Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Yitzhak Sapir" <yitzhaksapir AT gmail.com>]

On Wed, Nov 19, 2008 at 5:56 PM, K Randolph wrote:

> Even though the image you linked to is pretty clear, it is only about half
> the size of the original, and I wonder if it would have been more legible
> had it been full size? Was it published to excite people to come to the
> presentation? Now having seen it, I wish I could be in attendance.

I think it was published to:

1) Generate interest in the session so people who come to the SBL will
come over to listen rather than do something else.
2) Get wider publicity than that generated amongst scholars.  The
excavators (rightly) feel this is a great discovery and want to generate
wider interest than that given by the scholarly community.
3) By publicizing it like this, other scholars can try to read the inscription
and this means that they come to the lecture by Pardee somewhat
prepared.  They can form their own personal opinions beforehand, and then
hear Pardee's analysis, and then ask more useful questions resulting in
much better discussion.
4) The excavators now feel safe to publicize it having completed their own
analysis of the inscription.

I really doubt anyone will book a flight to the SBL meeting on such short
notice on the basis of this publication, but then, who knows?

Yitzhak Sapir