Syria Tries to Influence Ebla Scholarship

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It is now clear that anti-Zionist political pressures in Syria are attempting to affect the scholarly interpretation of the Ebla tablets. The Syrians are furious that in the West the intense interest shown in this fantastic cache of tablets has focused on their importance for understanding the Bible and Biblical history.

For the Syrians, the tablets are important because of their significance for the study of what the Syrians are now calling “proto-Syrian history”. Syrian authorities want Ebla scholars to give a “proto-Syrian” emphasis rather than a Biblical emphasis to their work. Dr. Afif Bahnassi, Director General of the Syrian Department of Antiquities and Museums, has asked the Italian scholars who are excavating Ebla and interpreting its horde of tablets to make a formal “Declaration” about the implications of the inscriptions for Biblical history, on the one hand, and for Syrian history, on the other.

One such “Declaration” was executed by University of Rome Professor Giovanni Pettinato. Pettinato was originally the chief epigrapher of the Italian mission to Ebla. After a personality clash and subsequent break with Excavation Director Paolo Matthiae, also of the University of Rome, Pettinato was relieved of his authority over the tablets. Responsibility for publication of the tablets was then placed in a 10-man committee which included Pettinato. Most of the specific information about the contents of the tablets has emanated from Pettinato.

In his “Declaration,” Pettinato “officially declares” that all the tablets he has seen “always give us more evidence of the central role of Syria in the history of the third millenary [sic].” The “Declaration” also addresses itself to the importance of the tablets for Biblical studies: “As for the pretended links with the biblical text, I believe that it is my duty to specify definitely that the news diffused by the press, as well as the interference of our colleagues beyond the ocean, have given evidence of a tendency and a danger … [We are not however authorized to make the inhabitants of Ebla predecessors of Israel.”

Pettinato’s “Declaration” was printed in a monthly magazine published by the Syrian government entitled Flash of Damascus. Flash is published in several languages, including French, Italian and English. The Flash headline in the English edition of February 1978 declares that Professor Pettinato’s Declaration “refutes all Zionist allegations aimed at defacing Syrian Arab history, and emphasizes the antiquity of the Syrian civilization and its wide fame.” BAR has reprinted Professor Pettinato’s “Declaration” in the sidebar “The Official “DECLARATION” Submitted by Chief Ebla Epigrapher Giovanni Pettinato at Request of Head of Syrian Antiquities Department.”

Professor Pettinato’s “Declaration” in Flash is accompanied by an interview with Professor Paolo Matthiae, the University of Rome archaeologist who heads the Italian mission to Ebla. BAR has also reprinted this interview (see “Syrian Interview with Chief Ebla Archaeologist Matthiae,” in this issue).

The unidentified interviewer makes no effort to conceal his bias or the answers he expects of Matthiae:

“Q: Some ill-disposed centers have interpreted and utilized certain tablets for political purposes. Would you explain this fact? It is [Is it] possible that these tablets may give way to explanations that would serve Zionist interests?

“A: It is a matter of anti-scientific and anti-historical speculation that I vigorously deplore … What the archaeological and epigraphic discoveries of Ebla have disclosed is the great urban civilization of Syria in the third millenary [sic] B.C. … Syria has become subject to jealously because of the glory of its great historical past in the dawn of history.”

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In his interview Professor Matthiae objects to “press accounts” that have

“arbitrarily and contrary to the truth … underlined pretended relations between Ebla and the Bible, simply not existing at all. On the contrary, what is also serious is that they have often missed to specify the great bearing of the Italian discovery for the history of civilization and the fundamental role of Syria in this very remote past.”

An earlier issue of Flash (October 1977) contains a report of a press conference held by Matthiae. The report is headlined: “Professor Matthiae Refutes the Zionist Allegations About Ebla.”

The report of Matthiae’s press conference includes the following:

“It is evident, the Italian Professor went on, that these allegations which were propagated by Zionist-American centres to be exploited for atrocious purposes aimed at proving the expansionist and colonialist views of the Zionist leaders, and supporting their pretensions that Ebla was the country from which ancient Hebrews emigrated in ancient times, depending in their fragile pretensions on false 039interpretations which contradict historical truth and logic.

“Professor Matthiae indicated, as well, that among the propagandists spreading fallacious Zionist theories, David Friedman [sic] should be mentioned, as well as other western information media, like the Time and Newsweek magazines.

“He added that, by their untrue allegations, the Zionists sought to deprive the Syrian authorities of the beneficial results of the discoveries of Ebla.”

It is not clear why the Syrians should see a Zionist plot behind the scholarly effort to illuminate the Bible through the Ebla tablets, or even why the Syrians should object that an ancient Syrian civilization may provide a historical backdrop to the age of the Biblical patriarchs. For centuries, the King James translation has told us, referring to Abraham, “A Syrian ready to perish was my father” (Deuteronomy 26:5)^a. It is surely nothing new to the Arabs that Abraham came from the area embraced by modern Syria. Moreover, Abraham is the father not only of the Israelites through his son Isaac, but also of the Arabs through his son Ishmael. Nevertheless, the Syrians obviously see a Zionist plot behind scholarly efforts to use the Ebla tablets to understand the Bible.

Although Syrian authorities object to the Western emphasis on the connections between Ebla and the Bible, on at least one occasion they themselves drew attention to these connections. The July 1978 issue of Flash contains an article about Ebla which was either written or approved by Bahnassi. (He signed the introduction to the article, but it is not clear whether he wrote the article itself.) In this article, the Ebla tablets are said to contain “Information related to the social life of Ebla, telling, for instance, that a king had 38 children, that the penalty of raping a virgin is death, and that the woman was born from the sixth rib of the man. These pieces of information also include the representation of the woman by a snake, the expulsion of Adam and Eve from the paradise and the principal ideas of Genesis—which turned to be the real essence of all fictions of the Biblical recitals later.”

While it is clear what the Syrians want from the Italian scholars, what is not so clear is the extent to which the scholars are willing to cooperate. Whether Pettinato and Matthiae really believe what they now say, or whether they simply said what they had to say in order to continue their work, is uncertain. In light of their previous public statements, this “Declaration,” interview and press conference may well constitute a required public recantation. This is especially true in the case of Pettinato, whose previous articles and speeches often described the connections between Ebla and the Bible.

Although almost none of the tablets themselves have been published (so the original evidence is unavailable to the worldwide community of scholars), the Italians have previously given detailed accounts of their contents in articles, lectures and press interviews.

We are told, for example, that the tablets contain a creation story and a flood story similar to the stories that appear in Genesis.

We are told that the tablets contain references to Salem, the city of Melchizedeck, to Hazor, Lachish, Megiddo, Gaza, Dor, Sinai, Joppa and Jerusalem—all of which prominently figure in the Bible.

The tablets also mention an Eblaite king named Ebrium or Ebrum whose name, we are told, is related to Eber, Noah’s great-great-grandson and the father of all Semites (Genesis 10:21, 1 Chronicles 1:17–18). Ultimately, the Eblaite name Ebrum is also related to Ibri, “Hebrew”, we are told.

We are told of a reference to Ur in Haran which might help us to identify Abraham’s birthplace more accurately and to solve a puzzle concerning its location (See Cyrus H. Gordon “Where Is Abraham’s Ur?” BAR, June 1977).

The language of Ebla, we were told, is proto-Canaanite. The tablets contain references to a Semitic god El, the same name for God used in the Old Testament. Perhaps the tablets even contain references to Ya, a shortened form of Yahweh, the name of the God of the Hebrews in the Bible.

Personal names such as Abram, Esau, Israel, Michael, Saul and Ishmael also appear in the Ebla tablets. Especially interesting is the appearance of the name David in an extra-Biblical source. David is the name of only one person in the Bible—King David—and this name has never appeared in contemporaneous or earlier extra-Biblical texts. In the Ebla tablets, it appears “dozens of times,” says Pettinato.

Finally, we are told, Ebla, like Israel, anointed its kings and had prophets.

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All of this we are told by Pettinato and Matthiae.

The New York Times of October 25, 1976 quotes Matthiae as saying, “We have found the civilization that was the background of the people of the Old Testament.”

An Associated Press report with a Rome dateline, printed in the Washington Post of August 16, 1976, quotes Matthiae as saying “The Ebla tablets establish the patriarchs and their names as historical realities.” The same quotation is attributed to Pettinato by The New York Times, which adds that Professor Pettinato says the tablets “seem to show that many Hebrew ideas and words came from Ebla.” According to another New York Times report, with a Rome dateline, Pettinato said that the tablets “shed light on the history of the Jewish people.”

Other scholars soon began to echo these assess’ meets. For example, Yale Professor William W. Hallo told Newsweek, (November 15, 1976) “It’s debatable, but it is possible that Ebla’s Ebrum is the link in genealogy between Noah and Abraham. These tablets reopen the whole question of the historical authority of the Book of Genesis.”

Among other scholars who hailed the sensational implications of the Ebla tablets was David Noel Freedman. Freedman’s role in bringing the Ebla tablets to public attention is critical to understanding the implications of the references to him in the Matthiae interview published in Flash.

Freedman is one of America’s leading Biblical scholars. The grandson of a Jewish journalist who worked for a Yiddish newspaper in New York City, Freedman converted to Christianity and taught at two Presbyterian seminaries before going to the University of Michigan where he is now director of the Program on Studies in Religion. A man of boundless energy, he once served at the same time as director of the Michigan program, Editor of the Anchor Bible series, vice-president of the American Schools of Oriental Research, Editor of its Bulletin and its Newsletter, Editor of the Biblical Archeologist, and director of the William F. Albright School for Archaeological Research in Jerusalem. He has also served as president of the Society of Biblical Literature and is the author or editor of dozens of books and articles.

In early 1976, Freedman flew to Rome for the express purpose of talking to Matthiae and Pettinato about the Ebla finds, and spent the better part of three days with his Italian hosts discussing the tablets.

There he learned that in 1974, after nine years of 041digging at Ebla, Matthiae had discovered 42 tablets. In 1975, Matthiae failed to find a single additional tablet until the last week of the season. Then he discovered the archive—at a spot less than three feet from a point he had reached almost ten years before. The archive contained more than 16,000 tablets. In 1976, Matthiae found an additional 1500 tablets.

Freedman returned to the United States after his talks even more excited than when he left. He was sure that the Ebla tablets were the most important find for the study of the Bible since the Dead Sea Scrolls—and perhaps even more important.

On his return Freedman wrote a lengthy confidential memorandum about what the Italians had told him. Entitled “The Royal Archives of Ebla,” the memorandum was marked “Private Property, Confidential” and was circulated to a limited number of scholarly colleagues. But the easy availability of Xerox copying machines insured a far wider distribution. It was not long before copies of the confidential memorandum found their way to reporters, who promptly published newspaper stories based on the memorandum.

The memorandum is precise, extensive and detailed. It clearly reveals the extent to which the Italians opened themselves up to their new American friend.

With the publication of newspaper reports based on the memorandum, Ebla became a subject of widespread popular interest and Freedman became the principal American source for information about the tablets and their significance.

There is no reason to believe that Matthiae and Pettinato were unhappy with this publicity. Indeed, they welcomed Freedman’s suggestion that he arrange an American tour for them.

Freedman, then president of the Society of Biblical Literature, planned the tour for the Italian pair and even accompanied one or both of them on many of their appearances at colleges across the country. The climax of the tour was the joint appearance of Matthiae and Pettinato before a plenary session of the Society of Biblical Literature on October 18, 1976. The overflow audience made up of several thousand Biblical scholars listened to the University of Rome scholars talk about the implications of the Ebla tablets for Biblical scholarship.

The two Italian scholars then went to Washington to discuss an article on the Ebla tablets with officials of the National Geographic—an article which eventually appeared in the December 1978 issue. Each of the Italian scholars also wrote an article for Freedman’s semi-scholarly journal, the Biblical Archeologist. While both scholars spoke and wrote about Ebla’s connections with the Bible, Pettinato did so far more extensively than Matthiae because the Biblical connections come principally from the tablets—which were discussed by the epigrapher Pettinato.

Because of his early and extended visit with the Italian scholars, as well as his contacts with them on their American tour and during the editing of their articles in the Biblical Archeologist, Freedman had more lengthy, detailed and intimate discussions with Matthiae and Pettinato than any other American scholar. He was in effect their American sponsor.

It is with this background that the discussion of Freedman in Matthiae’s interview in Flash must be understood:

“Q: Some newspapers have specified that David Noel Freedman takes part in your mission. Who is this man, and what is his relationship with the mission? What would you do if his pretension were a slander?

“A: Mr. Freedman has never taken part in our mission …

“Q: Freedman pretends to have met you in Rome in June 1976. Later on he published a statement in ‘Los Angelos [sic] Times’ newspaper, calling for throwing a bright light on the discovery of Ebla. On the other hand, he gave information which he qualified as extremely real and which was later on reported by Zionist information agencies. Where could Freedman extract such information from?

“A: I have met and I meet dozens of colleagues and scholars, especially in and outside scientific conferences I held in France, Belgium, Britain, Switzerland, America and Germany, for explaining the real meaning of the discovery of the civilization of Ebla. While also meeting Mr. Freedman in Rome, I in haste explained to him the importance of the discoveries of Ebla, with the expressions I used in several scientific articles I was publishing.” (Emphasis supplied)

This rejection of Freedman—perhaps denial would be more accurate—appears at first to be based on political grounds. But there may also be another element. Matthiae may be in part rejecting what many 042scholars believe to be premature and therefore unwarrantedly sensational claims about Ebla’s connections with the Bible. After all no one has yet seen the tablets. These sensational claims are frequently attributed to Freedman. Some say he has not only jumped on the Ebla bandwagon—he has sought to lead it with unjustified and overhasty claims.

Certain press articles have indicated that the links between the Bible and Ebla were more direct than in fact is the case. Indeed, some readers have been left with the impression that the tablets referred to actual Biblical personages—which, with one possible exception to be discussed later, is clearly not the case.

To place the Ebla tablets in chronological perspective, King David began his reign in about 1000 B.C., the Exodus from Egypt occurred about 1230 B.C. (in the opinion of most scholars), and Abraham, if he was a historical personage, lived in the early second millennium B.C. (or at least so it was thought before the Ebla tablets). The Ebla tablets date about 500 years earlier than this—to the mid-third millennium B.C.

The sensational press treatment of the Ebla tablets caused many scholars—including BAR—to caution against extreme claims. (See Queries & Comments, BAR 02:03.)

In fairness to Freedman, his own contentions have always been accompanied by appropriate reservations. Nevertheless, he, more than any other scholar, believes that the Ebla tablets will revolutionize our understanding of the Patriarchal Age and his name, more than any other, has been linked to unwarranted and sensational claims for the Ebla tablets. As a result, Freedman is persona non grata in Syria.

Another complicating factor in the Ebla story is the intense personal animosity which has existed and continues to exist between Matthiae and Pettinato, as described in “The Politics of Ebla,” BAR 04:03. As we go to press, we have learned that as a result of this animosity, Pettinato has now broken all connection with the Ebla mission. In addition to their personal differences the two men also have scholarly disagreements: they disagree on the dating of the tablets by nearly 200 years.

It has gone almost unnoticed, however, that Pettinato is far more vulnerable politically than Matthiae. It is Pettinato the epigrapher (as opposed to Matthiae the archaeologist) who has made most of the statements connecting Ebla with the Bible. This is only natural because the Biblical connections arise primarily out of the tablets, not out of the other 043archaeological remains.

This is not say that Matthiae is without some doctrinal lapses. He did tell the New York Times, as we have noted, that “We have found the civilization that was the background of the people of the Old Testament.” He did write in the Biblical Archeologist that “The name of the great king Ebrum [of Ebla] … probably became Eber in Biblical tradition and was inserted in Shem’s genealogy.” But this is nothing compared to what Pettinato has written and said.

So, in the context of their personal animosity, Pettinato became the fall guy. It was he, rather than Matthiae, who fell from Syrian grace. The Syrians objected to Pettinato’s sole supervision over the tablets’ publication. Reportedly, the Syrians were satisfied that a 10-person committee would control publication of the tablets. Pettinato was even permitted to serve on the committee, although Pettinato has now resigned from this committee.

In Matthiae’s interview in Flash, Matthiae takes special care to distance himself from Pettinato, as well as from Freedman. When the interviewer asks whether Pettinato has been “caught in the Zionist trap”, Matthiae responds, “I can only tell you that I most vividly deplore the unscientific valuations decided upon without the necessary ripe reflection. I also have to specify that the declarations given by Mr. Pettinato were neither authorized nor approved by me, and they in no way reflect the interpretations of the Italian Mission, but they are only his personal ideas.”

Pettinato claims that his recent resignation has nothing to do with “Biblical” or “Zionist” politics, although he concedes he has not been permitted to go to Syria for several years. His resignation from the Ebla publication committee is based on his dissatisfaction with Matthiae’s operation of the committee. The way Matthiae is organizing things, Pettinato says, the Ebla tablets won’t be published for 300 years.

Unfortunately, it is likely to be decades—or even generations—before the scholarly world in general gets a chance to look at photographs and transcriptions of the Ebla tablets. And it will be difficult to charge the Syrians or the Italian Mission with political bias for the delay because such delays are customary. More than 30 years have elapsed since the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered, yet major segments of the scrolls have not yet been published (see Freedman’s article “Leading Scholar Calls for Prompt Publication,” BAR 04:01, in which he calls for publication of inscriptional finds within one year at most and confesses his own guilt with respect to the Dead Sea Scrolls). As Matthiae notes in his Flash interview, over 40 years have not been enough to publish all the tablets from the famous archive of Mari. Before formal publication, scholars in general are, by scholarly convention, neither able nor permitted to use the unpublished material.

That scholars in general should not be able to use the Ebla tablets for decades seems ridiculous. The scholarly convention which allows a scholar to withhold information for years until he publishes an official report of the find has been roundly criticized by BAR (“A Plea for Information,” BAR 03:02, and “Free Hadrian,” BAR 04:03), not in connection with the Ebla tablets but with respect to leading Israeli archaeologists and the Israeli Department of Antiquities. The custom of restricted access prior to publication and of lengthy publication delays is, unfortunately, widespread.

Unwarranted delays in publication may have been understandable in the leisurely world of the first half of the 20th century. But in the last quarter of the century it should no longer be permitted—especially when the discovery is obviously of widespread interest and importance.

In the usual case, the delay has nothing to do with politics. It is based simply on the unexpressed assumption that the glory of first publication should belong to the scholar who is willing to undertake the laborious task of studying and editing the find.

In the case of the Ebla archive, however, there is every reason to believe that the publication of those tablets which mostly clearly relate to the Bible will be delayed on political grounds.

We would be delighted to be proved wrong. We would be delighted if Matthiae and Syria were to distinguish themselves by teaching the archaeological world a lesson by promptly making available critical finds.

Matthiae and the Syrian authorities should take the lead in breaking the unwholesome precedent of decades-long publication delay.

We ask the Italian Mission and the Syrian authorities to promptly publish a readable picture and a cuneiform transcription of a single tablet: TM-75–1860. The pages of BAR are available for this purpose.

“TM” stands for Tell Mardikh, the modern name of the tell or mound which encloses ancient Ebla. “75” stands for the year in which the tablet was 044discovered. “1860” is the number of the tablet in the expedition’s registry.

Tablet 1860 is, according to present information, the single most important tablet in the Ebla archive for its bearing on the Bible. It has been suggested that Tablet 1860 provides not simply background material related to the Bible but evidence for the historicity of Abraham!

This argument, however, comes from the most politically suspect source—from none other than David Noel Freedman. Freedman, more than any other scholar, has a personal, scholarly and, in a sense, political investment in the connection between the Ebla archive and the Bible. Nevertheless, his arguments must be considered on their merits, regardless of their motivations. Given the adversary setting, it would be most appropriate to place before the entire scholarly world the contents of Tablet 1860 and other pertinent texts. Then all scholars will be able to arrive at their own conclusions.

To understand Freedman’s argument that Tablet 1860 has an important bearing on the historicity of Abraham, it is necessary to examine Genesis 14, a chapter which has received as much scholarly attention in modern times as any other chapter in the Bible.

Genesis 14 involves five Dead Sea city-states: the famous Sodom and Gomorrah, plus Admah and Zeboiim, and a final city-state called “Bela, that is Zoar.” The five Dead Sea nations had been subjugated by a foreign king named Chedorlaomer, against whom they had rebelled. In retaliation for this rebellion, four non-local kings, including Chedorlaomer, attacked the five kings of the Dead Sea city-states. The coalition of four foreign kings quelled the revolt and in the process they seized “Lot the son of Abram’s brother” who lived in Sodom. (Abram was Abraham’s original name.)

News of Lot’s capture reached Abram who was then living near Hebron. Abram entered the fray with 318 retainers and routed the foreign kings in a surprise night attack. Abram pursued the enemy to a site north of Damascus and recovered both the captives (including Lot) and the booty previously taken by the enemy.

Later—in Genesis 18 and 19—Sodom and Gomorrah are destroyed together with the Cities of the Plain, presumably the other three city-states previously mentioned in Genesis 14.

Genesis 14 is unique because it cannot be 045attributed to any of the four strands (J, E, P, and D) into which the Pentateuch is customarily divided by source-critical scholars. Genesis 14 stands alone. In E. A. Speiser’s commentary on Genesis in the Anchor Bible series, he attributes Genesis 14 to Source X. “The critics are virtually unanimous,” he tells us, that “the familiar touches of the established sources of Genesis are absent” from this chapter. “The chapter has to be ascribed to an isolated source, here marked X.”

Genesis 14 is especially important in the scholarly debate that is currently raging as to when and whether there was an Age of the Patriarchs. This debate is already familiar to BAR readers. (See “Dating the Patriarchal Stories,” BAR 04:04, and “Abraham in History,” BAR 03:04.) Briefly—and considerably oversimplified—one group of scholars places the Patriarchal Age in the Middle Bronze II period (c. 2000 B.C.–1800 B.C.)—a shift from the Middle Bronze I period espoused by the giants of an earlier generation like William F. Albright and Nelson Glueck. Another group of scholars, led by John Van Seters and Thomas L. Thompson, argues that the patriarchal narratives cannot be set in any archaeological or historical period because the stories are simply literary products of the Exilic period (Iron Age III) and that the patriarchs themselves were not historical. Naturally, there are a large number of intermediate positions and qualifications.^b

For the scholars who argue that there was a Patriarchal Age and that Abraham might well have been an historical personality, Genesis 14 is of particular significance because it appears to have been written by a non-Israelite source. For example, it refers to “Abram the Hebrew” (Genesis 14:13). An Israelite or Hebrew would not be likely in these circumstances to identify Abram in this way. In the Bible, the term Hebrew is used only by foreigners to identify Israelites.^c If Genesis 14 was written by a non-Israelite source, what it says about Abram the Hebrew has far greater historical reliability.

For those scholars who argue that there is no such thing as a Patriarchal Age and that the patriarchal stories are late literary inventions, Genesis 14 is worthless for historical purposes. As John Van Seters writes in Abraham in History and Tradition:^d

“Genesis 14 is regarded by most exponents of the early-second-millennium argument as one of the strongest supports for their position. Yet there are others who view this chapter as a late legend with no historical value whatsoever … If there is any hope of finding an actual historical context for the patriarch Abraham then it should be in this episode.”

Van Seters concludes, after an analysis of the extra-Biblical, archaeologically-recovered parallels used to support a second-millennium date for the Patriarchs, that Genesis 14 “cannot possibly have historical significance.”

Into this fray now comes Freedman.^e The problem, says Freedman, is that those scholars who have sought to find extra-Biblical parallels and archaeological evidence for a Patriarchal Age have been looking in the wrong millennium. To demonstrate the historicity of the patriarchal period, and of Genesis 14 in particular, we should look, says Freedman, not to second millennium history and parallels, but to the third millennium B.C.—the period of the Ebla tablets. These tablets, he says, provide the proper background to the Patriarchal Age. And Tablet 1860 in particular, he says, goes far toward establishing not only the proper dating for the patriarchal period but also for demonstrating the historicity of Abraham.

Tablet 1860 is reportedly a large cuneiform tablet listing commercial transactions between Ebla and many other cities. Pettinato has stated (in his St. Louis lecture to the Society for Biblical Literature on October 29, 1976) that this tablet contains the names of the five Cities of Plains mentioned in Genesis 14; they are listed, he says, in the same order as they are recorded in the Bible! (The name of the last of the five cities as given in the Bible, is “Bela, that is Zoar.” This city appears as Bela in the Ebla tablet. However, Freedman states he has learned that another Ebla tablet may contain the name Zoar—written Za-e-ar. This tablet reportedly states that Zoar is a town within the district of Bela!)

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At the very least, these references in the Ebla tablets demonstrate that the Biblical Cities of the Plain are not imaginatively-created legendary names, but were actual cities in the third millennium B.C.

While the appearance of the five Cities of the Plain has been revealed by Pettinato publicly, Freedman claims Pettinato later revealed to him privately—at a breakfast together on November 5, 1976, when Freedman was accompanying Pettinato on his tour—that Tablet 1860 also contained the name of a king of one of the Cities of the Plain! Freedman says Pettinato even wrote down the king’s name on a slip of paper: “Bi-ir-sa”. The name of the king of Gomorrah, as recorded in Genesis 14, is Birsha. The two are linguistically equivalent! According to Freedman, the consonants and the vowels of this name are exactly the same in Tablet 1860 and in the Bible, except that the Biblical form adds a final ayin; this is to be expected, Freedman says, because final laryngeals do not appear in Eblaite transcriptions.

Birsha is the king of Gomorrah in the Bible, but Bi-ir-sa in the Ebla tablets is reported to be the king of Admah, one of the other Cities of the Plain.

Freedman does not claim that King Birsha of the Bible is the same person as King Bi-ir-sa referred to in Tablet 1860. The name may have been a common one of the period (although it appears nowhere else in the Bible or in extra-Biblical texts). Freedman does contend, however, that:

“If they are not the same person, they belong to the same era, quite possibly to the same dynasty or to related families. We can go further now and argue that the tradition in Genesis 14 reflects conditions in the Near East that are also reflected in the Ebla tablets.”

It could of course be argued that Abraham and Lot were artificially introduced into the Genesis story during a much later period (in which case only the story’s background would have historical meaning), but, Freedman argues, this is unlikely: “There may be some enhancement or exaggeration in the retelling of this notable victory [by Abraham], but the picture and its details are realistic and fit well the historical setting.”

Recent archaeological evidence gives some credence to Freedman’s views—or is, at least, consistent with those views. Thompson in arguing against the view which places the Patriarchal Age in the second millennium cites the fact that excavations at several 047sites in the area southeast of the Dead Sea have uncovered no remains from the second millennium—the period to which his opponents assign the Patriarchal Age. The most prominent of these sites is Bab-edh-Dhra, on the Lisan (the peninsula which extends into the Dead Sea on the east). Says Thompson: “The excavations of Paul Lapp have shown that the settlement at Bab-edh-Dhra no longer existed after EB IV [Early Bronze IV; end of the third millennium]!” The exclamation point is Thompson’s. For Thompson this was the clincher: Genesis 14 could not be historical because there were no second millennium settlements near the Dead Sea. Thompson wrote, however, before the discovery of the Ebla Tablets.

Now it appears that these Dead Sea excavations, which are continuing under the direction of Walter Rast and Thomas Schaub^f, can be used to support the historicity of Genesis 14—if the events described in Genesis 14 are placed, as Freedman does, in the third millennium.

Freedman has not missed this point.

“[Bab-edh-Dhra] was finally abandoned not later than about 2250 B.C. (so-called EB IV). At the same time, no trace of Middle Bronze Age I second millennium! settlements have been found there, or at any of the neighboring sites least of the Dead Sea which have recently been surveyed and excavated!. All were occupied during the Early Bronze Age for varying periods of time; the only period common to all is EB III, which is also the period of the Ebla tablets. The provisional conclusion to be drawn is that the Cities of the Plain have in fact been found, but until now they were not accurately identified as such.”

In short, these excavations near the Dead Sea and Ebla Tablet 1860 suggest a third millennium date for Genesis 14; and if Genesis 14 is historical, it is likely that this is the Patriarchal Age, argues Freedman. Obviously, Tablet 1860 is critical to Freedman’s argument.

There have been rumors that Tablet 1860 has disappeared. Other rumors have it that the Italians are retreating from readings that connect Ebla with the Bible. Pettinato now says that although the Cities of the Plain do appear in the Ebla tablets they do not appear in the same tablet, so it cannot be said that the Ebla tablets record these cities in the same order as they are recorded in the Bible. As for King Birsha, which he mentioned to Freedman at the November 1976 breakfast, Pettinato says he was speaking to Freedman from memory and that his memory was incorrect—that the name should now be read in a different way.

Any particular cuneiform sign, when used syllabically as they are in the Ebla tablets, can have many different values. The proper reading depends on the inner logic of the writing system and language, as well as on the context. Obviously, Pettinato may change his mind because more mature considerations suggest other readings. But, suggests Freedman, it is also possible that these readings may change for reasons of political discretion.

Some scholars have suggested that the Syrians can not really suppress the Biblical connections of the Ebla tablets because when they are published all scholars will be free to make their own judgments and write about what they read.

But this assumes that the tablets critical to Biblical concerns will be promptly published. If the critical tablets are not published for 20 or 25 years, the effect is the same as suppression.

The more important the find, the more imperative that it be made promptly available to all. Perhaps it is not so serious to withhold a find if only a handful of scholars is interested in it. But if the entire world of Biblical scholarship is interested in an important find, should the excavator have the right to withhold it from the public for years?

Suppose the great bronze basin from Solomon’s Temple were found. Should the excavator be permitted to prevent anyone from seeing it for five or ten years? Suppose a tablet were found describing the defeat of the Philistines by King David. Should the epigrapher be permitted to withhold the inscription from other scholars for five, or even two, years, until he has thoroughly studied it and published his own edition of it? We think not.

That is why we now call for the immediate publication of a readable picture and transcription of TM-75–1860 and related tablets.

Only in this way can the debate proceed in an objective manner, unencumbered by the kind of political speculation that now hobbles any rational discussion of the problem.

Without publication of this tablet and others like it, we might as well suspend further discussion—for 10, 20, 40 or 50 years—who knows how long—until we are finally permitted to see the critical evidence.

It is now clear that anti-Zionist political pressures in Syria are attempting to affect the scholarly interpretation of the Ebla tablets. The Syrians are furious that in the West the intense interest shown in this fantastic cache of tablets has focused on their importance for understanding the Bible and Biblical history. For the Syrians, the tablets are important because of their significance for the study of what the Syrians are now calling “proto-Syrian history”. Syrian authorities want Ebla scholars to give a “proto-Syrian” emphasis rather than a Biblical emphasis to their work. Dr. Afif Bahnassi, Director General of the […]