November 9, 2005
UN-PC ABC:
A Is for Ancient, Describing an Alphabet Found Near Jerusalem (JOHN NOBLE WILFORD, 11/09/05, NY Times)
In the 10th century B.C., in the hill country south of Jerusalem, a scribe carved his A B C's on a limestone boulder - actually, his aleph-beth-gimel's, for the string of letters appears to be an early rendering of the emergent Hebrew alphabet.Archaeologists digging in July at the site, Tel Zayit, found the inscribed stone in the wall of an ancient building. After an analysis of the layers of ruins, the discoverers concluded that this was the earliest known specimen of the Hebrew alphabet and an important benchmark in the history of writing, they said this week.
If they are right, the stone bears the oldest reliably dated example of an abecedary - the letters of the alphabet written out in their traditional sequence. Several scholars who have examined the inscription tend to support that view. [...]
The inscription was found in the context of a substantial network of buildings at the site, which led Dr. Tappy to propose that Tel Zayit was probably an important border town established by an expanding Israelite kingdom based in Jerusalem.
A border town of such size and culture, Dr. Tappy said, suggested a centralized bureaucracy, political leadership and literacy levels that seemed to support the biblical image of the unified kingdom of David and Solomon in the 10th century B.C.
"That puts us right in the middle of the squabble over whether anything important happened in Israel in that century," Dr. Stager said.
A vocal minority of scholars contend that the Bible's picture of the 10th century B.C. as a golden age in Israelite history is insupportable. Some archaeological evidence, they say, suggests that David and Solomon were little more than tribal chieftains and that it was another century before a true political state emerged.
Dr. Tappy acknowledged that he was inviting controversy by his interpretation of the Tel Zayit stone and other artifacts as evidence of a fairly advanced political system 3,000 years ago.
Posted by Orrin Judd at November 9, 2005 12:26 AM
I was watching a show a few weeks ago that was interviewing an Israeli travel guide who was trying to convince the host that David and Solomon were insignificant blips in history --- that the Philistine cities were so huge and so well defended that no army could ever have defeated them.
The lengths Jews go to disbelieve their own history is incredible. What can such self-imposed inferiority be called?
Posted by: Randall Voth at November 9, 2005 4:04 AMRegardless of the rest of the story, "abecedary" is a great word.
Posted by: JeffGuinn at November 9, 2005 7:59 AMJewish self-abasement (or debasement)---especially in the service of "the common good"---is not, alas, an unknown phenomenon.
In this case, however, one might want more information about said travel guide, since not all Israeli travel guides happen to be Jewish; moreover, in this particular case, the expert analysis provided is perfectly consistent with what certain elites and their cohorts in the media might certainly wish to feed us.
Posted by: Barry Meislin at November 9, 2005 7:59 AMAnd 12,000 years ago some guy was practicing his stone carving. And it was found. Is that cool or what?
Posted by: Mikey at November 9, 2005 8:25 AMMikey -- yeah, and he was probably the moron who had to stay late after school and practice!
Barry -- Well, the travel guide was definitely a Jewish woman, but I don't have any more specifics.
What was funny was how the host, who I don't think was a Jew, kept trying to get the travel guide to say nice things about David and Solomon and the guide kept poo-pooing their significance, in light of all "acceptable" archaeological evidence.
She finally agreed that they were "inspirational".
Posted by: Randall Voth at November 9, 2005 8:44 AMMikey - I think it would be about 3200 years ago.
Interesting that people don't dispute the fall of Jerusalem (to Babylon), they don't dispute the exile, and that they agree on post-exilic history. David and Solomon were only about 500 years earlier - and just who built Jerusalem and the temple? Hint - it wasn't Hezekiah.
Posted by: jim hamlen at November 9, 2005 10:08 AMThink of how proud the mother of the scribe is. All those millenia of disappointment that he didn't become a doctor, and now this. (Almost) makes up for it all.
Posted by: Jim in Chicago at November 9, 2005 10:45 AMWhatever the time (I'm a lawyer, not an engineer, for a very good reason) I still think it's cool.
Posted by: Mikey at November 9, 2005 12:36 PMWhat no here has picked up on is that there are 99 more of these to be found - also in the hand of this pupil who misbehaved on a particular day in school while the rest of the class was at recess.
Posted by: obc at November 9, 2005 1:40 PM