January 7, 2010
University of Haifa Professor Gershon Galil announces that he has deciphered an inscription from the time of King David’s reign in the 10th century B.C.E. The inscription, written in an ancient proto-Canaanite script, is the earliest-known Hebrew writing discovered to date. It was written in ink on a 15-by-16.5-centimeter trapezoidal pottery shard that was discovered the summer of 2008 by Professor Yosef Garfinkel at Khirbet Qeiyafa near the Elah Valley.
The text, as deciphered by Galil, tells its readers to protect slaves, widows and orphans, rehabilitate the poor, and support strangers. The discovery, according to Galil, “indicates that the Kingdom of Israel already existed in the 10th century B.C.E. and that at least some of the biblical texts were written hundreds of years before the dates presented in current research.”
Galil also says, “It can now be maintained that it was highly reasonable that during the 10th century B.C.E., during the reign of King David, there were scribes in Israel who were able to write literary texts and complex historiographies such as the books of Judges and Samuel.”
