Academic publication of the Mt. Ebal amulet

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 with King Chizkiyahu, and once again mum's the word on the publication. After a couple of weeks, he and his partner Eli Shukrun announced that a book about the inscriptions would be coming out eventually. No details on the publisher. Likewise, Galil announced on his Facebook page less than two months ago that his Ebal paper had been accepted at an academic journal, but wouldn't reveal which one. When asked about it, he simply stated "the best".

All of this drew the ire of many scholars around Israel, and eventually they issued a public letter stating this kind of behavior was irresponsible. They did not name Galil or Shukrun or anybody else, but of course they were the subject of this letter.

Now, fortunately, Galil's paper has come out and is open-access. Here's a link.

According to Galil and his partners on the research project of the amulet, the amulet is from the Late Bronze Age and features explicit mention of Hashem as an entity by which someone against whom the amulet is directed should be cursed.

When it came out, the public belief was that this was a Judges-era finding, though it's hard to tell given that the amulet was found in backfill, which isn't properly layered, as well as the organic material from the 80s excavation being lost. Galil claimed that the form of the letters also point to the LB dating.

Now's the time to see what other scholars have to say on the matter. It'll probably take some time until a consensus will be formed. It's possible that the amulet will always be considered a controversial finding, but we'll just have to wait and see.