https://hcommons.org/groups/biblical-archaeology/ Activity feed for the group, Biblical archaeology. Sat, 04 Apr 2026 11:31:12 -0400 https://buddypress.org/?v=10.6.0 en-US 30 hourly 2 4fad86c7ea9e2cfc449ccf9e09413c9d https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1829944/ Mon, 16 Jan 2023 02:23:40 -0500 This is the first translation of the two graffiti texts found at the exit of Wadi el-Ḥôl ("Wadi of Terror") in the Qena bend area of Egypt. Their signs represent a transitional stage between Minoan Phaistos Disk and Linear A. These texts were found by John and Deborah Darnell during their 1993-94 excavation season (Darnell, and all 2005). Th…[Read more]

]]> 0 25fd6572f89e8fcc4902e3ae6220c282 https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1823283/ Mon, 21 Nov 2022 02:24:23 -0500 The text signs on this comb are Minoan Linear A and not the Proto-Canaanite of Serabit el-Khadim as claimed in its 2022 archaeology report. Like most pre-classical linear texts found by archaeology, the language of this text is Akkadian which was the language of the Neolithic farming culture which spread into Europe from the Near-East starting…[Read more]

]]> 0 f44f0fa620d1097e2f2768a010cb908b https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1789908/ Wed, 10 Aug 2022 02:24:50 -0400 What was the significance of ancestors in the Hebrew Bible? The question is spurred by Kerry Sonia’s Caring for the Dead, which argues that the cult of dead kin was an accepted practice in the culture of the biblical writers. In building this thesis, Sonia resists an idea popular in scholarship that the Hebrew Bible promotes a negative view of r…[Read more]

]]> 0 518341354fcd81697b16fd54bd6cfe01 https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1789904/ Wed, 10 Aug 2022 02:24:23 -0400 Feeding the dead was an accepted cultural practice in the world of biblical writers. It is circumscribed by cultic considerations in passages such as Deut 26:14, but there are no texts that prohibit the placing of food inside tombs. Thus, the biblical writers tacitly acknowledged the practice, though feeding the dead is never explicitly prescribed…[Read more]

]]> 0 2a068101aa27e263e44192379a188ffd https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1745537/ Tue, 13 Jul 2021 02:24:04 -0400 This fragmentary text is a debate about the cause of a drought between a Phoenician magic crafter devoted to the motion power class of the Ancient Pagan Paradigm and an Israelite life priest devoted to the life-growth powers. Each side blames the drought on the ineffectiveness of the other. Because the stele fragments were used as fill for or in a…[Read more]

]]> 0 1a256addb86e6d0993fc9622739e603d https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1743505/ Fri, 25 Jun 2021 02:28:32 -0400 This Phoenician letter style text dating to 1170 BCE was written in the empire language of Alphabetic Akkadian which was used by traders and temples for cross-cultural communication. Phoenician, like all other alphabetic writing, derives from the commercial Minoan writing tradition but is a separate letter style lineage apart from the lineages of…[Read more]

]]> 0 84f670399cf18f6f0ccaf0cbe8c8ed2f https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1741778/ Thu, 17 Jun 2021 02:28:42 -0400 This paper translates the inscriptions found on five bronze spearheads found near the village of el-Khadr located 2 miles (5 km) west of Bethlehem. Their underlying language is Alphabetic Akkadian and not Hebrew. These spearheads were part of a cache of 26 found near Bethlehem which were first published by Frank Moore Cross in 1954 and 1980. Four…[Read more]

]]> 0 fb1ae6f1e077de7193c32c0237749348 https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1741336/ Mon, 14 Jun 2021 02:23:42 -0400 A plaque on the wall indicates that this temple in Ekron (Tel Miqne) was devoted to enabling the powers of Yahu. The word “Yahu” is mentioned twice along with the full moon god Su and the image opener goddess, Utu, who is the feminine complement to Yahu. Ekron at this time was ruled by Assyria having been rebuilt over an older destroyed Phi…[Read more]

]]> 0 6d7b771eea6950113c37db473208058c https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1741332/ Mon, 14 Jun 2021 02:23:39 -0400 This tablet was declared a fraud my many because it could not be translated from Hebrew yet this paper proves the tablet is authentic because it can be translated from Alphabetic Akkadian, a script unknown when the tablet was discovered. This tablet was once stored in a treasury room in Jerusalem’s royal palace or first temple as evidenced by m…[Read more]

]]> 0 3f29e0c6fe7f8a1e92f9fe68e11c27ef https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1740830/ Tue, 08 Jun 2021 02:25:11 -0400 The Moabite Stele text is a line by line philosophical/religious debate. It was written in Alphabetic Akkadian which was the common trading language of the ancient Mediterranean as evidenced by a growing corpus of texts. The Moabite text is also the earliest archaeological linguistic evidence of Jewish (Judahite) culture yet discovered. This is…[Read more]

]]> 0 bbbba4c1851657f17a24be4c5b5345b5 https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1740827/ Tue, 08 Jun 2021 02:25:09 -0400 This early (northern) Israelite student teaching text blames the cause of the 840 BCE Elijah drought on the astrological powers of the Ancient Pagan Paradigm. It shows a Pagan Israel just prior to the Yawist revolution by referencing the gods Hu as the Healer, Su as the shepherd corresponding to the full moon, and the goddess Utu as the Opener of…[Read more]

]]> 0 9bb902d29cf9f027bac3703ddf485113 https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1740823/ Tue, 08 Jun 2021 02:25:07 -0400 Three previously untranslated Philistine (Sea Peoples) texts are translated in the empire language of Alphabetic Akkadian/Aramaic. Their script style is in the Minoan lineage which began with the Phaistos Disk and continued on with Linear A. Unlike those texts these texts are now fully alphabetic meaning their inner word signs are consonants…[Read more]

]]> 0 9b38a71b43a7ac62ffb181111444ca31 https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1721586/ Tue, 05 Jan 2021 02:24:40 -0500 Vieweger, Dieter: Geschichte der Biblischen Welt. Die südliche Levante vom Beginn der Besiedlung bis zur römischen Zeit. Mit zahlreichen Zeichnungen von Ernst Brückelmann. 3 Bände im Schuber durchgängig vierfarbig mit zahlreichen Abbildungen gestaltet – Gütersloh: Gütersloher Verlagshaus 2019. 1240 S., geb. € 98,00 ISBN: 978-3-579-…[Read more]

]]> 0 dcf1a8b5a61fc1c46aba02c38a037b2a https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1689688/ Wed, 03 Jun 2020 16:26:51 -0400 in: R. Achenbach (Hg.), Persische Reichspolitik und lokale Heiligtümer. Beiträge einer Tagung des Exzellenzclusters «Religion und Politik in Vormoderne und Moderne» vom 24.–26. Februar 2016 in Münster (BZAR 25), Wiesbaden 2019, 209-255.

]]> 0 489ea10a213dab63d04dc54c5faeac44 https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1689686/ Wed, 03 Jun 2020 16:26:50 -0400 in: A. Berlejung/A.M. Maeir (Hg.), Research on Israel and Aram: Autonomy, Interdependence and Related Issues. Proceedings of the First Annual RIAB Center Conference, Leipzig, June 2016 (RIAB I) (ORA 34), Tübingen 2019, 347-372.

]]> 0 7ebe4be1e886ea67f2ffd2607fc0288c https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1689683/ Wed, 03 Jun 2020 16:26:49 -0400 in: Welt und Umwelt der Bibel Nr. 92, 24,2 (2019) 36-43.

]]> 0 0c74fc52de006b87bad109d09e9d2f28 https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1676605/ Wed, 29 Jan 2020 16:25:32 -0500 Ezekiel 37 is based upon Judean mortuary culture, and the revivification of bones is a reversal of death. Rather than a resurrection event, Ezekiel's metaphor of Israel as a mass of dry bones is based upon the burial customs that occurred inside the family tomb.

]]> 0 d486e2730facccb24eac2ac9f1802fdd https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1657154/ Tue, 09 Jul 2019 16:25:26 -0400 A private seal impression with the Hebrew name "Ezer (son of) Haggai" discovered in the excavations at Tel Burna, Israel. The seal impression dates to the Iron II period and has parallels found at Gezer and Azekah.

]]> 0 9954119b83151beb242e3b99f40991a0 https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1641294/ Fri, 31 May 2019 16:25:49 -0400 The brief notice of Absalom’s pillar in 2 Sam 18:18 provides an important yet un-usual case of how memory is constructed in ancient Israel and the Hebrew Bible. Commemoration of the dead typically works from the perspective of the (living) descendent and is directed towards the (deceased) ancestor. Yet in this example Absalom commemorates h…[Read more]

]]> 0 cbb63fd5ebaa924c47a4529f5952ebb2 https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1623746/ Wed, 14 Nov 2018 16:26:59 -0500 A short paper describing recent research in the area of EF1 at Polis Chrysochous on Cyprus.

]]> 0 213b86a6461102eb03e31ed1f759101f https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1610881/ Fri, 15 Jun 2018 04:12:56 -0400 The problem with using royal inscriptions as historical sources is their inherent bias. The interests of the king drive the narratives of royal inscriptions. Yet this essential feature reveals their underlying concept of history. In royal inscriptions, historical thought is defined by the life and experience of the king. This article will present…[Read more]

]]> 0 629073de1f607a1a0eba93016a25b23f https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1610803/ Thu, 14 Jun 2018 04:15:06 -0400 The Samaria Ostraca contain a subset of receipts that record wine shipments from what were evidently royal vineyards. But this particular group of ostraca has been largely overlooked in the study of the Northern Kingdom, probably resulting from the fact that not all of the ostraca were published in the editio princeps. This article presents a new…[Read more]

]]> 0 9ef4d5cc5a7995f9072ec702564fe05b https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1603457/ Wed, 14 Mar 2018 04:13:04 -0400 This dissertation proposes a social analysis of the Early Christian basilicas (4th-6th century) of Southern and Central Greece, predominantly those in the Late Roman province of Achaia. After an introduction which places the dissertation in the broader context of the study of Late Antique Greece, the second chapter argues that church construction…[Read more]

]]> 0 8edefb1507f0814ea27b13b575ce70d2 https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1571085/ Sat, 20 May 2017 01:14:12 -0400 Argues that, reversing the trope of subjects visiting the magnificent, the Elohistic history has Yahweh interested in the simplest, flimsiest altars only, which he will visit when and where he is invited to do so. The implication rules out temple-altars and temples for their royal sponsorship.

]]> 0 3919582478ea945a97daa5636db97f7a https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1568773/ Wed, 03 May 2017 01:01:40 -0400 In the second-century Protevangelium of James (henceforth PJ), Mary spins thread for a new temple veil. The episode has fascinated and perplexed both ancient and modern readers: Of all the jobs the author could have chosen for the protagonist, why this one? Scholars of PJ frame the significance of Mary’s work in a variety of ways. Some argue t…[Read more]

]]> 0 0316f3998de0dcd4011a677c324bae8e https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1568771/ Wed, 03 May 2017 01:01:40 -0400 This syllabus is for a senior-level biblical archaeology course taught at Ferrum College (VA) in fall of 2016.

]]> 0 bc7c8cdbf48a98b678bef4301f9b9875 https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1568769/ Wed, 03 May 2017 01:01:40 -0400 In the Synoptic accounts of the transfiguration (Matt 17:1-8; Mark 9:2-8; Luke 9:28-36), Moses and Elijah appear to Jesus and the disciples. One of the more common interpretations of their presence in this scene is that together they symbolize “the law and the prophets.” But from a canonical/narrative perspective, the situation is more complex tha…[Read more]

]]> 0 d36139f15529808aea70f852c5722db2 https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1568317/ Tue, 02 May 2017 01:00:03 -0400 The Hebrew Bible often portrays Sheol in a manner evocative of the tomb. In texts such as Psalm 88 the tomb is a dreary and isolating symbol. Yet this contrasts with the positive role of the family tomb where the dead are reunited with their ancestors. The ritual analysis of Judahite bench tombs, however, reveals a dynamic concept of death. This…[Read more]

]]> 0 f1b3e3094593e0baf0b28c0e071fafcf https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1567899/ Mon, 01 May 2017 05:17:01 -0400 0