Endnote 27 – The Bat Creek Inscription: Did Judean Refugees Escape to Tennessee?

Marshall McKusick, “Canaanites in America: A New Scripture in Stone?” Biblical Archaeologist 42 (1979), pp. 137–140. McKusick went on to argue that the inscription is indeed modern Cherokee, as originally identified by the Smithsonian. In McCulloch, “The Bat Creek Inscription,” I demonstrate with a letter-by-letter comparison that paleo-Hebrew fits significantly better than any of several styles of Cherokee when the stone is held in either orientation. Although a few letters could pass for Cherokee, the Cherokee script fits no better than English oriented in either direction. Furthermore, no one has ever made any sense of any part of the inscription when trying to read it in the Cherokee language.