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Tel Dan Stele

Tel Dan Stele

The stele from Tel Dan stele is a basalt black erected by a king Aramaic in the north of Israel. It contains an Aramaic inscription which commemorates the victory of former king Jews. Although the name of the author of the stele does not seem to appear on these fragments, it is probably a king living near Damascus. The timing, language and location make it plausible that the author is Hazael or his son Bar-Hadad II , who were rulers of Damascus and enemies of the kingdom of Israel in the ninth century BC. AD.

The stele was discovered at Tel Dan , previously named Tell el-Qadi, a hill where there was a city in the extreme north of Israel. Fragment A was discovered in 1993, and fragments B1 and B2, which go together, in 1994. In the broken part of the stele, in the scriptures, there could be a point of contact "internal" as possible between the A fragment and fragments B1/B2 assembled, but it is controversial. If this contact point exists, then the pieces were originally side by side.

The inscription was dated eighth or ninth century BC. AD. The end of the eighth century corresponds to the destruction caused by conquering Assyrians in -733. As this destruction layer was above the layer in which the stele fragments were found, it is clear that it took place after the stele was erected, then broken into several pieces, which were reused more Later, in a construction project at Tel Dan, presumably by builders Israelites. The time between these events and the Assyrian conquest is difficult to estimate.

Although only fragments of the inscription have remained, it strongly attracted the interest of archaeologists. Attention is focused on the letters' "which are identical to the Hebrew " House of David. "If the reading is correct, this would be the first identification of the king" David "on an archaeological site.
As the Mesha stele , the Tel Dan stele seems to function as a memorial to military propaganda, praising the victories of King Hazael or his son. (Some epigraphs, including Andre Lemaire , believe that the phrase " house of David "also appears in a line of partially broken stele of Mesha .)

Summary

Translation of the stele

Below is a translation done line by line by Andre Lemaire (the text can not be read as missing, or too distorted by erosion is represented by " Possible Parallel Bible

Entries may coincide with some events recorded in the Hebrew Bible :

  • 2 Kings 8:7-15 tells how, before Hazael becomes king of Aram , his predecessor was ill and died in his bed:
7. Elisha went to Damascus. Ben Hadad, king of Syria was sick, and it warned, saying the man of God has come here.
8. The king said to Hazael, Take a present with you, and go to meet the man of God, he consults the Lord, saying, Shall I recover of this disease?
9. Hazael went to meet Elisha, taking with him a present, all that was best in Damascus, forty camels' burden. When he arrived, he presented himself, saying, Thy son Ben-Hadad king of Syria hath sent me unto thee, saying, Shall I recover of this disease?
10. Elisha replied, "Go, tell him: You will recover! But the Lord told me that he will die.
11. The man of God caught his eye on Hazael, and stared long and then he wept.
12. Hazael said, Why does my lord weep there? And he answered: Because I know the harm you will do to the children of Israel thou set on fire to their fortified cities, you kill with the sword and their young men you dash their little children, and you split the belly their mothers.
13. Hazael said, But what thy servant, that dog, to do such great things? And Elisha said, Jehovah has revealed to me that thou shalt be king over Syria.
14. He departed from Elisha, and returned to his master, who told him: What did you say Elisha? And he answered: He told me: You get well!
15. The next day Hazael took a blanket, he plunged into the water, and laid him on the face of the king, who died. And Hazael reigned in his stead.
8:28. He went with Joram son of Ahab to war against Hazael king of Syria at Ramoth Gilead. And the Syrians wounded Joram.
9:15. but it was King Joram returned to Jezreel to be healed the wounds which the Syrians had given him, when he fought against Hazael king of Syria. And Jehu said, If this is your desire, no one will escape from the city to bring the news to Jezreel.
9:16. And Jehu mounted his chariot and went to Jezreel, for Joram lay there and Ahaziah king of Judah had come down to visit.

Controversy about the words "House of David"

Because of the mention of " Israel "and (BYTDWD," House of David "), the Tel Dan stele is often cited as the only material support for the historical reality of David (Bible). However, critics have suggested other readings , mainly based on the fact that the letters "DWD" can just as easily read than David Dod (Hebrew for "uncle" or "liked") or related forms.

In ancient Hebrew , to separate words, a marker of separation represented by a dot should be placed between the letters. For example, "House of David" should be written , which is not true of the stele from Tel Dan.
Anson Rainey, a defender playing "House of David," writes a marker separation between two components of such a construction is often omitted, especially if the combination is a proper name is well established. "Gary Rendsburg adds to the Rainey's opinion by showing that means in Aramaic , Assyrian and Babylonian , Aramaic, a state run by the Bit + X (Note: In this pattern, Bit BYT is equivalent to "home", and X is usually called the person considered as having founded a dynasty.
Rendsburg adds that "One might even venture to say that the Assyrian phrase Bit Humr (" house of Omri ") to designate the kingdom of Israel came to the Assyrian scribes over the Syrians." (Omri is a king of Israel , whose reign extended from -873 to -844 , and founded a dynasty that reigned over Israel for four kingdoms. During these kingdoms, Israel entered into military conflict with Assyria. The Assyrian annals mention King Ahab son of Omri, as an "Ahab the Israelite," who fought against Assyria.)

George Athas think that the three fragments of the inscription were placed in the wrong configuration (for configuring consensually accepted, cf. Illustration above). It offers a configuration that Fragment A (largest) would be placed well above Fragments B1 and B2 (which fit perfectly). It also suggests that may actually refer to Jerusalem , that candidate would be the equivalent Aramaic for " City of David. " It also provides evidence for the authenticity of the fragments (which had been questioned by, among others, Russell Gmirkin), and revises the dating of the inscription down, offering as an author not Hazael, as popularly accepted, but his son, Bar Hadad.

A minority view in DWD would render Hebrew Thoth (pronounced, according to the ancient Greeks, Touth - cf. Tuthmosis ) BYTDWD then making reference to a temple of Thoth. The Egyptologist Kenneth Kitchen Anderson noted, however, that there is no temple of Thoth known in this region.

Others think refers to a geographic location unknown.

It has been suggested by Thomas L. Thompson that, even if it could be shown that the terms "house of David" and "house of Omri" did refer to the kings of Judah and Israel at that time, one could conclude that they saw David and Omri as their recent ancestors, who founded their dynasties in the modern sense, and other interpretations of the term "home" in this context are possible.

Recommended 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.
  • Andr Lemaire (2001), the Canaanites, the Levant and the sea, copyright Clio 2006
  • Gmirkin, Russell (2002). "Tools, Slippage, & the Tel Dan Inscription." Scandinavian Journal of the Old Testament 16 (2).
  • Athas, George (2003). The Tel Dan Inscription: A New Interpretation Reappaisal and has. 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 BCE SBL Academia Biblica series, no. 12. Atlanta, Ga.: Society of Biblical Literature. Pp 110-132 and 277. ISBN 1-58983-062-8.

and in French,

See also


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