Tel Dan stele: Difference between revisions - Wikipedia

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=== Overview ===

The Tel Dan stele consists of several fragments making up part of a triumphal inscription in [[Aramaic language|Aramaic]], left most probably by [[Hazael]]{{citation needed|date=December 2020}} of [[Aram-Damascus]], an important regional figure in the late 9th&nbsp;century BCE. The unnamed king boasts of his victories over the [[Kingdom of Israel (Samaria)|king of Israel]] and his apparent ally<ref name="Athas">{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=OPqpzmYBOxgC&q=alliance&pg=PA217|title=The Tel Dan Inscription: A Reappraisal and a New Introduction|last1=Athas|first1=George|date=2006|publisher= A&C Black |isbn= 9780567040435978-0-567-04043-5 |page= 217 |language= en |access-date= 1 April 2019}}</ref> the king of the [[Davidic line|"House of David"]] (''[[bet (letter)|b]] [[yodh|y]] [[tav (letter)|t]] [[dalet|d]] [[waw (letter)|w]] [[dalet|d]]''). It is considered the earliest widely accepted reference to the name David as the founder of a [[Kingdom of Judah|Judahite]] polity outside of the [[Hebrew Bible]],{{sfn|Finkelstein|Mazar|Schmidt|2007|p=14}} though the earlier [[Mesha Stele]] contains several possible references with varying acceptance. A minority of scholars have disputed the reference to David, due to the lack of a [[word divider]] between ''byt'' and ''dwd'', and other translations have been proposed. The Tel Dan stele is one of four known inscriptions made during a roughly 400-year period (1200-8001200–800 BCE) containing the name "Israel", the others being the [[Merneptah Stele]], the [[Mesha Stele]], and the [[Kurkh Monolith]].{{sfn|Lemche|1998|pp=46, 62|ps=: “ "No other inscription from Palestine, or from Transjordan in the Iron Age, has so far provided any specific reference to Israel. ... The name of Israel was found in only a very limited number of inscriptions, one from Egypt, another separated by at least 250 years from the first, in Transjordan. A third reference is found in the stele from Tel Dan -– if it is genuine, a question not yet settled. The Assyrian and Mesopotamian sources only once mentioned a king of Israel, Ahab, in a spurious rendering of the name".}}<ref>{{Cite book |last= Maeir |first=Aren M. |year=2013 |chapter=Israel and Judah |title=The Encyclopedia of Ancient History |place=New York |publisher=Blackwell |chapter-url=https://www.academia.edu/2501888 |pages=3523–27 |quote=The earliest certain mention of the ethnonym Israel occurs in a victory inscription of the Egyptian king MERENPTAH, his well-known "Israel Stela" (ca. 1210 BCE); recently, a possible earlier reference has been identified in a text from the reign of Rameses II (see RAMESES I–XI). Thereafter, no reference to either Judah or Israel appears until the ninth century. The pharaoh Sheshonq I (biblical Shishak; see SHESHONQ I–VI) mentions neither entity by name in the inscription recording his campaign in the southern Levant during the late tenth century. In the ninth century, Israelite kings, and possibly a Judaean king, are mentioned in several sources: the Aramaean stele from Tel Dan, inscriptions of Shalmaneser III of Assyria, and the stela of Mesha of Moab. From the early eighth century onward, the kingdoms of Israel and Judah are both mentioned somewhat regularly in Assyrian and subsequently Babylonian sources, and from this point on there is relatively good agreement between the biblical accounts on the one hand and the archaeological evidence and extra-biblical texts on the other.}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal|last=Fleming|first=Daniel E.| date=1998-01-01|title=Mari and the Possibilities of Biblical Memory |journal=Revue d'Assyriologie et d'archéologie orientale| volume=92 |issue=1 |pages=41–78|jstor=23282083|quote= The Assyrian royal annals, along with the Mesha and Dan inscriptions, show a thriving northern state called Israël in the mid—9th century, and the continuity of settlement back to the early Iron Age suggests that the establishment of a sedentary identity should be associated with this population, whatever their origin. In the mid—14th century, the Amarna letters mention no Israël, nor any of the biblical tribes, while the Merneptah stele places someone called Israël in hill-country Palestine toward the end of the Late Bronze Age. The language and material culture of emergent Israël show strong local continuity, in contrast to the distinctly foreign character of early Philistine material culture.}}</ref>

The Tel Dan inscription generated considerable debate and a flurry of articles, debating its age, authorship, and authenticity;{{sfn|Lemche|1998|p=41|ps=: "The inscription is kept in a kind of "pidgin" Aramaic, sometimes looking more like a kind of mixed language in which Aramaic and Phoenician linguistic elements are jumbled together, in its phraseology nevertheless closely resembling especially the [[Mesha Stele|Mesha inscription]] and the Aramaic [[Stele of Zakkur|Zakkur inscription]] from Aphis near Aleppo. The narrow links between the Tel Dan inscription and these two inscriptions are of a kind that has persuaded at least one major specialist into believing that the inscription is a forgery. This cannot be left out of consideration in advance, because some of the circumstances surrounding its discovery may speak against its being genuine. Other examples of forgeries of this kind are well known, and clever forgers have cheated even respectable scholars into accepting something that is obviously false".}} however, the stele is generally accepted by scholars as genuine and a reference to the [[Davidic line|House of David]].<ref name=":2">{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=kcVmBAEo5rcC&pg=PA333|title=Ahab Agonistes: The Rise and Fall of the Omri Dynasty|last=Grabbe|first=Lester L.|date=2007-04-28|publisher=Bloomsbury Publishing USA|isbn=9780567251718978-0-567-25171-8|language=en|quote=The Tel Dan inscription generated a good deal of debate and a flurry of articles when it first appeared, but it is now widely regarded (a) as genuine and (b) as referring to the Davidic dynasty and the Aramaic kingdom of Damascus.}}</ref><ref name=":0">{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=uGzRCwAAQBAJ&pg=PA61|title=Biblical Archaeology: A Very Short Introduction|last=Cline|first=Eric H.|date=2009-09-28|publisher=Oxford University Press| isbn= 9780199711628978-0-19-971162-8| language=en|quote=Today, after much further discussion in academic journals, it is accepted by most archaeologists that the inscription is not only genuine but that the reference is indeed to the House of David, thus representing the first allusion found anywhere outside the Bible to the biblical David.}}</ref><ref name=":1">{{harvnb|Mykytiuk|2004|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=eprY1Qd0veAC&pg=PA113 113]}}. "Some unfounded accusations of forgery have had little or no effect on the scholarly acceptance of this inscription as genuine."}}</ref>

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