Ebla Evidence Evaporates

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One of the most direct links between the Ebla tablets and the Bible is the reported reference in the Ebla tablets to the five Cities of the Plain listed in Genesis 14.

According to Professor David Noel Freedman of the University of Michigan, Vice President of the American Schools of Oriental Research and Editor of the Anchor Bible, these Ebla references have enormous Biblical implications. They bear directly on the historicity of Genesis 14, on whether Abraham was a historical personage, and on the date of the Patriarchal Age. In large part on the basis of these references in an Ebla tablet, Freedman would place the Patriarchal Age in the mid-third millennium instead of about 1800 B.C. where most scholars who accept the existence of a Patriarchal Age previously placed it.

That the Ebla tablets listed the five Cities of the Plain was first put forth by Professor Giovanni Pettinato who was the Ebla Mission’s chief epigrapher until he resigned in a personal and scholarly feud with Excavation Director Paolo Matthiae.

According to 1976 reports from Pettinato, the five Cities of the Plain are listed in an Ebla tablet in the same order they are listed in the Bible.

One of the few people who worked directly with Pettinato on the tablets is Father Mitchell Dahood, Professor of Ugaritic and Phoenician Languages and Literature and Dean of the Pontifical Biblical Institute in Rome. Writing in La Civilta Cattolica,^a Father Dahood informs us that, “These same five cities (Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah, Zeboim and Bela) and in the same order now appear in tablet from Ebla!” Father Dahood adds, “The same order would not be expected in both [the Ebla tablet and the Bible] if they were independent sources.”

Moreover, Pettinato reported to Freedman that the tablet also contained the name of a king of one of the cities. His name was Birsha, which was the same as the name of a king of one of the Cities of the Plain in Genesis 14.

From this high water mark, much of the evidence has evaporated.

The first to go was the name Birsha. Pettinato claims he misread the cuneiform signs. (Critics point out he has not identified the actual signs or explained how the error occurred.)

Then the fact that the cities were mentioned in the same order turned out to be wrong. In an interview, Pettinato told BAR that the cities were not mentioned in the same tablet, so they could not be in the same order. Sodom and Gomorrah, however, were mentioned many times, he said.

Well, the world of Biblical studies was still left with the fact that all of these five cities, previously thought by many scholars to be legendary, had a confirmed independent reality.

Then two of the cities were lost. In a letter to Freedman, dated October 8, 1978, Dahood reported that “Giovanni [Pettinato] tells me that he considers the reading of the first two names, Sodom and Gomorrah, quite certain, but that he is no longer ready to defend the next two city names because of his improvement in the reading of the signs.”

That the appearance of Sodom and Gomorrah was “quite certain” still had great Biblical significance for these are clearly the most important cities in the list.

But, alas, now there is doubt even here. According to a recent letter from Professor Matthiae, the Ebla tablets contain only one city name which has even a vague assonance with a City of the Plain. This new conclusion, says Matthiae, is confirmed by Professor 053A. Archi, the expedition’s new epigrapher. Moreover, Tablet T.M.75.G.1860, which was supposed to contain all the Cities of the Plain in the same order as the cities are listed in the Bible, as well as a king named Birsha, in fact contains “no trace” of city names similar to those listed in the Bible. Matthiae writes:

“After controls disposed by myself on Ebla texts, made by the epigraphist of the Expedition, Professor A. Archi, the only city name of the Archives that has some vague assonance with one of the names of the biblical ‘cities of the plain’ is sa-du-ma^ki (text T.M.75.G.1992) in an administrative context concerning agriculture, which makes us think that with all likelihood this centre was not far from Ebla [i.e., not the Biblical city], while Prof. Archi himself confirms me that in text T.M.75.G.1860 there is no trace of city names similar to those of ‘cities of the plain.’”

So now there is Sodom at most—and perhaps not that. And none in famous T.M.75.G.1860.

Obviously, without publication of readable photographs of the tablets and available transcriptions, further discussion is difficult, if not impossible.

If we can’t have the tablets, isn’t the archaeological world entitled at least to an explanation of how all these errors occurred?

A new film entitled “The Royal Archives of Ebla,” produced with a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities, was previewed at the Smithsonian Institution on September 19, 1979.

This beautifully produced film vividly explores the meaning of Ebla and its archives for ancient near eastern history. Capsule interviews with five scholars and short film segments on other sites in Syria help to place the finds at Ebla in their proper setting. No Biblical archaeologist or Biblical scholar, however, was asked in the film to discuss the implications of the tablets for their specialities.

The film’s narrator mentions that several personal names at Ebla are the equivalent of Biblical names, but notes this is not uncommon in near eastern archives. During a question period after the showing, Professor James F. Ross of Virginia Theological Seminary and a prominent Biblical archaeologist and scholar noted that no reference was made in the film to prominent cities in Palestine mentioned in the tablets. Professor Giovanni Pettinato, the Ebla team’s original epigrapher, has written that the tablets contain references to Salim, the city of Melchizedech, Hazor, Lachish, Megiddo, Gaza, Dor, Sinai, Joppa and others.

The film’s producer, Mildred Freed Alberg, replied that it remains questionable as to whether the Palestinian cities are mentioned in the tablets. She explained that she did not want her film to be outdated in a few months by readings which turned out to be wrong so she included in the film references to readings about which the scholars were certain.

Dr. Gus Van Beek, the Smithsonian’s Curator of Old World Archaeology, who introduced the film, said it was his guess—but he emphasized it was only a guess—that the Ebla tablets would ultimately support the historicity of the Patriarchal narratives in Genesis.

An unidentified woman in the audience asked if photographs of the tablets would soon be generally available to scholars. Were the usual procedures followed, Dr. Van Beek said, they would not. Probably, he said, we would not know for 20 years or more whether his guess was right.

One of the most direct links between the Ebla tablets and the Bible is the reported reference in the Ebla tablets to the five Cities of the Plain listed in Genesis 14.