Hebrew writing older than thought – Haaretz

You mean that the Israelis knew how to write Hebrew around the time that the Old Testament said they knew how to write? Yes, as shocking as it may seem, it appears that the Old Testament was telling the truth when it says that King David and the rest of the crew afterward knew how to write in Hebrew. [<== sarcastic sentence] According to Haaretz, a daily Israeli newspaper:

Deciphered etching sheds new light on Bible’s origin

Did the writing of the Bible begin as far back as the 10th century B.C.E., during the time of King David? That is four centuries earlier than Biblical scholars currently believe – but an inscription recently deciphered by a scholar at Haifa University indicates that for at least some books of the Bible, the answer may be yes.

The inscription, written in ink on clay, is the earliest yet found in Hebrew. It was discovered about 18 months ago in a dig at Khirbet Qeiyafa, near Emek Ha’ela. While it was quickly dated, its language remained uncertain until Prof. Gershon Galil was able to demonstrate that it was an early form of Hebrew – containing roots commonly found in Hebrew, but which are very rare in other Semitic languages.

The content, Galil said, “which relates to slaves, widows and orphans,” is typical of the Biblical text, but reflects ideas virtually unheard of in the surrounding cultures.

Galil said this discovery disproves the current theory, which holds that the Bible could not have been written before the 6th century B.C.E., because Hebrew writing did not exist until then.

However, do not be surprised to see this being denied by the Israeli Antiquities Authority or modern “scholars” in the next few days. The last few finds that were dated early by testing were quickly denied by the IAA. I would recommend that you read up on it. For instance, the James ossuary from 2002 was quickly declared false by the IAA, which promptly set off a major uproar in professional archeological circles that is still ongoing. The reason for the uproar was not simply that the IAA declared it a false box based on equivocal evidence, but that they went on to take the archeologist to criminal court! The case is still going on and the judge has already declared that he is not sure he can issue a judgment on the case based on the major disagreements between professional archeologists and epigraphers. The FBI (yes, our USA FBI) has actually testified in favor of the defense that the box was not faked around the year 2000, based on their analyses!

Beginning in the 1990’s, archeological minimalists gained ascendancy in various circles of “modern” biblical scholarship. They went farther than the theological modernists of the 19th and 20th centuries. The minimalists questioned whether King David had even existed, whether he was a King or just a glorified robber baron, etc. The previous modernists had cut the Old Testament up into competing layers without any proof other than their “scholarly” insights. But, thank God, the modern minimalists actually went into history, which means that there are ways to challenge them. You see, with the modernists, their counter-argument to every argument was a superior smirk and the claims that those who disagreed with them were merely over-protective traditionalists. But, the minimalist claims drift over into the area of provable ground. That is, provided that there is not an IAA waiting to prosecute those who dare to make claims that do not accord with minimalism.

And, little by little, evidence has been piling up that the minimalist viewpoint was (and is) vastly overblown and based primarily on a skepticism that was (and is) unbalanced. The latest archeological find just simply strips another of the claims of the minimalists from provable reality. Mind you, that does not mean that the traditional interpretation of some bits of Biblical history is correct. It is not. Let me give you two examples:

1. In Sunday School we are often given the idea that Joshua went into Canaan and conquered all of Israel. However, the Books of Joshua, Judges, Samuel, and the Kings give a different view. The early tribes only controlled the hill country, but the flatland was controlled by the Philistines. The conquest took several hundred years according to the Bible itself.
2. In Sunday School, we are often taught as though the Israelites were uniformly monotheists. However, from the Exodus through pre-exilic Israel, the prophets regularly and often complain that there is polytheism in Israel. All our archeological evidence actually confirms what the prophets complained about. Polytheism was a problem in Israel until after the Exile.

So, there were some good things about the modernists and the minimalists. They forced us to really read Scriptures, to try to fully see what was (and is) actually written. Oddly enough, when we did that, there was much in archeology that actually agreed with Scripture. But, there was much in feminist and liberation readings of Scripture that also actually accorded with some rather ancient traditions. For instance, a feminist reading of the Bathsheeba story actually agreed more with ancient Talmud and Early Church Fathers tradition than with the Medieval inherited story that pictures Bathsheeba as someone who enticed King David. Instead, both the Talmud and the Early Church said that Bathsheeba had been raped. And, when one reads the Bible carefully one sees that, yes, Bathsheeba was a victim, not an instigator.

The problem with both the modernists and the minimalists is that they drove the evidence way beyond into a rejection that was based merely on philosophy rather than on sound analysis. Today’s newspaper story reminds us that sound analysis, good scientific research, a willingness to believe that the writers of Scripture were not lying or simply conflating stories to make them into heroic tales, and a willingness to believe that the Early Church Fathers actually knew something of what they were talking about, are part of the sound basis necessary to properly understand Scripture.

Both the modernists and the minimalists made and make the mistake of thinking that their own intellectual efforts, isolated from history and from sound science, are sufficient to interpret what really happened back in those times. Hmm, and post-modernists make the identical mistake. They see themselves as sufficient unto themselves and every conclusion which they draw.