“House of David” Built on Sand: The Sins of the Biblical Maximizers

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A recent BAR article trumpets the discovery of a new inscription found at Tel Dan that allegedly mentions the name “David” and refers to the kingdom of Judah as the “House of David.”^a On this basis it is suggested that Biblical scholars ignore the theories of the “Biblical minimizers,”^b—that is, those of us who stubbornly insist that Biblical stories, like any other ancient accounts, ought to be verified before being accorded the status of facts. As it turns out, neither claim made for the Tel Dan inscription—that it contains the name “David” and that it contains the term the “House of David” as a reference to the kingdom of Judah—is factually true.

The discussion that follows is a reply not only to the BAR article, but also to the more scientific paper written by Tel Dan excavator Avraham Biran of Hebrew Union College in Jerusalem and his paleographer Joseph Naveh of Hebrew University.¹

The critical Semitic letters in the inscription on the fragment of a monumental basalt stele from Tel Dan are BYTDWD (dwdtyb) which Biran and Naveh translate “House of David.”

Each word in this 13-line inscription is separated from its neighbors by the customary dot or mark that scholars call a word divider. There is no word divider, however, between BYT (House) and DWD (David)—the only exception in the surviving words of the fragment. Despite the fact that there is no word divider between the first three letters and the last three letters to indicate that we have two words here, Biran and Naveh nevertheless read these six unseparated letters as two words, rather than one. Biran and Naveh do not provide an argument for this, even though the context does not demand the reading they have given to these six letters. They say only that “House of David” was “apparently regarded as one word.” But this is an argument in reverse: Because we have decided to divide the word into two, the two words must originally have been put together for some reason. Having divided these six connected letters into two words, and thus produced the possibility of translating its second part as David, Biran and Naveh say that “House of David” is the “dynastic name of the kingdom of Judah,” in the same way that the phrase Bit Humri, literally “House of Omri,” designates the northern kingdom of Israel and, indeed, the land itself.²

This does not end their speculation, however. The letter preceding the six letters listed above is the last letter in the three-letter Hebrew word for “king”: [ML]K (û[lm]). As indicated by the brackets, Biran and Naveh have supplied the first two missing letters to form the word “king.” Thus they read “the [kin]g of the House of David.”

The reconstruction of two of the letters that make up the word for king represents speculation among 10 or 20 letters that might as plausibly be suggested. To say that “the previous line probably ended with the other two letters of the word for king” is simply misleading. How is the “probability” judged except to the degree the reconstruction supports their own reading? It is worth noting that no Assyrian inscription reads “king of the House of Omri,” nor does the equivalent phrase occur in any Biblical text. The restoration of the first two letters of the word for king is purely conjectural.

But let’s leave this wishful thinking and return to the critical six letters, BYTDWD, to see what they really might mean. Admittedly there are two verbal elements here, of which the first is beth, house. But the probability is that the second element completes a place-name, such as Beth Lehem (House of Bread) or Bethlehem (one word), as it is commonly written in Latin letters. It seems intrinsically more likely that a place-name composed with beth would be written as one word, rather than a phrase meaning “House of David,” referring to the dynasty of David.³ Such a place name could be Beth-dod (the W serving as rudimentary vowel, a so-called mater lectionis; the same last three letters are consistently used to spell the last syllable of the Philistine city of Ashdod) or Bethdaud (with a slightly different vowel pronunciation). All these place-names are quite reasonable suggestions. I am surprised that Biran and Naveh have not even bothered to consider these more plausible alternative readings—though I can guess why! They seem anxious to find a Biblical relevance to the inscription, regardless of whether it is there or not.

There are other possibilities as well that Biran and Naveh do not mention. For example, in a contempora-neous inscription, the famous Mesha stele or Moabite 055stone,^c the phrase ’R’L DWDH (hdwd lara) appears. The second word remains somewhat of a puzzle. Some scholars, though a minority, translate it “David” and regard it as the name of the founder of the ruling dynasty of Judah. (Presumably Biran and Naveh do not, or they would have said so.) But the final heh makes this meaning unlikely. The noun dawidum is also found in a cuneiform text from Mari (18th century B.C.E.), offering another possible clue, though the meaning of this term remains unclear. In the Bible DWD can mean “beloved” or “uncle,” and in one place (1 Samuel 2:14), it means “kettle.” So a number of ways of understanding DWD present themselves, most of them more plausible than translating “David.”

I hope I have given some idea of the possibilities for a wide variety of meanings of BYTDWD other than House of David. It will not do simply to jump to the conclusion, uncertain at best, that the Dan inscription mentions the House of David.

In our search for its meaning, one thing is sure. We will get nowhere until we can see the difference between what a text says, what it might say and what we would like it to say. If being a “Biblical minimalist” means refusing to see what is not there, then I prefer to remain a minimalist, though I resent the inaccurate and sneering epithet. I submit that this is far preferable to the stance of the “Biblical maximalists” who, in matters of the Bible and archaeology, place the Bible before both archaeology and the conventions of scholarly argument. Speaking for myself, I prefer the open mind that refuses to jump to erratic if gleeful conclusions.

The arbitrary reading of BYTDWD as Beth David, House of David, creates still another problem when Biran and Naveh suggest that the inscription may throw light on the Biblical episode described in 1 Kings 15:16–22. There King Asa of Judah seeks the assistance of Ben-Hadad, king of Aram, in Asa’s war with Israel. Ben-Hadad supplies the requested assistance by attacking Israel and capturing Dan and other cities. The inscription, however, claims that Aram defeated both Israel and Judah. Despite the best efforts of Biran and Naveh to make the episode referred to in the Bible “fit” with the text of the inscription—thereby “throwing light” on the Bible (or vice-versa)—they must nevertheless recognize that if this inscription refers to the events narrated in the Biblical passage, then there is a likely contradiction, since according to the Biblical version, Israel and Judah cannot have been fighting together. It’s a bit mischievous even to raise the possibility of a parallel between the Dan inscription and the Bible without conceding that such a parallel must show the Biblical account to be in error!⁴

I have to say that Biblical “maximalists” are pretty shameless in wanting to “have their cake and eat it too,” where Biblical parallels to archaeological evidence are concerned! If a Biblical text fits, then the fit proves the accuracy of the Bible; if it doesn’t fit, then the event must be something not recorded in the Bible. Their strategy is clear: Put the possible parallel into bold relief, then use the small print to show that it is more likely a contradiction. Whether this bias is less honest than creating “David” by splitting a word and then claiming to “discover” him, I will leave to the readers to choose!

I find one more mistake in Biran’s and Naveh’s interpretation. They suggest that the author of the inscription was a Syrian general. But the references to the author’s father, and specifically to “my father’s land,” strongly imply a king’s son. Who?⁵.

I am not the only scholar who suspects that the figure of King David is about as historical as King Arthur. But that does not make my position negative, or “minimalist.” The creation of this figure still needs explanation. What prompted the writers to invent this glorious figure and his impossibly huge “empire”? How did they hit upon this name? These are, after all, historical questions too, and perhaps inscriptions such as this one can help us to arrive at an answer if we manage to interpret them in a responsible manner.

A recent BAR article trumpets the discovery of a new inscription found at Tel Dan that allegedly mentions the name “David” and refers to the kingdom of Judah as the “House of David.”a On this basis it is suggested that Biblical scholars ignore the theories of the “Biblical minimizers,”b—that is, those of us who stubbornly insist that Biblical stories, like any other ancient accounts, ought to be verified before being accorded the status of facts. As it turns out, neither claim made for the Tel Dan inscription—that it contains the name “David” and that it contains the term the […]