A Defixio?

The Mt. Ebal Curse Tablet

History V

[Post eleven of thirty]

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

Note

This is the eleventh post of my memorandum on the Curse Table. It is also the fifth of ten detailing the history of the tablet and the proposed Joshua’s Altar.

If you have accessed this post from other than captivatingtwists.com and wish to start the journey from the 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 common archaeological finds.2

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 common archaeological finds.2

Still, they also recognized the irony. This they had found 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. But, Stripling knew that defixios dated to the Greek and Roman eras. That is the 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.2

The defixio concept could have come from that or a similar ancient tradition

Will new clues give insights? Find out in my next post.

Now, here are 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 with this topic 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. ↩︎