BIBLE HISTORY DAILY

An Early Israelite Curse Inscription from Mt. Ebal?

Scholarly publication of controversial tablet finally appears

Folded tablet from Mt. Ebal

The Mt. Ebal Inscription? The folded lead tablet, as presented in the initial press conference. The tablet’s interior has been published in the journal Heritage Science. Photo by the Associates for Biblical Research.

This is an update to our original coverage of the Mt. Ebal inscription as first published in Bible History Daily on April 25, 2022.

In early 2022, a research team led by scholars from the Associates for Biblical Research (ABR) announced the discovery of a lead tablet from Mt. Ebal that they claim contains the oldest extant Hebrew inscription. Now, after more than a year, a peer-reviewed article presenting one part of the inscription has been published in the journal Heritage Science.1

According to the team, the inscription, which they date to the Late Bronze Age II period (c. 1400–1200 BCE), is a legal text and curse that invokes the Israelite deity Yahweh. The team believes the tablet is one of the most important inscriptions ever found in Israel, predating the previously earliest known Hebrew inscription by several hundred years, and one that could drastically alter our reconstruction of ancient Israel’s earliest history. Even with the team’s long-awaited publication of the tablet, however, serious questions remain, and many scholars are dubious about whether the tablet even features an inscription at all, while others continue to highlight the problematic circumstances surrounding its recovery and analysis.

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The Mt. Ebal Inscription

First announced during a press conference in March 2022, the tablet comes from the West Bank site of Mt. Ebal, which was first excavated by archaeologist Adam Zertal in the 1980s. The site consists of two large stone installations, one circular and one rectangular. Zertal interpreted the site and the earlier circular feature to be the location of Joshua’s altar (Joshua 8:30), though many dispute this identification. The tablet was only recovered in 2019, however, when archaeologists with ABR began a project to wet sift the soil dumps from the Mt. Ebal excavation in hopes of identifying artifacts that had been missed during the original dig.

According to the team, the lead tablet contains writing on both its inside and outside. Measuring less than 1 inch square, it appears to have been folded in half after being written. This makes it impossible to read the interior without advanced digital scanning, which was carried out in Prague by the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic. According to the article in Heritage Science, which presented only the writing from the Mt. Ebal tablet’s interior, the inside text contains as many as 48 letters written in a meandering boustrophedon style, although Pieter van der Veen, a team epigrapher and professor at Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz, is more cautious and suggests there may actually be fewer letters present.

As translated by the team, the tablet reads:

You are cursed by the god yhw, cursed.

You will die, cursed—cursed, you will surely die.

Cursed you are by yhw—cursed.

The team claims the inscription is written in an archaic script, similar in style to other early alphabetic inscriptions known from the southern Levant, which they term proto-Hebrew alphabetic. Furthermore, they suggest that the use of the name Yhw, a shortened version of the divine name Yahweh (YHWH), is clear evidence that the text is an early Hebrew inscription. If true, this would make the tablet hundreds of years older than previously known early Hebrew inscriptions.

Drawing from the Mt. Ebal tablet

A schematic rendering of the name YHW in the Mt. Ebal inscription, as presented in the initial press conference. Image by the Associates for Biblical Research.

 

Big Claims about a Small Tablet

According to the team, the Mt. Ebal tablet is a type of legal text, which threatens curses upon individuals who transgress a covenant. They connect it directly to the covenant renewal ceremony on Mt. Ebal, described in Deuteronomy 27 and Joshua 8. Moreover, the team claims the tablet is evidence that certain books of the Hebrew Bible could have been written down hundreds of years earlier than most biblical scholars previously thought. As stated by the ABR’s Director of Excavations, Scott Stripling, during the initial press conference, “One can no longer argue with a straight face that the biblical text was not written until the Persian period or the Hellenistic period, as many higher critics have done, when we clearly do have the ability to write the entire text [of the Bible] at a much, much earlier date.” One of the project’s epigraphers, Gershon Galil of the University of Haifa reiterated the point, saying, “The scribe that wrote this ancient text, believe me, he could write every chapter in the Bible.”

 

Scholars Remain Skeptical

While the publication of the tablet’s interior has made headlines in Israel and been widely discussed on social media, the inscription continues to be met with skepticism from many scholars, with some going so far as to propose that the entire inscription is a figment of the team’s imagination.

“This article is quite troubling from many aspects,” Aren Maeir, professor of archaeology at Bar-Ilan University, told Bible History Daily. “The object and its context are problematic; the data presented is of a very poor or even misleading character; the understanding of the archaeological context and its dating is lacking; the suggested reading is very hard to accept; and the generalizations and conclusions brought forward by the authors seem to be totally baseless.”

“I wish this were a 13th-century Hebrew inscription, but it is not,” said Christopher Rollston, a noted epigrapher from George Washington University.2 “Facts are facts, and this article is very short on facts and very long on boundless speculation. Anyone can look at the images of this ‘inscription’ that are published, and they can discern that there is no real connection between the published images of the ‘inscription’ itself and the authors’ drawing of the inscription. The published images reveal some striations in the lead and some indentations, but there are no actual discernible letters.”

Partial table showing some of the proposed attestations of the letter aleph in the Mt. Ebal tablet, published in full in Stripling et. al., Heritage Science 11:105 (2023). Drawings by Pieter Gert van der Veen and Scott Stripling. Creative Commons — Attribution 4.0 International — CC BY 4.0.

In response to this criticism, van der Veen stated via Facebook, “I have worked with lead. I can assure you, what we see are NOT mere striations. Rather what we see is man-made and incised with a pen or stylus. The bulges seen on the back of the tablet prove that those letters are true letters indeed. They precisely match the signs on [the inside] and must be incisions to be actually visible on the back. These are not simple scratches or damage.”

In comments to Israel365 News, Stripling similarly defended the team’s reading of the text, saying, “As several interior letters can also be detected on the outside of the tablet, where pressure marks of these letters caused by the stylus appear, we can be certain that they are there and that in most cases, the incisions are undoubtedly man-made.”

However, since only the inside of the Mt. Ebal tablet has been published, it is difficult for other scholars to evaluate such evidence. “Supposedly, the outer inscriptions are easier to read,” said Maeir. “If the outer texts were easier to decipher, and assist in deciphering the inner texts, the fact that these outer texts were not published here, to demonstrate the validity of the very difficult reading of the inner text, is hard to fathom. Most of the images are very hazy, and it is often hard to see how a supposed letter was reconstructed from the respective, parallel image. While some seem possible, others do not.”

Partially conceding this point in his team’s defense, van der Veen responded, “The key to understanding [the inside] is [the outside]: As our discussion of [the outside] will show, letters, clearly incised with a stylus, can be clearly detected. We should have started with the outside before looking at the inside, which is so dependent on blurry scans which are so hard to read.” However, in communication with Bible History Daily, van der Veen stressed that “it is simply untrue that letters found on the outside are not shown in the [published] article.” Instead, he highlights the inclusion of a table in the article that shows letters from the outside of the tablet “with clear evidence of tooling,” although these letters were not discussed in detail in the article.

Even if the ABR team’s reading holds up under additional scrutiny, however, Rollston cautions against making too much of the tablet’s date and significance. He points out, for example, that alphabetic writing was already fairly well known by the late second millennium, likely having been invented sometime around the 18th century BCE. Furthermore, even if the team’s reading is accurate, the 40+ letters that make up the text were used to write just four unique words: “cursed,” “die,” “god,” and “yhw.” According to Rollston, “To say that based on those four words or roots that somebody could write the whole Bible … well, that’s a bridge (way) too far for me. After all, there are 8,500+ words in the Hebrew Bible … and four is a pretty small fraction of the whole, therefore!”

 

Problems of Provenance

There are also serious questions about where the tablet was found and how it was discovered. As noted above, the tablet was not found during an excavation but rather while the ABR team was sifting the soil dumps from Adam Zertal’s earlier excavations. As such, the find does not come from a datable, stratified context, though the ABR team says it was able to associate the dump material where the tablet was found with Zertal’s excavation of the altar, which he dated to the time of Joshua. This corresponds to the team’s dating of the script, as well as the unpublished analysis of the tablet’s lead, which originated from a mine in Greece that was in use during the Late Bronze and early Iron Ages.

Perhaps even more significant is the fact that Mt. Ebal is located in Area B of the West Bank, just a mile north of the Palestinian city of Nablus, and, as such, its archaeology falls under the jurisdiction of the Palestinian Authority. As noted by Maeir, “If the excavators would have requested a license to excavate the dumps and sift the materials, they would have to have asked the Department of Antiquities of the Palestinian Authority (which they did not). Excavating without a permit, transporting an illegally excavated object over international borders, runs contrary to both national and international laws.” Members of the publication team assert, however, that both the excavations of the Mt. Ebal dumps and the export of the tablet to Prague for analysis were legal and fell under the original excavation license of Adam Zertal. However, regardless of the status of Zertal’s original license, as Maeir notes, “Without receiving permission from local authorities, such actions are ethically and legally unacceptable and should not be condoned.”


Notes:

1 The online article presents images of the tablet along with the team’s drawing and interpretation of its interior inscription.

2 Christopher Rollston is a member of the Editorial Advisory Board of Biblical Archaeology Review.


 

Read more in Bible History Daily:

A Biblical Altar on Mt. Ebal and Other Israelite Footprints in the Jordan Valley?

The Darius Ostracon: From Real to Fake

 

All-Access members, read more in the BAS Library:

Two Early Israelite Cult Sites Now Questioned

Has Joshua’s Altar Been Found on Mt. Ebal?

Not a BAS Library or All-Access Member yet? Join today.

 

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14 Responses

  1. I recently read a paper by Anson Rainey in Eretz-Israel: Archaeological, Historical and Geographic Studies Vol. כט‎, EPHRAIM STERN VOLUME / ספר אפרים שטרן‎ (2009 / תשס”ט), pp. 184*-187*

    On page 186 he briefly states 6 reasons why the “Altars” that Zertal found are not Altars. Do you have any insight into whether Rainey’s critiques are valid?

    His critiques are:
    1) There are rooms in the altar, and altars don’t have rooms.

    2) There are ash and garbage pits in the altar, which are also not found in altars.

    3) The ramp is actually a collapsed wall.

    4) There are no walkways around the building.

    5) You can’t see Mt Gerizim from the structure, as the Biblical narrative describes.

    6) The corners of the altar are oriented to the cardinal directions, whereas a biblical altar would have the sides oriented to the cardinal directions.

  2. Bill poser says:

    I find the comments on the jurisdiction of the Palestinian Authority over the site to be off the wall. The PA has a clear agenda of cultural genocide and has repeatedly engaged in deliberate damage to archaeological sites. The PA should not be allowed to control any archaeological sites other than those clearly associated exclusively with Arabs. Local control of archaeological sites is appropriate only when the controlling authority is scientifically responsible. Anti-semitic terrorist groups do not qualify.

  3. Dan says:

    “Additionally, the team has yet to publish the find or their analysis in a peer-reviewed journal, although they are now preparing an article that they hope will appear later in 2022” For an Apr2023 story, perhaps some professional curiosity is warranted as to why the peer review is dragging on silently. Stripling has submitted his research.

  4. Nate Loper says:

    If the tablet dates to around LBAII ~1400 BC as is believed by the ABR team, and if it corresponds to the Conquest of Canaan under Joshua and the renewal ceremony described in Deuteronomy 27 and Joshua 8, then this places the Exodus ~40 years before, right in the range of 1446 BC, the Biblical early date of the Exodus.

    This is near the beginning reign of Amenhotep II (using the traditional High Egyptian Chronology associated with the royal observation of the Heliacal Rise of Sothis at Heliopolis during Amenhotep I’s reign), supported by the writings of Josephus and the Biblical account of the Exodus itself.

    If the discovery stands up to criticism and proves accurate, not only is this quite significant for its intrinsic cultural and linguistic value, it may help us in ascertaining the date of the Exodus from Egypt and the pharaoh of that Exodus.

    This is potentially the most fascinating biblical archaeology discovery of the past 50 years.

  5. Peter says:

    What can’t be denied is the site has all the makings of a ‘sacrificial’ site, with mass evidence of only bones of kosher animals, even though other animals were available at the time!
    Secondly, the monument ruins depict an unmissable alter shape (round) with a ramp leading to it, and not steps! Thirdly, the site doesn’t have a broad scattering of ash and bone but only a pit to the side of the assumed alter, further indicating the function of animal sacrifice was performed and in accordance with holy scripture.
    The amulet found is most telling and significantly corroborates this as the biblical account, “choose whom you will serve”. With blessings and cursing accordingly.
    Interestingly this Mt. Ebal is a lifeless mountain, but is adjacent to a mountain where life thrives. And the separating valley known as the “Valley of decision” and will perhaps only chime with those of biblical faith. However, taking the above as a whole is most compelling this indeed is the biblical site, that archeology lends very convincingly to that fact. Without bias, it therefore would be a more strenuous exercise to posit any alternative finding, but that is the divide of personal belief rather than with predetermination. True findings must surely be approached with an open mind so as to determine what these are without prior bias. Let the facts speak for themselves.

  6. Lemon says:

    I happen to have some familiarity with the Proto-Sinaitic inscriptions found in Sinai and Egypt, and the efforts being made to translate them since certain scholars have recognized clear evidence for Joseph and the 1st Israelites in Egypt from the time of Pharaoh Amenemhat III and the next couple centuries.
    So it dawned on them that, there being such evidence gor Israelites in the Middle Kingdom period, these Middle Kingdom period Sinai inscriptions might also be Israelite.
    Certainly, the efforts of one Torah scholar named Michael Shelomo Bar-Ron have yielded compelling evidence that Biblical Hebrew is the language of the inscriptions.
    No ther language has yielded a way to render these inscriptions for over a century, with most unwilling to consider that Hebrew should be the language despite Biblical chronology setting the Exodus at closer to 1500 BCE rather than the 1200s in Ramses II’s supposed time. BAR seems to have embraced the Ramsesside Exodus theory, so it comes as little surprise that there’s no mention that the Ebal Curse Amulet may well date to the 1400s BCE.
    That Proto-Sinaitic script – likely in use/invented by the Israelites and brought to Canaan – helps date the inscription and further the case that Israel brought it from Egypt, where it was eventually adopted by the Canaanites, etc.

  7. Morgan Paris says:

    I would have thought that, assuming the inscription is authentic, the reference to the deity’s name would much more likely have been ‘Yah” rather than “Yahw’, of which the are a couple of references from the Late Bronze Age mentioning “Yhw in the land of the Shasu”, which was located in southwestern Jordan. In the ancient and possibly pre-monarchial Psalm 68, in verse it says: “Sing praises to his name: extol him that rideth upon the heavens by his name YAH, and rejoice before him.” Then later in that same psalm at verse 16, it mentions how Mount Bashan, which is up in the Golan Heights, is the permanent home of God. So one would guess that particular verse was written at a time before Mount Zion in Jerusalem was recognized as God’s eternal dwelling place. An inscription mentioning “Yah” at Mount Ebal therefore would appear to be the more likely correct grammatical spelling of the Hebrew deity in the pre-monarchial era.

    1. Lemon says:

      It says YHW, that’s clear. The Egyptian ‘Shasu-Yahweh inscriptions actually spell it YHW’W, probably more like “Yahowah” than Yahweh, in agreement with other spellings in Greek. Aramaic papyri from the 500s BCE also say YHW, YHH.

      1. Teri Riddering says:

        But the supposed writing shows a Shin rather than a Vav, which would be the correct spelling. That doesn’t seem to spell YHV at all. The W always had, and still has, a SH sound, not a V sound. That doesn’t make sense.

  8. James Bond says:

    Rolston gripe that only 4 words were used is rather …weak. Not only were 9 words used, but in the correct grammatical order and with repeated emphasis to “curse” their enemies.
    Its Mt Elba, it’s the right time period, the biblical references uphold the event, next to Joshua’s altar, and the substance its made from is was available to the Israelite.
    Curses curses curses on the naysayers.

    1. Lemon says:

      The problem with that whole “Joshua’s Altar” thing is that circular altars weren’t an Israelite custom; there’s were square. I believe it’s the Canaanites who had circular altars, among others.
      Otherwise, I think Stripling’s finds are pretty amazing, all that Shiloh work. I’m most excited about this Mt Ebal Curse inscription, though. 1400s rather than 1200s BCE, I think. Since the early 90s I’ve had an interest in what the Proto-Sinaitic inscriptions say, suspecting they were Israelite because of their proximity to the Biblical Exodus period, and finally, some headway’s being made in translating them and it’s great because I can follow along, knowing some Hebrew myself. The fact this tablet’s in the same script is a big deal. It may well help link the Israelites to the inscriptions in Sinai etc, as if the translations aren’t doing that well enough.

  9. Melodie Fleming says:

    I have been following this development. To say “scholars remain skeptical” is a mischaracterization. Some scholars remain skeptical. Others are hopeful. Still others choose to withhold judgement until until the peer reviewed articles are published. Your article seems to prejudge the matter without showing both sides. You state Stripling’s claims, but do not give his reasoning. You only give reasons for doubting his claims. I am a new subscriber to BAS. I was expecting to read a fair review of this find, including reasons for and against accepting Stripling’s claims. I am disappointed.

    1. William Debroe says:

      If you watch Stripling’s announcement, his team does not give much reason at all for why they beleive what they beleive beyond what IS mentioned in this article. The article did provide links to a lot of sources which are more in favor of stripping though.

      Maybe most scholars are “skeptic” is a bit much but most scholars certainly are cautious of this find at the moment. When Stripling and his team put out their full findings in a peer reviewed journal then we will know what their arguments actually are and then we can revisit how skeptical or optimistic we are.

    2. Abraham Sanchez says:

      I also agree with Melodie Fleming. As a new subscriber as well to BAS I found the article to be quite discouraging as well. This article by Nathan Steinmeyer seemed to spend more time apologizing for having to write article in the first place than telling the BAS readers the full ramifications of the inscription. Was the text was truncated because the inscriber had to write on a tablet the size of a locket? Maybe mention that possibility? There probably would have been more enthusiasm for this major archaeological find if BAS hadn’t published so many articles from minimalist Ronald S. Hendel that have stated the Hebrew wasn’t available until the 6th century BC.

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14 Responses

  1. I recently read a paper by Anson Rainey in Eretz-Israel: Archaeological, Historical and Geographic Studies Vol. כט‎, EPHRAIM STERN VOLUME / ספר אפרים שטרן‎ (2009 / תשס”ט), pp. 184*-187*

    On page 186 he briefly states 6 reasons why the “Altars” that Zertal found are not Altars. Do you have any insight into whether Rainey’s critiques are valid?

    His critiques are:
    1) There are rooms in the altar, and altars don’t have rooms.

    2) There are ash and garbage pits in the altar, which are also not found in altars.

    3) The ramp is actually a collapsed wall.

    4) There are no walkways around the building.

    5) You can’t see Mt Gerizim from the structure, as the Biblical narrative describes.

    6) The corners of the altar are oriented to the cardinal directions, whereas a biblical altar would have the sides oriented to the cardinal directions.

  2. Bill poser says:

    I find the comments on the jurisdiction of the Palestinian Authority over the site to be off the wall. The PA has a clear agenda of cultural genocide and has repeatedly engaged in deliberate damage to archaeological sites. The PA should not be allowed to control any archaeological sites other than those clearly associated exclusively with Arabs. Local control of archaeological sites is appropriate only when the controlling authority is scientifically responsible. Anti-semitic terrorist groups do not qualify.

  3. Dan says:

    “Additionally, the team has yet to publish the find or their analysis in a peer-reviewed journal, although they are now preparing an article that they hope will appear later in 2022” For an Apr2023 story, perhaps some professional curiosity is warranted as to why the peer review is dragging on silently. Stripling has submitted his research.

  4. Nate Loper says:

    If the tablet dates to around LBAII ~1400 BC as is believed by the ABR team, and if it corresponds to the Conquest of Canaan under Joshua and the renewal ceremony described in Deuteronomy 27 and Joshua 8, then this places the Exodus ~40 years before, right in the range of 1446 BC, the Biblical early date of the Exodus.

    This is near the beginning reign of Amenhotep II (using the traditional High Egyptian Chronology associated with the royal observation of the Heliacal Rise of Sothis at Heliopolis during Amenhotep I’s reign), supported by the writings of Josephus and the Biblical account of the Exodus itself.

    If the discovery stands up to criticism and proves accurate, not only is this quite significant for its intrinsic cultural and linguistic value, it may help us in ascertaining the date of the Exodus from Egypt and the pharaoh of that Exodus.

    This is potentially the most fascinating biblical archaeology discovery of the past 50 years.

  5. Peter says:

    What can’t be denied is the site has all the makings of a ‘sacrificial’ site, with mass evidence of only bones of kosher animals, even though other animals were available at the time!
    Secondly, the monument ruins depict an unmissable alter shape (round) with a ramp leading to it, and not steps! Thirdly, the site doesn’t have a broad scattering of ash and bone but only a pit to the side of the assumed alter, further indicating the function of animal sacrifice was performed and in accordance with holy scripture.
    The amulet found is most telling and significantly corroborates this as the biblical account, “choose whom you will serve”. With blessings and cursing accordingly.
    Interestingly this Mt. Ebal is a lifeless mountain, but is adjacent to a mountain where life thrives. And the separating valley known as the “Valley of decision” and will perhaps only chime with those of biblical faith. However, taking the above as a whole is most compelling this indeed is the biblical site, that archeology lends very convincingly to that fact. Without bias, it therefore would be a more strenuous exercise to posit any alternative finding, but that is the divide of personal belief rather than with predetermination. True findings must surely be approached with an open mind so as to determine what these are without prior bias. Let the facts speak for themselves.

  6. Lemon says:

    I happen to have some familiarity with the Proto-Sinaitic inscriptions found in Sinai and Egypt, and the efforts being made to translate them since certain scholars have recognized clear evidence for Joseph and the 1st Israelites in Egypt from the time of Pharaoh Amenemhat III and the next couple centuries.
    So it dawned on them that, there being such evidence gor Israelites in the Middle Kingdom period, these Middle Kingdom period Sinai inscriptions might also be Israelite.
    Certainly, the efforts of one Torah scholar named Michael Shelomo Bar-Ron have yielded compelling evidence that Biblical Hebrew is the language of the inscriptions.
    No ther language has yielded a way to render these inscriptions for over a century, with most unwilling to consider that Hebrew should be the language despite Biblical chronology setting the Exodus at closer to 1500 BCE rather than the 1200s in Ramses II’s supposed time. BAR seems to have embraced the Ramsesside Exodus theory, so it comes as little surprise that there’s no mention that the Ebal Curse Amulet may well date to the 1400s BCE.
    That Proto-Sinaitic script – likely in use/invented by the Israelites and brought to Canaan – helps date the inscription and further the case that Israel brought it from Egypt, where it was eventually adopted by the Canaanites, etc.

  7. Morgan Paris says:

    I would have thought that, assuming the inscription is authentic, the reference to the deity’s name would much more likely have been ‘Yah” rather than “Yahw’, of which the are a couple of references from the Late Bronze Age mentioning “Yhw in the land of the Shasu”, which was located in southwestern Jordan. In the ancient and possibly pre-monarchial Psalm 68, in verse it says: “Sing praises to his name: extol him that rideth upon the heavens by his name YAH, and rejoice before him.” Then later in that same psalm at verse 16, it mentions how Mount Bashan, which is up in the Golan Heights, is the permanent home of God. So one would guess that particular verse was written at a time before Mount Zion in Jerusalem was recognized as God’s eternal dwelling place. An inscription mentioning “Yah” at Mount Ebal therefore would appear to be the more likely correct grammatical spelling of the Hebrew deity in the pre-monarchial era.

    1. Lemon says:

      It says YHW, that’s clear. The Egyptian ‘Shasu-Yahweh inscriptions actually spell it YHW’W, probably more like “Yahowah” than Yahweh, in agreement with other spellings in Greek. Aramaic papyri from the 500s BCE also say YHW, YHH.

      1. Teri Riddering says:

        But the supposed writing shows a Shin rather than a Vav, which would be the correct spelling. That doesn’t seem to spell YHV at all. The W always had, and still has, a SH sound, not a V sound. That doesn’t make sense.

  8. James Bond says:

    Rolston gripe that only 4 words were used is rather …weak. Not only were 9 words used, but in the correct grammatical order and with repeated emphasis to “curse” their enemies.
    Its Mt Elba, it’s the right time period, the biblical references uphold the event, next to Joshua’s altar, and the substance its made from is was available to the Israelite.
    Curses curses curses on the naysayers.

    1. Lemon says:

      The problem with that whole “Joshua’s Altar” thing is that circular altars weren’t an Israelite custom; there’s were square. I believe it’s the Canaanites who had circular altars, among others.
      Otherwise, I think Stripling’s finds are pretty amazing, all that Shiloh work. I’m most excited about this Mt Ebal Curse inscription, though. 1400s rather than 1200s BCE, I think. Since the early 90s I’ve had an interest in what the Proto-Sinaitic inscriptions say, suspecting they were Israelite because of their proximity to the Biblical Exodus period, and finally, some headway’s being made in translating them and it’s great because I can follow along, knowing some Hebrew myself. The fact this tablet’s in the same script is a big deal. It may well help link the Israelites to the inscriptions in Sinai etc, as if the translations aren’t doing that well enough.

  9. Melodie Fleming says:

    I have been following this development. To say “scholars remain skeptical” is a mischaracterization. Some scholars remain skeptical. Others are hopeful. Still others choose to withhold judgement until until the peer reviewed articles are published. Your article seems to prejudge the matter without showing both sides. You state Stripling’s claims, but do not give his reasoning. You only give reasons for doubting his claims. I am a new subscriber to BAS. I was expecting to read a fair review of this find, including reasons for and against accepting Stripling’s claims. I am disappointed.

    1. William Debroe says:

      If you watch Stripling’s announcement, his team does not give much reason at all for why they beleive what they beleive beyond what IS mentioned in this article. The article did provide links to a lot of sources which are more in favor of stripping though.

      Maybe most scholars are “skeptic” is a bit much but most scholars certainly are cautious of this find at the moment. When Stripling and his team put out their full findings in a peer reviewed journal then we will know what their arguments actually are and then we can revisit how skeptical or optimistic we are.

    2. Abraham Sanchez says:

      I also agree with Melodie Fleming. As a new subscriber as well to BAS I found the article to be quite discouraging as well. This article by Nathan Steinmeyer seemed to spend more time apologizing for having to write article in the first place than telling the BAS readers the full ramifications of the inscription. Was the text was truncated because the inscriber had to write on a tablet the size of a locket? Maybe mention that possibility? There probably would have been more enthusiasm for this major archaeological find if BAS hadn’t published so many articles from minimalist Ronald S. Hendel that have stated the Hebrew wasn’t available until the 6th century BC.

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