JERUSALEM (VINnews) — A rare archaeological discovery on Mount Eival has shed light on the biblical period and proved a hotly contested fact – that the Jewish nation did in fact speak and write Hebrew 3,200 years ago at the time when they entered the land of Israel. The rare finding, a folded lead panel, contains the earliest known Hebrew writing and remarkably the writing coincides with the biblical description of Mt. Eival as the “Mountain of Curses” at which the Levites pronounce curses on those who do not uphold the Torah’s precepts.
Professor Gershon Galil of Haifa University terms the find a “watershed in Biblical research”. Galil says that before the new finding dated to the 13th century BCE, the oldest known Hebrew writing was from the 10th century BCE. “This was an inscription found at Khirbet Queiyafa near the Elah Valley by Prof. Yossi Garfunkel and I succeeded in deciphering it.”
Professor Galil says that the new find is a “death blow to all Bible deniers: Many biblical critics claimed that in the 13th century BCE the Jews did not know how to read and write and therefore could not have written the bible. Therefore they claimed that the bible was written much later in the Persian or Hellenistic periods.
The panel bears an inscription which says: Curse, Curse,Curse, Cursed to G-d, die cursed, Cursed- he will die, Cursed to G-d, Cursed, Cursed, Cursed.”
Prof. Galil says that this is a sophisticated piece of work: “Whoever knows how to write a text with chiastic structures can write almost anything. At this stage unfortunately we cannot reveal all of the information found since it requires peer review and academic publication but already from what we see today we can say Shehecheyanu on finding Hashem’s name in Hebrew from this period.”
Professor Galil notes the importance of finding these curses on Mt. Eival in accordance with the account in Devarim (Chapter 27) regarding the special ceremony which took place here after the Israelites entered Israel.
Prof. Galil explains that in previous times a legal agreement contained an internal clause which was written on the inner side and when there was a dispute, the sides opened the inner side to see what was written there. This finding also has internal and external text.
In 1980 Prof. Adam Zertal discovered an altar on Mt. Eival and claimed it was that of Yehoshua Bin Nun, based on its unique features and characteristics. Some academics doubted this analysis and thought it was a Canaanite site but the new finding, discovered in earth near the site of the altar, proves that Jews had worshiped here, since the name of Hashem “Yahu” would mean nothing to Canaanites.
The research was led by Dr. Scott Stripling of the Texas-based Associates for Biblical Research which used the successful methods used in sifting the Temple Mount earth to sift the earth near the altar of Yehoshua. Stripling said that he was “amazed” to discover an inscription in Hebrew from the late Bronze Age and Iron Age.
Galil concludes that there is now more and more evidence and findings which support the Biblical account.”
Source: VosIzNeias