A Defixio?

History V

[Ebal, eleven of thirty]

What landed in Snyder’s tray she quickly identified as a defixio, an ancient curse tablet.¹

This is the eleventh 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 fifth of ten posts detailing the history of the altar and the tablet.

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

Otherwise, continue below.

In Snyder’s analysis, Stripling and many of their experienced associates concurred. Why? These they had often seen. From the Greco-Roman world, they are relatively common archaeological finds.²

Nevertheless, they also recognized the irony of finding one on Deuteronomy’s “Mountain of Curses.”

Stripling immediately recognized that at this site a defixio posed a problem. Zertal had dated the altar site from 1400 to 1250 B.C. This he had concluded from careful pottery analysis. Contrarily, Stripling knew that defixios commonly dated to the Greek and Roman eras, primarily fourth and third centuries B. C. forward. A defixio seemed inappropriate by around a millennium.³

He, however, was aware of a possible precedent.

The Book of Job speaks of Job’s desire to write on lead with an iron pen (Job 19:24).

That book many scholars peg as the oldest biblical text. One reason is that it does not allude to the Law of Moses.⁴

Maybe the defixio concept sprang from that or a similar exceedingly ancient tradition.

Might other clues provide insights about this enigma? Find out in my next post.

Some questions: What was your earliest encounter with the idea of a defixio? What was the context?

Let me know below in “comments”.

Thank you for engaging this topic with me thus far!

The next post, the sixth of our review of the Curse Tablet’s history, I entitle: “An Inscription!”

I look forward to continuing with you there.

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Next post: “An Inscription!“

1. Associates for Biblical Research, “ABR Researchers Discover the Oldest Known Proto-Hebrew Inscription Ever Found”, biblicarchaeology.org/ current-events-list/, Youtube, (06:24), March 24, 2022. ↩︎
2. Sean McDowell, Oldest Hebrew Writing? Mt. Ebal Curse Tablet (Revisited) m.youtube.com>watch, (42:34-43:44), 11 May 2023; and
   Associates for Biblical Research, “ABR Researchers Discover the Oldest Known Proto-Hebrew Inscription Ever Found:, biblicarchaeology.org/current-events-list/, Youtube, (11:40; 19:25), March 24, 2022. ↩︎
3. Breaking News “Mt Ebal Curse Tablet Peer Review Complete”, Appian Media, In Roads, youtube.com/watch?v=_15tYO4hqJS, (26:08), May 12, 2023. ↩︎
4. Id. (10:30). ↩︎