Tanach Thoughts

Nearly a year ago I posted about a topic that I had been thinking about, which is the boundaries of the northern territory of Dan, the one they conquered after leaving their original coastal territory. Last Shabbat (yesterday), I started thinking about how mapping out something like this would work, given that the Tanach doesn't give us any explicit information regarding their new territory, save for their central city, Laish/Leshem/Dan. It occurred to me that the next best thing would be to mark the boundaries of all countries and tribal territories around them- and the middle space will be that of Dan. I don't know if it's entirely possible, though. But we could probably mark up well the boundaries of Naftali and the Transjordanian half of Menashe. That would give us Dan's western and southern borders. In the east we have the Aramean petty kingdoms (new term I heard...): Geshur, Tov, Ma'achah, Aram Tzovah, Aram Damascus (I hope I didn't forget anyone). Archeol...

 As you can see, I'm making up for the last month or so of no posts. I heard today a class by Dr. Chagai Misgav, a religious doctor of archeology in the Hebrew University. One of the things he said was that a few years before the class was given (the class is from the year 5773, so we're talking about around 5768), an ostracon - i.e. a piece of ancient pottery with writing on it - was discovered in the Beit Ha'elah Valley. This discovery was considered very dramatic in the world of archeology. Why? Well, until that point, it had been widely accepted that the proto-Hebraic alphabet had evolved from the proto-Canaanite alphabet. If you have no idea what I'm talking about, let me explain: This is what the proto-Canaanite looks like: (image taken from here ) and this is what proto-Hebrew looks like: (image taken from here ) When comparing the various inscriptions and ostracons found, the archeological world managed to create the following theory of development: (image taken...