Did Hebrews take their writing from Phoenicians?

Answer 1

Direct Answer:

The alphabetic script used by the Greeks, Hebrews, Babylonians, Romans and us today came from the Phoenician alphabetic script they developed in the 12th Century BCE.

Answer 2

No. Tradition states that Hebrew, both spoken and written, was older than Phoenician and existed before the Flood.

Jewish tradition states that the Hebrew language was directly from God. It was the language with which He created the world (Rashi commentary, Genesis 2:23, quoting the midrash); and it is the language in which He spoke on Mount Sinai.
Since it is a holy language and is used for prayer and the teaching of religious tradition, it was not spoken in mundane contexts and wasn't taught to just anyone. It was handed down from individual teachers to disciples as part of the original tradition; and the same goes for the art of writing (letters on parchment, as opposed to cuneiform or hieroglyphics). Thus, certain Hebrew Psalms (92 and 139) and teachings are attributed to Adam, the first man. The wider public, most of whom descended relatively quickly into idolatry and sin, were not given access to the treasures of the original tradition, since by their actions they implicitly repudiated it.
After the Flood, the Hebrew language had a brief period in which it was generally known, thanks to Noah (see Rashi commentary on Genesis 11:1). This is why many hundreds of Hebrew words have cognates in languages as diverse as German and Japanese. The alphabet, which secular scholars trace back to the Greeks (Alpha, Beta) and from there to the Phoenicians, is according to our tradition actually one step older than that: it is a variant of the Hebrew aleph-bet, which those of the Phoenicians and Greeks closely mimic. The earliest known Greek inscription (the Dipylon) was written from right to left.

After the Flood also, the knowledge of Hebrew eventually declined (see Genesis ch.11) and was preserved only among the Western Semites, the ancestors and cousins of Abraham. Eber, from whom our word "Hebrew" (Ivrit) is named, was a Semitic descendant of Noah and ancestor of Abraham. He was one of the major transmitters of the original traditions. He is credited with having broadened the Hebrew language, and some Hebrew grammatical constructs are attributed to him by certain Jewish researchers.

As time passes, languages grow and adapt. Thus today we can identify many Hebrew words and types of usage that go all the way back (these are the ones that are most likely to be found in the Hebrew Bible and to have cognates in other languages). And then there are Late Biblical Hebrew; the Hebrew of the Mishna; Medieval Hebrew, and so on. All of these have a broad overlap, but each has introduced its added vocabulary-words and usages.

Today, Torah-Hebrew includes some words that were borrowed from the Persian, some words taken from ancient Greece, Aramaic words, etc.

Note that while Jews have not employed written or spoken Hebrew for mundane purposes such as daily conversation (in the last 2500 years, and until recently), all understood it quite well, since it has always been used by traditional Jews worldwide, in prayer, in Torah texts and in Talmud-commentaries and the like. One of the functions of the ubiquitous melamed (teacher of children) was to instruct them in the art of writing Hebrew and understanding it too.

Answer 3

The Hebrew and Phoenician languages are both ancient, based on their Canaanite mother tongue and are therefore very similar. Archaeology has shown that the (northern) Israelite language must have been at least as close to the Phoenician language as to the (southern) Hebrew dialect of Judah. The similarities do not mean that the Hebrew language is based on Phoenician, or vice versa, but that they share a common origin.

Answer 4

The alphabet used for Hebrew was a derivative of the original Phoenician alphabet. However, as fellow Expert Dick Harfield notes, the languages themselves are "cousins" and not directly descended from one another. The alphabet was simply a "technology" that the Hebrew-speakers used to record their language.