Old Testament (Hebrew Bible) Archaeology | Middle East And North Africa

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STUDYING OLD-TESTAMENT-ERA EVENTS

Tel Gezer

Candida Moss wrote in the Daily Beast: Studying the Bible’s historical accuracy is always fraught. Our main sources are ancient texts that have been edited by many hands, were copied dozens of times over, and were written with an eye to the theological message rather than the facts. For centuries, therefore, scholars have used archaeological methods to supplement our knowledge and test the Bible’s accuracy. Even then, the results are controversial and difficult to interpret. [Source: Candida Moss, Daily Beast, October 30, 2022]

The Canaanites were a people who lived in what is now Lebanon and Israel, and parts of Syria and Jordan between 3500 B.C. and 1150 B.C., during the Bronze Age.Until the early 20th century, information about the Canaanite was drawn mainly from negative statements in the Bible. In 1928, a farmer digging in his field in northwest Syria — at a point along the seacoast to which the "finger" of Cyprus appears to be pointing — accidentally discovered an ancient tomb. The tomb was part of the Canaanite necropolis at Ras es-Shamra, a cemetery located in the area of the ancient city of Ugarit, a center of wealth and commerce from about 1450 to 1180 B.C. Excavations began in 1929 under the direction of Claude F. A. Schaeffer of France and have continued since with only a brief interruption during World War II. [Source: Metropolitan Museum of Art metmuseum.org \^/; Gerald A. Larue, “Old Testament Life and Literature,” 1968, infidels.org ]

French excavators working at the site have discovered the remains of two temples, a palace, and private dwellings, as well as two libraries of ancient clay tablets written mainly in alphabetic Ugaritic, the major language of the city. Other texts were inscribed in Sumerian, Akkadian, and Hurrian. Translations of the Ugaritic literary texts provided the first insights into the religion of the Canaanites, known previously mainly from the pages of the Bible.

John R. Abercrombie of the University of Pennsylvania wrote: “Two points need to be made concerning the archaeological remains from this period. First, there is strong cultural continuity between the Middle and Late Bronze Age. The assigned break between the two periods is more a function of Egyptian chronological history than a change in material culture. No excavator or historian familiar with the remains has suggested otherwise. Also, it is important to note that there are scant archaeological remains in the first part of the Late Bronze Age. Many sites in the hill country and Negev were abandoned. Other sites, especially in the southern coastal region, are destroyed and only marginally reoccupied in Late Bronze I. |*|

Websites and Resources: Bible and Biblical History: ; Biblical Archaeology Society biblicalarchaeology.org ; Bible History Online bible-history.com Bible Gateway and the New International Version (NIV) of The Bible biblegateway.com ; King James Version of the Bible gutenberg.org/ebooks ; Jewish History Websites: Jewish History Timeline jewishhistory.org.il/history Jewish History Resource Center dinur.org ; Center for Jewish History cjh.org ; Jewish History.org jewishhistory.org ; Internet Jewish History Sourcebook sourcebooks.fordham.edu ;

Using Magnetic Technology to Date Biblical Events

A technology known a archaeomagnetic is being used examine Bible stories and find out if the events described take place when the Bible says they did. Candida Moss wrote in the Daily Beast: Tel Aviv University doctoral student Yoav Vaknin is the lead author of a pioneering a new study of biblical archaeology that applies archaeomagnetic technologies to date the military campaigns described in the Bible. The article, which was recently published in the open access journal PNAS, assembles an array of data drawn from studies of 17 different archaeological sites to build a timeline of ancient destruction. The geomagnetic dataset he compiled includes evidence of 21 layers of destruction. It is, as Vittoria Benzine observed, a “geological ledger of conquests by Aramean, Assyrian, and Babylonian armies against the Kingdoms of Israel and Judah. [Source: Candida Moss, Daily Beast, October 30, 2022] ”

Unlike more conventional archaeological methods like stratigraphy (which looks at different strata in the soil), archaeomagnetic dating is interested in the magnetic field generated by the Earth’s core. It examines the layer of liquid iron in the planet’s outer core. Ron Shaar, who led the development of the methodology itself, said that “Until recently scientists believed that the [Earth’s core] remains stable for decades, but archaeomagnetic research has contradicted this assumption by revealing some extreme and unpredictable changes in antiquity.”

Vaknin explained that archaeological material contains magnetic minerals. “On the atomic level, one can imagine the magnetic signal of these minerals as a tiny needle of a compass.” When, say, a clay brick is incinerated during the sack of a city the brick preserves the magnetic signal at the moment the city caught fire. If geophysicists know the magnetic states of various eras at certain periods in time, then they can determine origin of the materials. The study focuses on items made of mud (mostly bricks but also loom weights and beehives crafted from clay) that were burned during period of military unrest and invasion. His findings confirm some biblical stories and archaeological theories, and debunk others.

It's undeniable that archaeomagnetic dating offers another complementary method for establishing the chronology of these events. Much like carbon dating (which works from a sample set of data), it is able to use the larger data sets gathered from the numerous archaeological studies in the region to date military campaigns with greater precision. It’s promising and exciting work. At the same time, some of the media buzz around the findings may overestimate the significance of the method and overlook some of its limits. Though you would not know it from some of the reporting, archaeology is already a highly technological savvy discipline that utilizes an array of technologies (like, for example, carbon 14 dating) to develop hypotheses and reach conclusions. As with carbon dating, archaeomagnetic findings are expressed as percentages not binaries, but this does not show up in news reports. You can forgive the transformation of a 95 percent probability into a certainty, but 68 percent probability is less decisive. Let’s be frank, it’s a C+. This isn’t Vaknin’s fault; it’s just what happens when archaeology makes news.

It's also important to note that the findings only express the facts of a site’s destruction, not its cause. As Dr. Laura Zucconi, a professor of history and archaeology at Stockton University who has written on copper mines and the Edomites, told me, “It’s a very interesting new dating method,” but it doesn’t tell us why a site was destroyed. “If a site has a destruction layer but lacks other information, we have no way of knowing if it was warfare or simply an earthquake with resulting fire.” While we do have other methods for dating sites, says Zucconi, multiple methods of analysis are always preferable. “Even if [archaeomagnetic analysis] replicates other methods, it’s good to have different approaches because the material” used in one methodology may not always be available. Because of a phenomenon known as the Hallstatt plateau, for example, carbon 14 dating methods are unhelpful for dating materials from between 800-400 B.C.. Having another instrument in the archaeological toolbox is important.

Archaeomagnetic Dating Used to Date Bublical-Era Battle Sites

Candida Moss wrote in the Daily Beast: Tel Beth-Shean, in the northern district of modern Israel, was previously thought by archaeologists to have been destroyed by the Aramean king Hazael in 830 BCE. Vaknin and his co-authors suggest that it was actually sacked between 70 (95 percent probability) and 100 (68 percent probability) years earlier. This would mean, argues Vaknin, that the city was most likely destroyed during a military campaign by Pharaoh Shoshenq I. This campaign is mentioned in both the Hebrew Bible (2 Kings 14:25026) and in a relief of the campaign carved into the walls of the Temple of Karnak in Egypt. [Source: Candida Moss, Daily Beast, October 30, 2022]

Most surprisingly, Vaknin’s findings suggest that the Babylonians were not responsible for the total destruction of Judah in 586 B.C. (2 Kings 24:18; Jeremiah 1:3; 39:2; 52:5-6). The intensity results from sites in the Negev, southern Judean mountains, and southern Judean foothills, however, suggest that towns in this region survived the Babylonian invasion. It was only several decades later, after Jerusalem and its environs had been destroyed, that others (most likely the Edomites) attacked these smaller settlements. The discovery may help explain some of the animosity towards the Edomites that we find in the Hebrew Bible.

Vaknin told Artnet news that he hopes to establish a similar chronological leger for the most controversial period of ancient Levantine archaeology: 1300-900 B.C.. This is, according to the Bible, the period during which the Exodus took place, Israelites settled in the land of Canaan, and David was king. This is a fiercely debated time period the events of which have political ramifications in the present. It will take him out of the proverbial frying and into the proverbial fire. But after five years studying the effects of incineration on clay bricks, and with a well-stocked arsenal of archaeological tools, he is well suited for the challenge.

Canaanite Archaeology

Gerald Larue wrote: The necropolis of Ugarit is “known to scholars from references in the El Amarna texts. The city was destroyed in the fourteenth century B.C. by an earthquake and then rebuilt, only to fall in the twelfth century B.C. to the hoards of Sea People. It was never rebuilt and was ultimately forgotten. One of the excavator's most exciting discoveries was a temple dedicated to the god Ba'al with a nearby scribal school containing numerous tablets relating the myths of Ba'al written in a Semitic dialect but in a cuneiform script never before encountered. The language was deciphered and the myths translated, providing many parallels to Canaanite practices condemned in the Bible and making it possible to suggest that the religion of Ba'al as practiced in Ugarit was very much like that of the Canaanites of Palestine.

The main Canaanite archaeological sites mentioned in the Bible are Megiddo, Hazor and Lachish They all have remains from the Late Bronze Age (1570 - 1400 B.C.), including Late Bronze Age A (1400 - 1300 B.C.) and Late Bronze Age B (1300 - 1200 B.C.), Other sites include Baq'ah Valley Cave and the burial areas of Beth Shan, Beth Shemesh, Gibeon Tombs (el Jib) and Tell es-Sa'idiyeh Tombs. [Sources: John R. Abercrombie, University of Pennsylvania, James B. Pritchard, Ancient Near Eastern Texts (ANET), Princeton, Boston University, bu.edu/anep/MB.html |*|]

John R. Abercrombie of the University of Pennsylvania wrote:“Images and related material are drawn from the excavations at Beth Shan, Beth Shemesh and Tell es-Sa'idiyeh. Complete ceramic forms and some of the fine objects were taken from specific tomb contexts: Beth Shan Tomb 42 (LB I), Gibeon Tomb 10 (LB IIA), Beth Shan Tombs 219 and 90 (LBIIB-Ir I), and Tell es-Sa'idiyeh cemetery (LBIIB-Ir I). The tombs together constitute less than half of the cited material below. Almost all the remaining artifacts, with the exception of one or two outstanding pieces from Beth Shemesh StatumIV, are from strata IX-VII Beth Shan, dated to fourteenth-thirteenth centuries. In particular, we focused on the material from the important Egyptian/Canaanite temple. Be aware that Beth Shan is a highly egyptianize site so that it better reflects the cultural mix of many large sites in the lowlands of southern Palestine (Tell el-Farah S, Tell el-Ajjul, Lachish and Megiddo) and the greater Jordan valley (Tell es-Sa'idiyeh and Deir Alla) than other inland or more northern sites (Hazor). |*|

Canaanite Sites in the Bible

Tel Megiddo

I Kings 9:15-17: And this is the account of the forced labor which King Solomon levied to build the house of the LORD and his own house and the Millo and the wall of Jerusalem and Hazor and Megid'do and Gezer (Pharaoh king of Egypt had gone up and captured Gezer and burnt it with fire, and had slain the Canaanites who dwelt in the city, and had given it as dowry to his daughter, Solomon's wife; so Solomon rebuilt Gezer) and Lower Beth-hor'on [Source: John R. Abercrombie, Boston University, bu.edu, Dr. John R. Abercrombie, Department of Religious Studies, University of Pennsylvania]

Gezer (Tell Gezer): Judges 1:29: And E'phraim did not drive out the Canaanites who dwelt in Gezer; but the Canaanites dwelt in Gezer among them. I Chronicles 14:16: And David did as God commanded him, and they smote the Philistine army from Gibeon to Gezer. II Samuel 5:25: And David did as the LORD commanded him, and smote the Philistines from Geba to Gezer.

Hazor (Tell Hazor) in the Bible: Joshua 11:10: And Joshua turned back at that time, and took Hazor, and smote its king with the sword; for Hazor formerly was the head of all those kingdoms. I Samuel 12:9 But they forgot the LORD their God; and he sold them into the hand of Sis'era, commander of the army of Jabin king of Hazor, and into the hand of the Philistines, and into the hand of the king of Moab; and they fought against them.

I Kings 9:15: And this is the account of the forced labor which King Solomon levied to build the house of the LORD and his own house and the Millo and the wall of Jerusalem and Hazor and Megid'do and Gezer. II Kings 15:29: In the days of Pekah king of Israel Tig'lath-pile'ser king of Assyria came and captured I'jon, A'bel-beth-ma'acah, Jan-o'ah, Kedesh, Hazor, Gilead, and Galilee, all the land of Naph'tali; and he carried the people captive to Assyria.

In 2019, after 14 years of digging, archaeologists excavating in the Holy Land announced that they have found the biblical city of Ai, a Caananite stronghold that was captured by the Israelites (according to the book of Judges). [Source: Candida Moss, Daily Beast, April 7, 23, 2019]

Lachish (Tell ed-Duweir)

Lachish was the second-most-important city in the Israel-Palestine region after Jerusalem, and was noted several times in historical sources. The Book of Joshua in the Hebrew Bible describes how the Canaanite city fell to the invading Israelites in about the 13th century B.C.: "And the Lord delivered Lachish into the hand of Israel, which took it on the second day, and smote it with the edge of the sword, and all the souls therein." Lachish was also sacked by the neo-Babylonians in the early sixth century B.C., by the Assyrians under Sennacherib in 701 B.C. and at least three other times, the earliest of which was in 1550 B.C.

Candida Moss wrote in the Daily Beast: The city itself is located in central Israel about 25 miles southwest of Jerusalem in the Shephelah (“lowlands”) region of Israel between Mount Hebron and the Mediterranean coast. In both the Canaanite and Judahite periods Lachish was second in importance only to Jerusalem. For an ancient city, Lachish is remarkably well-documented in our historical records. It appears in ancient Assyrian, Egyptian, and Biblical texts and is even referred to on stone panels found in Nineveh (modern day northern Iraq). The earliest literary reference to Lachish is in Egyptian sources: the so-called Amarna letters, a set of clay tablets that document correspondence between Egypt government and their representatives in Canaan. These everyday administrative letters reveal that Lachish was an important and powerful city in the foothills of Judea. [Source: Candida Moss, Daily Beast, February 23, 2020]

Even before the arrival of the Israelites, the city had had a violent history: It first rose to prominence in 1800 BCE and, for some 400 years thereafter, it flourished and prospered. It was then destroyed by Pharaoh Thutmose III in 1550 BCE as part of the 18th Dynasty’s expansion into Canaan. The city was rebuilt and destroyed on multiple other occasions throughout its history but the newly discovered temple dates from the city’s resurgence between roughly 1200-1150 BCE. Archaeologists calls this incarnation, “the last Canaanite city.”

Lachish in the Bible

Lachish

Candida Moss wrote in the Daily Beast: In the Bible, Lachish is mentioned several times; in particular with the conquest of the land of Canaanites by the Israelites (Joshua 10:3, 5, 23, 31-35). According to the book of Joshua, Japhia, the King of Lachish, was one of five kings who tried to push back the Israelite invasion. After being caught unawares by a surprise attack, Japhia and his allies took refuge in a cave, were captured, and then executed. Joshua then launched a siege of Lachish that lasted for two days before the city fell and Joshua had the inhabitants of the city exterminated. The city and land surrounding it was then assigned to the tribe of Judah. If all of this sounds like a war crime to you, then you’re correct: the Israelite conquest narratives are stories about divinely mandated and supported genocide. The city is mentioned again on a variety of occasions; the prophet Jeremiah names it as one of the last cities to fall to the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar II, for example. [Source: Candida Moss, Daily Beast, February 23, 2020]

2 Chronicles 11:7-10 He (Rehoboam) rebuilt Bethlehem, Etam, Tekoa, Beth-zur, Soco, Adullam, Gath, Mareshah, Ziph, Adoraim, Lachish, Azekah, Zorah, Aijalon, Hebron; [Source: John R. Abercrombie, Boston University, bu.edu, Dr. John R. Abercrombie, Department of Religious Studies, University of Pennsylvania]

II Kings 18:14 And Hezeki'ah king of Judah sent to the king of Assyria at Lachish, saying, "I have done wrong; withdraw from me; whatever you impose on me I will bear." And the king of Assyria required of Hezeki'ah king of Judah three hundred talents of silver and thirty talents of gold.

II Kings 18:17 And the king of Assyria sent the Tartan, the Rab'saris, and the Rab'shakeh with a great army from Lachish to King Hezeki'ah at Jerusalem. And they went up and came to Jerusalem. When they arrived, they came and stood by the conduit of the upper pool, which is on the highway to the Fuller's Field.

Isaiah 36:2 And the king of Assyria sent the Rab'shakeh from Lachish to King Hezeki'ah at Jerusalem, with a great army. And he stood by the conduit of the upper pool on the highway to the Fuller's Field.

II Chronicles32:9 After this Sennach'erib king of Assyria, who was besieging Lachish with all his forces, sent his servants to Jerusalem to Hezeki'ah king of Judah and to all the people of Judah that were in Jerusalem, saying,

Jeremiah 34:7 when the army of the king of Babylon was fighting against Jerusalem and against all the cities of Judah that were left, Lachish and Aze'kah; for these were the only fortified cities of Judah that remained. (see, Lachish Ostracon IV)

3,000-Year-Old Canaanite Temple Found in Lachish

In 2020, archaeologist announced that they had discovered 3,000-year-old Canaanite Temple in Lachish. It was the first ancient Canaanite temple found in more than 50 years and is extraordinarily well preserved, scientists said. The discovery shed new light on the ancient religion of the region, said Yosef Garfinkel, an archaeologist at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Garfinkel who has led the excavations of the temple, along with Michael Hasel, an archaeologist at the Southern Adventist University in Tennessee. Their research was reported in January in the journal Levant. [Source: Tom Metcalfe published February 24, 2020]

Live Science reported: The archaeologists were looking for evidence of an Iron Age occupation of the site when they came upon the remains of the temple in the ancient city of Lachish, which is now part of Tel Lachish National Park, about 25 miles (40 kilometers) southwest of Jerusalem.The excavations were expected to reach a fifth level of the buried city that was built in the 10th century B.C., Garfinkel told Live Science — over time, the cities were built on top of the remains of older ones, leaving layers of ruins. Teh archaeologists found evidence of the Bronze Age temple on the second day of the project, when they began digging just under the topsoil, he said. "There was probably severe erosion in the specific place where we started [digging], and the five upper levels had been completely removed," Garfinkel said. "It was completely unexpected."

The temple at Lachish is laid out like other Canaanite temples found in the nearby ancient towns of Hazor, Megiddo and Shechem, with a central space for unhewn "standing stones" that may have represented gods. At the same time, the structure of the temple is unusual for the Late Bronze age: The entrance has two towers and pillars and leads to a large rectangular hall. Garfinkel told Haaretz that this kind of structure was more common in earlier temples found in Syria. But the style appears to have influenced the first Temple in Jerusalem built by King Solomon which, according to the Bible, also featured pillars, towers and a central hall." The Lachish temple roughly corresponds to a time when Canaan was ruled by Egypt, and letters to the pharaoh from the subject ruler of Lachish are found in the Amarna tablets, which date to the 13th century B.C. The Lachish temple was destroyed at about 1150 B.C. [Source: Candida Moss, Daily Beast, February 23, 2020]

Artifacts in the 3,000-Year-Old Canaanite Temple Found in Lachish

Artifacts found at the site include an idol of the Canaanite god Baal that was the object of prayer and sacrifice in the temple's inner sanctuary. Whereas the earlier and later temples were robbed of most of their artifacts, the walls and ceiling of the 12th century temple collapsed quickly and sealed in many objects, Garfinkle said. Live Science reported Some of the artifacts the archaeologists found include pottery; bronze cauldrons; decorated blades of daggers and axes; arrowheads; ornate jewelry, such as earrings; and glass and gold beads, Garfinkel said. [Source: Tom Metcalfe published February 24, 2020]

As we would expect for an urban center with close ties to Egypt, many of the artifacts found at the site revealed Egyptian influence in the region. "There was a lot of cultural influence from Egypt in Canaan," Garfinkel said. "We discovered Egyptian scarabs [oval ornaments shaped like a scarab beetle] and an amulet in silver showing an Egyptian goddess holding a lotus flower in her hand."

Candida Moss wrote in the Daily Beast: In addition to bronze cauldrons, axes, and daggers adorned with bird heads and scarabs, the team found a gold-plated bottle inscribed with the name of Rameses II. They also discovered an amulet that references the goddess Hathor, an Egyptian bovine deity who might also have been local to Canaan. In Egyptian mythology Hathor was associated with music, fertility, love and sex and was often charged with greeting the dead in the afterlife. The discovery of Egyptian religious traditions at the temple at Lachish is evidence of the contact between and mutual influence of Canaanite and Egyptian culture on each other. [Source:Candida Moss, Daily Beast, February 23, 2020]

Also discovered within the Temple, however, were religious elements that would not have been found in either ancient Egypt or ancient Israel. In particular, the discovery of two small statues of the god Baal — one of the God of Israel’s principle competitors in the Bible — reveal that this was unambiguously a center of Canaanite religious life. Scientists found two silver-plated bronze figurines of the Canaanite gods Baal and Resheph. Both are shown "smiting" their enemies, with one arm held high. "The statues were found in the holy of holies of the temple," Garfinkle said, referring to the temple's innermost sanctuary. "People were praying to them and bringing them tributes."

Evidence of Moses-Era Hebrews?

Archeologist have combed the Sinai desert for more than a century in search of evidence of the ancient Hebrews living there at the time of Moses is said to have lived (around 3,300 years ago) and have turned up nothing but they did find something in the Nile Delta, the part of Egypt where the Bible says the Hebrews settled. According to the BBC: “They combed the area for evidence of a remarkably precise claim — that the Hebrews were press-ganged into making mud-bricks to build two great cities — Pithom and Ramses. Ramses II was the greatest Pharaoh in all of ancient Egypt - his statues are everywhere. Surely his city could be traced? But no sign could be found. There were suggestions it all been made up by a scribe.| [Source: BBC |::|]

“Until a local farmer found a clue: the remains of the feet of a giant statue. An inscription on a nearby pedestal confirmed that the statue belonged to Ramses II. Eventually, archeologists unearthed traces of houses, temples, even palaces. Using new technology, the archaeologists were able to detect the foundations and they mapped out the whole city in a few months. The city they had discovered was one of the biggest cities in ancient Egypt, built around 1250BCE. 20,000 Egyptians had lived there.|::|

Gerald A. Larue wrote in “Old Testament Life and Literature”: “Efforts to determine the date and route of the Exodus have been disappointing. Josephus placed the Exodus at the time of the overthrow of the Hyksos by Ahmose in the sixteenth century, a date that is far too early. Biblical evidence is limited. I Kings 6:1 reports that Solomon began building the temple in the fourth year of his reign, 480 years after the Exodus. Solomon's rule is believed to have begun near the middle of the tenth century, possibly about 960 B.c. Thus, the date of the Exodus would be: 960 minus 4 (4th year of reign) plus 480, or 1436. In that case, Thutmose III would be the pharaoh of the oppression, and his mother, Hatshepsut, might be identified as the rescuer of the infant Moses. The Hebrew invasion of Canaan, taking place forty years later or about 1400 B.C., might be identified with the coming of the 'apiru. [Source: Gerald A. Larue, “Old Testament Life and Literature,” 1968, infidels.org ]

Archaeological Evidence of David

David is one the greatest figures in the Bible. The founder and king of the first and largest Jewish kingdom, he was called the “Shepherd King” because of his humble origins.The rule of David and Solomon are described in the Old Testament Books: Samuel, Kings and Chronicle. David’s story in told from I Samuel 16 through I Kings 2. [Source: Robert Draper, National Geographic, December 2010]

A lot of time and energy has been spent trying to find proof that David really existed and place him a certain time and location but thus far such evidence has been hard to find. Direct archaeological evidence of the existence of the Kingdom of David and David's conquest of Jerusalem was said to have been discovered in 1993 by archaeologists with Jerusalem’s Hebrew Union College. Near the Syrian border in northern Israel, archaeologists discovered a 9th century B.C. inscription on a piece basalt at an ancient mound called Tel Dan (See Below). The inscription referred to the "House of David" and the "King of Israel." It was heralded as the first evidence outside the Bible of David’s existence. Critics claim the inscription may have been misread and David was a common name. French archaeologists also assert there are references to David on Moabite Stone, a basalt slab with inscription found in 1868 in the ruins of biblical Didon.

The Tel Dan Inscription (9th-7th century B.C.) is an Aramaic inscription discovered in 1993 which some scholars say is first extrabiblical evidence for the House of David. Believed to be a Victory Stele, this basalt stele consists of several fragments, including: Frag. A (32 centimeters high, 22 centimeters wide); Frag. B1 (20 centimeters high, 14 centimeters wide); Frag. B2 (10 centimeters high, 9 centimeters wide). Currently located in the Israel Museum, it consists of 13 lines of writing (B1 + B2: 8 lines of writing). The inscription was found in Tel Dan, Galilee in July 21, 1993 (Frag. A) and June 20, 1994 (Frag. B1 and B2) by Avraham Biran.

Image Sources: Wikimedia, Commons, Schnorr von Carolsfeld Bible in Bildern, 1860

Text Sources: John R. Abercrombie, University of Pennsylvania, Department of Religious Studies, University of Pennsylvania; James B. Pritchard, Ancient Near Eastern Texts (ANET), Princeton, Boston University, bu.edu/anep/MB.html; “Old Testament Life and Literature” by Gerald A. Larue, New International Version (NIV) of The Bible, biblegateway.com; Wikipedia, National Geographic, BBC, New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Smithsonian magazine, Times of London, The New Yorker, Reuters, AP, AFP, Lonely Planet Guides, and various books and other publications.

Last updated March 2024