Tag: Deuteronomy

Joshua’s Altar?
History II

[Ebal’s Plea, eight of thirty-two]

In the 1980’s Professor Adam Zertal, a University of Haifa archaeologist, surveyed Mount Ebal adjacent to biblical Shechem and modern Nablus.¹

Shechem Sychar (Nablous) Ebal Gerizim

Archaic photo
J. Paul Getty Museum
Licensed under CC-CC0 1.0

Entrance to Nablus

David Roberts (Scottish, 1796u20131864)
Licensed under CC-CC0 1.0

The area drips with serious biblical relevance including for example—the site of the Abrahamic covenant, ² Jacob’s well, Joseph’s burial site, Jesus’ interactions with the Woman at the well, and an incident most relevant to out story.

Travelers resting at Jacob’s Well

Early 19th century painting by
David Roberts

Visitors at Joseph’s tomb

Early 19th century painting by David Roberts

Christus en de Samaritaanse vrouw

by Rijksmuseum
Licensed under CC-CC0 1.0

Of the latter Deuteronomy 11:29 and 27:12 to 28:68 tell. These verses detail Moses’ directions for a rather odd ceremony–the Ceremony of Curses and Blessings on Mounts Gerizim and Ebal. ³

That event unfolds something like this:

Because Moses could not enter the Promise Land, he directs Joshua, his successor as leader of the people of Israel, in effect: “Once you have sufficiently conquered a foothold in the land, go to Mt. Gerizim and Mt. Ebal. Set up stones brought from Jericho. Plaster them and write there on the words of the law. Position half of the tribes on one mountain and half on the other. Announce blessing from Gerizim and curses from Ebal. On Ebal build an altar of non-hewn stones. To the God of Israel sacrifice the blood of innocent animals to cover the sins of the guilty.”

Joshua’s accomplishing these directives one finds in Joshua 24:1, 25-26, and 32. ⁴

Of this relevance, however, Zertal had little inkling. Descended from East European immigrants who had lived under Soviet domination, he had grown up on a kibbutz. To him and many of his kin biblical connections had almost no resonance. Spiritually he was agnostic. Despite being an esteemed scholar and warrior—he had been seriously wounded in combat and walked with a cane much of his later life—about scripture he was almost clueless. His academic training had only cemented his conviction that the Bible was mostly mythology.⁵

That was about to change.

Exploring the backside of the mountain he observed a peculiar mound. He did a quick survey. From this he concluded that the place deserved serious investigation.

Subsequently, his team removed a substantial covering of stones revealing a baffling structure. What is this? Nothing about it resembled anything of Zertal’s experience.

After a period of head scratching wonder, an under-associate informed Zertal of a possible explanation.

The gist of this was: “This mountain people of a biblical slant scoured for decades looking for a particular structure. For it they focused on the side of Mt. Ebal facing its twin mountain, Mt. Gerizim. Convinced that it must be there, they ignored the back side where this site lays on a lip just over the summit.”

“Could this be what had confounded many?”, the understudy postulated. “Could this be Joshua’s Altar, the one that Moses in Deuteronomy 27 and 28 had commanded him to build!?”⁶

Of this, over time Zertal, the agnostic, eventually became convinced.⁷

At this point I stop the Harrison Ford type narrative and suffice for brevity with a simple listing of the things that eventually supported his conviction. They are:
- The location of the site offered an largely unfettered view of the eastern horizon, something essential to the tabernacle’s and later the Temple orientations. Such was not readily available from the side of Mt. Ebal facing Mt. Gerazim. Both Exodus 27:13 and 2 Chronicles 5: 11-12 imply that the entrance of the Tabernacle and later the Temple faced eastward.
- A huge enclosure made of stones surrounds the altar site. Bizarrely, it resembles a footprint, not more than three feet in height but over three football fields in length.⁸ Within it was another “footprint” about a 100 meters in length. (About six such structures one finds leading up the Jordan Valley culminating at Mt. Ebal.⁹ Some theorize that the Hebrews of the conquest constructed these. Supposedly, they were to symbolize God’s Mosaic promise to give them all the land within the parameters of the Promised Land on which their feet trod.)¹⁰
- A long ramp rose to an altar site.¹¹ Stairs Moses’ instructions forbid.
- The altar site consisted only of non hewed stones, that is, field stones untouched by any iron tool. This Moses had directed.¹²
- Excavations revealed two potential altars, one larger rectangular one encompassing a smaller circular one beneath at its center, both containing bones of almost exclusively kosher animals. (A small percentage of bones belonged to creatures that may have climbed among the rocks and died such as turtles or snakes.)¹³
- Pottery fragments there dated only to Iron Age One and Bronze Age Two, both consistent with competing theories for the date of the Exodus and the Conquest.¹⁴
- Another scholar on seeing a photo of the Ebal site noted to Zertal in effect, “That uncannily corresponds to an ancient drawing depicting Jerusalem’s second temple altar.”
These verisimilitudes convinced Zertal.

On publicly announcing his findings, a tremor rumbled through the archaeological and theological worlds.

Yet, as we will see in the next post, it was only a tremor, not the epic seismic event evidently necessary to shake the illiterate or mythological Moses parordine.¹⁵

Next post: “Zertal Rejected”
1. Melanie Lidman, Academic article on controversial 3,200-year old ‘curse tablet’ fails to sway experts, The Times of Israel,14 May 2023, paragraphs 1, 5, 38, and 40, https://www.timesofisrael.com/academic-article-on-controversial-3200-year-old-curse-tablet-fails-to-sway-experts/, (7 October 2024).
  and
  Steve Law, patternsofevidence.com, Ancient Hebrew Writing on Tablet Discovered at Joshua’s Altar, paragraph 3, February 4, 2022. ↩︎
2. Id., paragraph 1. ↩︎
3. Sean McDowell, Oldest Hebrew Writing? Mt. Ebal Curse Tablet (Revisited) m.youtube.com>watch, (5: 26-44), 11 May 2023.
  And
  Associates for Biblical Research, Cursed! The Mount Ebal Curse Tablet (Part One, Digging for Truth Episode 200), YouTube, (04:29; 05:21), May 1, 2023. ↩︎
4. Chris & Jenifer Taylor, The Bible Journey, https://thebiblejourney.org/biblejourney2/27-the-israelites-move-into-canaan/joshua-builds-an-altar-at-mt-ebal/, paragraph 4, © 2024. ↩︎
5. Steve Law, patternsofevidence.com, Ancient Hebrew Writing on Tablet Discovered at Joshua’s Altar, paragraph 5, February 4, 2022
  And
  Associates for Biblical Research, Cursed! The Mount Ebal Curse Tablet (Part One, Digging for Truth Episode 200), YouTube, (10:29), May 1, 2023. ↩︎
6. Melanie Lidman, Academic article on controversial 3,200-year old ‘curse tablet’ fails to sway experts, The Times of Israel,14 May 2023, paragraph 38, https://www.timesofisrael.com/academic-article-on-controversial-3200-year-old-curse-tablet-fails-to-sway-experts/, (7 October 2024). ↩︎
7. Associates for Biblical Research, Cursed! The Mount Ebal Curse Tablet (Part One, Digging for Truth Episode 200), YouTube, (12:08), May 1, 2023.
  And
  Adam Eliyahu Berkowitz, Skeptics of Ebal Curse Tablet Accuse Christian Researchers of “Seeing the Face of Jesus in a Grilled Cheese Sandwich”, israel365news.com, Archeology, paragraph 3, December 6, 2023. ↩︎
8. Steve Law, patternsofevidence.com, Ancient Hebrew Writing on Tablet Discovered at Joshua’s Altar, paragraph 23, February 4, 2022. ↩︎
9. Associates for Biblical Research, “ABR Researchers Discover the Oldest Known Proto-Hebrew Inscription Ever Found”, biblicarchaeology.org/current-events-list/, Youtube, (15:32), March 24, 2022.
  and
  Associates for Biblical Research, Cursed! The Mount Ebal Curse Tablet (Part Four, Digging for Truth Episode 200), YouTube, (11:25 and 12:48), May 1, 2023. ↩︎
10. Steve Law, patternsofevidence.com, Ancient Hebrew Writing on Tablet Discovered at Joshua’s Altar, paragraph 23, February 4, 2022.
  And
  (Deuteronomy 11:23-24);
  And
  (Joshua 1:3) ↩︎
11. Associates for Biblical Research, “ABR Researchers Discover the Oldest Known Proto-Hebrew Inscription Ever Found”, biblicarchaeology.org/current-events-list/, Youtube, (15:02), March 24, 2022. ↩︎
12. Melanie Lidman, Academic article on controversial 3,200-year old ‘curse tablet’ fails to sway experts, The Times of Israel,14 May 2023, paragraph 38, https://www.timesofisrael.com/academic-article-on-controversial-3200-year-old-curse-tablet-fails-to-sway-experts/, (7 October 2024).
  And
  Associates for Biblical Research, Cursed! The Mount Ebal Curse Tablet (Part Three, Digging for Truth Episode 200), YouTube, (16:25), May 1, 2023. ↩︎
13. Melanie Lidman, Academic article on controversial 3,200-year old ‘curse tablet’ fails to sway experts, The Times of Israel,14 May 2023, paragraph 40, https://www.timesofisrael.com/academic-article-on-controversial-3200-year-old-curse-tablet-fails-to-sway-experts/, (7 October 2024).
  And
  Associates for Biblical Research, Cursed! The Mount Ebal Curse Tablet (Part Three, Digging for Truth Episode 200), YouTube, (16:25), May 1, 2023. ↩︎
14. Sean McDowell, Oldest Hebrew Writing? Mt. Ebal Curse Tablet (Revisited) m.youtube.com>watch, (11:40-50), 11 May 2023. ↩︎
15. Id. at (20:04). ↩︎
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Lagniappe Mt. Ebal link / Patterns of Evidence 4

Lagniappe Mt. Ebal tablet link / Rollston, One
November 28, 2025
Stripling’s Article
Photo Study I

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

As already noted Heritage Science finally published the Stripling team’s peer reviewed article on 12 May 2023. That is twelve months after the press conference and almost three and a half years after the tablet’s discovery.

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

Photo by Annushka Ahuja on Pexels.com

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

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

Observation One

The article’s conclusion states the core of the Stripling team’s argument about the Curse Tablet. With it they poise a stake into the heart of much scholarly accepted history including that associated with the documentary hypothesis.

Licensed under CC-CC0 1.0

The other parts of the article’s body state facts and ideas considered. Only with the concluding core, however, does Stripling dig in his boots. It is there that he states what about the tablet emphatically belies the idea that Moses could not have authored the Torah.

The Stripling article, for example, credits team member Professor Gershon Galil, Director of the Institute of Biblical and Ancient History at the University of Haifa, with deciphering most of the interior tablet. His premises it fully elucidates.

Yet, note this crucial point.

The Stripling article’s conclusion leaves many, if not most, of Galil’s premises orphaned. His accounting of the number of inner tablet letters is neither adopted nor rejected. The same applies for his full chiasmus interpretation.

The article acknowledge many of Galil’s premises. It cites his increased letter count of forty declared at the press conference to forty-eight at publication. Consequently, it also acknowledges his slightly modified chiasmus interpretation.

Despite this, the article’s conclusion does not embrace these premises.

Instead, it concludes that the tablet’s inscription challenges history for greatly truncated reasons. Those reasons include these:
- 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;
- Resultantly, this artifact challenges long standing historical paradigm.¹
The note immediately following the conclusion is telling. It addresses Galil’s allegiance to his premises. It announces that, in effect, he desires to “plant his intellectual flag” on those.²

A more conservative approach, however, Stripling’s conclusion adopted.

Following publication, Galil and Stripling amicably ended their team affiliation.

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, see the two words on the inside of this artifact–the ancient Hebrew equivalents of “cursed” and “Yahweh”. They alone with the tablet’s ambiance challenge world history!”

Consequentially, that makes our photo study easier.

From Stripling’s perspective we can focus primarily on photos relevant to two words. The other words of Galil’s chiasmus while important are not crucial to Stripling’s conclusion.

Observation Two

Our purpose is not only to review the Stripling article and its photos. We seek also to study an allegedly refuting article.

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

Additionally, it makes relevant arguments involving two individual tablet characters and the Hebrew word for “You will die!” These I also include in our study.

Observation Three

In the proto-alphabetic era writing often traced a boustrophedon path. Then there was no standardized script order. Instead, letters tracked as oxen plow. They follow left to right, up to down, diagonally, etc. Another example may be the various paths that an inexperienced pre-teen might push a lawnmower over your yard or maybe someone much older quite inebriated.

Photo by Mehmet Turgut Kirkgoz on Pexels.com

Observation Four

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

A wedding band could house tablet letters.

Photo by Ku00e1ssia Melo on Pexels.com

Photos!

Ready now for some photos?

“Cursed! “, our next post declares.

Still ready?

Next post: “ARWR,” Cursed!
1. 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), paragraph 71. https://doi.org/10.1186/s40494-023-00920-9 ↩︎
2. Id. at paragraph 72. ↩︎
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Lagniappe link / Mt. Ebal amulet

Lagniappe link / Joshua’s Shechem Stone
November 19, 2025