Prayer Tents Bible References - Prayer Tents

INSCRIPTIONS, SEMITIC

El-Kerak inscription, written by Moabite king Mesha or his father (9th century b.c.e.). Gray-black basalt; probably part of a longer piece, perhaps a statue (Photograph by Bruce and Kenneth Zuckerman, West Semitic Research; courtesy Department of Antiquities, Jordan)

A variety of ancient Semitic documents survives which helps to facilitate the study of the Hebrew Scriptures. It is in tracing the development of and further elucidation of the various languages that the inscriptions have the most obvious importance and value. The areas illuminated are phonology, morphology, syntax, poetics, and lexicography. The inscriptions also reveal the orthographic conventions of the various periods for the respective languages, data which help in the dating of biblical texts, for example.

In addition to their importance for philological insight, the inscriptions also shed light on history and cultures of the respective groups. Though very few shed direct light on biblical events, the inscriptions help fill in the blanks in the biblical historical record. Through the inscriptions, the succession of kings of certain states is reconstructed or the extent of relationships between different states is revealed. The researcher learns the level of literacy in a certain region and period, and legal practices are explicated.

Inscriptions are written on all kinds of materials and by all kinds of implements. Materials include stone, pottery (either whole vessels or fragments called potsherds), animal skins, papyrus, metal, and even wood. The inscriptions are chiseled, incised, written with pen and ink, and stamped — using a seal carved for that purpose — into wet clay (either a pottery vessel before it hardened or a clump of clay) to seal a document. The most common are the pen and ink texts written on potsherds (then called ostraca) and the stamp seal impressions in those clumps of clay (bullæ).

Hebrew

Pomegranate Scepter Head

The Israel Museum owns a small pomegranate-shaped scepter head which bears a late 8th-century paleo-Hebrew inscription. Unfortunately, the scepter head is broken, so the inscription is not complete. André Lemaire restored the text as follows: lby[t yhw]h qdš khnm, which may be translated: “Belonging to the temp[le of Yahw]eh, the priests’ holy object.” The dating and understanding of the text have been the subject of some debate.

Kuntillet ʿAjrud and Khirbet el-Qôm

Kuntillet ʿAjrud (µorvat Teman), an ancient religious center for travelers, yielded several inscriptions which ascribe to Yahweh the goddess Asherah as a consort. For example, Kuntillet ʿAjrud no. 1 is translated by Judith M. Hadley: “X says: say to Yehal[lelʾel] and to Yoʿasah and [to Z]: I bless you by Yahweh of Samaria and by his Asherah.” Interestingly, an inscription from Khirbet el-Qôm also gives Asherah to Yahweh as his consort. One is reminded of when King Manasseh put an Asherah pole in the Jerusalem temple (2 Kgs. 21:7).

Jar Impressions, Weights, Seals, and Bullæ

The most common types of inscription in Israel are seals, bullæ, weights, and jar inscriptions. Some weights were inscribed with how much they weighed. Interestingly, weights with the same title do not weigh the same (ca. 100 inscribed weights have been discovered). This brings to mind such passages as Amos 8:4-6; Prov. 20:10, which refer to differing weights and measures. Some 750 seals and bullæ have been discovered. The most famous seal (actually a bulla) reads: lbrkyhw | bnnryhw | hspr, “To Berechiah, the son of Neriah, the scribe.” Given the patronymic (the father’s name), the profession, and the paleographic date, it is virtually certain that this is the seal of Baruch, the scribe of Jeremiah.

Moabite

Mesha Stela

One of the most exciting recent finds is actually a new reading in the Mesha stela. André Lemaire’s 1994 restoration in l. 31 of the first d in dt dwd has garnered wide (though not universal) support and provides the earliest reference to David outside the Bible. The mention of Yahweh in l. 18 is also the earliest mention of this deity outside the biblical text.

Old Aramaic

Tell Fakhariyeh

The Tell Fakhariyeh inscription, one of the longest Old Aramaic inscriptions, is a bilingual text in both Assyrian and Aramaic carved on a statue of Had-yithi, governor of the ancient city of Gozan. It is currently dated to ca. the mid-9th century on the basis of the style of the statue and historical circumstances as related in the inscription, though paleographically it has been dated as early as the 11th century. However, the inscription also uses vowel letters (matres lectionis), usually considered a later development, which would support the later date.

Tel Dan

In 1993 and 1994 an Old Aramaic inscription was unearthed at Tel Dan which paleographically and archaeologically dates to somewhere in the 9th or 8th century. The text commemorates the victory of an Aramaic king (he attributes his kingship to the Aramaic deity Hadad and the language is Old Aramaic) over “the king of Israel” (l. 8) and “[the kin]g of the house of David.” This latter phrase, [ml]k. bytdwd, has been the source of much controversy, for it was the first recognized extrabiblical reference to that famous king of Israel. William M. Schniedewind published a provocative understanding of the text whereby he attributes the stela to Hazael of Damascus, connecting it to the story of Jehu’s revolt in 2 Kgs. 9-10. He translates ll. 6-9: “. . . and I slew seve[nty ki]ngs, who harnessed thou[sands of char]iots and thousands of horsemen. [And I killed Jo]ram, son of A[hab,] king of Israel, and [I] killed [Ahazi]yahu, son of [Joram, kin]g of the House of David. . .” If this interpretation is correct, it would put the date of the stela ca. 841.

Phoenician

Byblos (Aḥiram)

A recent development in Phoenician has been the new reading by Javier Teixidor of the last phrase of the Aḥiram inscription which yields the reading: “may his inscription be erased before Byblos.” The sarcophagus, with its inscription, was originally dated by its archaeological context to the 13th century, but that was lowered to ca. 1000 because of some Iron Age pottery discovered in the shaft of the tomb (though some prefer the earlier date, considering the Iron Age sherds to be later contamination). The inscription itself dates, on paleographic grounds, to the first half of the 10th century, but there is a Pseudo-hieroglyphic inscription that predates the Phoenician one, the latter beginning after and, for the most part, avoiding the earlier one. (Pseudo-hieroglyphic refers to an earlier Phoenician writing system that remains undeciphered.) From the archaeological, art-historical, and paleographic arguments, one can surmise that the sarcophagus was made in the 13th century and inscribed with a Pseudo-hieroglyphic inscription, and that later (ca. 1000) Ittobaal reused the sarcophagus to bury his father Aḥiram and had a new inscription added to it.

Conclusion

Several collections of Northwest Semitic inscriptions should be consulted. In addition to the multivolume works by Herbert Donner and Wolfgang Röllig (Kanaanäische und aramäische Inschriften, 3rd ed. [Wiesbaden, 1971-76]) and J. C. L. Gibson (Textbook of Syrian Semitic Inscriptions [Oxford, 1971-1982]), one should add G. I. Davies, et al., Ancient Hebrew Inscriptions (Cambridge, 1991), and K. A. D. Smelik, Writings from Ancient Israel (Louisville, 1991). Many of these inscriptions are also translated in ANET. Finally, the series “Literary Sources for the History of Palestine and Syria,” edited by Dennis Pardee, contains useful and convenient surveys with bibliographies of these texts plus some of the archives of the other major ancient Near Eastern cultures (AUSS 17 [1979]: 47-69; BA 47 [1984]: 6-16, 88-99; 48 [1985]: 240-53; 49 [1986]: 140-54, 228-43; 51 [1988]: 143-61, 172-89; 57 [1994]: 2-19, 110-20).

Bibliography. J. M. Hadley, “The Khirbet el-Qom Inscription,” VT 37 (1987): 50-62; “Some Drawings and Inscriptions on Two Pithoi from Kuntillet {Ajrud,” VT 37 (1987): 180-213; A. Lemaire, “Probable Head of Priestly Scepter from Solomon’s Temple Surfaces in Jerusalem,” BARev 10 (1984): 24-29; G. E. Mendenhall, The Syllabic Inscriptions from Byblos (Beirut, 1985); W. M. Schniedewind, “Tel Dan Stele,” BASOR 302 (1996): 75-90.

Donald R. Vance

Prayer Tents Bible References - Prayer Tents

INSCRIPTIONS, SEMITIC

Eerdmans Dictionary of the Bible (2000)