Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Peter Kirk <peterkirk AT qaya.org>]

On 17/03/2004 10:30, CS Bartholomew wrote:

> 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."
>
>
>  
I don't dispute that this is a forgery. But the surprisingly good 
preservation of an ancient text is a poor argument, according to which 
you would have to classify such important finds as the Mesha inscription 
(Moabite Stone), the Rosetta Stone and the Qumran Isaiah scroll as 
forgeries, for they are all easily read by the naked eye.

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