Monday, February 06, 2006

JOE CATHEY has published a very full research bibliography for the Tel Dan Inscription. It looks extremely useful, and the comments to the post have some supplements. This is a follow-up to his earlier post on The Top Five Archaeological Finds - For Hebrew Bible. Regarding the latter, I would rank the Dead Sea Scrolls as the most important archaeological find for the Hebrew Bible, since it gives us the earliest and some of the best manuscripts of the texts. But if we limit ourselves only to Iron Age finds, I think I would replace the Merneptah Inscription with the Lachish Ostraca and I would really like to fit the Arad Ostraca in there somewhere. But in any case, they all belong in the top ten.

UPDATE (7 February): Christopher Heard comments on Joe's post here and here. I should also have noted the Ugaritic texts (which I would put in second place, after the Dead Sea Scrolls) and the Ketef Hinnom silver amulet, which certainly belongs in the top ten as well. And add to them the Balaam Inscription from Deir 'Alla. I think that makes more than ten. Oh well.

No comments:

Post a Comment