Whoa!

History IV

[Ebal, ten of thirty]

Abruptly, now our plot twists.

In 2019, the team of Scott Stripling, professor of biblical archaeology and church history at the Bible Seminary in Katy, Texas,¹ found a small lead object measuring about 2 x 2 centimeters (.8 x .8 inch).²

Because of this tiny artifact, millions of people worldwide soon focused anew on Mt. Ebal.

This is the tenth post of my memorandum, maintaining that the proposed Joshua’s Altar and the Mt. Ebal Curse Tablet deserve a chance to prove what they might be. It is also the fourth of ten posts detailing the history of the altar and the tablet.

If you wish to read the work from its beginning, click here.

Otherwise, continue below.

This part of our story starts with Stripling obtaining a permit to re-sift Zertal’s Mt. Ebal’s dump piles. ³ Such had lain dormant since well before Zertal’s death.

His purpose was to assess the usefulness of a relatively unheralded technique called wet sifting,⁴ a process by which previously dry sifted remains are washed to reveal small missed artifacts.

Specifically, he sought to determine an approximate percentage of evidence archaeologists miss by only dry sifting.⁵

On-site work, however, at Mt. Ebal presented geopolitical headaches.

Stripling, nonetheless, found a workaround..

Authorities permitted the transport of some of the altar dump material to a location away from the mountain for processing.⁶

There, Stripling’s team then re-dry sifted. They followed this with wet sifting. ⁷

By combining standard dry sifting with a more modern and refined wet sifting technique, Stripling expected to find little more than mundane archaeological objects. He figured on finding additional bullae, scarabs, or diagnostic pottery fragments. Archaeological pay dirt he did not anticipate.

Yet, the team’s wet-sifting expert, Frankie Snyder, discovered in her tray an object she immediately recognized.⁸

At this, she announced in effect, “Scott, you want to see this!”⁹

For Stripling, the sensation on viewing was as if his heart had leaped to his throat. Instinctively, he cautioned, something like: “Whoa! Let’s not get ahead of ourselves here!”¹⁰

Eventually, nevertheless, they did!

Now, a question: From explorations around a creek or mud hole as a kid, are you surprised that archaeologists came so late to the value of wet sifting?

Let me know in the comment section below.

Thank you for engaging this topic with me thus far!

Our next post, the fifth of our review of Curse Tablet history, I entitle: “A Defixio?”

I look forward to continuing with you there.

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Next post: “A Defixio?”

1. Melanie Lidman, Academic article on controversial 3,200-year old ‘curse tablet’ fails to sway experts, The Times of Israel, 14 May 2023, paragraph 2, https://www.timesofisrael.com/academic-article-on-controversial-3,200-year-old-curse-tablet-fails-to-sway-experts/, (7 October 2024);
   
   Ariel David, “New Studies Debunk Controversial Biblical ‘Curse Tablet’ from Mt. Ebal”, haaretz.com, paragraph 5, November 30, 2023; and
   
   Sean McDowell, Oldest Hebrew Writing? Mt. Ebal Curse Tablet (Revisited), m.youtube.com>watch, (01:09), 11 May 2023. ↩︎
2. Melanie Lidman, Academic article on controversial 3,200-year old ‘curse tablet’ fails to sway experts, The Times of Israel, 14 May 2023, paragraph 2, https://www.timesofisrael.com/academic-article-on-controversial-3,200-year-old-curse-tablet-fails-to-sway-experts/, (7 October 2024); and
   
   Sean McDowell, Oldest Hebrew Writing? Mt. Ebal Curse Tablet (Revisited), m.youtube.com>watch, (08:27), 11 May 2023 ↩︎
3. Id. at (01:12) ↩︎
4. Associates for Biblical Research, “ABR Researchers Discover the Oldest Known Proto-Hebrew Inscription Ever Found”, biblicarchaeology.org/current-events-list/, Youtube, (02:46), March 24, 2022. ↩︎
5. Id. ↩︎
6. Id. ↩︎
7. Id. at 16:44 ↩︎
8. Id. ↩︎
9. Sean McDowell, Oldest Hebrew Writing? Mt. Ebal Curse Tablet (Revisited), m.youtube.com>watch, (03:39), 11 May 2023; Steve Law, patternsofevidence.com, Ancient Hebrew Writing on Tablet Discovered at Joshua’s Altar, paragraph 14 and 15, February 4, 2022; and
   Special Update: The Mount Ebal Curse Tablet (Ep1 of 3), Youtube: Patterns of Evidence, youtube.com/watch?v=YX3TH_nfgLo, Episode One at (19:10), May 21, 2024. ↩︎
10. Id. at (19:40) ↩︎