Stripling’s Article

The Mt. Ebal Curse Tablet

Photo Study I

[Post seventeen of thirty]

Heritage Science finally published its article about the Mt. Ebal Curse Tablet on 12 May 2023. Since Stripling’s press conference, twelve months had passed. Since the tablet’s discovery, it had been three and a half years.

Much of the world, of course, anticipated one feature.

Likely, you also think, “Show us the photos, please!”

Before I turn to those, however, there are four important observations to make.

Note

This is the seventeenth post of my memorandum on the Mt. Ebal Curse Tablet. It is also the first of my photo study.

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.

Observation One

The article’s conclusion states the core of the Stripling team’s argument. With it, they assault the documentary hypothesis.

The article’s body states the ideas Stripling’s team considered. Only with the conclusion, however, does Stripling dig in his boots. There, he states what about the tablet belies the idea that Moses could not have authored the Torah.

The article, for example, credits team member Professor Gershon Galil. He is Director of the Institute of Biblical and Ancient History at the University of Haifa. It was he who deciphered most of the tablet’s interior face.

Gallil’s premises the article elucidates. It cites his increased letter count. From the forty declared at the press conference, he went to forty-eight at publication. The article also acknowledges his modified chiasmus.

Yet, note a crucial point. The article’s conclusion leaves many, if not most, of Galil’s premises orphaned. Many are not embraced there. For example, it neither adopts nor rejects his accounting of tablet letters. The same applies to his full chiasmus interpretation.

Instead, it concludes that the tablet’s inscription challenges history for truncated reasons. Those include:

• The tablet displays in proto-alphabetic script the word “YHW”, the name of the Hebrew God;
• From this we know that a Hebrew inscribed the tablet sometime before 1250 B. C.;
• Additionally, the tablet contains the word “ARWR” or “cursed”;
• These tablet words recall events described in Deuteronomy and The Book of Joshua;
• Thus, this artifact challenges the historical paradigm.1

A more conservative approach, however, Stripling adopted.

Following publication, note that Galil and Stripling ended their affiliation on amicable terms.

What are the consequences for our study?

For us, Stripling has simplified our original question, “Is there anything to see here?”

Stripling’s team answers with a resounding, “Yes!” They point to the two words inside this artifact. There you find the ancient Hebrew ‘cursed’ and ‘Yahweh’. They alone with the tablet’s setting challenge world history!

This makes our photo study easier.

From Stripling’s perspective, we can focus on photos relevant to two words. The other words of Galil’s chiasmus are an important conjecture. But they are not crucial to Stripling’s conclusion.

Observation Two

Our purpose is not only to review the Stripling article and its photos. We also seek to study an article that attempts to refute Stripling’s case.

That article considers the alleged Hebrew words for “cursed” and “Yahweh”.

Additionally, it makes other relevant arguments. These involve two individual tablet characters and the Hebrew word for “You will die!”

I also include these in our study.

Observation Three

In the proto-alphabetic era, writing at times traced a boustrophedon path. Then there was no standardized script. Instead, letters tracked as oxen plow. Consider how an inexperienced pre-teen might push a lawnmower over your yard. or someone older, inebriated.

Observation Four

Many of these inscriptions are very small. How small? Some could fit inside a wedding band or even on the side of a penny.

With these four observations, I conclude my remarks pre-photo study.

Photos!

Ready now for some tomographic scans?

“Cursed! “, our next post declares.

Still ready?

Until then, here are some questions. Which aspects of early writing likely took the longest to standardize? Who most likely prompted or enforced such standardizations?

Let me know below in “comments”.

Thank you for engaging with this topic thus far!

The next post examines an “ARWR” photo.

I look forward to continuing with you there.

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Next post: “ARWR,” Cursed!

1. Id. at paragraph 72. ↩︎