From: Mark E. Shoulson (mark@kli.org)
Date: Wed Jun 09 2004 - 11:50:31 CDT
Dean Snyder wrote:
>I have submitted to the Unicode Technical Committee and Working Group 2
>of the ISO 10646 my response not in support of Michael Everson's proposal
>to encode Phoenician in Unicode.
>
>You can download the Acrobat PDF file from:
>
><http://www.jhu.edu/ice/proposals/PhoenicianSnyder.pdf>
>
>Feel free to comment. (There have been approximately 1500 emails on the
>Unicode and Hebrew email lists over the last few months on this topic -
>it has been very controversial.)
>
>
One thing that only recently occurred to me, regarding the quote from
Mishna Yadayim that distinguishes Paleo-Hebrew script from Square
Hebrew: While it is true that any font outside of the accepted ones
will render a Torah scroll unfit for ritual use, that isn't what's being
discussed here. The statement is that a scroll written in paleo-Hebrew
script does not qualify as a "sacred text" in the context of rendering
one's hands or certain foods impure (it's a long story; suffice to say
that by rabbinic decree, holy texts and hands that touched them were
considered ritually impure). A scroll in which all the letters have
been erased except for 85 of them is also unfit for ritual use (no
surprise there), but it does render the hands impure (Yadayim 3:5). So
while I couldn't read in the synagogue from a scroll written in Narkiss
Bold, near as I can tell it *would* fall into the category of ritual
impurity (if it was *written* on parchment, that is; not sure about
printing).
The Tanaaim pretty clearly did not view this as a matter of font-variants.
~mark
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