Biblical Hebrew Forum

["George Athas" <gathas AT mail.usyd.edu.au>]

> In context, with the mention of Ahazyahu, who is attributed to the
> Davidic dynasty by Kings,

The current arrangement of the fragments is erroneous. Yet, even allowing for 
it, it is
physically impossible to restore "Ahazyahu" in Line 8. There is simply not 
enough room for
the reconstructed text suggested by Biran and Naveh. The handwriting on each 
fragment
suggests that Fragments B1 and B2 were actually a lot further down the 
original
inscription than where they are currently placed. The current arrangement is 
practically
impossible on physical, epigraphic and textual grounds. The archaeological 
context in
which the fragments were found also don't really allow a reference to 
Ahazyahu.

> and with the biblical use of beit David to
> mean the dynasty of David or the regnant Davidic king,

The Bible, which dates much later than the Tel Dan Inscription, writes "House 
of David" as
_byt dwd_ -- two words, not a single word like _bytdwd_. If there were two 
words in the
Tel Dan Inscription, then we probably would have had "House of David".

what else can
> bytdwd mean? Are you assuming that he is king of some GN called bytdwd?
> Isn't this somewhat strained?

First of all, the text is not referring to Ahazyahu. It's physically not 
possible.
Secondly, if the text does refer to a GN called bytdwd, then it's not a 
strain at all to
see someone as its king. In fact, it's quite logical. We need to look firstly 
at the
inscription and then at other sources if we are to understand what _bytdwd_ 
means. How the
Bible uses _byt dwd_ is a secondary issue. How does the author of the Tel Dan 
Inscription
use it? That's the prime issue. For this, we must look at the content and 
orthography of
the Tel Dan Inscription -- not the Bible or the Assyrian annals. We cannot 
assume that the
author was using the same terminology and concepts as the Bible written a few 
centuries
later. That's drawing a conclusion first and then seeing how the evidence 
conforms to it.
In the Tel Dan Inscription, the orthography points to bytdwd being a GN.

Best regards,
George Athas
 Dept of Semitic Studies,
 University of Sydney
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Tel Dan Inscription Website
http://members.xoom.com/gathas/teldan.htm
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< gathas@ mail.usyd.edu.au >