Ebla cuneiform tablets

[xapis]

Does anyone here have any good info on the tablets found at Tell Mardikh (Ebla) in Syria?

Thanks in advance,

 

[justified]

Does anyone here have any good info on the tablets found at Tell Mardikh (Ebla) in Syria?

Thanks in advance,

I can provide you with a bibliography if you'd like. I can also tell you what most of the tablets say. And I can tell you it's peripheral Akkadian. But beyond that, I'm out.

 

[xapis]

That'd be great.

 

[justified]

Most of the tablets say this: "Amorite-named guy A gives to Amorite guy B this much grain for this much tin. All lawsuits are invalid."

As far as Bibliography, if you can read Italian you are in luck. I'll assume you can't, however:

Catalogo dei testi cuneiformi di Tell Mardikh-Ebla / di Giovanni Pettinato, in collaborazione con Amedeo Alberti

(the official catalogue of the tablets found)

Missione archeologica italiana in Siria : rapporto preliminare della campagna 1965 (Tell Mardikh) / di Giorgio Castellino ... [et al.]

(the preliminary report, naturally in Italian. I think this is probably the only major exacvation the italians have done! Regardless, there's a 1966 report as well; I'm not sure if there are more).

Ebla in the period of the Amorite dynasties and the dynasty of Akkad : recent archaeological discoveries at Tell Mardikh (1975) / by Paolo Matthiae ; introduction and translation by Matthew L. Jaffe.

Eblaitica : essays on the Ebla archives and Eblaite language / edited by Cyrus H. Gordon, Gary A. Rendsburg, Nathan H. Winter

The tablets of Ebla : concordance and bibliography / by Scott G. Beld, William W. Hallo, and Piotr Michalowski

Literature and literary language at Ebla / edited by Pelio Fronzaroli [mixed language]

Ebla : alle origini della civiltà urbana : trent'anni di scavi in Siria dell'Università di Roma "La Sapienza" / a cura di Paolo Matthiae, Franca Pinnock, Gabriella Scandone Matthiae

I think that should do it. Suffice it to say, it's a big deal.

 

[xapis]

Thanks.
Any links to more details? I read somewhere that there are references to several of the cities of Genesis... Sodom and Gomorrah among them...

 

[justified]

No, Sodom and Gomorrah do not pop up -- at least not for certain.

You want links...hmm. I'm afraid there's not a lot out there. Start at www.etana.org, though.

 

[Dmckay]

Prophets' Names Appear in the Ebla Tablets,
1500 Years Older Than the Torah

HARUN YAHYA



Dating back to around 2500 BC, the Ebla tablets provide very important information regarding the history of religions. The most important feature of the Ebla tablets, discovered by archaeologists in 1975 and which have been the subject of much research and debate ever since, is that they contain the names of three prophets referred to in holy scriptures.

The discovery after thousands of years of the Ebla tablets and the information they contain is extremely important from the point of view of clarifying the geographical location of societies revealed in the Qur'an.

Around 2500 BC, Ebla was a kingdom covering an area that included the Syrian capital Damascus and south-east Turkey. This kingdom reached a cultural and economic peak but later, as happened to a great many civilizations, it disappeared from the stage of history. It was apparent from the records that were kept that the Kingdom of Ebla was a major cultural and commercial center of the time. (1) The people of Ebla possessed a civilization that established state archives, built libraries and recorded commercial contracts in written form. They even had their own language, known as Eblaite.

The History of Buried Religions

The true importance of the Kingdom of Ebla, regarded as a great success for classical archaeology when first discovered in 1975, came to light with the finding of some 20,000 cuneiform tablets and fragments. This archive was four times greater than all the cuneiform texts known to archaeologists over the last 3,000 years.

When the language used in the tablets was deciphered by the Italian Giovanni Pettinato, an epigrapher from the University of Rome, the scale of their importance was better understood. As a result of this, the finding of the Kingdom of Ebla and this magnificent state archive became a matter not just of archaeological interest, but one of interest to religious circles, too. That was because as well as the names Michael (Mi-ka-il) and Talut (Sa-u-lum), who struggled alongside the Prophet David, they also contained the names of prophets mentioned in the three holy books: The Prophet Abraham (Ab-ra-mu), the Prophet David (Da-u-dum) and the Prophet Ishamel (Ish-ma-il). (2)

The Importance of the Names on the Ebla Tablets

The names of the prophets identified in the Ebla tablets are of the greatest importance as this was the first time that they had been encountered in historical documents of such age. This information, dating back to 1500 years before the Torah, was most striking. The appearance in the tablets of the name of the Prophet Abraham recorded that the Prophet Abraham and the religion brought by him had existed before the Torah.

Historians analyzed the Ebla tablets from this perspective, and this major discovery regarding the Prophet Abraham and his mission became the subject of research with regard to the history of religions. David Noel Freedman, an American archaeologist and researcher into the history of religions, reported, based on his studies, the names of such prophets as Abraham and Ishmael in the tablets. (3)

Other Names in the Tablets

As stated above the names in the tablets were those of prophets referred to in the three holy books, and the tablets were far older than the Torah. In addition to these names there were also other subjects and place names in the tablets, from which it can be seen that the Eblaites were very successful traders. The names Sinai, Gaza and Jerusalem, not too distant from Ebla, also appeared in the texts, showing that the Eblaites enjoyed commercial and cultural links with these places. (4)

One important detail seen in the tablets was the names of the areas of Sodom and Gomorrah, where the people of Lot lived. It is known that Sodom and Gomorrah was a region on the shore of the Dead Sea where the people of Lot lived and where the Prophet Lot communicated his message and called people to live by religious moral values. In addition to these two names, that of the city of Iram, which appears in the verses of the Qur'an, is also among those in the Ebla tablets.

The most noteworthy aspect of these names is that apart from in the texts communicated by the prophets, they had never before appeared in any other text. This is important documentary evidence showing that reports of the prophets who communicated the message of the one true religion at that time had reached those areas. In an article in Reader's Digest magazine it was recorded that that there had been a change in the Eblaites' religion during the reign of King Ebrum and that people had begun to add prefixes to their names in order to exalt the name of Almighty God.

God's Promise Is True…

The history of Ebla and the Ebla tablets which came to light after some 4,500 years actually point to one major truth: God sent messengers to Ebla, as He did to every community, and these called their peoples to the true religion.

Some people adhered to the religion that came to them and thus attained the true path, while others opposed the message of the prophets and preferred a wicked life. God, Lord of the heavens, the earth, and all that lies between, reveals this fact in the Qur'an:

We sent a Messenger among every people saying: "Worship God and keep clear of all false deities." Among them were some whom God guided but others received the misguidance they deserved. Travel about the earth and see the final fate of the deniers. (Qur'an, 16: 36)

References
1) "Ebla", Funk & Wagnalls New Encyclopaedia, © 1995 Funk & Wagnalls Corporation, Infopedia 2.0, SoftKey Multimedia Inc.
2) Howard La Fay, "Ebla: Splendour of an Unknown Empire," National Geographic Magazine, December 1978, p. 736; C. Bermant and M. Weitzman, Ebla: A Revelation in Archaeology, Times Books, 1979, Wiedenfeld and Nicolson, Great Britain, pp. 184.
3) Bilim ve Teknik magazine (Science and Technology), No. 118, September 1977 and No. 131 October 1978
4) For detailed information, please see Harun Yahya's Miracles of the Qur'an.

 

[Dmckay]

The Black Stele
For many years, "higher critics" of the Bible postulated that the first five books of the Bible, known as the Pentateuch, could not have been written by Moses - despite the fact that the books themselves say that they were authored by him. This idea came to be know as the "Documentary Hypothesis," and was commonly taught in most religion courses in Western universities.

The proponents of this idea held that writing was not even in existence at the time of Moses, therefore it had to have been of later authorship. The minds of these critics went to work, and they devised a great structure of Old Testament criticism based on this premise - concluding that the books were written by several different authors.

Then, a simple archeological discovery interrupted their progress. The "black stele" - a sculpted stone containing the detailed laws of Hammurabi in large, wedge-shaped characters - was found in the Middle East. Was it post- Moses? No! It was pre-Mosaic by at least three centuries; not only that, but it was pre-Abraham (2,000 B.C.). Amazingly enough, it antedated Moses, who was supposed to have been a primitive man without an alphabet.

Even more amazing is the fact that, in light of this discovery, the "Documentary Hypothesis" is still being taught in universities today.

Another archaeological find that confirms the existence of writing centuries before the time of Moses is the discovery of the Ebla Tablets in northern Syria in the 1960's. The Ebla kingdom was actually in existence approximately 1000 years before Moses (reaching its height around 2300 B.C.). Ebla shows that a thousand years before Moses, laws, customs and events were recorded in writing in the same area of the world in which Moses and the patriarchs lived.



David's Conquest of Jerusalem
S.H. Horn, an archaeologist, gives an excellent example of how archaeological evidence helps in biblical study:

Archaeological explorations have shed some interesting light on the capture of Jerusalem by David . The biblical accounts of that capture (2 Samuel 5:6-8 and I Chronicles 11:6) are rather obscure without the help obtained from archaeological evidence. Take for example 2 Samuel 5:8, which in the King James Version reads: "And David said on that day, Whosoever getteth up to the gutter, and smiteth the Jebusites, and the lame and the blind, that are hated of David's soul, so shall be chief and captain." Add to this statement I Chronicles 11:6 --"So Joab the son of Zeruiah went first up and was chief."

Some years ago I saw a painting of the conquest of Jerusalem in which the artist showed a man climbing up a metal downspout, running on the outside face of the city wall. This picture was absurd, because ancient city walls had neither gutters nor downspouts, although they had weeping holes int he walls to drain water off. The Revised Standard Version, produced after the situation had become clear though archaeological discoveries made on the spot, translates the pertinent passages: "And David said on that day, 'Whoever would smite the Jebusites, let him get up the water shaft to attack the lame and the blind, who are hated by David's soul.'" "And Joab the Son of Aeruiah went up first, so he became chief." What was this water shaft that Joab climbed?

Jerusalem in those days was a small city lying on a single spur of the hills on which the large city eventually stood. Its position was one of great natural strength, because it was surrounded on three sides by deep valleys. This was shy the Jebusites boastfully declared that even blind and lame could hold their city against a powerful attacking army. But the water supply of the city was poor; the population was entirely dependent on a spring that lay outside the city on the eastern slope of the hill.

So that they could obtain water without having to go down to where the spring was located, the Jebusites had constructed an elaborate system of tunnels through the rock. First they had dug a horizontal tunnel, beginning at the spring and proceeding toward the center of the city. After digging for ninety feet they hit a natural cave. From the cave they dug a vertical shaft forty-five feet high, and from the end of the shaft a sloping tunnel 135 feet long and a staircase that ended at the surface of their city, 110 feet above the water level of the spring. The spring was then concealed from the outside so that no enemy could detect it. To get water the Jebusite women went down through the upper tunnel and let their water skins down the shaft to draw water from the cave, to which it was brought by natural flow through the horizontal tunnel that connected the cave with the spring.

However, one question remained unanswered. The excavations of R. A. S. Macalister and J. G. Duncan some forty years ago had uncovered a wall and a tower that were thought to be of Jebusite and Davidic origin respectively. This tract of wall ran along the rim of the hill of Ophel, west of the tunnel entrance. Thus the entrance was left outside the protective city wall, exposed to the attacks and interference of enemies. Why hadn't the tunnel been built to end inside the city? This puzzle has now been solved by the recent excavations of Kathleen Kenyon on Ophel. She found that Macalister and Duncan had given the wall and tower they discovered wrong dates; these things actually originated in the Hellenistic period. She uncovered the real Jebusite wall a little farther down the slope of the hill, east of the tunnel entrance, which now put the entrance safely in the old city area.

David, a native of Bethlehem, four miles south of Jerusalem, may have found out about the spring and its tunnel system in the days when as a youth he roamed through the countryside. Later, as king, he based his surprise attack on this knowledge and made the promise that the first man who entered the city through the water shaft would become his commander-in-chief. Joab, who was already general of the army, did not want to lose that position and therefore led the attack himself. The Israelites apparently went through the tunnel, climbed up the shaft, and were in the city before any of the besieged citizens had any idea that so bold a plan had been conceived.

This water system, constructed more than three thousand years ago, is still in existence and can be examined by any tourist. Some good climbers have even climbed the shaft in modern times.



The Ebla Tablets
The Ebla Tablets were discovered in northern Syria by two professors from the University of Rome, Dr. Paolo Matthiae, an archaeologist; and Dr. Giovanni Petinato, an epigrapher. The excavation of Tell Mardikh began in 1964 and in 1968 they uncovered a statue of King Ibbit-Lim. Since 1974, 17,000 tablets have been unearthed from the era of the Ebla Kingdom. These tablets have already made valuable contributions to biblical criticism.

One contribution is in relation to Genesis 14. Critics have have described the victory of Abraham over Chedorlaomer and the Mesopotamian kings as fictitious and the five Cities of the Plain (Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah, Zeboiim and Zoar) as legendary.

The Ebla archives, however, refer to all five Cities of the Plain and on one tablet the cities are listed in the exact same sequence as Genesis 14. The tablets further reflect that the region was prosperous and successful with a patriarchal culture consistent with that recorded in Genesis prior to the catastrophe recorded in Genesis 14.



* Information for this page is taken largely from: Josh McDowell, The Best Of Josh McDowell: A Ready Defense, (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1993), pp. 94-96, 98.

 

[Dmckay]

The Old Testament Has Been Archeologically Verified

Guilty Until Proven Innocent
Many of you are confronted daily by people who level criticisms against the Bible concerning its historical reliability. These folks will generally say that there is a lack of evidence from outside sources to confirm the Biblical record. And because the Bible is a religious book, many people take the position that it is biased and cannot be trusted unless we have corroborating evidence from extra-Biblical sources. In other words, the Bible is guilty until proven innocent, and a lack of outside evidence places the Biblical account in doubt. People will NOT give the Bible the benefit of the doubt at all.

These same people don’t do that to other ancient documents, even though many, if not most, have a religious element. These other documents are considered to be accurate, unless there is evidence to show that they are not. In other words, for ancient documents other than the Bible, people will always assume them to be INNOCENT of error until proven guilty, not the other way around! Although it may not be possible to verify EVERY incident in the Bible, the discoveries of archaeology since the mid 1800s have demonstrated the reliability and plausibility of the Bible narrative. We know enough now to measure the reliability of the scriptures as a historical text, and the Bible DOES measure up.

The Ebla Discovery
For many years, critics of the Old Testament argued that the most ancient of Patriarchs (Abraham among them) did not contribute anything in writing to the scriptures. They basically argued that Moses made up the stories found in Genesis (if Moses even wrote them at all!) They say that ancient people of these times were too primitive to record documents with any detail. In addition, these same critics argued that there was no verification that the people and cities mention in the oldest of Biblical accounts ever really existed.

Well, the discovery of the Ebla archive in northern Syria in the 1970s has shown the Biblical writings concerning the Patriarchs to be viable. During the excavations of the palace in 1975, the excavators found a large library (royal archive room), filled with tablets dating from 2400 -2300 BC. Nearly 15,000 tablets and fragments were found, but when joined together they will constitute about 2,500 tablets. These tablets demonstrate that personal and place names in the Patriarchal accounts are genuine. For years, critics said that the name 'Canaan' was used incorrectly in the early chapters of the Bible, that the term was never used at this time in history, proving that it was a late insertion and that the earliest books were not written in the times that are described. But in the Ebla tablets, the word “Canaan” does appear, contrary to the critics claim. The tablets proved that the term was actually used in ancient Syria during the time in which the Old Testament was written.


In addition, critics also claimed that the word 'Tehom' ('the deep' in Genesis 1:2) was also a late addition demonstrating the late writing of the creation story. But 'Tehom' was part of the vocabulary at Ebla as well, in use some 800 years before Moses! In fact, there is a creation record in the Ebla Tablets that is remarkably similar to the Genesis account! In addition this, the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah (once thought to be pure fiction) are also identified in the Ebla tablets, as well as the city of Haran. This latter city is described in Genesis as the city of Abram’s father, Terah. Prior to this discovery, ‘scholars’ doubted the presence of the ancient city.

But the Ebla discovery bolstered the Biblical account and it did this in several ways. First, it confirmed the locations of several ancient cities that had long been doubted. In addition to this, however, it confirmed the use of several terms and names hat had also been doubted. And finally, it confirmed that ancient people living in the city of Ebla, (only 150 miles from Haran) were eloquent and conscientious writers and recorders. Critics had argued that ancient people of this time were NOT capable of intricate and detailed record keeping, but the Ebla Tablets prove otherwise. It is well within reason to believe that Abraham recorded detailed accounts of his life and his family and that these records were used later by Moses to write the account we presently have in the Book of Genesis.

Other Ancient Confirmation
But in addition to the Ebla Tablets, other archeological findings have also confirmed the ancient truths and customs reflected in the stories of the Patriarchs. These cultural customs have also been confirmed in clay tablets found in digs in the cities of Nuzi and Mari. Archeological digs in the city of Bogazkoy, Turkey have confirmed the existence of the Hittites (who were once thought to be a Biblical legend) until their capital and records were discovered! In a similar way, many thought the Biblical references to Solomon's wealth were greatly exaggerated. But recovered records from the past show that wealth in antiquity was concentrated with the king and Solomon's prosperity was entirely feasible.

It was also claimed in the past that there was no Assyrian king named Sargon as recorded in Isaiah 20:1, (because this name was not known in any other record). But archeology once again proved the Biblical account. Sargon's palace was discovered in Khorsabad, Iraq. The very event mentioned in Isaiah 20, his capture of Ashdod, was recorded on the palace walls! What is more, fragments of a stela memorializing the victory were found at Ashdod itself.

Another king who was in doubt was Belshazzar, king of Babylon, named in Daniel 5. According to non-Biblical recorded history, the last king of Babylon was Nabonidus. But Tablets have been found showing that Belshazzar was Nabonidus' son who served as coregent in Babylon. So, Belshazzar could offer to make Daniel 'third highest ruler in the kingdom' (as recorded in Daniel 5:16) for reading the handwriting on the wall, and this would have been the highest available position. Here, once again we see the 'eye-witness' nature of the Biblical record. Once again, archeology has confirmed the Biblical record.

They Recorded A Flood Too!
But of all the Biblical historical accounts, perhaps the most doubted has been the Biblical account of the Flood (as described in Genesis 6-9). Well, it just so happens that the most doubted event is also the most archeologically documented. A number of Babylonian documents have been discovered which describe the same flood. The Sumerian King List, for example, lists kings who reigned for long periods of time. Then a great flood came. Following the flood, this Babylonian document records that Sumerian kings ruled for much shorter periods of time. This just so happens to be the same pattern that is found in the Bible. Men had long life spans before the flood and shorter life spans after the flood. In addition, the 11th tablet of the Gilgamesh Epic speaks of an ark, animals taken on the ark, birds sent out during the course of the flood, the ark landing on a mountain, and a sacrifice offered after the ark landed.


And be aware of the fact that flood stories have been discovered among nearly ALL nations and tribes. Though most common on the Asian mainland and the islands immediately south of it and on the North American continent, they have been found on ALL the continents. Totals of the number of stories known run as high as about 270. Although these traditions have been modified through the ages and some have taken on fantastic elements, most of them have certain basic elements in common:
88% of them single out a favored individual or family.
70% point to survival due to a boat.
66% see the Flood coming as a result of human wickedness.
67% speak of animals saved along with human beings.
57 % record that the survivors end up on a mountain.
66% indicate that the hero receives warning of the coming catastrophe.
The common criticism that many of these flood stories came from contacts with missionaries will not stand up because most of them were gathered by anthropologists not interested in confirming the truth of the Bible. In addition to this, these common tales of a worldwide flood are filled with fanciful and pagan elements, evidently the result of the telling and re-telling of the story for extended periods of time in a non-Biblical society. A third factor is that the ancient accounts were written by people very much in opposition to the Hebrew-Christian tradition.

There Are Other Common Historical Accounts
In addition to the flood story, there are other non-Biblical accounts that tell of events that are also found in the Bible. The Story of Adapa tells of a test for immortality involving food, similar to the story of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. Sumerian tablets record the confusion of language as we have in the Biblical account of the Tower of Babel (Genesis 11:1-9). There was a golden age when all mankind spoke the same language. Speech was then confused by the god Enki, lord of wisdom. The Babylonians had a similar account in which the gods destroyed a temple tower and 'scattered them abroad and made strange their speech.'

And There’s a Whole Lot More!
In addition to all of this, there are many other examples of extra-Biblical confirmation of Biblical events. There are so many examples of Biblical confirmation, in fact, that it would be ridiculous to try to list it all in a single webpage. Volumes of books have already been written. But let’s just take a look at a few examples:
The campaign into Israel by Pharaoh Shishak
(1 Kings 14:25-26) is recorded on the walls of the Temple of Amun in Thebes, Egypt.

The revolt of Moab against Israel
(2 Kings 1:1; 3:4-27) is recorded on the Mesha Inscription.

The fall of Samaria
(2 Kings 17:3-6, 24; 18:9-11) to Sargon II, king of Assyria, is recorded on his palace walls.

The defeat of Ashdod by Sargon II
(Isaiah 20:1) is recorded on his palace walls.

The campaign of the Assyrian king Sennacherib against Judah
(2 Kings 18:13-16) is recorded on the Taylor Prism.

The siege of Lachish by Sennacherib
(2 Kings 18:14, 17) is recorded on the Lachish reliefs.

The assassination of Sennacherib by his own sons
(2 Kings 19:37) is recorded in the annals of his son Esarhaddon.

The fall of Nineveh as predicted by the prophets Nahum and Zephaniah
(2:13-15) is recorded on the Tablet of Nabopolasar.

The fall of Jerusalem to Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon
(2 Kings 24:10-14) is recorded in the Babylonian Chronicles.

The captivity of Jehoiachin, king of Judah, in Babylon
(2 Kings 24:15-16) is recorded on the Babylonian Ration Records.

The fall of Babylon to the Medes and Persians
(Daniel 5:30-31) is recorded on the Cyrus Cylinder.

The freeing of captives in Babylon by Cyrus the Great
(Ezra 1:1-4; 6:3-4) is recorded on the Cyrus Cylinder.
Have They Been Fair?
For years, critics of the Biblical historical account have doubted its reliability not because there existed archeological evidence that DISPROVED its claims, but simply because there was no discovered archeological evidence found yet to SUBSTANTIATE its claims. In essence, because there was nothing to prove the Bible innocent, they simply assumed it was guilty of a lie. Is that really fair? Even now, critics will admit that much of what has been written in the Bible has been confirmed archeologically, yet these same critics will continue to argue that extra-Biblical confirmation of SOME of the Bible does not constitute confirmation of ALL of the Bible. Of course that is true. But with so much confirmation in the archeological record, why must the critics assume the Bible is lying first, until forced to admit the truth under the pressure of an ever increasing body of archeological evidence? Why must the Bible be guilty until proven innocent?

Perhaps it is because the Bible, unlike secular records and histories, not only tells a tale of an ancient people, but also tells a tale of an ancient God who has a purpose for our lives and an expectation that accompanies this purpose. Are the critics of the Bible uncomfortable with the Biblical history, or are they simply uncomfortable with the Biblical God of accountability?

 

[Dmckay]

If you just do a Google serach for Ebla Tablets you will find more information than you can handle.

 

[Dmckay]

EBLA: Its Impact on Bible Records (#46)
by Clifford Wilson, M.A., B.D., Ph.D.
Abstract
The new findings at Ebla are possibly the most significant discovery yet made so far as they relate to the background of early Bible times. The impact on some areas of Biblical knowledge will indeed be startling.
The new findings at Ebla are possibly the most significant discovery yet made so far as they relate to the background of early Bible times. The impact on some areas of Biblical knowledge will indeed be startling.

Where Ebla is Located … and the Work Begins

Tell Mardikh ¾ the ancient Ebla ¾ is on the main road to Aleppo in Northern Syria, being not quite half way between Hamath and Aleppo. It is nearer to Aleppo than to Hamath. There is a mound and a small village about one kilometer off the highway. Professor Paolo Matthiae of the Rome University has been excavating there since 1964, but his work was not spectacular until 1968 when his team produced a statue dedicated to the goddess Eshtar, and bearing the name of Ibbit-Lim, a king of Ebla. This endorsed the positive identification of the city. The kingdom of Ebla had previously been known in Sumerian, Akkadian and Egyptian texts, and the excavators had good clues when they began digging in this 50-feet high mound. Now their hopes were bright for the future.

In the 1975 season some 15,000 tablets were recovered. To bring the report up to date, the excavators recently reported (with a smile!) that 1976 was a poor season ¾ only 1,600 tablets were found! One tablet stated that the city had a population of 260,000.

Professor Giovanni Pettinato, also of the University of Rome, is the epigrapher working on the tablets, and some of what follows stems from his reports, both in the Biblical Archaeologist of May, 1976, and in public lectures and discussions at the University of Michigan in November 1976. Professor Matthiae also lectured at that time, and both professors were most cooperative in two days of lectures, discussion, and question and answer sessions. It was this writer's privilege to participate in these public functions, as well as in more private meetings with the archaeologists and with a number of leaders in the field of Biblical archaeology and Semitic studies.

What the Tablets Are All About

It is probable that the 17,000 tablets so far recovered are not from the major royal archives, but are rather a collection of records that were kept near the central court. Here the provisions were stored, tribute was collected, and apprentice scribes did their copying from the tablets which they would take temporarily from the royal archives themselves. A wide variety of tablets were copies, and this is of tremendous importance, for it means that today we have a wide range of these copied tablets available for study.

The two rooms where the main body of 15,000 tablets were recovered were close to the entrance to the palace. If the royal archives themselves are found as excavation proceeds, the potential for the study of Bible backgrounds and ancient history is tremendous.

As Professor Pettinato has pointed out, these are the sorts of tablets that scholars dream about, but rarely find. Personal names are included, and in one text alone 260 geographic names have been given. Other texts give lists of animals, fish, birds, professions, and names of officials.

There are a number of historical texts which can be tied in with other known records, such as those of the city of Marik, coming down to the time of Narim Sin who eventually defeated the Eblahites decisively. It appears that the city was defended by mercenaries rather than by its own army. Professor Pettinato conjectures that this is probably the reason why Akkad finally prevailed over Ebla.

The tablets would appear to date to the two last generations of the city, somewhere about 2,300 B.C. ¾ possibly 100 years earlier. The final destruction was about 2250 B.C.

There are literary texts with mythological backgrounds, incantations, collections of proverbs, and hymns to various deities. Rituals associated with the gods are referred to, many of these gods being known in Babylonian literature of a later period. These include Enki, Enlil, Utu, lnana, Tiamut, Marduk and Nadu. The god of the city of Kish is also referred to.

Most of the tablets deal with economic matters, tariffs, receipts, and other commercial dealings. However, other matters such as offerings to the gods are also dealt with.

The city was in contact with other cities all over the Near East. One of the interesting illustrations of this comes from the list of nations given to messengers as they traversed certain routes, with the names of the cities given. There are lists of towns in their geographic regions, and even lists of the towns that are subject to Ebla. Biblical towns known in later times are included, such as Ashdod and Sidon.

Vocabulary Lists in Two Languages

There are syllabaries of grammatical texts, making it possible to go from one language to another. There are no less than 114 Sumerian Eblahite vocabularies, these being the first such lists recovered from any ancient site. One of these vocabulary tablets contains nearly 1,000 translated words, and it has 18 duplicates.

It has long been known that scribes in Assyria copied tablets from Babylonia, but it is now established that scholars in Mesopotamia had also copied some of their tablets from the Syrian libraries.

When the first tablets were found, it was soon realized that this city used a very ancient language in the North West Semitic group which was previously unknown. Professor Pettinato labeled this "Paleo-Canaanite." In layman's terms, this means "ancient Canaanite." At the close of this article in Biblical Archaeologist Professor Pettinato tells us,

The pronominal and verbal systems, in particular, are so clearly defined that one can properly speak of a Paleo-Canaanite language closely akin to Hebrew and Phoenician.
These Ebla tablets are written in a Sumerian script, with Sumerian logograms adapted to represent Akkadian words and syllables. About 1,000 words were recovered initially (hundreds more later) in vocabulary lists. The words are written out in both Sumerian logograms and Eblaic syllable-type writing. These offered an invaluable key to the interpretation of many of the Ebla texts.

The vocabularies at Ebla were distinctively Semitic: the word "to write" is k-t-b (as in Hebrew), while that for "king" is "malikum," and that for "man" is "adamu." The closeness to Hebrew is surprising.

It is relevant to note that some of the tablets deal with judicial proceedings. There are elaborations as to the penalties incurred when a person is injured, and there are details about various trials. Some of these points make foolish the former criticisms against the possibility of the existence of a Mosaic law-code. Here is a civilization about 1,000 years earlier than that of Moses, and in writing it gives all sorts of details about the administration of justice. It is clearly a highly developed civilization, with concepts of justice and individual rights to the fore. To suggest that Moses could not have dealt with such cases is ludicrous.

Some tablets deal with case law, and the law code of Ebla must now be recognized as the oldest ever yet found. In dealing with the penalties for injuries, distinction is made according to the nature of the act. An injury caused by the blow of a hand merited a different penalty from one caused by a weapon such as a dagger. Differing penalties are prescribed for various offenses.

There is elaborate discussion of case law, with varying conditions recognized for what at first sight might seem to be the same crime. In the case of a complaint involving sexual relations, if the girl was able to prove that she was a virgin and that the act was forced on her, the penalty against the man was death. Otherwise he would pay a fine that varied according to circumstances. It is remarkably like Deuteronomy 22:22-30, supposedly very late according to liberal scholarship.

In the public lecture series referred to above, Professor David Noel Freedman pointed out that about 17,000 tablets and significant fragments have been found at this site, and they date to approximately 2,400 B.C. to 2,250 B.C. This would be about four times the grand total of all tablets found, dating to that period, from all other sites. The nearest in magnitude for the number of tablets would be Mari, dating several hundred years later.

Personal Names and Places In the Tablets

A number of personal names in the Ebla documents are very similar to names used at later times in the Old Testament. One such name is Michael (mi-ka-ilu) which means, "Who is like El?" A related form, also in the Ebla texts, is mi-ka-ya which is well-known in the Bible, with the ya ending replacing the el. Other names are e-sa-um (Esau), da-'u-dum (David), sha-'u'-lum (Saul), and Ish-ma-ll (Ishmael), this last meaning "II (El ¾ God) has heard me."

Other examples given by Professor Pettinato are En-na-ni-ll which gave over to En-na-ni-Ya (II/Ya has mercy on me); A-dam-Malik (man of Milik); 'il-ha-il, II is strength; Eb-du-Ra-sa-ap, Servant of Rasaph; Ish-a-bu, A man is the father; Ish-i-lum, A man is the god; I-sa-Ya, Ya has gone forth; I-ad-Damu, The hand of Damu; and Ib-na-Malik, Milik has created. Hebrew scholars recognize remarkable similarities to later Hebrew in the Old Testament, and Professor Pettinato himself states, in the Biblical Archaeologist referred to above, "Many of these names occur in the same form in the Old Testament, so that a certain interdependence between the culture of Ebla and that of the Old Testament must be granted."

Hebrew Words Akin to Ebla Words

At Ebla, the king has the Sumerian title 'en,' and according to the vocabulary lists already referred to, the Paleo-Canaanite equivalent is "Malek." This is virtually the same as the Hebrew word for "king" in the Old Testament "melek." The elders of the kingdom were the "abbu," remarkably close to "abba" (father) of the Old Testament. At many points the similarity to Old Testament Hebrew is very close.

Man's search for the true God and for spiritual truth is shown by some of the personal names at Ebla. "Mi-ka-Ya," meaning "Who is like Ya?" replaced "Mi-Ka-ll," meaning "Who is like ll (El)?" "En-na-ni-Ya" meant, "Ya has mercy on me." Re-i-na-Adad," telling the world that "Adad (a god) is our shepherd," reminds the Christian of Psalm 23 where the ultimate of that searching for divine leading and protection is found as the psalmist exclaims,"The Lord is my shepherd."

Professor Pettinato discusses the names of some of the gods attested at Eber, including "II/El of the Ugaritic texts," and tells us that "from Eber on, ll was substituted for by Ya… it appears evident that under Ebrum a new development in West Semitic religious concepts took place that permitted the rise of Ya. It would be more correct to see it as renewed acknowledgment of Yahweh. Dagan of the Old Testament is well-known, being associated with several places already known to scholars, including "Dagan of Canaan." This indicates that the term "Canaan" was known much earlier than previously believed.

One aspect of special interest to Bible students is that a number of Old Testament cities are referred to. There are cities that were previously known in lst and 2nd Millennium records, but now they are referred to in these 3rd Millennium B.C. tablets. There is Salim, possibly the city of Melchizedec, Hazor, Lachish, Megiddo, Gaza, Dor, Sinai, Ashtaroth, Joppa and Damascus. Of special interest is Urusalima (Jerusalem), this being the earliest known reference to this city.

Although a city called Salim is referred to in the tablets, there is no indication just what its geographic location is. It is referred to separately from Urusalima (Jerusalem), and this would indicate that the two cities are separate.

Two of the towns mentioned are Sodom and Gomorrah. Here we are transported back to about 2,300 B.C., and we find that these towns were regularly visited, being on the route of the King's Highway that ran down from Damascus. There are actually references to five "cities of the Plain" (to use the Biblical term at Genesis 14:2), and these were Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah, Zeboiim, and Zoar. We are told in that same verse that an earlier name for Zoar was Bela.

Another of the towns referred to is Carchemish, and Professor Pettinato made the point that the prophet Isaiah (at Isaiah 10:9) has a remarkable knowledge of this name, as shown in the text preserved at Isaiah 10:9. This preserves the ancient name of the god "Chemosh," the Moabite god known in later Bible times.

There is a creation record remarkably similar to the Genesis account. There are dealings with Hittites long before Abraham purchased the Cave of Machpelah from the Hittites of his time ¾ it is not so long since it was argued there were no Hittites so early. There are treaties and covenants similar to those in Exodus, and for the protection of society there are laws that point towards the concept of justice so prominent in Exodus. There are ritualistic sacrifices long before those of Leviticus, and before the Canaanites from whom some critics claimed the Hebrews borrowed them. There are prophets proclaiming their message long before the nevi'im (prophets) of the Old Testament, though the Old Testament's superiority in the realms of ethics, morality, and spiritual values stands unchallenged. The Old Testament records have that indefinable something that is different. Metaphorically, they bear within them the imprint of the finger of God.

The story has only just begun and there will be echoes from Eber for generations to come. It is at least thought-provoking that findings such as those at Ebla consistently support the Bible as a thoroughly acceptable record. To this writer it is far more than a wonderful history text: it is God's Word of Truth, His revelation of Himself in the Person of His Son.

* Dr. Clifford Wilson is an archaeologist, linguist and Bible scholar. He has a Ph.D. in Psycholinguistics from the University of South Carolina and is a member of the faculty at Monash University in Australia.
The foregoing material is taken from Dr. Clifford Wilson's new book EBLA TABLETS: Secrets of a Forgotten City, published by Creation-Life Publishers, San Diego, CA 92115. (Publication date: April, 1977 - Price: $1.95)

 

[justified]

Unfortunately most of the argument in Wilson's extract and how it has been used by McDowell is misleading to say the least. The Ebla tablets have done much for clarifying and corroborating the patriarchal background, but to say that it has anything to do with David is a gross twisting of evidence and severe anachronism.

I'm not going to say more, but suffice to say, believe very little of what you read on the internet these days.