Addressing a Loose End

At the beginning of this memorandum, I committed to answering three questions about the Curse Tablet. Those were:

• Are the phenomenal claims about the curse tablet supported by enough evidence?
• Might there be other important historical evidence at Joshua’s Altar?
• Why excavate now?

A fourth question I resolved to only hint at possible solutions rather than fully explore. The reason was that it involves delicate diplomatic concerns of which I am not privy. Yet, I said that I would provide speculative answers. That will come in my letters to my Congressional delegation. You can find this in the supplemental materials.

Of the three that I would address, one needs further explanation.

I have argued that Stripling presented sufficient evidence to warrant further posthaste excavation. The post on “My adjudication” summarized this.

I have also presented the case about why evidence on Mt Ebal lies in peril. Thus excavation should occur soon. This I outlined in the post that I titled “Troubled Waters”.

A remaining issue, however, needs further explanation. It is why I perceive there to be further evidence at Mt. Ebal of great importance to mankind.

This post addresses that issue.

Dr. Stripling states that he would be surprised if excavation at Joshua’s altar produced any other curse tablets.

His reasoning seems to be this: He perceives the tablet as one associated with the initial ceremony that Joshua oversaw.

For Stripling, the tablet represented a summary of the curses that Moses required. For the tribes of Israel, these would ensue if they failed to adhere to their part of the bargain. They would receive the blessings if they complied with God’s laws. If not, they would receive the curses.

Stripling’s expectation about the tablet is plausible.

Yet, I see another plausible explanation for the tablet. It is this: The tablet Stripling found commemorated the initial Joshua event. It was not contemporaneous with it. This occurred after Joshua.

What evidence points to this? A portion of the small round altar, the one most likely associated with Joshua, remains unexcavated. ¹ That means that the Curse Tablet came from a later time than that of the altar’s original construction.

That raises interesting propositions.

The Book of Job indicates that for the ancients writing on lead was common. ² Maybe those who first used the altar also venerated such. Maybe they included a lead curse tablet with their first sacrifices.

Following that, others re-enacted the first occasion with their own offerings of curse tablets.

Even with the offering at the larger altar, the square one that venerated the first round one, there may have been similar lead tablets.

These might lie within the remaining dump piles at the site. Only 30 percent of those piles have been wet sifted

Possibly, a line of curse tablets could be found at Joshua’s Altar. These could date from 1400 to 1200 B.C. They could demonstrate the progression of the Hebrew proto-alphabetic script during that time.

The epigraphic data from lead tablets might not be the only valuable archaeological evidence. The site potentially offers geomagnetic data.

Recently, scientists have shown that this is key to dating ancient sites. ³

When materials are heated to an extreme temperature and then cooled, their crystals record the Earth’s geomagnetic signature at that time. This can be associated with other signatures of other sites of a similar time period.

The signatures of the curse tablet, the stones of the altar, and pottery sherds could be used.

These might be compared with other burn events across the Middle East. These events could come from numerous sources. These include: Egyptian, Hittite, Ugarite, Minoan, Mycenaean, Trojan, and Babylonian.

The process depends on an anchor date. That is one known contemporary. Possibly, the times of the Late Bronze Age Dark Age might supply such.

In sum, considerable archaeological data could be gleaned from Joshua’s Altar. Any of it might prove crucial to unraveling the mysteries underlying the Mt. Ebal events.

Thus, potentially valuable evidence lies at Mt. Ebal. This needs to be excavated and evaluated posthaste.

Now for a question. What Late Bronze Age burn events do you think are the best candidates for correlating the geomagnetic signatures of Joshua’s Altar?

1. Associates for Biblical Research, Cursed! The Mount Ebal Curse Tablet (Part Three, Digging for Truth Episode 200), YouTube, (16:20), May 1, 2023. ↩︎
2. Associates for Biblical Research, Cursed! The Mount Ebal Curse Tablet (Part Two, Digging for Truth Episode 200), YouTube, (10:35), May 1, 2023. ↩︎
3. ELIZABETH FERNANDEZ, Big Think, Earth’s magnetic field supports biblical stories of destruction of ancient cities When battles raged in ancient cities, their rocks blazed so brightly that they could be reoriented according to Earth’s magnetic field, December 25, 2023 ↩︎