Summary: Part 2 of a 2-part series [Part 1 here] will survey monumental inscriptions and other types, including manuscripts and amulets to discover connections to the Bible and the surrounding world.
“Oh that my words were written! Oh that they were inscribed in a book!” – Job 19:23 (ESV)
Monumental Inscriptions
Monumental inscriptions are usually declarations that would be on display that the general populace might read (of course, it is unclear what percentage of the ancient population was able to read). The texts typically express “official” policies and beliefs of those in power when the inscriptions are produced (of course, they could later be defaced, destroyed, or removed by subsequent rulers who might differ with the sentiments expressed). A number of these intersect with biblical history. While it is impossible to catalogue the entire corpus of such inscriptions, we will note a few that reflect aspects of the Bible’s story.1
A major debate over the last century swirls around the question of when the Israelites emerged as a people in the land of Canaan. The Bible discusses their “pre-history” in the narratives of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. In the midst of a famine in Canaan, Jacob and his family find refuge in the land of Egypt (Gen. 40-50) where eventually they become enslaved (Exo. 1-5). After a lapse of several centuries, Moses rallies the enslaved Israelites to escape Egypt and begin their journey to the land of Canaan (Exo. 6 through Deuteronomy), where they finally settle (Joshua). After loosely settling in Canaan in the midst of chaos (Judges), they eventually ask for a king to reign over them like the surrounding peoples (1 Sam. 8), which occurs sometime in the 11th century BC.
The earliest clear reference to the Israelites outside the Bible appears on a huge stele executed during the reign of the Egyptian monarch Merneptah2 (aka: Merenptah; reigned ca. 1213-1203 BC3). Toward the bottom of the stele, the text narrates Merneptah’s campaign to Canaan in the fifth year of his reign (i.e., 1207 BC). In that summary, Merneptah boasts of his victory over Israel by saying: “Israel is laid waste, his seed is not” (Wilson 378). The inscription indicates that “Israel” was a people, but apparently was not perceived as a kingdom per se or with a defined territory (Hoffmeier, “Israel” 27-31).
This dovetails well with how the Bible describes Israel’s status for that point in the biblical narrative. In 1207 BC, Israel would have been at some point in the period of the judges4 in their development toward a monarchy.5 The existence of an Israelite monarchy of some kind would likely have been the criterion by which Egypt would have identified Israel as a country and/or territory. Merneptah’s stele, however, implies that Israelites were in the land of Canaan by ca. 1207 BC.
The debate additionally swirls around how to understand the term “Israel.” Most scholars concede that the term refers to the predecessors of those who became the kingdom of Israel. A significantly vocal minority, however, rejects this conclusion to claim that we know nothing about the people to whom the term referred in 1207 BC, and that it has nothing to do with those who later became known as Israel (e.g., Thompson 34).
A similar cynicism against the biblical narrative surrounds the person of David. Until relatively recently, no non-biblical accounts had been found to preserve his name. However, that changed in 1993 with the excavations at Dan on the northern border of modern Israel. The project uncovered parts6 of a monumental inscription that refer to the “house of David.” The inscription narrates the victory probably of Hazael, the Aramaean (i.e., Syrian) king, who fought against an apparent alliance of Joram, king of Israel and Ahaziah, king of Judah (who would have been in David’s lineage, i.e., of the “house of David;” cf. 2 Kgs. 8:25-29; for a translation and some comments, see Millard).
This is the earliest reference to David outside the biblical narrative.7 The date would be about 840 BC or so, roughly 130 years after David’s death. This would be well within the range of a great-grandparent narrating events to a great-grandchild who, between them, could have lived easily beyond the range of 130 years span.8 This span of “passing down” provides a reasonable historical reliability and potential corroboration by other people who might have been alive at the time as well.
Two major inscriptions come from the time of Hezekiah (ca. 715-686 BC). One is from a conduit that Hezekiah authorized to carry water from the Gihon Spring to within the fortified city. The Gihon Spring is located at the foot of the spur on which Jerusalem rests and is outside the fortification system. The earlier Canaanites had built a special fortification system to protect the Gihon Spring, but that system was clearly vulnerable since 300 years earlier, David’s army had used it to infiltrate and capture Jerusalem (cf. 2 Sam. 5:6-10). In an effort to rectify that weakness, Hezekiah’s advisors recommended to secure the water supply in the face of the Assyrian assault posed by Sennacherib (cf. 1 Chr. 32:2-4).
Hezekiah’s engineers dug a tunnel through the spur to bring the Gihon waters to a reservoir which was protected within the walls (later called the “Pool of Siloam;” cf. John 9:7). An inscription near the exit of the tunnel explains its construction. The workers proceeded at each end of the tunnel digging toward each other through the rock where they eventually intersected. The text states that the tunnel was 1200 cubits long (= ca. 1750 feet). It is unclear to what degree one would expect the people of antiquity to read the inscription, but it was “discovered” in the late 1800s and came into the custody of the Istanbul Archaeological Museum.
Three times the Bible briefly alludes to this engineering feat. Two of them merely note that the conduit was one of Hezekiah’s accomplishments (cf. 2 Kgs. 20:20; 2 Chr. 32:30). The other allusion appears in Isaiah who lambasts the people of Jerusalem for overconfidence in their defensive efforts (Isa. 22:9-11). One of the thrilling experiences for most visitors to Israel is to walk through this tunnel.
A second inscription dating from the time of Hezekiah came from a tomb on the slopes of the Kidron Valley and faces ancient Jerusalem; it is known as the “Tomb of the Royal Steward”. The text identifies the office of the person who was interred as “one who is over the house” (this was the official title of the person we call the “royal steward”). The text is marred, missing most of the personal name of the person, but what is preserved reads as follows: “This is […]iah, who is over the house. There is no silver or gold here—only […] and the bones of his maidservant (who is) with him. Cursed be the man who opens this (tomb)!” (see McCarter; brackets reflect the parts of the inscription that are missing—DW.M).
Given the official title (“who is over the house”), the style of writing (dating to the end of the 8th century beginning of the 7th), the width of the gap to accommodate a name, and the location of the tomb in the rock ledge facing Jerusalem, the evidence points to the likelihood that it is the tomb associated with Shebna9 who for a time was the one “who was over the house” of Hezekiah (cf. Isa. 22:15; cf. also McCarter; Avigad 150-52). This dovetails exactly with Isaiah’s indictment of him at the behest of the LORD: “Come go to this steward, to Shebna, who is over the household, and say to him: What have you to do here, and whom have you here that you have cut out here a tomb for yourself, you who cut out a tomb on the height and carve a dwelling for yourself in the rock?” (Isa. 22:15-16). The tomb could legitimately be described as a “dwelling” since it originally had two rooms, with a combined total interior measurement of ca. 4.8 meters by ca. 2.35-3.00 meters (= ca. 15.7 ft. x 7.7-9.8 ft.; see detailed discussion by Ussishkin 188-202).
Turning to the New Testament period, a question has often focused on the chronology of Paul’s life. A discovery at Delphi provides a fairly stable peg around which to reconstruct his ministry. Acts 18 reveals that Paul was in Corinth during part of Gallio’s proconsul appointment. The fragmented inscription places Gallio’s appointment to what we would call 51-52 AD. It appears that the hearing before Gallio occurred soon after Gallio arrived and toward the end of Paul’s stay in Corinth. Since Paul’s tenure at Corinth was about eighteen months (Acts 18:11), we infer that Paul arrived there about 50 AD (Ferguson 549-50).
Another inscription helps enrich our understanding of the origin of some of the turmoil in Paul’s life. It is a legal warning from the Temple in Jerusalem. The postings warned Gentiles not to pass the boundary from the court of the Gentiles into the more formal Temple area.
Two examples of this have been found. One is a partial version preserved in the Israel Museum, the other is a complete inscription housed in the Istanbul Archaeological Museum. According to Josephus, a number of these warnings, written in Latin and Greek, appeared in the boundary wall stating that “no foreigner was permitted to enter the holy place,…” (War 12.145) “…under threat of the penalty of death” (Antiquities 15.417). The text of the inscription is a sort of legalese: “No stranger is to enter within the balustrade round the temple and enclosure. Whoever is caught will be responsible to himself for his death, which will ensue” (Clermont-Ganneau 132).
This warning wall is the focal point of the conflict that arose around Paul when he was accused of bringing Gentiles into the Temple (Acts 21:27-29). The accusers assumed that Paul had escorted Gentiles from the Court of the Gentiles to within the restricting wall. While we can certainly understand the issue with no knowledge of this artifact, the inscription dramatizes the intensity of the event.
The New Testament frequently refers to synagogues in northern Palestine (e.g., Mk. 3:1; 5:22; 6:2; Lk. 4:16 et al.), as well as in Jerusalem (Jn. 9:22; Acts 6:9; 24:12). No actual synagogues have been identified thus far in Jerusalem, but an inscription found in secondary placement clearly indicates the existence of one. This is known as the “Theodotus” inscription and was found in a cistern south of the Jerusalem temple. Its stratified location within the cistern indicates that the synagogue existed prior to 70 AD when the Romans razed Jerusalem (cf. Burnett 50; Reich 130-32). The inscription (see photo at top of article) identifies Theodotus as the one who established the synagogue to be a place of prayer and instruction as well as a hostel for travelers to Jerusalem. He also identifies himself as the grandson of a succession of men who were the “head of the synagogue” (for a translation of the text, see Ferguson 540).
Other Inscriptions
Abecedaries
Abecedaries (i.e., the listing of the alphabet in order) were discussed in the previous installment on ostraca, but discoveries of abecedaries on stones and other material may imply more than merely learning the alphabet. Some of the storage jars at Kuntillet ‘Ajrud preserve partial abecedaires (dating from the 9th-8th centuries BC; Ahituv, Eshel, and Meshel 73, 102-03). Barkay (“Iron,” 350) notes that their presence in such an isolated location as Kuntillet ‘Ajrud implies that they may have been more than mere scribal activity. He suggests that “…such inscriptions may also have had magic or religious significance” (“Iron,” 350; cf. also Niditch 45). de Tarragon (2079) notes that three of the abecedaries at Kuntillet ‘Ajrud appear beside one of the religious benedictions. He explains the premise of mystical/religious inference: “The ruling principle is that the letters of the alphabet were capable of spelling out the names, hidden or manifest, of all potential divinities, angels, or even demons” (2079).
Foundation Deposits
Foundation deposits may consist of a variety of artifacts, and on occasion they are inscribed. Some of these reflect sentiments beyond mundane daily life and venture into monumental declarations. Hence they may reflect official stances of the reigning administration’s policies. The irony is that they were buried and hence out of view of the public’s observation—even from those who might be literate.
A series of these, sometimes called “clay cones,” date to the reign of Išme-Dagan who ruled in Mesopotamian Isin during the 20th century BC. These cones were inscribed and embedded in the mud brick walls and plastered over. The inscription on the above cone reads (according to the placard at the Bible Lands Museum): “Išme-Dagan, mighty man, king of Isin, king of the four quarters, when he cancelled the tribute of Nippur, the city beloved of the god Enlil, (and) relieved its men of military service, he built the great wall of Isin.
The photograph above shows how these were embedded into the wall. The name of the wall is ‘Išme-Dagan is a great…beside the god Enlil’” Since people would not have been able to read the message, what might be its purpose? At least two options might explain. One suggests that when the structure might be in ruins in the future the cones would impress the later generations and communicate the might and generosity of Išme-Dagan. An alternative, and perhaps coordinate explanation, might have been to “remind” the god of the temple of the monarch’s beneficence. They (we?) should be impressed with the beneficence of Išme-Dagan to have extended such generosity to cancel taxes and military service of his subjects to build a structure of this magnificence to Enlil. In a sense the goal of future “admiration” was realized with modern discoveries!
The so-called Cyrus Cylinder is another example of a foundation deposit. It is written in cuneiform on a small clay cylinder (ca. 9 inches long, = 22.86 cm). It was discovered in 1879 during the excavations of ancient Babylon under the supervision of Hormuz Rassam on behalf of the British Museum (Curtis 31-36). The find corroborates attitudes exhibited in the books of 2 Chronicles (36:23) and Ezra (1:2-4; 6:1-5). The biblical accounts preserve Cyrus’ decree that the LORD had charged him to build a temple in Jerusalem and that the Hebrews were permitted to return home with resources to rebuild the temple and offer sacrifices.
The cylinder itself, however, does not indicate that the LORD instructed him to do this, instead attributing the directions to Marduk, the chief Babylonian god (see full text of the cylinder in Cogan). On one level the two sources (i.e., the Cylinder and the Bible) do not mesh, since each attributes the directives to different deities, but the benevolent attitude to the captive peoples characterizes both documents.
Probably different renditions of the decree were issued depending on the target nationalities. According to Esther, Ahasuerus issues decrees about the plight of the Jews in multiple languages (cf. Esth. 3:12; 8:9). Corroborating the implication of this practice, the book of Ezra indicates that when the Jews were challenged about the legality of their right to rebuild the Temple, couriers futilely searched the archives in Babylon about Cyrus’ decree for the Jews (Ezr. 5:17). When none was found in Babylon, however, the search shifted to Ecbatana10 where they found a “scroll” (megillah) which preserved the decree for the Jews (Ezr. 6:1-2). It was apparently a copy or summary written in Aramaic.11
Clearly the so-called Cyrus Cylinder was not the document referred to in Chronicles and Ezra, since the Cylinder is a clay cone and the document that was found was a scroll, but they both reflect exactly the character of Cyrus in his generosity. Likely multiple documents were issued to adapt to different ethnicities based on their respective gods.
Dedicatory Inscriptions
A dedicatory inscription from Kuntillet ‘Ajrud appears on the edge of a large stone bowl which measures about one meter in diameter and weighs approximately 200 kg (= ca. 440 pounds; Meshel, Kuntillet). The inscription reads: “to/of ‘Obadyaw son of ‘Adna, blessed be he to YHW” (Ahituv, Eshel, and Meshel 76-77). In more common rendering it was: “To/of Obadiah, son of Adna, blessed be he to YHW.”12
The presence of such a heavy object with a dedicatory inscription implies significant devotion. Peculiarly, the spelling of the name of God, YHW rather than YHWH, reflects a spelling more characteristic of Samaria than Judah (Meshel, “Did Yahweh…” 32). This inscription may have been executed by someone from Samaria who was polytheistic (as implied in the inscription that offered blessings to YHWH and his Asherah, see “Graffiti” in part one of this article). Alternatively, it may reflect someone about whom the LORD spoke when he told Elijah that there were “seven thousand in Israel” who had remained faithful (cf. 1 Kgs. 19:18).
Manuscripts
Manuscripts are perhaps the most commonly assumed inscriptions that we have. These are important, but they are not easily preserved because they tend to be written on very friable materials such as papyrus and leather/parchment. The most dramatic of these discoveries are probably the Dead Sea Scrolls. The Dead Sea Scroll manuscripts (and fragments) moved our testimony of the Hebrew text of the Old Testament about a thousand years earlier than had previously been available.13
Of equal importance was the recognition in the late 19th century that the New Testament was not written in some kind of special Greek as scholars had often assumed. The Greek syntax and vocabulary of the New Testament differs somewhat from Classical Greek, which prompted some to argue that it was a special “language of the Holy Ghost” (Rothe 238). The discovery and study of headstones and papyri (particularly those discovered at Oxyrhynchus in Egypt14) demonstrated that the New Testament was written in the common Greek language of the people—not to be equated with “gutter language”—but the language of everyday conversation and commerce (Deissmann 9). The New Testament writers wrote to communicate not only with the elite, but with everyday people. Salvation through Jesus was intended for everyone!
Amulets
Inscriptions sometimes occur on amulets. In the ancient world, amulets often “…function like prayers; they are intended to offer protection from disease, misfortune, or attacks from supernatural beings or to guarantee wealth, success, and victory” (Aune 113). Two extraordinary examples have come from a tomb at Ketef Hinnom on the western slope of the Hinnom Valley in Jerusalem. The two pieces date to the late 7th century BC, roughly the time of King Josiah.
The amulets are two small pieces of silver foil which preserve writing in Hebrew. Each piece was then rolled up,15 and probably a string or chain passed through the small opening to wear as a necklace or bracelet. Both inscriptions express essentially the same blessings for the owners. With slight variations, both inscriptions include almost exact quotations of the so-called “Priestly Blessing” of Numbers 6:24-26. The first part of the inscription is missing which is where the name of the person would appear, but it continues (not knowing the gender of the owner): “May h[e]/sh[e] be blessed by Yahweh, the warrior [or: helper] and and [sic] the rebuker of [E]vil: May Yahweh bless you, keep you. May Yahweh make his face shine upon you and grant you p[ea]ce” (Barkay et al. 68).17 The context makes it clear that the person is appealing to the LORD for help and safety.
The inscriptions probably were pieces of jewelry that adorned the wearer while still living. They raise the question, though, if their presence in the tomb might have been pleas for safe passage into the afterlife. Many argue that the ancient Israelites had no belief in the afterlife and that such beliefs did not become part of Israel’s consciousness until probably the Hellenistic period (Dever 217). It seems odd that Israel would have no such understanding when other cultures, especially Egypt, believed in an afterlife as indicated by their elaborate preparations for death!18
Conclusion
This survey has been extremely brief and much, much more could be listed and said. This should, however, provide some insight into the kinds of information that texts can provide. These range from official, monumental declarations and statements, to graffiti often written by the common person which sometimes reflects beliefs contrary to official ones.
While raw archaeological artifacts provide valuable information often contemporary with the events of their deposition, written materials can provide insight into what people were thinking. Both sets of data, however—artifacts and inscriptions—present challenges and demand careful interpretation. Generally, the more kinds of information that we have available from the periods under consideration, the more confident we can be in the legitimacy of our inferences and conclusions.
Archaeology in some ways deals with everything that people did—at least as far as we have evidence, and therein lies a major problem. The lack of evidence for things in antiquity brought about by destruction, deterioration, and theft, often leaves gaping voids in our databases. Declarations of certainty about things of the past based on archaeology should be very rare!
Archaeologists, however, tend to relish the rare occasions to discover inscriptions of any kind. Keep Thinking!
TOP PHOTO: The “Theodotus” inscription honoring the one who established a synagogue in Jerusalem. (credit: DW.Manor, Courtesy of Israel Museum)
Notes:
1.The corpus of non-canonical literature that impinges on biblical studies is massive. For Old Testament literature, you may consider James B. Pritchard (ed.), Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating to the Old Testament. 3d ed. with Supplement (Princeton: Princeton University, 1969). Another is the series by William W. Hallo and K. Lawson Younger, Jr. (eds.), The Context of Scripture, 4 vols. (Leiden: Brill, 1997-2017). For the New Testament you may consult Walter A. Elwell and Robert W. Yarbrough, Readings from the First-Century World: Primary Sources for New Testament Study (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 1998).
2 A possible earlier reference to Israel appears on a granite slab in the Berlin Museum. Several problems exist with this piece: 1) there is no provenience for the artifact; 2) because its provenience is unknown, the date of its production is unknown; 3) the cartouche that is proposed to read “Israel” is broken with about a third of it missing; and 4) the proposed spelling that is reconstructed uses an “sh” sound rather than an “s” sound to read “Ishrael” rather than “Israel.” Based on the style of writing, one proposed date for the inscription is ca. 1400 BC, although the same scholars grant that it could be as late as Ramses II (ca. 1279-1212 BC; this note is based on Shanks’ summary where he notes the more scholarly sources).
3 There are two major chronological schemes for Egyptian kings for this time period. The one shown here is known as the “low chronology.” The “high chronology” would put his reign only slightly earlier to ca. 1236-1223 BC (see Stern 4:1530).
4 The date of 1207 BC could have been the period of the judges regardless of whether one subscribes to an “early date” (i.e., 15th century BC) or “late date” (i.e., 13th century BC) for the exodus event. Admittedly, for the “late date,” the period of the judges would have been just commencing. Regardless, there was no monarchy.
5 The establishment of the monarchy occurred sometime in the mid-11th century BC, with David’s accession usually calculated to have begun around 1010 BC.
6 The excavations in 1994 uncovered the two fragments on the left in the photograph.
7 Another inscription which almost certainly refers to David is the so-called “Mesha Stela” (aka: the “Moabite Stone”). The reference to David, however, straddles a break in the stone. The evidence that almost certainly confirms the reading is a “squeeze” that was made of the inscription before it was broken in the late 1800s AD (see Lemaire). The date of the inscription is roughly contemporary with the one from Dan.
8 I know of several people who at 90 years of age had great-grandchildren old enough to remember stories that the great-grandparent told. If the great-grandchild were to hear the story when he/she were ten years old and then lived to be 60 years old, the first hand memory could easily span the 130 years implied in the Dan inscription’s reference to David.
9 Avigad discusses the variations in the name Shebna. The full names of people in ancient Judah often added “—iah” (= “—yahu”), hence the ending of the name on the inscription.
10 Ecbatana was a summer palace to which Cyrus would retreat (cf. Yamauchi 158, 307).
11 Ezra 6:1-5 narrating this search (including Cyrus’ decree) is written in Aramaic, which had become the international language of diplomacy. While many official Persian documents were written in Old Persian cuneiform, copies were apparently also written in other languages such as Aramaic. We have archaeological evidence that the Persians also wrote on leather and papyrus scrolls (Yamauchi 157-58).
12 There is no reason to identify this Obadiah with any by that name in the Hebrew Bible. The Hebrew Bible refers to about ten different people by this name.
13 Copies of the Old Testament text had been available in various translations such as Greek and Latin from as early as the 4th century AD. The Dead Sea Scrolls, however, took the textual evidence of the Hebrew text back into the era before Christ. Prior to these discoveries the oldest Hebrew manuscripts of the Bible dated to the 10th century AD. A small Hebrew fragment known as the Nash Papyrus, however, contains part of the Ten Commandments and the Shema‘, dating to ca. 150 BC to ca. 100 AD (Geisler and Nix 254).
14 For a survey discussion of the Oxyrhynchus collection, see Wilfong.
15 These were rolled up much like a child might roll up a stick of gum before chewing it.
16 The incised letters are very small and shallow. Much better photos and drawings of the amulets appear in Barkey et al. (pp. 56, 58, 62-63).
17 These quotations from Numbers 6 are our oldest preserved passages of Scripture that have been found thus far. They predate the Dead Sea Scrolls by about 400 years!
18 David’s remark on the passing of his son with Bathsheba appears to express more than a belief that David would merely die and that he and the child would both be in the ground together. He states: “While the child was still alive, I fasted and wept, for I said, ‘Who knows whether the LORD will be gracious to me, that the child may live?’ But now he is dead. Why should I fast? Can I bring him back again? I shall go to him, but he will not return to me” (2 Sam. 12:22). This sounds much more like an affirmation of some kind of active association in the afterlife than merely passive death.
Furthermore, the extensive grave goods that often appear in tombs ranging from Egypt, the Minoans, the Mycenaeans, the Canaanites, and Mesopotamians (as well as Israel) seem to point to more than a mere “Let’s stick a lot of gold and silver into the tombs with these dead people!”
Bibliography:
Ahituv, Shmuel, Esther Eshel, and Ze’ev Meshel. “The Inscriptions.” Pp. 73-142 in Kuntillet ‘Ajrud (Horvat Teman): An Iron Age II Religious Site on the Judah-Sinai Border. Ed. Z. Meshel. Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society, 2012.
Aune, David E. “Amulets.” Pp. 113-15 in Oxford Encyclopedia of Archaeology in the Near East, vol. 1. Ed. E. M. Meyers. New York: Oxford University, 1997.
Avigad, N. “The Epitaph of a Royal Steward from Siloam Village.” Israel Exploration Journal 3 (1953): 137-52.
Barkay, Gabriel. “The Iron Age II-III.” Pp. 302-73 in The Archaeology of Ancient Israel. Ed. A. Ben-Tor. Trans. R. Greenberg. New Haven: Yale University/The Open University of Israel, 1992.
Barkay, Gabriel et al. “The Amulets from Ketef Hinnom: A New Edition and Evaluation.” Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research 334 (2004): 41-71.
Burnett, D. Clint. Studying the New Testament through Inscriptions. Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Academic, 2020.
Clermont-Ganneau, Charles. “Discovery of a Tablet from Herod’s Temple.” Palestine Exploration Quarterly 3.3 (1871): 132-33.
Cogan, Mordechai. “Cyrus Cylinder (2.124).” Pp. 314-16 in Context of Scripture, vol. 2. Eds. W. W. Hallo and K. L. Younger, Jr. Leiden: Brill, 2000.
Curtis, John. The Cyrus Cylinder and Ancient Persia: A New Beginning for the Middle East. London: The Trustees of the British Museum, 2013.
Deissmann, Adolf. Light from the Ancient East: The New Testament Illustrated by Recently Discovered Texts of the Graeco-Roman World. 4th ed. Trans. Lionel R. M. Strachan. 1922. Grand Rapids: Baker, 1978.
Dever, William G. What Did the Biblical Writers Know and When Did They Know It? Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2001.
Ferguson, Everett. Backgrounds of Early Christianity. 2d ed. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1993.
Geisler, Norman L. and William E. Nix. A General Introduction to the Bible. Chicago: Moody, 1968.
Hoffmeier, James K. Israel in Egypt: The Evidence for the Authenticity of the Exodus Tradition. New York: Oxford, 1997.
Lemaire, André. “‘House of David’ Restored in Moabite Inscription.” Biblical Archaeology Review 20.3 (1994): 30-37.
McCarter, P. Kyle. “The Royal Steward Inscription (2.54).” Pp. 180 in The Context of Scripture, vol. 2. Eds. W. W. Hallo and K. L. Younger, Jr. Leiden: Brill, 2000.
Meshel, Ze’ev. “Did Yahweh Have a Consort?” Biblical Archaeology Review 5.2 (1979): 24-35.
Meshel, Ze’ev. Kuntillet ‘Ajrud: A Religious Centre from the Time of the Judaean Monarchy on the Border of Sinai. Catalogue no. 175. Jerusalem: The Israel Museum, 1978.
Millard, Alan. “The Tell Dan Stele (2.39).” Pp. 161-62 in The Context of Scripture, vol. 2. Eds. W. W. Hallo and K. L. Younger, Jr. Leiden: Brill, 2000.
Niditch, Susan. Oral Word and Written Word: Ancient Israelite Literature. Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1996.
Dale W. Manor, Ph.D.
Professor Emeritus Archaeology and Hebrew Bible Harding University
Field Director of the Tel Beth-Shemesh Excavations, Israel
NOTE: Not every view expressed by scholars contributing Thinker articles necessarily reflects the views of Patterns of Evidence. We include perspectives from various sides of debates on biblical matters so that readers can become familiar with the different arguments involved. – Keep Thinking!
