The better-known "square script" Hebrew alphabet which has been traditionally used by Jews since the Babylonian exile is a stylized version of the Aramaic alphabet called Ashurit (כתב אשורי), though religious literalist interpretations of Exodus 32:16 assume that the text asserts that it was received on Sinai from the Finger of God and that it has been in continuous and unchanged use since then.

[citation needed] Historically, the Aramaic alphabet became distinct from Phoenician/Paleo-Hebrew in the 8th century BCE.

For a limited time thereafter, the use of paleo-Hebrew (proto-Samaritan) among Jews was retained only to write the Tetragrammaton, but soon that custom was also abandoned.

[2] In 1616 the traveler Pietro della Valle had purchased a copy of the text in Damascus, and this manuscript, now known as Codex B, was deposited in a Parisian library.

[3] Samaritan script was added to the Unicode Standard in October 2009 with the release of version 5.2.