On Hebrew-Samaritan Coins

And it is now the common consensus of the learned since Conring that these are the authentic and most ancient coins of the Hebrews. Up until the times of Simon the Maccabee, the people had used unmarked metal original Greek: ἀσήμοις (asēmois), referring to bullion or unstamped metal used as currency, which relied solely on weight and the purity of the metal. However, those common coins inscribed with square or "Assyrian" letters Assyrian letters: the modern square Hebrew script, which scholars of this period distinguished from the older Paleo-Hebrew/Samaritan script—on which we see engraved the images not only of Solomon and David, but of Moses, Abraham, Sarah, and even the First-Created Protoplastorum: Adam and Eve themselves—are nothing but foul trifles and a foolish labor of absurdities, despite Mr. Tychsen’s claim that they were not unknown to the Ancients.

The remaining arguments that Mr. Tychsen summons in his own defense are, in my judgment, too slight to be refuted individually. For, first: Ezra did not command the original Hebrew letters to be exiled from the Sacred Books out of hatred for the Samaritans (as I see has pleased some), nor to prevent the Jews from mingling with the Samaritans. Rather, it happened because those letters gradually began to grow obsolete and slip from the memory of the Hebrews from the time the people were first led away to Babylon; after seventy years of return, being accustomed to the Chaldean letters, it was not so easy to recall them to their ancestral script. Second: for Nachmanides, Bartenora, Alasker, and any of the Rabbis or Christians who even today persist in the opinion that they should defend shekels and coins struck before the Babylonian captivity, it will be of no use that they are inscribed with Samaritan letters; indeed, it is a significant obstacle if they display Chaldean or Assyrian characters. Third: regarding the Samaritan letters, even if related coins never existed, there are many other factors from which they maintain their primacy original Greek: τὴν πρωτείαν (tēn prōteian) over the Assyrian ones, which are to be seen toward the end of our work, and briefly in this place (1). Fourth: finally, Postellus—a wealthy witness and nearly an eyewitness original Greek: αὐτόπτης (autoptēs)—asserts that Samaritan coins and shekels are frequently dug up in Jerusalem in the deepest walls and ruins (2).

...[he ordered] a sacrifice to be offered for the sins of those slain in battle, having sent to Jerusalem not "drachmas of currency" or of money, but "of silver" original Greek: ἀργυρίου (argyriou): namely, unmarked original Greek: ἀσήμου (asēmou), that is, unstamped silver, as is held in 2 Maccabees 12:43.

(1) The arithmetical power of the Samaritan letters, if you except the two—Aleph (א) and Beth (ב)—is unexplored to this day; by contrast, that of the Assyrian letters is constant and known to everyone. This involves not only the twenty-two letters of which the common modern Hebrew alphabet

consists, but also the five final letters The "Sophit" or terminal forms of certain Hebrew letters which the ancient Hebrews did not know at all. The Rabbis divide these twenty-seven letters, joined together, into three groups of nine: the first contains the units, the second the tens, and the third the hundreds. Such great accuracy and artistic refinement in them seems little suited to the ancient and unrefined ages of the Hebrews.

(2) Alphabet of Twelve Languages, in the section "On the Samaritan Language."