The Battle Over Scratches On A Rock!

[Minimalist]

This is actually amusing.   There's this rock.  And there are scratches on the rock.  And it seems like a Rorschach test for archaeologists.

https://www.haaretz.com/archaeology/2022...fc88a0156f

Controversy Rages Over ‘Jerusalem Curse’ Inscription

Is there even any writing at all on the slab found in an ancient temple in Jerusalem, and if there is, what does it say?

In mid-July, Prof. Gershon Galil, a biblical scholar from Haifa University, announced that he had deciphered an ancient inscription found in Jerusalem some 12 years earlier, the earliest and most important inscription discovered to date in Jerusalem.”

Since his announcement, fur has been flying. Does the stone found in an ancient temple on the slope below Temple Mount even have any writing on it, or are those just chisel marks? If there is writing on it, what does it say?

Always have to be suspicious of these so-called "biblical scholars."

[arewethereyet]

Gawddidit.

When you can't figure out the answer, it's always Gawddidit.

[Kim]

This guy is seeing what he wants to see.

Find more of these marks on 2 or more stones from that same year, then decide if they mean anything coherent. Until then, they're just rando chisel marks.


Unless of course, it's Dada.
I'd be down with that.

[Bucky Ball]

This is actually amusing.   There's this rock.  And there are scratches on the rock.  And it seems like a Rorschach test for archaeologists.

https://www.haaretz.com/archaeology/2022...fc88a0156f

Controversy Rages Over ‘Jerusalem Curse’ Inscription

Is there even any writing at all on the slab found in an ancient temple in Jerusalem, and if there is, what does it say?

In mid-July, Prof. Gershon Galil, a biblical scholar from Haifa University, announced that he had deciphered an ancient inscription found in Jerusalem some 12 years earlier, the earliest and most important inscription discovered to date in Jerusalem.”

Since his announcement, fur has been flying. Does the stone found in an ancient temple on the slope below Temple Mount even have any writing on it, or are those just chisel marks? If there is writing on it, what does it say?

Always have to be suspicious of these so-called "biblical scholars."

I would only buy the opinions of a few archaeologists we know from their past "independence" are not beholden to anyone or anything.
It does look like it's more than chisel marks, but it doesn't look like anything related to Hebrew writing, in any way.

[Minimalist]

There, Buck, you put your finger on the entire problem.

The Proto-Sinaitic script apparently developed in Egypt in the First Intermediate Phase between the Old and Middle Kingdoms early in the second millennium BCE.  It then spread to the Levant where it evolved into Proto-Canaanite, Phoenician and ultimately Aramaic and Hebrew.  But the problem is not the script.  It is that there are so many languages and dialects spread across the region over such a long period of time and the handful of scribes who could actually read and write this script adapted it to whatever language/dialect they were speaking.  For the most part, what we have are not monumental inscriptions recounting some event.  It is more like graffiti or shipping invoices, inventory lists, etc.

One of the most enlightening things I ever spotted was a side by side translation of the Khirbet Qeiyafa ostracon.  This post, from April, 2019, provides 3 separate translations of the same inscription.

https://atheistdiscussion.org/forums/sho...#pid103459


For the record, the Khirbet Qeiyafa inscription contains 69 "letters"  of which only 40 can be read.  It is written in ink on pottery and has suffered extensive wear from the passage of time.

This is what the artifact looks like:




And the claims that were made about it are simply mind-boggling!

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Gawddidit.

When you can't figure out the answer, it's always Gawddidit.

Did knot!

[Phaedrus]

Probably from a lion sharpening its claws.

[no one]

It actually says: "Oh vey, Moshe, I wanna go to Miami!"

[Minimalist]

Maybe it says "Bacon is good."