Tag: bible

  • A Defixio?

    A Defixio?

    History V

    [Ebal’s Plea, eleven of thirty-two]

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

    Likewise 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 too 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


    Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

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

    Might other clues provide insights about this enigma? This our next post explores.

    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). ↩︎
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    Lagniappe Mt. Ebal tablet link / What your pastor didn’t tell you!
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    Lagniappe Curse Tablet link / Ancient Egypt and the Bible, Joshua’s Altar
  • “YHW,” Yahweh

    “YHW,” Yahweh

    Photo Study III

    [Ebal’s Plea, nineteen of thirty-two]

    “ARWR”, that is “cursed,” I reviewed in my last post.

    I turn now to the divine name–“Yahweh”.

    Galil alleges that this appears twice inside the tablet.

    For simplicity only one of those I discuss here. That one I call “Upper Yahweh” simply because lies near the tablet’s top.

    Galil’s annotated Table 7 drawing labels it as #’s: 11, 12, and 13.

    The phonetic spelling is thus “Yod,” “He,” “Waw”.

    M- beach-towel's-Egyptian-hieroglyphic-immulates-proto-alphabetic-"Yod".

    My beach towel’s Egyptian hieroglyphic immulates proto-alphabetic “Yod”.
    Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

    Here is what they look like:

    The photos of “He”, Figure 7’s #12 at Table 3, (1a & b), and “Waw”, Figure 7’s #13 at Table 4 (1a & b), are distinct.

    “Yod”, Figure 7’s #11 at Table 5 (1a & b), however, is faint.

    Other views include:

    • Stripling’s Figure 4 showing:
      • the hand lies under the hips of “Heh”;
      • the thumb is under and intertwined with “Taw”;
      • the wrist and forearm run below the left leg of “Heh”; and
      • the upper arm extends at a right angle from “Heh’s” left ankle”.
    • Haughwout’s Figure 5 gives a mirrored view.

    Importantly, study, too,Table 10, photo # 3. The Stripling team argues that this depicts the bottom bulge of this “Yod”.

    Do you agree?

    If you do, this has major consequences–ones to which even Haughwout, the sceptic, agrees. It is this: mirror bulges on the bottom reflect something actually existing on the inner surface of the tablet. The object does not result from a photographic lighting or shading issue. It also nullifies the object resulting from a computer glitch.

    That finishes my review of the two words which Stripling declares compel his conclusions–“ARWR” and “YHW.”

    What did I tell you? That was not hard.

    However, again, read these sections a couple of times. Let the photos really sink in.

    With the following post I complete an initial dive into the tablet’s photos. There I look at a word and two other letters relevant to Haughwout’s arguments.

    Later, however, l tread deeper into the words and symbols mentioned above as I evaluate Haughwout’s analysis.

    Next post: “You Will Die!”

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    Lagniappe link / Refuting the critics
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    Lagniappe link / The Christian Atheist, Ebal contiued