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Tel Dan Stele
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The Tel Dan Stele is a black basalt stele erected by an Aramaean king in northernmost Israel containing an Aramaic inscription to commemorate his victory over the ancient Hebrews. Its author is unknown, but may be a king of Damascus, Hazael or one of his sons.
The inscription is a fragment but it has generated excitement among biblical scholars and biblical archaelogists because the letters '??????' are identical to the Hebrew for "house of David." If these letters refer to the Davidic line then this is the first time the name "David" has been recognized at any archaeological site.
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Encyclopedia
The Tel Dan Stele is a black basalt stele erected by an Aramaean king in northernmost Israel containing an Aramaic inscription to commemorate his victory over the ancient Hebrews. Its author is unknown, but may be a king of Damascus, Hazael or one of his sons.
The inscription is a fragment but it has generated excitement among biblical scholars and biblical archaelogists because the letters '??????' are identical to the Hebrew for "house of David." If these letters refer to the Davidic line then this is the first time the name "David" has been recognized at any archaeological site. The scholarly consensus among archaeologists and epigrahers is that the fragment is an authentic reference to the Biblical King David.
Like the Mesha stele, the Tel Dan Stele seems typical of a memorial intended as a sort of military propaganda, which boasts of Hazael's or his son's victories. Some epigraphers think that the phrase "house of David" also appears in a partly broken line in the Mesha stele.
Authorship
Although the name of the author of the stele does not seem to appear on the available fragments, it is most likely a king of neighboring Damascus. Language, time, and location make it plausible that the author was Hazael or his son, Bar Hadad II/III, who were kings of Damascus and enemies of the kingdom of Israel.
Discovery
The stele was discovered at Tel Dan, previously named Tell el-Qadi, a mound where a city once stood at the northern tip of Israel .
Fragment A was discovered in 1993, and fragments B1 and B2, which fit together, were discovered in 1994. In the broken part of the stone below the smooth writing surface, there is a possible "internal" fit between fragment A and the assembled fragments B1/B2, but it is uncertain and disputed. If the fit is correct, then the pieces were originally side by side.
Date
The inscription has been dated to the 9th or 8th centuries BCE. The 8th-century limit is determined by a destruction layer caused by a well-documented Assyrian conquest in 733/732 BCE. Because that destruction layer was above the layer in which the stele fragments were found, it is clear that it took place after the stele had been erected, then broken into pieces which were later used in a construction project at Tel Dan, presumably by Hebrew builders. It is difficult to discern how long before that Assyrian conquest these earlier events took place.
George Athas downdates the inscription, proposing that the author is not Hazael, but rather his son Bar Hadad.
Inscription narrative
Following is a line-by-line translation by André Lemaire. Missing text or text that is too damaged by erosion is represented by "[.....]"):
1'. [.....................].......[...................................] and cut [.........................]
2'. [.........] my father went up [....................f]ighting at/against Ab[....]
3'. And my father lay down; he went to his [fathers]. And the king of I[s-]
4'. rael penetrated into my father's land[. And] Hadad made me—myself—king.
5'. And Hadad went in front of me[, and] I departed from ...........[.................]
6'. of my kings. And I killed two [power]ful kin[gs], who harnessed two thou[sand cha-]
7'. riots and two thousand horsemen. [I killed Jo]ram son of [Ahab]
8'. king of Israel, and I killed [Achaz]yahu son of [Joram kin]g
9'. of the House of David. And I set [.......................................................]
10'. their land ...[.......................................................................................]
11'. other ...[......................................................................... and Jehu ru-]
12'. led over Is[rael...................................................................................]
13'. siege upon [............................................................]
Possible Biblical parallels
The writings may coincide with certain events recorded in the Old Testament:
- 2 Kings 8:7-15 tells how, before Hazael became king of Aram, his predecessor was ill and finally died in his bed:
- 7. And Elisha came to Damascus; and Benhadad the king of Syria was sick; and it was told him, saying, The man of God is come hither.
- 8.And the king said unto Hazael, Take a present in thine hand, and go, meet the man of God, and enquire of the LORD by him, saying, Shall I recover of this disease?
- 9. So Hazael went to meet him, and took a present with him, even of every good thing of Damascus, forty camels' burden, and came and stood before him, and said, Thy son Benhadad king of Syria hath sent me to thee, saying, Shall I recover of this disease?
- 10. And Elisha said unto him, Go, say unto him, Thou mayest certainly recover: howbeit the LORD hath shewed me that he shall surely die.
- 11. And he settled his countenance stedfastly, until he was ashamed: and the man of God wept.
- 12. And Hazael said, Why weepeth my lord? And he answered, Because I know the evil that thou wilt do unto the children of Israel: their strong holds wilt thou set on fire, and their young men wilt thou slay with the sword, and wilt dash their children, and rip up their women with child.
- 13. And Hazael said, But what, is thy servant a dog, that he should do this great thing? And Elisha answered, The LORD hath shewed me that thou shalt be king over Syria.
- 14. So he departed from Elisha, and came to his master; who said to him, What said Elisha to thee? And he answered, He told me that thou shouldest surely recover.
- 15. And it came to pass on the morrow, that he took a thick cloth, and dipped it in water, and spread it on his face, so that he died: and Hazael reigned in his stead.
- 2 Kings 8:28 and 2 Kings 9:15-16 record that, after being injured in fighting in Ramoth Gilead, Joram of Israel 'was laid up' in Jezreel:
- 28. And he went with Joram the son of Ahab to the war against Hazael king of Syria in Ramothgilead; and the Syrians wounded Joram.
- 15. But king Joram was returned to be healed in Jezreel of the wounds which the Syrians had given him, when he fought with Hazael king of Syria.) And Jehu said, If it be your minds, then let none go forth nor escape out of the city to go to tell it in Jezreel.
- 16. So Jehu rode in a chariot, and went to Jezreel; for Joram lay there. And Ahaziah king of Judah was come down to see Joram.
Dispute over the phrase "House of David"
Due to the mention of both "Israel" and the "House of David", the Tel Dan Stele is often quoted as supporting evidence for the Bible. However, critics have suggested other readings of ??????, usually based on the fact that the written form "DWD" can be rendered both as David and as Dod (Hebrew for "beloved") or related forms. In ancient Hebrew a dot was sometimes used to divide separate words. For example, the phrase "House of David" could be written as ???•???. The Aramean writer of the Tel Dan Stele, who is writing to commemerate a victory over the Hebrews, did not employ the Hebrew word divider for ??????.
Views of Biblical scholars
Anson Rainey, defending the reading "House of David" stated that "a word divider between two components in such a construction is often omitted, especially if the combination is a well-established proper name."
Gary Rendsburg supports Rainey's position and stated that the phrase Bit ("house of") + X ("founder") is the Aramaean, Assyrian, and Babylonian way of referring to an Aramaean state. Rendsburg also stated, "[o]ne might even venture that the Assyrian designation Bit-Humri "house of Omri" for the kingdom of Israel reached Assyrian scribes through Aramaean mediation."
Philip Davies writes:
But let’s leave this wishful thinking and return to the critical six letters, BYTDWD, to see what they really might mean. Admittedly there are two verbal elements here, of which the first is beth, house. But the probability is that the second element completes a place-name, such as Beth Lehem (House of Bread) or Bethlehem (one word), as it is commonly written in Latin letters. It seems intrinsically more likely that a place-name composed with beth would be written as one word, rather than a phrase meaning “House of David,” referring to the dynasty of David. Such a place name could be Beth-dod (the w serving as rudimentary vowel, a so-called mater lectionis; the same last three letters are consistently used to spell the last syllable of the Philistine city of Ashdod) or Bethdaud (with a slightly different vowel pronunciation). All these place-names are quite reasonable suggestions...There are other possibilities...For example, in a contemporaneous inscription, the famous Mesha stele or Moabite stone,c the phrase ’R’L DWDH (????? ?????) appears. The second word remains somewhat of a puzzle. Some scholars, though a minority, translate it “David” and regard it as the name of the founder of the ruling dynasty of Judah...But the final heh makes this meaning unlikely. The noun dawidum is also found in a cuneiform text from Mari (18th century B.C.E.), offering another possible clue, though the meaning of this term remains unclear. In the Bible DWD can mean “beloved” or “uncle,” and in one place (1 Samuel 2:14), it means “kettle.” So a number of ways of understanding DWD present themselves, most of them more plausible than translating “David.”
Thomas L. Thompson has argued that, even if it could be shown that the terms "of the house of David" and "of the house of Omri" were used to describe the kings of Judah and Israel at that time, we should not conclude that they saw David and Omri as recent ancestors who had founded dynasties in the modern sense, other interpretations of the term "house of" in this context are possible.
Configuration controversy
George Athas proposes that the three extant fragments of the inscription have been placed in a wrong configuration (for the popular configuration, see the figure above). He argues that Fragment A (the largest) should be placed well above Fragments B1 and B2 (which fit together). He also suggests that ?????? is actually a reference to Jerusalem, arguing that it is the Aramaic equivalent of "City of David". He also provides evidence for the authenticity of the fragments (called into question by some, such as Russell Gmirkin), and downdates the inscription, proposing that the author is not Hazael, as is popularly touted, but rather his son Bar Hadad.
Authenticity controversy
Athas also provided evidence for the authenticity of the fragments, which were called into question by some, including Russell Gmirkin.
Views of archaeologists and epigraphers
Professional archaeologists object to these reinterpretations, often noting that they are suggested by Biblical scholars who have no formal qualifications in the relevant fields. In favour of the reading 'House of David', archaeologist Kenneth Kitchen writes in response to the contrary views of Thomas L. Thompson:
'(i) The name "David" may be unusual, but is not unparalleled. Long centuries before, it was borne by a West Semitic chief carpenter in about 1730 B.C. on an Egyptian stela formerly in the collection at Rio de Janeiro. (ii) Dwd is neither the name (which Thompson admits) nor an epithet of a deity. Others are beloved of deities (for which references are legion!), but male deities are not beloved of others, human or divine (only goddesses are beloved of their divine husbands in Egypt). (iii) Mesha's stela is ninth, not eighth, century. (iv) On Mesha's stela dwd(h) is not a divine epithet of YHWH or anyone else.'
'(v) Contrary to TLT, "House of X" does mean a dynastic founder, all over the Near East, in the first half of the first millennium B.C.; it was an Aramean usage that passed into Assyrian nomenclature, and examples are common. (vi) Again, the expression, in part of its usage, is like the British "House of Stuart", etc. Such usages were not peculiar to Aram, Assyria, and Judah either: in Egypt, the official title given to the Twelfth Dynasty (Turin Canon) was "Kings of the House (lit. 'Residence') of Ithet-Tawy" = 'the Dynasty of Ithet-Tawy". And the Thirteenth Dynasty was duly entitled "Kings who came after the [House of] King Sehetepibre" (founder of the Twelfth Dynasty). (vii) The charge of forgery is a baseless slur against the Dan expedition, without a particle of foundation in fact.'
Also in favour of the reading 'House of David', archaeologist William Dever writes:
'On the "positivist" side of the controversy, regarding the authenticity of the inscription, we now have published opinions by most of the world's leading epigraphers (none of whom is a "biblicist" in Thompson's sense): the inscription means exactly what it says. On the "negativist" side, we have the opinions of Thompson, Lemche, and Cryer of the Copenhagen School. The reader may choose.'
Minority views
A minority view is that DWD is the Hebrew rendering of Thoth (pronounced, according to the Ancient Greeks, as Toot - as in Tutmose), thus the expression might refer to a temple of Thoth. The Egyptologist Kenneth Kitchen points out that there is no known temple of Thoth in the area.
Others believe that ?????? refers to an unknown geographic location.
Further reading
In chronological order:
- Biran, Avraham and Joseph Naveh (1993). "An Aramaic Stele Fragment from Tel Dan." Israel Exploration Journal 43, pp. 81-98.
- Biran, Avraham and Joseph Naveh (1995). "The Tel Dan Inscription: A New Fragment." Israel Exploration Journal 45, pp. 1-18.
- Rainey, Anson F. (1994). "The 'House of David' and the House of the Deconstructionists." Biblical Archaeological Review, 20/6, p. 47.
- Rendsburg, Gary A. (1995) "On the Writing ?????? in the Aramaic Inscription from Tel Dan." Israel Exploration Journal 45, pp. 22-25.
- Schniedewind, William M. (with Bruce Zuckerman) (2001). "A Possible Reconstruction of the Name of Hazael's Father in the Tel Dan Inscription." Israel Exploration Journal 51, pp. 88-91.
- Gmirkin, Russell (2002). "Tools, Slippage, and the Tel Dan Inscription." Scandinavian Journal of the Old Testament 16 (2).
- Athas, George (2003). The Tel Dan Inscription: A Reappaisal and a New Interpretation. JSOTSupp 360; CIS 12; Sheffield, England: Sheffield Academic Press. ISBN 0-567-04043-7.
- Mykytiuk, Lawrence J. (2004). Identifying Biblical Persons in Northwest Semitic Inscriptions of 1200-539 B.C.E. SBL Academia Biblica series, no. 12. Atlanta, Ga.: Society of Biblical Literature. Pp. 110-132 and 277. ISBN 1-58983-062-8.
See also
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