Stripling’s Article

The Mt. Ebal Curse Tablet

Facts

Stripling’s Claims

Photo Study I

[Post seventeen of thirty-three]

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 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.

Observation One

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

The article’s body states the ideas Stripling considered. Only with the conclusion, however, does his stance become set. There, he states what belies the idea that Moses could not have authored the Torah.

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

Galil’s premises the article outline. It cites his increased letter count. From the forty declared at the press conference, he went to forty-eight at publication. 1The 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. 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;
• We thus know that a Hebrew inscribed the tablet before 1250 B.C.;
• Additionally, the tablet contains the word “ARWR” or “cursed”;
• These words recall events described in Deuteronomy and the Book of Joshua;
• Thus, this artifact challenges the historical paradigm.

The note immediately following the conclusion is telling. It acknowledges Galil’s allegiance to his premises. It announces that he desires to stand firm on his specific tablet reading. 2

A more conservative approach, however, Stripling adopted. 1

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 followed boustrophedon paths.2 No standardized script existed. Instead, letters tracked like oxen plowing. Envision a pre-teen or an inebriated adult pushing a lawnmower.

Observation Four

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

With the four observations in mind, we are ready for the photos.

Photos!

Cursed! Our next post declares.

Still ready?

Here are some questions. Which aspects of early writing likely took the longest to standardize? Who most likely enforced these standards?

Let me know below in “comments”.

Next post: “ARWR,” Cursed!

1. Sean McDowell, Oldest Hebrew Writing? Mt. Ebal Curse Tablet (Revisited) m.youtube.com>watch, (16:33), 11 May 2023. ↩︎
2. Stripling, S., Galil, G., Kumpova, I. et al. “You are Cursed by the God YHW:” an early Hebrew inscription from Mt. Ebal. Herit Sci 11, 105 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1186/s40494-023-00920-9, paragraph 84.
   and
   Associates for Biblical Research, YaHWeh Curse Tablet: A Tsunami from Mt. Ebal, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gU5njOpRCHQ&t=85s, (36:17) 1 November 2024. ↩︎
3. Id. at 36:20. ↩︎
4. Sean McDowell, Oldest Hebrew Writing? Mt. Ebal Curse Tablet (Revisited) m.youtube.com>watch, (16:39), 11 May 2023. ↩︎

To view the memorandum from the beginning, click here.

For the composite footnotes, click here.