Oldest Hebrew Text?

Archaeology in Israel is always thrilling. Often, I’ve walked around Jerusalem’s Old City and looked at the patches of earth between the streets and the city walls. Sure enough, from time to time I read about yet another interesting discovering, whether ancient stone steps, or amulets, or some other link to Israel’s past.

For years before the Six Day War, when the Arabs controlled the area, virtual mountains of dirt built up around the city walls, burying countless artifacts. Once the Israelis settled in after 1967, the Israel Antiquities Authority began digs and uncovered invaluable proof that the ancient Israelites were here, including proof that the Temple once stood above.

The Arabs of course had a vested interest in literally covering up evidence of Jewish life in biblical times.

They can’t do that anymore.

Recently, in March, came a report that is actually a big deal: an ancient seal with early Hebrew script was found. This puts a lie to the contention of many liberal scholars the past 100 years that Moses couldn’t have compiled the Pentateuch because he couldn’t write. That was always false.

From the Times of Israel, in March:

“Archaeologist Dr. Scott Stripling and a team of international scholars held a press conference on Thursday in Houston, Texas, unveiling what he claims is the earliest proto-alphabetic Hebrew text — including the name of God, ‘YHWH’ — ever discovered in ancient Israel. It was found at Mount Ebal, known from Deuteronomy 11:29 as a place of curses.

“If the Late Bronze Age (circa 1200 BCE) date is verified, this tiny, 2-centimeter x 2 centimeter folded-lead ‘curse tablet’ may be one of the greatest archaeological discoveries ever. It would be the first attested use of the name of God in the Land of Israel and would set the clock back on proven Israelite literacy by several centuries — showing that the Israelites were literate when they entered the Holy Land, and therefore could have written the Bible as some of the events it documents took place.

“’This is a text you find only every 1,000 years,’ Haifa University Prof. Gershon Galil told The Times of Israel on Thursday. Galil helped decipher the hidden internal text of the folded lead tablet based on high-tech scans carried out in Prague at the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic.”

Stripling is now head of ongoing excavations at Shiloh.

In fairness, the find hasn’t been peer-reviewed, and this is all playing out in the media. Finally, for purists, the find wasn’t made following strict protocols (it was found using a different sifting technique than has been used before). However, once the image is circulated and analyzed by other professional, I’m confident it will hold up to scrutiny.

The piece was found near the biblical site of Shechem and the modern Muslim city of Nablus.

Specifically, with regard to the writing on the piece:

“According to the researchers, it reads: ‘Cursed, cursed, cursed – cursed by the God YHW./ You will die cursed./ Cursed you will surely die./ Cursed by YHW – cursed, cursed, cursed.’”

Haifa University professor Gershon Galil said:

“The person who wrote this text had the ability to write every text in the Bible.”

That is remarkable, and huge. Again, it challenges critics who claim the ancient Israelites were illiterate, which is absurd if one takes the Bible at face value. Even Job—from the book scholars believe is very ancient—spoke of writing.

Moreover, if Moses was educated in Egypt, he certainly knew how to write. This was good training for later, when he compiled earlier records of the patriarchs.

With such finds, we can be confident that the Bible’s history is accurate, with uncanny detail.

Jim1fletcher@yahoo.com

https://www.timesofisrael.com/archaeologist-claims-to-find-oldest-hebrew-text-in-israel-including-the-name-of-god/

 

(For those interested, I’ll be speaking at the prophecy conference hosted by Calvary Chapel of Appleton, Wisconsin, next weekend April 29-May 1.)

 Brazen Demands on Temple Mount

As usual, Arab sensibilities are the priority of Western diplomats.

A report in the Jerusalem Post highlights a problem that we deal with because of Western weakness. We are still required to give the Arabs everything they want on the Temple Mount, but Jews and Christians are still not permitted to pray there.

“The Arab League called on Israel on Thursday to end Jewish prayers inside the compound of Islam’s third holiest shrine in east Jerusalem, warning it was a flagrant affront to Muslim feelings that could trigger a wider conflict.

“’Our demands are clear that Al-Aqsa and Haram al-Sharif in all its area is a sole place of worship for Muslims,’ Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman al Safadi told reporters alongside the Arab League chief Ahmed Aboul Gheit after an emergency meeting in Amman on the matter.”

Now notice this gem:

“Safadi, who spoke with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken this week, met senior US State Department officials touring the region on Wednesday to discuss reducing tensions.

“Safadi said he received assurances Israel would halt Jewish worshippers’ entry to Al-Aqsa in the last 10 days of Ramadan that starts on Friday, a move widely expected to help defuse tensions.”

Right on cue, Blinken—part of the Biden regime—puts the screws to Israel and gushes over the Jordanians. Blinken, himself Jewish (his stepfather was a Holocaust survivor), seems not to think it important to preserve Jewish heritage on the holiest site to Judaism.

As I’ve written recently, the disgusting site of Hamas flying its flag over the Al-Aksa Mosque conjures up images pre-Six Day War, when Jordan allowed Jewish synagogues to be destroyed while Jewish and Christian visits were restricted at the holy sites.

I’ve been on the Temple Mount several times. Just the other day I was looking at photographs from a 2012 visit, in which I saw tons of Temple-era stones, columns and other artifacts literally dumped so that room could be made underneath the Temple Mount for two(!) mosques.

Like other non-Muslims, I was not permitted to pray there (there are creative ways around that), and when I got too close to the inside of the famed Golden Gate on the east side, I was chased away by pistol-packing Palestinian guard who shouted and waved his arms. Honestly, I’m almost surprised that we are allowed on the Temple Mount at all.

The closest I’ve gotten to seeing the inside of the Al-Aksa was peering from the entrance. The building is often used as a place for terrorists and their imams to incite violence against Jews and Christians.

In 2001, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon visited the Temple Mount, accompanied by 1,000 armed guards. This was outrageous to the Arabs.

What’s outrageous is that he had to have armed guards.

Most of you are familiar with the story, but when Israel captured the Temple Mount in the Six Day War (thanks to Motta Gur’s 66^th Paratroop Brigade), the very next day Moshe Dayan handed the keys back to the Arabs and allowed them to set the rules, in conjunction with the Jordanians and the Turks.

All these years later, we are still dealing with Arab intransigence regarding who can visit and when they do, what they can and cannot do.

I didn’t expect Israel’s new government to change the status quo (even Bibi Netanyahu didn’t), but it’s still concerning that sites holy to Christians and Jews are monitored by people that hate us. And this in the very ancient city now under Israel’s control!

I pray we are close to the day when the Lord returns and ushers in peace and justice in this holy place.

Maranatha!

Jim1fletcher@yahoo.com