Bible written 10 BCHistory Bible Possibly Written Centuries Earlier, Text Suggests
By
Clara Moskowitz, LiveScience Staff Writer
posted: 15 January 2010 09:32 am ET
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The ancient text shown in this drawing was discovered on a shard of pottery in Israel, and turned out to be the earliest known example of Hebrew writing. Credit: University of Haifa
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The ancient text shown in this drawing was discovered on a shard of pottery in Israel, and turned out to be the earliest known example of Hebrew writing. Credit: University of Haifa var related_images = new related_module();
Scientists have discovered the earliest known Hebrew writing— an inscription dating from the 10th century B.C., during the period of KingDavid's reign.
The breakthrough could mean that portions of the Bible werewritten centuries earlier than previously thought. (The Bible's Old Testamentis thought to have been first written down in an ancient form of Hebrew.)
Until now, many scholars have held that the Hebrew
Bibleoriginated in the 6th century B.C., because Hebrew writing was thought tostretch back no further. But the newly deciphered Hebrew text is about fourcenturies older, scientists announced this month.
"It indicates that the Kingdom of Israel alreadyexisted in the 10th century BCE and that at least some of the
biblicaltexts were written hundreds of years before the dates presented in currentresearch," said Gershon Galil, a professor of Biblical Studies at theUniversity of Haifa in Israel, who deciphered the ancient text.
BCE stands for "before common era," and isequivalent to B.C., or before Christ.
The writing was discovered more than a year ago on a potteryshard dug up during excavations at Khirbet Qeiyafa, near Israel's Elah valley.The excavations were carried out by archaeologist Yosef Garfinkel of the HebrewUniversity of Jerusalem. At first, scientists could not tell if the writing wasHebrew or some other local language.
Finally, Galil was able to decipher the text. He identified wordsparticular to the Hebrew language and content specific to Hebrew culture toprove that the writing was, in fact, Hebrew.
"It uses verbs that were characteristic of Hebrew, suchas asah ('did') and avad ('worked'), which were rarely used in other regionallanguages," Galil said. "Particular words that appear in the text,such as almanah ('widow') are specific to Hebrew and are written differently inother local languages."
The
ancienttext is written in ink on a trapezoid-shaped piece of pottery about 6 inchesby 6.5 inches (15 cm by 16.5 cm). It appears to be a social statement about howpeople should treat slaves, widows and orphans. In English, it reads (bynumbered line):
1' you shall not do [it], but worship the [Lord].
2' Judge the sla[ve] and the wid[ow] / Judge the orph[an]
3' [and] the stranger. [Pl]ead for the infant / plead for the po[or and]
4' the widow. Rehabilitate [the poor] at the hands of the king.
5' Protect the po[or and] the slave / [supp]ort the stranger.
The content, which has some missing letters, is similar tosome Biblical scriptures, such as Isaiah 1:17, Psalms 72:3, and Exodus 23:3,but does not appear to be copied from any Biblical text.
