PHOTOGRAPH BY MICHAEL C. LUDDENI / © ASSOCIATES FOR BIBLICAL RESEARCH / CC BY 4.0
In early 2022, a research team led by scholars from the Associates for Biblical Research (ABR) announced the discovery of a small lead tablet from Mt. Ebal that they claim contains the oldest extant Hebrew inscription. Now, more than a year later, a peer-reviewed article presenting one part of the inscription has been published.1 Yet, even with this long-awaited publication, serious questions remain. Many scholars are dubious about whether the tablet features an inscription at all, while others continue to highlight the problematic circumstances surrounding its recovery.
BY DANIEL VAVRIK / © ASSOCIATES FOR BIBLICAL RESEARCH / CC BY 4.0
The research team dates the tablet inscription to the Late Bronze Age II period (c. 1400–1200 BCE) and identifies it as a legal text and curse invoking the Israelite deity Yahweh. They connect it directly to the covenant renewal ceremony on Mt. Ebal, described in Deuteronomy 27 and Joshua 8. Moreover, they believe the inscription predates the earliest known Hebrew inscription by several hundred years and proves that certain books of the Hebrew Bible could have been written hundreds of years earlier than previously thought.
Although the tablet’s publication has made headlines around the world, the inscription continues to be met with skepticism from many scholars.
BY GERSHON GALIL / © ASSOCIATES FOR BIBLICAL RESEARCH / CC BY 4.0
“I wish this were a 13th-century Hebrew inscription, but it is not,” said Christopher Rollston from George Washington University. “Anyone can look at the images of this ‘inscription’ and discern that there is no real connection between the published images 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.”
In response, Pieter van der Veen, an epigrapher with the team and professor at Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz, stated, “I can assure you, what we see are NOT mere striations. Rather what we see is manmade 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.”
Since only the inside of the tablet has been published, it is difficult for other scholars to evaluate such evidence. “Sup-posedly, the outer inscriptions are easier to read,” said Aren Maeir of Bar-Ilan University. “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.”
There are also serious questions about the tablet’s discovery. It was not found during an excavation but rather while the ABR team was sifting the soil dumps from the late Adam Zertal’s excavations of Mt. Ebal, which took place in the 1980s. 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 an altar, which he dated to the time of Joshua.
Perhaps even more significant is the fact that Mt. Ebal is located in a part of the West Bank where archaeological sites fall under the jurisdiction of the Palestinian Authority. As the excavators did not request a license from the proper authori-ties, some observers consider the ABR’s actions to be illegal. Members of the publication team assert, however, that their dump excavations fell under the original excavation license of Adam Zertal.
In early 2022, a research team led by scholars from the Associates for Biblical Research (ABR) announced the discovery of a small lead tablet from Mt. Ebal that they claim contains the oldest extant Hebrew inscription.a Now, more than a year later, a peer-reviewed article presenting one part of the inscription has been published.1 Yet, even with this long-awaited publication, serious questions remain. Many scholars are dubious about whether the tablet features an inscription at all, while others continue to highlight the problematic circumstances surrounding its recovery. The research team dates the tablet inscription to the Late Bronze Age II […]
