Archelogy/Bible/Exodus/Israelites/Israel

[Marcus]

I'm picturing some ancient person paying more than they could afford to a scribe to scratch these words into a sheet of lead. It's kind of like seeing an ancient love poem, only opposite. Somehow touching.

What's impressive is how well the best part still works. "Cursed, cursed, cursed." Even back then we were damn good at cursing. You just know you're so cursed.

The anti-valentine. Inscribed in lead, no less.

[ceeboo]

Hey Ceeboo

Hello Frespa (Friend Res Ipsa)

interesting stuff.

Glad to hear that you, one of my favorite uneven stacks of random and unguided carbon formulations on earth, find it interesting too . Another thing I can add to list of things we have in common.

As a dyed in the wool skeptic, my radar always goes up when a dramatic discovery is announced by press conference without a published paper, or at least a finished paper to be submitted.

Understood/fair.

So, while I think it's cool to have learned that "curse tablet" was a historical thing.....

Yeah, super cool in my opinion.

I'm happy to wait on the peer reviewed and published paper, as well as public review by other archaeologists before drawing any conclusions.

My understanding is that the peer review process has already begun and the review is expected to be completed and made public this summer.

If nothing else, if the imaging process they used to see through lead is reliable, that would be cool in and of itself.

No doubt.

[Philo Sofee]

I'll keep my eyes on this one. Looks interesting!

[¥akaSteelhead]

From the video description:

The tablet found at this altar site, which only measures approximately 2 cm., was taken to a lab in the Czech Republic where it was scanned to reveal ancient Hebrew writing.

It was revealed that the writing was a formulaic curse, in ancient Hebrew, consisting of 40 letters. The writing reads:

"Cursed, cursed, cursed - cursed by the God YHW.
You will die cursed.
Cursed you will surely die.
Cursed by YHW - cursed, cursed, cursed."

The tablet and subsequent inscription are believed to be dated to the Late Bronze Age, which would make it the oldest known proto-Hebrew inscription ever discovered in Israel and prove that (contrary to many current historians) that the Israelites were literate when they entered the land of Canaan, and therefore could have written the Bible as some of the events it documents took place.

I get lost at the "... when they entered the land of Canaan ..." - problem is this never happened. The Israelites were already in Canaan, the in the ground archeological evidence does not support any invasion of Canaan - rather the midden heaps and pottery shards suggest they were there and just separated themselves out from their neighbors over religion.

The chunk I quoted then throws the validity of the research being done re this inscription, or at least calls to question the bonafides of those making the video.