Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Dave Washburn" <dwashbur AT nyx.net>]

Jack wrote: 
> 
> yochanan bitan wrote:
> 
> > > The Tel-Dan inscription
> > > is a "maybe" but ambiguous on  orthographic grounds.
> >
> > Lemaire: JSOT 1998: 10
> > "although there were many discussions about the syntagma BYTDWD, there is
> > no epigraphical and historical problem about it. ... the mention of
> > B(Y)TDWD by two enemies of Judah very probably reveals that it was part of
> > the offical diplomatic language of this period."
> >
> > the problem isn't with the tel dan inscription, and calling it ambiguous 
> > is
> > not to do it justice. lemaire's got it right, both tel dan and moav.
> 
> Well, it IS my opinion that the Tel-Dan inscription refers to David and
> I think that the lack of a word divider in this construction....also noted
> in others, like bytyhwh, was an orthographic trend at the time.  I was
> attempting, however, not to be tendentious and to offer a more
> "neutral" statement.  I also think the very inference of "forgery" is
> absurd.  My 2 shekels plus 1  (g)

Agreed.  After reading the article that Ian graciously put on the web 
for us, I am more convinced than ever of its authenticity and think 
that the author of the article was trying a little too hard.  Re the 
dialect, obviously it's not standard Aramaic.  I suspect it may be a 
semitic dialect that we haven't seen before.  Re the preservation, 
well hey, if it only stood for a maximum of 10 years and then got 
buried (recycled?) there was no exposure to wind and water to 
erode the inscription.  That much should have been obvious.  And it 
seems to me that if any archaeologist competent enough to 
reproduce the script was going to forge such a thing, s/he could 
and would have done a much better job of imitating a dialect that 
we already knew!  The very fact that it has so many linguistic 
oddities (if that is what they are) argues for its authenticity, IMO.

Dave Washburn
http://www.nyx.net/~dwashbur
A Bible that's falling apart means a life that isn't.