Very seldom do we have biblical archeological finds that are peer reviewed and presented to the public. The so called "Mount Ebal Curse Tablet" is an exception. The following videos and articles help give us another view of the world of the past.
Mt. Ebal Curse Tablet Peer Review COMPLETE
Video from Appian Media
"Read the entire published article from the Heritage Science Journal, including photos of the scans, and other relevant material: https://heritagesciencejournal.spring...
When the announcement of the discovery of the Mount Ebal Curse Tablet was made in 2022, it sent shock waves through the archaeological community. It was met by many with extreme excitement and by many others with heavy skepticism. Dr. Scott Stripling, the Head of Excavations at the Associates for Biblical Research and his team, asserted that this folded lead tablet contained the earliest known "proto-alphabetic" Hebrew text. The inscription, which they date to the end of the Late Bronze Age II (c. 1400 - 1200 B.C.E.), is a legal text and curse that invokes the god Yahweh. The team believes the tablet to be one of the most important inscriptions ever found in Israel and one that could drastically alter our reconstruction of ancient Israel’s earliest history. But after waiting nearly a year for the official peer-review process to complete, many began to doubt the validity of the find. Until today..." from video introduction
Peer Review Article Below:
“You are Cursed by the God YHW:” an early Hebrew inscription from Mt. Ebal
Abstract In December 2019, an expedition on Mt. Ebal to examine the discarded material from Adam Zertal’s 1982–1989 excavation yielded a small, folded lead tablet. The east dump pile, from which the object emerged, contained the discarded matrix from two structures that he interpreted as altars dated to the Late Bronze Age II and Iron Age I. The earlier and smaller round altar lay underneath the geometric center of the later and larger rectangular altar. The tablet could not be opened without damaging it. A team of scientists performed X-ray tomographic measurements with different scanning parameters. The tomographically reconstructed data were subjected to advanced processing to reveal the hidden text. Epigraphic analysis of the tomographic data revealed a formulaic curse written in a proto-alphabetic script likely dating to Late Bronze Age II. The inscription falls within the literary genre of Chiastic Parallelism and predates any previously known Hebrew inscription in Israel by at least 200 years.
Introduction.." from the article: “You are Cursed by the God YHW:” an early Hebrew inscription from Mt. Ebal
An Early Israelite Curse Inscription from Mt. Ebal?
"In early 2022, a research team led by scholars from the Associates for Biblical Research (ABR) announced the discovery of a lead tablet from Mt. Ebal that they claim contains the oldest extant Hebrew inscription. They say the inscription, which they date to the end of the Late Bronze Age (c. 1200 B.C.E.), is a legal text and curse that invokes the god Yahweh. The team believes the tablet to be the most important inscription ever found in Israel and one that could drastically alter our reconstruction of ancient Israel’s earliest history. Questions abound, however, and some scholars have expressed serious doubts about the team’s sensational claims, while other observers have pointed out the problematic circumstances surrounding its recovery.
The Mt. Ebal Inscription
Announced during a press conference in March 2022, the tablet comes from the West Bank site of Mt. Ebal, which was first excavated by archaeologist Adam Zertal in the 1980s. The site consists of two large stone installations, one circular and one rectangular. Zertal interpreted the site and the earlier circular feature to be the location of Joshua’s altar (Joshua 8:30), though many dispute this identification. The tablet was only recovered in 2019, however, when archaeologists with ABR began a project to sift the soil dumps from the Mt. Ebal excavation in hopes of identifying artifacts that had been missed during the original dig.
The lead tablet, which measures less than 1 inch square, appears to have been folded in half after being written. This makes it impossible to read without advanced digital scanning, which was carried out in Prague by the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic. Although images of the scans have not been released, the ABR team says that the inside contains 40 letters written in four lines of text. As translated by the team, the tablet reads:
“Cursed, cursed, cursed—cursed by the God Yhw. You will die cursed. Cursed you will surely die. Cursed by Yhw—cursed, cursed, cursed.”
The team claims the inscription is written in an archaic script, which they term “proto-alphabetic.” Furthermore, they suggest that the use of the name Yhw, a shortened version of the divine name Yahweh (YHWH), is clear evidence that the text is an archaic Hebrew inscription. If true, this would make the tablet hundreds of years older than previously known early Hebrew inscriptions. They also suggest that the inscription provides the earliest reference to the name Yahweh found in ancient Israel..." from the article: An Early Israelite Curse Inscription from Mt. Ebal?
7 Facts Everyone Should Know About Mount Gerizim and Mount Ebal
The Torah portion of Re'eh begins with an instruction for when the Jews enter the land of Israel:
“Behold, I set before you today a blessing and a curse… And it will be, when the L‑rd, your G‑d, will bring you to the land to which you come, to possess it, that you shall place the blessing upon Mount Gerizim, and the cursing upon Mount Ebal.”1
What’s going on here? What purpose does this mysterious ritual hold?
1. The Event is Described in the Book of Joshua
How was this ritual actually performed? Joshua elaborates:
“Six tribes were sent to each mountain. And all Israel, and their elders and officers and their judges, stood on this side of the Ark and on that side, before the priests the Levites, the bearers of the Ark of the covenant of the L—rd … half of them in front of Mount Gerizim and half of them in front of Mount Ebal, as Moses the servant of the L-rd had commanded, to bless the people of Israel first. And afterward [Joshua] read all the words of the law, the blessing and the curse, according to all that is written in the book of the Torah.”2.." from the article: 7 Facts Everyone Should Know About Mount Gerizim and Mount Ebal
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