Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Peter Kirk <peterkirk AT qaya.org>]

On 09/10/2003 04:05, Walter R. Mattfeld wrote:

> For those interested, a brief description and photograph is available of a
> shattered stone table bearing an archaic Proto-Sinaitic inscription from the
> southern Sinai. I understand that although the Exodus as presented in the
> Bible is fiction, it is recalling real events or physical phenomenon found
> in the Sinai as documented by modern archaeology. William Foxwell Albright
> argued that Proto-Sinaitic was of the 16th-15th century BCE, which
> co-incidentally, aligns somewhat with the Bible's Exodus of 1446 BCE (cf. 1
> Kings 6:1).
>
> I understand that the southern Sinai's shattered stone tables (or "tablets")
> with their Proto-Sinaitic inscriptions are the "historical kernel" behind
> the two stone tables given Moses by God on Mount Sinai.
>
> Cf. the following url
> http://www.bibleorigins.net/ShatteredProtoSinaitictablet.html
>
> Regards, Walter
> Walter Reinhold Warttig Mattfeld y de la Torre, M.A. Ed.
> mattfeld12 AT charter.net
>
>
>  
Thank you, Walter, for the evidence on your web page that the 
proto-Sinaitic Semitic alphabet is older than Moses, as I just posted in 
reply to Karl.

But what has this particular tablet to do with the Ten Commandments? 
Anything beyond it being broken? Surely it would have been commonplace 
for such tablets to be broken. What does the text on it say? If it were 
part of the 10 Commandments, that would indeed be exciting. But if it is 
typical proto-Sinaitic graffiti, I don't see any relevance to b-hebrew.

--
Peter Kirk
peter AT qaya.org (personal)
peterkirk AT qaya.org (work)
http://www.qaya.org/