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Archaeology

Written records of biblical King David discovered by researchers​

The stele was discovered in fragments in 1868 roughly 15 miles east of the Dead Sea and currently resides in the Louvre museum in Paris.​

By JERUSALEM POST STAFF

Published: JANUARY 12, 2023 15:38
Updated: JANUARY 12, 2023 16:59
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 Detail of a portion of lines 12–16, reconstructed from the squeeze. The middle line (14) reads Take Nabau against Israel. (photo credit: Wikimedia Commons)

Detail of a portion of lines 12–16, reconstructed from the squeeze. The middle line (14) reads "Take Nabau against Israel."
(photo credit: Wikimedia Commons)
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The Mesha Stele, also called the Moabite Stone, is a basalt stone slab that has provided historians and linguists with the largest source of the Moabite language to date. Researchers have only now been able to verify with a considerable degree of certainty that the stele contains explicit references to King David.

The stele was discovered in fragments in 1868 roughly 15 miles east of the Dead Sea and currently resides in the Louvre museum in Paris. While it was damaged in 1869, a paper-mache impression of the inscription was captured before the damage occurred.

The slab is etched with a lengthy account of King Mesha of Moab going to war with Israel. The events described correspond, albeit imprecisely, with a similar account in 2 Kings chapter 3.


The House of David

The text contains allusions to the Israelite god as well as the "House of David" and the "Altar of David." However, until today, scholars could not be entirely sure that these references to King David were being correctly deciphered.

 Mesha stele. (credit: Wikimedia Commons)
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Mesha stele. (credit: Wikimedia Commons)
The Moabite phrase "House of David" consists of five letters: bt dwd. "Bt" is similar to today's Hebrew word for house - bayit - which is beit in its construct form. And "dwd" can be thought of like modern Hebrew's daled vav (the letter, in this case, is actually waw) daled which spells the name "David."

Until now, only the first and fourth letters of the series, bet and waw were completely clear. In a late-2022 article entitled "Mesha's Stele and the House of David" in the winter issue of Biblical Archeology Review researchers André Lemaire and Jean-Philippe Delorme re-examined the evidence. They write:

"In 2015, a team from the West Semitic Research Project of the University of Southern California took new digital photographs of both the restored stela and the paper squeeze. The team used a method called Reflectance Transformation Imaging (RTI), in which numerous digital images are taken of an artifact from different angles and then combined to create a precise, three-dimensional digital rendering of the piece.
https://grooveer.life/click?trvid=1..._name$&time_stamp=$time_stamp$&obOrigUrl=true

"This method is especially valuable because the digital rendering allows researchers to control the lighting of an inscribed artifact, so that hidden, faint, or worn incisions become visible."

More recently in 2018, the Louvre took these new, high-resolution pictures and projected light onto them coming directly through the 150-year-old squeeze paper. Thus, researchers were able to glean a much clearer picture of the ancient records. This, explain Lemaire and Delorme, is how they were able to see evidence of the other three letters, taw (like modern Hebrew tav), dalet, and dalet.

How similar are Moabite and Ancient Hebrew?

Encyclopedia Britannica characterized the relationship between Moabite and the Hebrew of its time as differing "only dialectically." According to Dearman and Jackson's 1989 book Studies in the Mesha Inscription and Moab: “It is probable that Moabite and Hebrew were, for the most part, mutually intelligible.”


https://www.jpost.com/archaeology/article-728354
 
The Discovery of the Hittites
The Hittites played a prominent role in Old Testament history. They interacted with biblical figures as early as Abraham and as late as Solomon. They are mentioned in Genesis 15:20 as people who inhabited the land of Canaan. 1 Kings 10:29 records that they purchased chariots and horses from King Solomon. The most prominent Hittite is Uriah the husband of Bathsheba. The Hittites were a powerful force in the Middle East from 1750 B.C. until 1200 B.C. Prior to the late 19th century, nothing was known of the Hittites outside the Bible, and many critics alleged that they were an invention of the biblical authors.

In 1876 a dramatic discovery changed this perception. A British scholar named A. H. Sayce found inscriptions carved on rocks in Turkey. He suspected that they might be evidence of the Hittite nation. Ten years later, more clay tablets were found in Turkey at a place called Boghaz-koy. German cuneiform expert Hugo Winckler investigated the tablets and began his own expedition at the site in 1906.

Winckler's excavations uncovered five temples, a fortified citadel and several massive sculptures. In one storeroom he found over ten thousand clay tablets. One of the documents proved to be a record of a treaty between Ramesses II and the Hittite king. Other tablets showed that Boghaz-koy was the capital of the Hittite kingdom. Its original name was Hattusha and the city covered an area of 300 acres. The Hittite nation had been discovered!

 
Another Old Testament archeological find is of the prophet Balaam, who was working with the Moabites, the enemies of the children of Israel.

As at the time of the Exodus, the Israelites were marching toward the promised land, and were mowing down the people along the way.

The Moabites were worried they would be mowed down as well, so they hired a prophet to curse the children of Israel (Balaam). At Tel Deir ‘Alla, Jordan, on the other side of the Jordan, where the Jabat River meets the Jordan, they found a sort-of administration building (pictured below) for the Moabites.

Balaam Inscription administration building


It was covered with plaster that had fallen off, but on that plaster, they had written various stories. Written on this stone, they found the story of Balaam the prophet, written by the enemies of the children of Israel.

One line from the wall says, “Warnings given by Balaam, the son of Beor. A seer of the gods.” This inscription is dated from the 8th century BC. Numbers 22:5, of course, says, “So he sent messengers to Balaam the son of Beor, at Pethor, which is near the river…” This archaeological find corroborates this biblical scripture.

I have highlighted the area (pictured below) where Balaam, son of Beor's, name is mentioned on the wall plaster.

Prophet Balaam Inscription


This material is on display in Aman, Jordan.

For more information on this specific dig, you can check out this website:

http://www.bible.ca/archeology/bibl...ription-tell-deir-alla-succoth-1400-750bc.htm

 
...
As the Biblical record of the patriarchal period is validated by the testimony of archaeology, so likewise does the Biblical record concerning Moses and Israel’s exodus from Egypt and settlement in Canaan receives external support from archaeology. Representative evidences are examined below.

The tomb of Rekhmire, a vizier of Pharaoh Thutmose III (very possibly the Pharaoh during the time of Israel’s Exodus), shows Asiatic slaves making bricks while Egyptian taskmasters carrying rods look on, confirming the record of Exodus 5:

A painting from the tomb of Rekhmire at Thebes depicting Asiatic slaves making bricks.[33]

An Egyptian text dated close to the period of the Exodus likewise reports that ‘Habiru (a word derived from the same root as Hebrew)[34] foreigners were moving blocks for building projects in the city of Pi-Ramesses (cf. Exodus 1:11).[35] Scholars note: “Obviously Exodus 5 was written by someone who actually saw the brickfields along the Nile. . . . This section reflects a remarkably accurate historical knowledge of Egyptian slave-labor organization and its building techniques.” In other words:

[R]esearch . . . attests [t]o the very scenario portrayed in the Exodus narratives: a two-tiered administrative structure, the assignment of sometimes unattainable quotas, the problems of making bricks without straw, and the issue of allowing time off from work to worship one’s deity. . . . [T]he book of Exodus comes to us straight from the world of ancient Egypt. The story of the exodus is not fantasy but history . . . it is accurate down to the last piece of straw.[36]

Such facts and the archaeological evidence for “Asiatics escaping servitude in Egypt, and even for the knowledge in Egyptian texts of the Late Bronze Age of a deity called ‘Yhw’ [Jehovah, Hebrew Yehowah] in connection with the Shasu nomads” in Canaan where the Bible records that Abraham and his descendants that became Israel dwelt explain why “even some rather radical[ly] [skeptical] scholars . . . take seriously the notion that . . . ‘Shasu of Yhw’ . . . became early Israel, and that they may indeed have been guided through the desert by a charismatic, sheikh-like leader with the Egyptian name of ‘Moses.’”[37] Indeed, as the Bible records that Moses received his name from the Egyptian daughter of Pharaoh, not from the Hebrews (Exodus 2:10), so “Moses is an Egyptian name. . . . The name Moses derives from an Egyptian verb . . . and is a common element in Egyptian names such as Ramesses . . . Thutmosis, Amenmosis, Ptahmosis and numerous others.”[38]

Indeed, a 15th century Hebrew inscription from the Egyptian mines at Serabit el-Khadim refers by name to “Moses” and the events recorded in the Bible in association with Israel’s slavery in Egypt.

The 15th century Hebrew inscription Sinai 361 from Serabit el-Khadim refers by name to “Moses.”[39]...
 

53 People in the Bible Confirmed Archaeologically​



Shishak (= Sheshonq I)
pharaoh945–9241 Kings 11:40, etc.
2So (= Osorkon IV)pharaoh730–7152 Kings 17:4
3Tirhakah (= Taharqa)pharaoh690–6642 Kings 19:9, etc.
4Necho II (= Neco II)pharaoh610–5952 Chronicles 35:20, etc.
5Hophra (= Apries)pharaoh589–570Jeremiah 44:30

Moab​

6Meshakingearly to mid-ninth century2 Kings 3:4–27

Aram-Damascus​


7
Hadadezerkingearly ninth century to 844/8421 Kings 11:23, etc.
8Ben-hadad, son of Hadadezerking844/8422 Kings 6:24, etc.
9Hazaelking844/842–c. 8001 Kings 19:15, etc.

...https://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/daily/people-cultures-in-the-bible/people-in-the-bible/50-people-in-the-bible-confirmed-archaeologically/
 

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