Cc: bill.rea AT canterbury.ac.nz, b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] question re: Tel Dan stela
Date: Thu, 27 May 2004 08:08:35 -0400
On Thursday, May 27, 2004, at 06:50 AM, George Athas wrote:
(snip)
To argue that the Tel Dan Inscription identifies a 'king of the House
of David' is to go against seemingly unanimous evidence.
(snip)
George,
When you say seemingly unanimous evidence, are you referring to all
those dozens of Israelite royal inscriptions? Oh, wait. There aren't
dozens of Israelite royal inscriptions. So then are you referring to
non-Israelite royal inscriptions for your standard against which to
measure the Tel Dan inscription? Clearly, there was enough of a cultural
difference between the Israelites and surrounding examples you might
cite that accounts for their lack of long royal inscriptions. This
cultural difference can account for the interpretation of Bayt Dawid as
a dynastic Davidic House.