Biblical Hebrew Forum

["James Spinti" <JSpinti AT Eisenbrauns.com>]

Ugarit was NOT a "small and unimportant city." It was a major port in
the 2nd millennium. There is also evidence of variations on the Ugaritic
alphabet--but all so far have been dead-ends. But, every time someone
turns over a stone in the near east, that could change...

Also, they are continuing to uncover inscriptions in the Levant. See,
for example:
Literate Culture and Tenth-Century Canaan: The Tel Zayit Abecedary in
Context
Edited by Ron E. Tappy and P. Kyle McCarter Jr. 
And, most recently:
Writing and Literacy in the World of Ancient Israel: Epigraphic Evidence
from the Iron Age
by Christopher Rollston 

McCarter and Rollston are some of the leading Hebrew epigraphers right
now.

James

________________________________
James Spinti
Marketing Director, Book Sales Division
Eisenbrauns, Good books for more than 35 years
Specializing in Ancient Near Eastern and Biblical Studies
jspinti at eisenbrauns dot com
Web: http://www.eisenbrauns.com
Phone: 574-269-2011 ext 226
Fax: 574-269-6788 

-----Original Message-----
From: b-hebrew-bounces AT lists.ibiblio.org
[mailto:b-hebrew-bounces AT lists.ibiblio.org] On Behalf Of fred burlingame
Sent: Monday, January 24, 2011 12:20 AM
To: Yigal Levin
Cc: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] parent & child

Hello Yigal:

Your comments sound reasonable .....

but then we have the thousands of clay tablets from ras shamra, dating
to
century 13 b.c.

http://www.usc.edu/dept/LAS/wsrp/educational_site/ancient_texts/MRZH.sht
ml
If such a relatively small and unimportant city generated and maintained
such a large corpus of clay tablet records in alphabet writing system,
why
not the same result for the city of david or its predecessor? Do not the
ugarit facts, imply similar findings under the rubble of temple mount?

And as for jabal al lawz, why would saudi arabia throw up barbed wire
and
guard houses around a mountain, in the middle of the desert, in the
middle
of no where, along with big signs announcing archaeological site?

It seems to me more than speculation about alphabet documents, is in
play at
both sites.

regards,

fred burlingame
On Sun, Jan 23, 2011 at 9:29 PM, Yigal Levin <leviny1 AT mail.biu.ac.il>
wrote:

> Fred,
>
>
>
> I'm not denying that there could be something at  Jabal al-Lawz, I'm
just
> saying that if there is, it's unlikely to have any connection to what
we've
> been discussing. As far as the Temple mount, I am sure that there are
> ancient ruins there. I'm also sure that given the amount of
destruction and
> the climate, the chances that documents written on perishable
materials
> would have survived are very small. And considering the fact that very
few
> even non-perishable Bronze or Iron Age inscriptions have been found in
and
> around Jerusalem, I would not hold my breath. Which means that most of
what
> anyone says on the subject is very speculative.
>
>
>
> Yigal Levin
>
>
>
>
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