Archaeologist claims relic bears oldest Hebrew writing

HIRBET QEIYAFA, Israel – An Israeli archaeologist has discovered what he believes is the oldest known Hebrew inscription on a 3,000-year-old pottery shard – a find that suggests Biblical accounts of the ancient Israelite kingdom of David could have been based on written texts.

A teenage volunteer discovered the curved shard bearing five lines of faded characters in July in the ruins of an ancient town on a hilltop south of Jerusalem. Yossi Garfinkel, the Israeli archaeologist leading the excavations at Hirbet Qeiyafa, released his conclusions about the writing Thursday after months of study.

He said the relic is strong evidence that the ancient Israelites were literate and could chronicle events centuries before the Bible was written. This could suggest that some of the Bible’s accounts were based on written records as well as oral traditions – adding credence to arguments that the Biblical account of history is more than myth.

The shard was found near the stairs and stone washtub of an excavated home. It was later discovered to bear characters known as proto-Canaanite, a precursor of the Hebrew alphabet.

The Israelites were not the only ones using the proto-Canaanite characters, and other scholars suggest it is difficult – perhaps impossible – to conclude the text is Hebrew. However, Garfinkel based his identification on a three-letter verb from the inscription meaning “to do,” a word he said existed only in Hebrew.

“That leads us to believe that this is Hebrew, and that this is the oldest Hebrew inscription that has been found,” he said.

Hirbet Qeiyafa sits near the modern Israeli city of Beit Shemesh in the Judean foothills, an area that was once the frontier between the hill-dwelling Israelites and their enemies, the coastal Philistines.

Carbon-14 analysis of burnt olive pits found in the same layer of the site as the pottery shard helped archaeologists date it to between 1,000 and 975 B.C., the same time as the Biblical golden age of King David’s rule in Jerusalem.

Archaeology has turned up only scant finds from David’s time in the early 10th century B.C., leading some scholars to argue the Bible’s account of the period inflates the importance of him and his kingdom. Some have even suggested his kingdom may not have existed at all.

But the fortified settlement where the writing was found contains indications that a powerful Israelite kingdom existed near Jerusalem in David’s time, says Garfinkel.

If his claim is borne out, it would bolster the case for the Bible’s accuracy by indicating the Israelites could record events as they happened, transmitting the history that was recorded in the Old Testament several hundred years later.