Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Jan-Wim Wesselius" <wesselius AT chello.nl>]

On Thursday 1 March 2001, George Athas wrote about the Tel Dan Old Aramaic
inscription:

> While examining the stones, I found extra letters which do not
> actually show up in the
> published photographs. In fact, so much more info came to light
> from examining the
> fragments themselves that I basically threw the photographs out
> and only referred to them
> to highlight how insufficient they were.

But then, what about the drawing by Ada Yardeni in the publication of the
B-fragments in IEJ 45? Everybody can make a mistake, but I find it very
difficult to believe that both Naveh and Yardeni would miss letters which
are really there. I am looking forward to George's publication, but for the
time being I'll keep to Naveh's reconstruction and my own interpretation in
SJOT 13/2, namely that the "I" of the inscription must be Jehu, whatever the
exact political and religious background of this remarkable inscription may
have been (in a forthcoming article in SJOT I react on Bob Becking's
criticism of my thesis, also in SJOT 13/2).

Jan-Wim Wesselius
Dept. of Ancient History, University of Amsterdam

home address:
Hoekenes 26A, 1068 MT Amsterdam
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