Biblical Hebrew Forum

[CS Bartholomew <jacksonpollock AT earthlink.net>]

What are first impressions worth? The first time I saw  "The Joash
Inscription" was the image found at  Giuseppe Regalzi's excellent web site:
http://www.orientalisti.net/ioash.htm

My immediate reaction to the visual data? It looks too good to be true.
Reading some of the articles linked to this page I ran into the following
quote from *R.Altman:

quote:
Every element  of the tablet is clear; one neither requires a transcription
to read the text  nor needs other equipment to examine the tablet. The
technical term for a  forgery that can be seen by the eye without special
equipment is "blatant."
:end quote

The word "blatant" captures my immediate subjective reaction quiet nicely.
Of course, immediate subjective reactions are not "science" but having
several decades of experience with con artists this stone looks
superficially like a clumsy attempt to "pull a fast one."



greetings,
Clay Bartholomew 
 
*Report on the Temple Tablet

By Dr. Rochelle I. Altman
February 2003 

http://www.bibleinterp.com/articles/report_temple_tablet.htm