic script scribes wrote the
Tetragrammaton (the four letters that spell the name of God) in paleo-Hebrew
letters, which suggests that they had preserved the script and used it for
special purposes. (Adam Kolman Marshak, The Many Faces of Herod the Great [Grand
Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 2015], 60-61)
