Tanach Thoughts

Prof. Gershon Galil et al have finally published the long-awaited academic publication of the Mt. Ebal amulet . Galil received a lot of heated backlash from the academic world when he first announced last year his reading of the amulet, found during sifting work of the backfill from the 80's excavation of the Mt. Ebal altar in Samaria. Galil hadn't gone through the more acceptable procedure of publishing his research through a peer-reviewed platform. Peer-reviewing has its flaws, but it's also a useful tool for gauging the legitimacy of a person's research. I thought at the time that he must have a good reason for this unorthodox action, and decided to give him the benefit of the doubt. Not long afterwards he announced the discovery of a similar "curse" inscription, dated to Jebusite/Canaanite Yerushalayim. Once again, nothing on when a peer-reviewed publication will come out. And then he announced the discovery of a series of inscriptions which he associated ...

I considered writing another post about the blasphemer, a subject near and dear to my heart (because it's an unsolved mystery!), but then I discovered to my shock that my last post on the subject was actually still in draft mode, never published..! So, though I'm still super busy, here's a ready-made post from last year, touched up and completed: The blasphemer is a subject that has been on and off of my mind for a couple of years now. The blasphemer was the son of Shlomit bat Divri, a woman of the Tribe of Dan, and an Egyptian man, who lived during the time of the Exodus. He had an argument with a purely-Israelite man and ended up cursing God, hence his title as "the blasphemer". He was put to death. The midrash ( Sifra 14:1 ) attempts to explain this story thus: "("And the son of an Israelite woman went out; and he was the son of an Egyptian man in the midst of the children of Israel. And they strove within the camp, the son of the Israelite woman and ...