Biblical Hebrew Forum

["K Randolph" <kwrandolph AT gmail.com>]

Ted:
I am not an epigraphic expert, but the first thing I noticed about this
inscription are the strange, through still recognizable, shapes of the
letters. I have not seen any ancient, middle eastern inscriptions or coins
with these letters. However, I am not familiar with Samaritan writing which
may be the source of these shapes.

Is it an ancient inscription? We can't prove it, however if I were to make a
modern forgery, I would more likely follow the shapes of the letters found
on the Siloam inscription rather than these. I suspect that would be true of
anyone who has studied ancient Hebrew writing. Likewise I and any modern
forger probably would avoid any misspellings. So I think that this argues
for an ancient writing by someone trying to remember largely forgotten
Hebrew, but not a proof.

As for a translation from the photograph: ("YHWH" is God's name)

I YHWH your God who caused you to exit from the land
Do not be other gods upon my face (misspelled)
(unclear) and house of slavery. (up arrow) Do not make for yourself an
image. Do not lift up
the name of YHWH to destruction. Remember (misspelled) the day
the sabbath to keep it holy. Honor your father and mother to above
(misspelling for "in order that")
your days may be lengthened upon the ground which YHWH your God
gives to you. Don't murder. Don't commit adultery. Don't steal. Don't
answer concerning your neighbor falseness. Don't covet your neighbor's wife
and all which is your neighbor's.

Basically, it has the same though shortened list, and it appears that the
second line was inserted after the third had been written.


An aside to Yitzhak: you know better than to link to widipedia for a
disputed subject, you know they are so biased as to be untrustworthy. Though
to their credit, this was not as openly biased as many of their other
articles.

Karl W. Randolph.


On Tue, Mar 25, 2008 at 5:43 PM, Ted Walther <ted AT reactor-core.org> wrote:

> Hello.  I heard about the Los Lunas inscription of the ten commandments.
> I see that nice photographs have been put up on the web. Here they are:
>
> http://www.econ.ohio-state.edu/jhm/arch/loslunas.html
>
> I'm wondering if anyone has translated them.  How do they compare to the
> real ten commandments?  Do they differ in any significant way, viz,
> which commands are to be obeyed?
>
> Ted
>
> --
>           There's a party in your skull.  And you're invited!
>
> Name:    Ted Walther
> Phone:   604-435-5787
> Email:   ted AT enumera.com
> Skype:   tederific
> Address: 3422 Euclid Ave basement, Vancouver, BC V5R4G4 (Canada)