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Interesting. Just some suggestions for improving (as I come away from this with questions and a wish to know more):
1. A date "between 7th and 9th centuries" seems pretty wide - what's it based on, and hasn't it been narrowed down?
Why narrow down the age when you don't have proof of how old it "really" is?
2. Some text is reconstructed between square brackets - how sure is the reconstruction? what's it based on?
3. If there really is no word divider, then what would the phrase "house of David" signify?
4. If the stele were reconstructed according to Athas' idea, what would the resulting translation look like?
5. Finally, the Further Reading" section has nothing later than 2001 - surely more has been published?
But a good article. PiCo 03:59, 8 February 2006 (UTC)
Another comment: Might be worth saying that Hadad was a god (the inscription says "Hadad made me king").
And a question, not related to this: When I David believed to have lived/reigned? It's just that the dates used on the Wiki article seem based on counting off the reigns given in the Bible, but I'm suspicious of kings who reign a neat 40 years.
PiCo 01:30, 14 February 2006 (UTC)
I have come round to the view that we should delete the reference to Ahmed Osman, since whatever the merits or otherwise of his unconventional views, they relate to general issues of the historicity of David, not this stele specifically. PatGallacher 11:25, 2 October 2006 (UTC)
It appears to me that what should be a short article summarizing an archaeological find has become platform for two or three capricious dissenters. Mainstream experts have considered these dissenting opinions and rejected them, and they therefore have no place in this article.
Anyone can make up a crack-pot theory, but they do not make it into wikipedia. By all means, we can have another article on "paranoid theories of archaeological fraud", and the Thompsen crowd can have their pathetic attention seeking theories repeated ad nauseum. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Pioneeranomoly ( talk • contribs) 22:55, 11 July 2011 (UTC)
I made a couple of additions to the article, including commentary by Kenneth Kitchen on Thomas L. Thompson's assessment of the Stela, and Dever's comments also. I also corrected the quote from Davies - he is Philip R Davies, not Paul Davies. -- Taiwan boi 08:03, 22 October 2007 (UTC)
I've been struggling to understand why Philip R Davies' opinions are mentioned in this article, since he is neither an archaeologist nor an epigrapher. He is a professor in Biblical studies and a historian, without qualifications in either of the aforementioned fields, yet he is given place here alongside professional archaeologists and epigraphers. Actually the same goes for Thompson and Athas. -- Taiwan boi ( talk) 00:55, 25 January 2008 (UTC)
This facsimile needs to be replaced by a scientific one. SCHREIBER is evidently not aware that Semitic languages have 2 to 3 h's. So his reconstructions of both kings' names, Ah`ab and AHazyahu, are wrong - as any Israeli will immediately perceive. Please delete it - from all Wikipedias, not only from the English one. García 27/07/2008 84.148.103.149 ( talk) 19:46, 26 July 2008 (UTC)
THE HEBREW TRANSCRIPTION of the GERMAN WIKIPEDIA should be copied into the English version. García 27/07/2008 84.148.103.149 ( talk) 19:50, 26 July 2008 (UTC)
PiCo, your recent edit was unfounded on two primary grounds:
As usual, you made no response to this. You have continued to revert my edit on the grounds that it is NPOV. Explain yourself here please. -- Taiwan boi ( talk) 08:04, 29 October 2008 (UTC)
Why does "House of David" have to refer to an actual person, instead of, as in the case of Rome with Remus and Romulus, could it not refer to a mythic founder or even a local god? Even if the inscription is accurate why jump to the conclusion that this person actually existed? WjtWeston ( talk) 19:57, 5 September 2010 (UTC)
Concerning Thoth, I noticed that there was an interesting view among mythographers and egyptologists that Thoth was a supposed early incarnation of Enoch, who also held a special status among Jews. It would be interesting if we could show gather the ancient sources that make such a comparison in order to put it into perspective with the Tel Dan Stele. ADM ( talk)
The lead piece in this article is saying that the stele says house of David when that is obviously in dispute.The other article about it on the wikipedia page about David is much more on the neutral side.This lead piece is a bit biased and should be changed to a more neutral piece which reflects the actual reality. Owain the 1st ( talk) 17:15, 23 April 2011 (UTC)
Has no one anything to say about this lead? It is not very neutral and the only reference for anything on it comes from an obvious pro house of David source supposedly from one of his books, so not neutral at all.If no one has anything to say then I am going to replace it with something that reflects the dispute, which is more neutral. Owain the 1st ( talk) 19:38, 24 April 2011 (UTC)
Oh, great. Yet another one (Owain) who has a problem with Jewish history in Israel being proved correct scientifically.
However, the statement "If these letters refer to the Davidic line then this is the first time the name "David" has been recognized at any archaeological site" is inaccurate. It should say 'recognised reliably', since the Mesha stele is regarded by many serious scholars as mentioning David also. This should be reflected in the statement. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.14.31.130 ( talk) 23:29, 15 August 2011 (UTC)
For a fact folks, over the years I have read of more pro Atlantis sources than debunking Atlantis. The same for UFOs and Bigfoot. The number of sources is meaningless. If this is the criteria then there might as well be an article pretending David and Solomon and Biblical Israel were real rather than myths. TWIIWT ( talk) 11:59, 16 March 2012 (UTC)
I am unable to parse the quote from Biran in Tel Dan Stele#Dispute over the phrase "House of David" because it starts with a double quote, contains double quotes and does not appear to end with a double quote. It would be helpful if someone with access to the source could fix it. Joja lozzo 19:02, 27 June 2011 (UTC)
Look at the picture. There are dots separating words. There is the WORD "dwdtyb" (BYTDWD as in BYTLHM, Bethlehem) which is plain for all to see. A word is not a phrase, period. BYT means only something like "dwelling place." Its translation into English depends upon who or what dwells. Thus we have BYTYHWH as both TEMPLE of Yahweh and the poetic HOUSE of the Lord. Anyone wishing to translate BYTLHM as the Dynasty of Bread please feel free to do so. I prefer a town famous for its bread if you please.
Besides that House as in dynasty first appears in history in Renaissance Italy. For those not well versed in history that is more than two millennia after this inscription. Dynasty never means dwelling place or vice versa. The word is well known in all of its forms in all semitic languages. The meaning is consistent.
The best that can be said for this is a new meaning for the word was discovered but only when connected to DWD. So inserted beloved land for the single word on the inscription.
On top of that it is sort of incredible that a victory inscription is in a form barely at the quality level of a learner's exercise by a dimwitted learner. IOW forgery is most likely. — Preceding unsigned comment added by TWIIWT ( talk • contribs) 11:44, 16 March 2012 (UTC)
Funny thing how בית דו(י)ד occurs in the following passages in the Bible:
AnonMoos ( talk) 17:49, 16 March 2012 (UTC)
I came across "Those who deny there was a David... " in the text. This topic is hard core zionist, and out of 3 letters they make a torch procession out of a fart (Fackelzug aus Furz, as a Nazi would say). Denying would imply that the denier had witnessed the stele with its intended meaning why it was erected but pretends to not have observed it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 200.77.218.249 ( talk) 06:32, 29 May 2012 (UTC)
If you have sourced university material that there is universal consensus for the claims you have attributed to the book of Francesca Stavrakopoulou then quote it. This does not mean that you can remove well sourced, university material from other authors like Mykytiuk or Schmidt. Even more because this material is well sourced, reliable and accessible on line, contrary to your claims attributed to Stavrakopoulou which are not accessible. As you may notice I avoided any "universal claims" although I could use Grabbe 2007, p. 333. and write that the "reading of House of David as Davidic dynasty or the land of Davidic dynasty is today widely accepted by all relevant archeological scholars and other possibilities are ruled out" All material I used is attributed to its author, there are no "universally accepted truths" However your claims based allegedly to Stavrakopoulou book seems to be non existing as it is taken from Mykytiuk book, in opposite meaning than Mykytiuk is presenting them. To avoid this interpretation and to prove that I am mistaken, you have to provide clear accessible source to those pages in the Stavrakopoulou book, as I did for the material that I have used. Otherwise, you(or others) should remove claims, which are not based on any source. I wrote similar text to the talk page of the administrator of that site User:Dougweller in order to notice him about this problem. Third, the author of the book you referred is , Francesca Stavrakopoulou, without co-authors. Best regards Tritomex ( talk) 12:57, 4 September 2012 (UTC)
Neils Peter Lemche, for a start. He hasn't changed his mind from when he wrote (In Thompson and Jayyusi, Jerusalem in Ancient History and Tradition, Continuum, 2003, pp. 46-68, saying (p. 66) "that all arguments put forward against the genuineness of the Tel Dan inscription (including a letter at the top that continues down the broken side) are hardly strong enough to win over persons who are convinced that the inscription is genuine." (quote is from him in an email, not the book). Russell Gmirkin is another. Dougweller ( talk) 12:07, 5 September 2012 (UTC)
George Athas says BYTDWD should not be understood as a dynastic name ('House of David'), but as another name for Jerusalem, comparable to (YR-DWD (City of David). [1]. If we are serious about a good article, why aren't we using (besides Lemche's article) sources such as The Tel Dan Inscription: A Reappraisal and a New Introduction by George Athas,[ http://books.google.co.uk/books?
id=OPqpzmYBOxgC&printsec=frontcover&dq=George+Athas+%22house+of+david%22+Jerusalaem&source=bl&ots=bxRdqVhLDS&sig=_a7_rXmmZmDeJ9Dp5gmA46-meVs&hl=en&sa=X&ei=1UFHUIiqIMOh0QXNyYEg&ved=0CDAQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=George%20Athas%20%22house%20of%20david%22%20Jerusalaem&f=false and more] Dougweller ( talk) 12:18, 5 September 2012 (UTC)
This is the paragraph on "House of David" the way Tritomex wants it: In the early/mid 1990s, when the inscription was discovered, the world of biblical scholarship was being rocked by the strand of thought called by its detractors "biblical minimalism". The minimalists argued that the bible was not a reliable guide to the history of ancient Israel, and, specifically, that its story of a united kingdom of Israel ruled by David and Solomon could not be taken at face value. The Tel Dan stele therefore found great favour among those who wished to defend the biblical version of Israel's ancient past. Its significance for this argument lay particularly in lines 8 and 9, which mention a "king of Israel" and a "house of David". The latter is generally understood to refer to the ruling dynasty of Judah, the descendants of the biblical David. However, although the "king of Israel" is generally accepted, the rendering of the phrase bytdwd as "house of David" is disputed by Francesca Stavrakopoulou, not least because it appears without a word-divider between the two parts. Other possible meanings have been suggested by Stavrakopoulou : it may be a place-name, or the name of a god, or an epithet. Stavrakopoulou also suggested that even if the correct translation is "House of David", it does not logically support the assumption that the Bible's David was an historical figure.[11] Analyzing other proposed suggestion, Associate Professor of Library Science Lawrence J. Mykytiuk argues against the possibility that the term bytdwd could refer to the name of a god, cultic object, epithet or a place and concludes that in line with ancient Aramaic and Assyrian patterns for geopolitical terms, the phrase "House of David" refers to a Davidic dynasty or to the land ruled by a Davidic dynasty. [12] Brian B. Schmidt states that the reading of "House of David" in Tel Dan inscription "is now widely accepted" [13] Hallvard believes that the Tel Dan inscription is the most important archeological finding in Israel/Palestine since the discovery of Dead Sea Scrolls [14]
The problem is that it ascribes to Stavrakopoulou views which are not hers alone, and thereby makes them seem less significant than they really are. I'll list these:
So, for these excellent reasons, I'm going to revert tomorrow. I have no objection, by the way, to using a different source instead of Stavrakopoulou - they all say the same thing. PiCo ( talk) 12:40, 5 September 2012 (UTC)
I have nothing against the edition of well sourced material disputing the reading of HD. I never removed any sourced material-Therefor I have problem with the removal of other sourced material without any explanation PiCo. Also, I have problem with the fact that reference number 11 is identical with the analyzed proposals for the meaning of the "House of David" written by Lawrence J. Mykytiuk (page 124-126). Its very unlikely that both Stavrakopoulou and Mykytiuk analyzed the same proposals for the same phrase in the same year (2004) independently Its more likely that the editor of reference no 11 used the text of Mykytiuk in opposite way of its meaning, attributed it to non accessible pages of Stavrakopoulou book (and page 86-87 is not accessible) All arguments attributed to Stavrakopoulou can be found at Mykytiuk (page 125-126) Therefor its beyond reasonable doubt that reference no 11 originates from Mykytiuk (page 125-126 as all arguments presented here are written there) which were latter attributed to non accessible parts (page 86-87) of Stavrakopoulou book, avoiding atribution presented as universal oppinion and finaly completed with removal of other material which did not fit this interpretation.
Btw Pi Co How you were able to read page 86-87 of Stavrakopoulou book? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Tritomex ( talk • contribs) 12:48, 5 September 2012 (UTC)
Third, you can re write your editions, but you can not remove my well sourced material without any explanation as you did Tritomex ( talk) 12:52, 5 September 2012 (UTC)
No I cant access, page 79-91 is not accessible and in page summary I can not find this part "it does not in fact support the assumption that David was an historical figure or that the bible's version of history is accurate." However, what I disputed was the claim also written under this reference namely "Other possible meanings have been suggested : it may be a place-name, or the name of a god, or an epithet." This was also written under same reference. Other possible meanings have been suggested by whom? and where? (SOURCE??) Finally, even if this reference is found to be genuine what I oppose the most is the removal of other well sourced material-without any legitimate reason Tritomex ( talk) 13:33, 5 September 2012 (UTC)
1."[A]lthough the "king of Israel" is generally accepted, the rendering of the phrase bytdwd as "house of David" is disputed by Francesca Stavrakopoulou". But also by George Athas, N.P. Lemche, and others. In addition, the points Stavrakopoulou mentions - lack of word dividers etc - are objective facts, not suppositions".
2. "Other possible meanings have been suggested by Stavrakopoulou". Not true - Stavrakopoulou is simply repeating suggestions made by Athas and others, none of them are hers".
4. "Mykytiuk argues [that] the phrase "House of David" refers to a Davidic dynasty or to the land ruled by a Davidic dynasty." Very true - but Stavrakopoulou says the same, so why repeat it?"
5."Hallvard believes that the Tel Dan inscription is the most important archeological finding in Israel/Palestine since the discovery of Dead Sea Scrolls". This is trivial - sort of thing you get on National Geographic, not in an encyclopedia."
6."Associate Professor of Library Science Lawrence J. Mykytiuk..." Irrelevant. Yes, he is a professional librarian, but Lawrence has published a widely consulted book on Biblical names in ANE inscriptions, and THAT is why he's mentioned here, not because he's a librarian"
Tritomex ( talk) 14:11, 5 September 2012 (UTC)
Also please respect my work. You can rewrite your editions in accordance with standards and well known requirements stated above . However the section bellow is my contribution, well sourced and properly attributed. Therefore do not remove it:
"Analyzing other proposed suggestion, J. Mykytiuk argues against the possibility that the term bytdwd could refer to the name of a god, cultic object, epithet or a place and concludes that in line with ancient Aramaic and Assyrian patterns for geopolitical terms, the phrase "House of David" refers to a Davidic dynasty or to the land ruled by a Davidic dynasty. [12] Brian B. Schmidt states that the reading of "House of David" in Tel Dan inscription "is now widely accepted" [13] Hallvard believes that the Tel Dan inscription is the most important archeological finding in Israel/Palestine since the discovery of Dead Sea Scrolls [14] Tritomex ( talk) 17:13, 5 September 2012 (UTC)
I have already told Tritomex, but sources do NOT have to be on the web. You might have to pay for them, you might have to get them from inter-library loan, you might even have to go see them if they are records you can't see any other way. Dougweller ( talk) 11:02, 6 September 2012 (UTC)
Its not just about accessibility, as I have written the biggest problems here are:
1. The removal of well sourced material by PiCo
2. The avoiding of attribution of certain claims to theirs authors and the attempt to present them as universal
3. is disputed (by whom)soruce is claimed (by whom)source
This are basic standards, I was many time remined to adhere to them and PiCo has to do the same. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Tritomex ( talk • contribs) 11:15, 6 September 2012 (UTC)
I will rewrite the upper sections (which is/will referee to the criticism of bytdvd reading as Davidic Dynasty) in coming days, if PiCo does not want to do it, with well sourced material and proper attribution, Tritomex ( talk) 11:20, 6 September 2012 (UTC)
1.Where I have used sources that are self-published or creationist in this article??
2.Are Mykytiuk 2004, Hagelia or Schmidt self-published or creationist?
3. What this sentence means "Other possible meanings have been suggested: it may be a place-name, or the name of a god, or an epithet." and where is the source?
4. Why the next well sourced material "Analyzing other proposed suggestion, Associate Professor of Library Science Lawrence J. Mykytiuk argues against the possibility that the term bytdwd could refer to the name of a god, cultic object, epithet or a place and concludes that in line with ancient Aramaic and Assyrian patterns for geopolitical terms, the phrase "House of David" refers to a Davidic dynasty or to the land ruled by a Davidic dynasty." was removed? It was well sourced, contrary to the "suggestion" of unknown origin written above.
4. suggested by whom?
5, Disputed by whom?
6. "it does not logically support the assumption that the Bible's David was an historical figure"
Based on which facts this "logical conclusion" is done?
7.who is the author of that logic?
How such kind of conclusion can be written in a sense that assume that everyone agrees with this logic.(Not to mention the fact that all provided references with "It has been suggested", and "it has been disputed", are without any attribution.
8. Do you really think that the current form of this tickler is acceptable?
9. I would like to hear criticism of my removed editions! Tritomex ( talk) 14:26, 6 September 2012 (UTC)
10. * Extremely vague statements ("Alice Expert enjoys broad support") should normally be removed. What about our ""it does not logically support the assumption that the Bible's David was an historical figure" ??
11. I have used the author first name, that is certainly my mistake, but was that the reason that all my sourced material was reverted? Tritomex ( talk) 15:48, 6 September 2012 (UTC)
The next thing you need to do is justify the NPOV tag. How does this section fail WP:NPOV. Please be specific. Thanks. Dougweller ( talk) 18:24, 6 September 2012 (UTC)
Lawrence J. Mykytiuk was used in this article before. His book "Identifying Biblical Persons in Northwest Inscriptions of 1200-539 B.C.E." and many other books are widely used in many articles. Beyond this he is widely respected scholar. I don't know why you question this?
His Education
Ph.D., Hebrew and Semitic Studies, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1998.
M.A., Library and Information Studies, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1992.
M.A., Hebrew and Semitic Studies, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1988.
M.T.S. summa cum laude, Theological Studies, Asian Theological Seminary, Quezon City, Republic of the Philippines, 1983.
B.A. summa cum laude, English, Trinity International University, Deerfield, Illinois, 1972.
Award Purdue University Libraries Second Annual Award for Excellence in Teaching, 2012
Athos was already used in upper section but without proper attribution. As I did not wrrite the upper section, I did changed anything there. Tritomex ( talk) 20:44, 6 September 2012 (UTC)
I just first-rated the article in its current form, with a '2' for objectivity (moderate bias) on the Article Feedback Tool, because of the final sentence, which is poorly written - it sounds like an unattributed stance on what is 'likely' and 'logical'. If this is improved to sound less like pushing, I'll re-rate it higher. Til Eulenspiegel ( talk) 13:24, 6 September 2012 (UTC)
If I used a creationist in my article about King Ahaz Seal, I gave also another references too. However I agree to avoid using creationists, maybe I made mistake. Just to be clear I have no religious agenda and although, it is not subject here, I am not religious. Tritomex ( talk) 20:42, 6 September 2012 (UTC) WP:NPOV
the phrase bytdwd as "house of David" is disputed,(BY WHOM??)[11] in part because it appears without a word-divider between the two parts. In addition, the rest of the inscription uses dots to separate words, but bytdwd appears as a single word, ביתדוד, not בית•דוד. ...
but some have argued that "dwd" could be a name for a god ("beloved"), or could mean "uncle" (a word with a rather wider meaning in ancient times than it has today), or that the whole phrase might be a
name for Jerusalem (so that the author might be claiming to have killed the king of Jerusalem rather than a king of the "house of David".[12][13]
Other possible meanings have been suggested:(BY WHOM???) it may be a place-name, or the name of a god, or an epithet.[11] But even if (as seems likely)[14] the correct translation is "House of David", Francesca
Stavrakopoulou argues that it does not logically support the assumption that the Bible's David was an historical figure.[11]
__________NOTHING________Everything has been erased
" The latter is generally understood to refer to the ruling dynasty of Judah," can not been seen as argument in favor of reading bytdwd as Davidic Dynasty as it simply explains that "House of David" is generaly considered to be biblical phrase for Davidic dynasty, or even less, it does not clearly explains anything but is misleading.
0.Lawrence J. Mykytiuk argues against the possibility that the term bytdwd could refer to the name of a god, cultic object, epithet or a place and concludes that in line with ancient Aramaic and Assyrian patterns for geopolitical terms, the phrase "House of David" refers to a Davidic dynasty or to the land ruled by a Davidic dynasty. [1] Brian B. Schmidt states that the reading of "House of David" in Tel Dan inscription "is now widely accepted" [2] Hallvard believes that the Tel Dan inscription is the most important archeological finding in Israel/Palestine since the discovery of Dead Sea Scrolls [3]
Also why this materiel is avoided?
Lawrence J. Mykytiuk
1. David, founder of the dynasty that ruled Judah (r. ca. 1010–970), 1 Sam 16:13, etc. (IBP, 110–32, 265–77; Mykytiuk, “Corrections,” 119–21) Terms that incorporate his name in monumental Northwest Semitic inscriptions, leading to IDs, are as follows: a. David’s name is a clear element in the phrase bytdwd in the Tel Dan stele, line 9.17 b. David’s name is also an element in the phrase bt[d]wd in the Mesha Inscription, line 31, though its presence is unclear at prima vista, due to the fragmentation in that line.18 ● Aramaic usage of b(y)t + personal name in a variety of Aramaic sources, including the Tel Dan stele, is a way of indicating a dynasty by a phrase pattern that incorporates the name of its founder.19 That this phrase pattern has this significance is especially clear in instances where the incorporated personal name is known to be a royal name or where the phrase is known to refer to a kingdom. Since a dynasty governs a territorial realm, b(y)t + personal name is also a geographical name referring to that territorial realm.20 Thus the term in the Tel Dan stele incorporates a conventional phrase pattern which indicates that the David to whom it refers was the founder of a dynasty. This point of singularity is also found in the biblical text: both the Bible and the inscription refer to the one and only David who was the founder of the dynasty of Judah. Also, it can then be argued, from internationalization of this Aramaic usage and resulting—or simply parallel—Moabite usage, that bt + personal name in line 31 of the Mesha Inscription contains the same point of singularity. Besides such inscriptionalbiblical singularity, the fact that there is only one David in the biblical king lists, which purport to be complete, gives his ID also what can be called biblical singularity. c. An inscription written within about forty-five years of David’s lifetime by Pharaoh Sheshonq I sheds additional light on “the house of David” mentioned in the Tel Dan stele as a possible geographical reference to the territory ruled by “[the kin]g of the house of David.” Sheshonq’s inscription contains the phrase hadabiyat-dawit, “the heights (or highland) of David.” According to the geographically organized sequence in the inscription, this area should be in the southern part of Judah or the Negev, where the book of 1 Samuel places David when he was hiding from King Saul. An ID of King David as the person whose name is included in this phrase is entirely plausible, both in view of Kitchen’s research into the rendering of the name and in view of other ancient Hebrew phrases, such as “the city of David” and “the house of David,” which include a geographical dimension. It seems extremely doubtful that we shall suddenly discover some other, previously unknown David who was famous enough to have lent his name to the region mentioned in Sheshonq’s timely inscription.21
Also omitted from the text is
2..Hagelia, Hallvard (2005). "Philological Issues in the Tel Dan Inscription"
●Supporting that "house of David" refer to Davidic dynasty
3. Simcha Shalom (2005).
●Supporting that "house of David refer to Davidic dynasty even stating that it is usual practice not to use dots in royal names.
4.Schmidt, Brian B. (2006)
●Supporting that "house of David refer to Davidic dynasty and even pointing out to similar patterns like "BytHmria"-for Israel
5.Grabbe 2007, p. 333.
"The Tel Dan inscription generated a good deal of debate and a flurry of articles when it first appeared, and even accusations of forgery, "but it is now widely regarded (a) as genuine and (b) as referring to the Davidic dynasty and the Aramaic kingdom of Damascus"
6.Gary A. Rendsburg, “On the Writing ביתדוד in the Aramaic Inscription from Tel Dan,” IEJ 45 (1995): 22–5;
●Supporting that "house of David refer to Davidic dynasty
7.Hallvard Hagelia et all 2009 "The Dan Debate: The Tel Dan Inscription in Recent Research (Recent Research in Biblical Studies) "
●Supporting that "house of David refer to Davidic dynasty
and again we have "Other possible meanings have been suggested:(BY WHOM???)" and "it may be a place-name, or the name of a god, or an epithet" which is originating from Mykytiuk
the phrase bytdwd as "house of David" is disputed,(BY WHOM??)
Best regards
References
Thank you for rewriting the section. The only thing I suggest is the inclusion of Hagelia opinion about importance of this artifact.
"Hagelia considers that the Tel Dan inscription is the most important archeological finding in Israel/Palestine since the discovery of Dead Sea Scrolls [1]"
and , if it is possible I think it is important to name the scholars who suggested other meaning for HD and who disputed the phrase bytdwd as the House of David.Because "Others" is very wide term
However, thank you for correcting this article. Tritomex ( talk) 21:06, 6 September 2012
PiCo Can you show us here on talk page, references from that source about who those scholars exactly are? References are needed here: "Other possible meanings have been suggested (BY WHOM) and "Though the reference to a "king of Israel" is fairly secure, the rendering of bytdwd is disputed,(BY WHOM?) I think proper attribution is needed here. Tritomex ( talk) 11:08, 7 September 2012 (UTC) Hagelia has written two books regarding the The Tel Dan inscription which are widely used. She is a respected authority in this subject. Her opinion about the Tel Dan inscription is shared by many other scholars. As we have noticed, we wrote down what Stavrakopoulou personal thoughts about logic supporting the assumption of David existence, which I think has nothing to do in the section regarding the reading of the "House of David", especially as we know that her opinion about the historicity of David is not supported by any archeologist involved in this and other excavations in Israel/Palestine (when I said ANY I double checked) including those with close ties to minimalism like TAU scholars: Finkelstein, Silberman,Nadav Na'aman etc. Therefore in order to get objective view, and if the keeping of Stavrakopoulou personal opinion about David is "a must" I propose to balance it with Hagelia opinion, which is clearly related only to the subject(namely the Tel Dan inscription) but has a "contra-argument" in its essence Tritomex ( talk) 11:08, 7 September 2012 (UTC)
Thnak you. So does any one has any objection regarding the edition of Hagelia opinion in parallel with Stavrakopoulou? If this is done, the dispute is from my point of view finished Tritomex ( talk) 10:36, 8 September 2012 (UTC)
Yes my mistake, when I said she I taught about Stavrakopoulou. We already used Athas and I have nothing against it, his opinion has merit in this field. We did not use Hagelia, and I would not even object that, although I do not see the reason why we are avoiding him. However, with same logic I do not see any reason why we should keep Stavrakopoulou opinion about the historicity of David on this page. I am sure that the reason can not be because Stavrakopoulou opinion "is more important" than the opinion of Hagelia, Finkelstein, Mykytiuk, Schmidt, Biran Naveh and others. Considering Finkelstein and Silberman I did not qualified them as minimalists, I said that they have close ties with them. I propose therefor the removal of this sentence. Tritomex ( talk) 18:29, 9 September 2012 (UTC)
May I ask why should we have conclusions like this in last sentence "XY states that logically David is (not) historic figure". Tritomex ( talk) 14:27, 10 September 2012 (UTC)
To take a bit of heat out of this, let's take it step by step. Let's begin by taking a close look at the first few sentences of that section, as far as the first footnote (i.e., the first point at which we have a refernnced source for what's said). This is it:
Do we all have access to that book?
Now, I must say that I can't see anything on those pages to support the first few sentences - nothing on the first sentence, nothing on the second, although the third sentence is supported. (Stav. says: "Tel Dan stele has found particular favour among those seeking to defend the existence of the united monarchy".) It also supports the sentence about the significance of lines 8 and 9 of the stele. (She says: "Its significance is found in its mention of a "king of Israel" and a possible reference to the "house of David" in lines 8 and 9 respectively"). And the book also supports the next sentence, about the general understanding that House of David refers to the ruling dynasty of Judah, although she doesn't say anything about this house being the descendants of biblical David. ("This latter phrase is generally understood to refer to the dynastic name of the state of Judah"). And it supports the final line, about the dispute over the rendering of bytdwd and the importance of the lack of word dividers. ("Though the reference to a "king of Israel" is fairly secure, the rendering of bytdwd is disputed, not least because it occurs without the expected word dividers ...").
Please compare these sentences with the source, and make sure that they don't say anything (like the first few sentences and the bit about descended from biblical David) that isn't actually said in the source. This doesn't mean we can't go on to find more sources, but we should at least begin by making sure that what we have reflects the sources supposedly being used. PiCo ( talk) 02:28, 7 September 2012 (UTC)
"This latter phrase is generally understood to refer to the dynastic name of the state of Judah" and "the descendants of the biblical David" are synonyms which may have to be used to avoid copyright problems. However if we started the section with Stavrakopoulou and Athas i think it is too much to finish the section with them, like there is none other author involved in this issue. Tritomex ( talk) 11:08, 7 September 2012 (UTC)
Partially I agree with you, and it could be written in this artickle that as the "House of Omri" refer in other scripts to Israel, the phrase "House of David" could refer to Judah as a state. This would clarify this problem and avoid most of dispute.
However, I suggest you this: " Aramaic usage of b(y)t + personal name in a variety of Aramaic sources, including the
Tel Dan stele, is a way of indicating a dynasty by a phrase pattern that incorporates the name of its founder.That this phrase pattern has this significance is especially clear in
instances where the incorporated personal name is known to be a royal name or where the phrase is known to refer to a kingdom. Since a dynasty governs a territorial realm, b(y)t + personal name is also a geographical name referring to that territorial realm.20 Thus the
term in the Tel Dan stele incorporates a conventional phrase pattern which indicates that the David to whom it refers was the founder of a dynasty. This point of singularity is also
found in the biblical text: both the Bible and the inscription refer to the one and only David who was the founder of the dynasty of Judah." The same is truth with bytdwd, Beyt Omri as both names indicates founders of dynasty.
Tritomex (
talk) 12:09, 7 September 2012 (UTC)
We have again 70% of the article section based on Stavrakopoulou famous page 86. This can not stand in my opinion. Tritomex ( talk) 12:20, 7 September 2012 (UTC) In order to balance this clear unbalanced current form I propose the deletion of sentence "Francesca Stavrakopoulou argues that it does not logically support the assumption that the Bible's David was an historical figure."
This has nothing to do with tickler altogether. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Tritomex ( talk • contribs) 12:29, 7 September 2012 (UTC)
It is quite surreal to have Richard Freund calling doubters "extreme minimalists" when Freund is the one who is extreme. Lemche and Athas are mainstream, not extreme, but Freund on the other hand...his theory that Atlantis and Tarshish were the same and can be identified as a place in Spain is an example to go on with. Even if that wasn't true, it is ridiculous (not to mention, contrary to NPOV) to cite a person on one side of an argument as being a source of unattributed truth about people on the other side of the argument. Zero talk 02:27, 25 January 2014 (UTC)
The text says: "However, Biblical minimalists continue to question "which house of which David" as well as whether it says David at all "since the text has no vowels and can be read with different vowels" Personally I believe that the source itself is not sufficient for the lead for the same reasons as stated by Zero0000, however, if it is used it has to be used correctly per WP:V and without WP:OR . "extreme minimalists" can not be redefined to all biblical minimalists, without any source. -- Tritomex ( talk) 10:47, 25 January 2014 (UTC)
What is the problem with "House of David" that it requires a tag from 2012? I do not know the topic, but the section represents a diverse spectrum of attitudes and opinions.-- Inayity ( talk) 03:53, 2 February 2015 (UTC)
On p.43 of his 1998 work, Lemche writes: “In this way the short history of the reception of the Tel Dan inscriptions constitutes a classic example of how biblical scholars are moved not so much by evidence from the inscription itself as by the wish to create links between the inscription and the biblical narrative.”
This seems like an interesting quote to add into the article, but it clearly needs to be done in a sensitive fashion. Any ideas would be appreciated.
Oncenawhile ( talk) 17:32, 11 April 2015 (UTC)
My post from questioned source was suddenly deleted with no prior discussion by Doug Weller. I posted a well supported translation of the Dan Stele from this website which I found online which is in turn from a self-published book on Amazon which I now have. I did not delete anything from the Wikipedia article itself. My aim was to post a well supported alternative translation of the inscription. Any quality encyclopedia article about controversial subjects will provide the dominant viewpoint but they always mention the minority viewpoints in order to avoid the appearance of bias.
The author of this book (Olmsted) is suggesting that these texts were composed in a different language (Akkadian, the language of Babylon and Assyria) than what has been assumed (some form of early Hebrew). This is revolutionary! People need to know about this alternative approach since it seems to allow for the translation of All the early alphabetic inscriptions.
I have been following these inscriptions for a long time in the popular magazine “Biblical Archaeology Review” and with the exception of the Dan Stele and inscriptions found prior to 1940, they have not been translatable using Hebrew. Even the first inscriptions, Proto-Sinaitic found in the Sinai desert, have not been translated. Of course this make the existing Dan Stele translation very suspect in my eyes. How could this be translated when all others cannot be? Olmsted critiques these Hebrew language derived translations and finds them to be severely flawed with letters ignored or inserted to make the desired words. In the case of the Dan stele no letter by letter translation was actually provided. Instead it is a “connect the dot” translation (Olmsted’s term) in which some isolated words are recognized and then phrases are invented to connect them. So Olmsted’s translations are actually a better quality than any existing ones.
I think we need to take the author’s explanation about why his book was self-published to heart. He wanted to make these inscriptions available to everyone without copyright restriction so he published these under the same Creative Commons license as Wikipedia which no commercial publisher would do. I have lots of books with ancient inscription translations which I would love to post on Wikipedia but I can’t because they are copyright protected. So despite his translations being well supported with every letter included in the translation, Wikipedia is punishing an author with the same vision.
SalamisDragon ( talk) 10:40, 22 June 2015 (UTC)
I've deleted it and am discussing what part of it, if any, we can restore. Meanwhile, please don't revert me anyone, it's inclusion was a violation of our copyright policy. Doug Weller ( talk) 14:20, 22 June 2015 (UTC)
Drsmoo there really are only four. The Lemche quote in reference 3 is crystal clear. Your source is almost certainly referring to the references to Omri (see a table I created at: Omrides#List_of_proposed_Assyrian_references_to_the_House_of_Omri). Oncenawhile ( talk) 23:43, 18 December 2016 (UTC)
I deleted "only" because it subjectively implies that "four" generally accepted references in different languages are inadequate. The fact is Egyptian sources are largely lost because they used papyrus, therefore it would be natural for any reference to Israel to exist on a stele. We have far more records from the Assyrians who wrote with styluses on stone tablets and because of that the "one reference to Israel" may seem lacking, but the Assyrians made numerous references to the "House of Omri", aka the northern kingdom.-- Monochrome_ Monitor 02:44, 21 December 2016 (UTC)
Our conversations always seem to fall into this pattern. To avoid this spiralling downward any further, let's go for the easy route:
Oncenawhile ( talk) 01:11, 27 December 2016 (UTC)
"The finding of the inscription caused a major sensation and was published on the front page of the New York Times and in Time magazine. It continued to make news when Niels Peter Lemche, one of the most prominent members of the Copenhagen School, suggested that the inscription might be a forgery planted by the excavator, Avraham Biran. However, Biran was one of the oldest, most distinguished, and most trusted archaeologists working in the state of Israel—he was Albright's first PhD student at Johns Hopkins University and the longtime director of the Nelson Glueck School of Biblical Archaeology at the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in Jerusalem–and no serious scholar doubted the authenticity of the fragments. Nor did they question the interpretation of the inscription when other minimalists suggested that Beit David might not mean the "House of David" but something else entirely (such as the word "house" connected with the word "beloved," "uncle," or "kettle"). Today, after much further discussion in academic journals, it is accepted by most archaeologists that inscription is not only genuine but that the reference is indeed to the House of David, thus representing the first allusion found anywhere outside the Bible to the biblical David." - Eric H, Cline [7]
"(3.5) Question 1: reliability of the inscriptional data
References
As discussed above, this edit by Drsmoo added two sources which are unrelated to the specific statement they are being used to source. The sentence being sourced in the four articles states that there are "four known contemporary inscriptions containing the name of Israel", being the Tel Dan Stele, the Merneptah Stele, the Mesha Stele, and the Kurkh Monolith. Maeir and Fleming neither support or oppose this statement.
Unless Drsmoo can show how these sources are relevant to support the statement, they will be removed in a few days.
Oncenawhile ( talk) 11:54, 8 January 2017 (UTC)
To summarize the above threads, it has now been two weeks since Drsmoo was challenged on his proposed inclusion of two sources which do neither support nor oppose the sentence they have been placed against. None of his comments above have yet addressed this concern, despite being asked six times. If Drsmoo continues to refuse to provide a rationale here, I will revert his edit in the next few days. Oncenawhile ( talk) 07:41, 9 January 2017 (UTC)
it is very obviously yet another sock of Dalai Lama Ding Dong. See /info/en/?search=Wikipedia:Sockpuppet_investigations/Dalai_lama_ding_dong/Archive#16_June_2016 and the contribution history. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 50.185.55.19 ( talk) 02:50, 1 February 2017 (UTC)
@ Drsmoo: @ No More Mr Nice Guy: if you think these sources should be in this article, the WP:ONUS is on you to explain how they support the sentence they are being used to cite. Discussions about reliability, or ad hominem attacks, bear no relevance to the question. Oncenawhile ( talk) 00:11, 2 February 2017 (UTC)
Hi @ TransporterMan: ever since I first saw your essay WP:DISCFAIL, I have used your suggested modus operandi whenever a situation arises where the opposing editor refuses to engage but consistently reverts. The situation in the short thread above is similar but perhaps a little more complex, for reasons I won't explain in order not to lead the witness.
I'd be very grateful for any advice on the right next step here, or if you have the time it would be great if you could mediate this for us? Oncenawhile ( talk) 12:51, 4 February 2017 (UTC)
@ Drsmoo: On WT:CITE you wrote "The source is in fact directly and clearly appropriate for the text it's being used to cite". I consider this progress, as you have avoided being this explicit so far. If would please explain where these two sources make the claim they are being used to cite, we might be able to move on? Oncenawhile ( talk) 18:07, 4 February 2017 (UTC)
The DRN close stated "Closed. The editors are engaging in dialogue here. They should take their dialogue back to the article talk page and resume it there. Discuss content, not contributors. If discussion there is inconclusive, a new request can be filed here. In the meantime, go back to the talk page."
@ Drsmoo: as I mentioned in my last post before the close, ad hominem attacks and claims of consensus on straw man issues have not and will not result in progress. If you can point me to where the citations support the sentence, the discussion will be over.
Are you willing to do this?
Oncenawhile ( talk) 07:28, 15 March 2017 (UTC)
@ No More Mr Nice Guy: my edit was a proposal for summarising the Tel_Dan_Stele#.22House_of_David.22 section of the article in the lede. This section constitutes more than a third of the body of the article (excluding the transcription), so clearly is due space in the lede. Please make a counter proposal or otherwise state constructive feedback so a counterproposal can be made by me or others. Oncenawhile ( talk) 20:38, 8 January 2017 (UTC)
There's been a discussion of this at Talk:Israel#Earlier reference to Israel than the Merneptah Stele. If it's been largely ignored in academia, should it be in the article? I'm not sure it meets WP:UNDUE. Sorry to come in late, I hadn't picked up on this discussion. Doug Weller talk 19:15, 28 January 2017 (UTC)
It is considered the first widely accepted reference to the name David as the founder of a Judahite polity outside of the Hebrew Bible
Is Finkelstein arguing that this stele was the first extrabiblical text to be created with such a reference to David? Or is this a poorly written statement that it was the first such text to be discovered, or that it's the oldest such text currently known, or what? I've tagged it with {{ Huh}} because it's really not clear. Nyttend ( talk) 23:55, 12 February 2018 (UTC)
This article is rated C-class on Wikipedia's
content assessment scale. It is of interest to the following WikiProjects: | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Interesting. Just some suggestions for improving (as I come away from this with questions and a wish to know more):
1. A date "between 7th and 9th centuries" seems pretty wide - what's it based on, and hasn't it been narrowed down?
Why narrow down the age when you don't have proof of how old it "really" is?
2. Some text is reconstructed between square brackets - how sure is the reconstruction? what's it based on?
3. If there really is no word divider, then what would the phrase "house of David" signify?
4. If the stele were reconstructed according to Athas' idea, what would the resulting translation look like?
5. Finally, the Further Reading" section has nothing later than 2001 - surely more has been published?
But a good article. PiCo 03:59, 8 February 2006 (UTC)
Another comment: Might be worth saying that Hadad was a god (the inscription says "Hadad made me king").
And a question, not related to this: When I David believed to have lived/reigned? It's just that the dates used on the Wiki article seem based on counting off the reigns given in the Bible, but I'm suspicious of kings who reign a neat 40 years.
PiCo 01:30, 14 February 2006 (UTC)
I have come round to the view that we should delete the reference to Ahmed Osman, since whatever the merits or otherwise of his unconventional views, they relate to general issues of the historicity of David, not this stele specifically. PatGallacher 11:25, 2 October 2006 (UTC)
It appears to me that what should be a short article summarizing an archaeological find has become platform for two or three capricious dissenters. Mainstream experts have considered these dissenting opinions and rejected them, and they therefore have no place in this article.
Anyone can make up a crack-pot theory, but they do not make it into wikipedia. By all means, we can have another article on "paranoid theories of archaeological fraud", and the Thompsen crowd can have their pathetic attention seeking theories repeated ad nauseum. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Pioneeranomoly ( talk • contribs) 22:55, 11 July 2011 (UTC)
I made a couple of additions to the article, including commentary by Kenneth Kitchen on Thomas L. Thompson's assessment of the Stela, and Dever's comments also. I also corrected the quote from Davies - he is Philip R Davies, not Paul Davies. -- Taiwan boi 08:03, 22 October 2007 (UTC)
I've been struggling to understand why Philip R Davies' opinions are mentioned in this article, since he is neither an archaeologist nor an epigrapher. He is a professor in Biblical studies and a historian, without qualifications in either of the aforementioned fields, yet he is given place here alongside professional archaeologists and epigraphers. Actually the same goes for Thompson and Athas. -- Taiwan boi ( talk) 00:55, 25 January 2008 (UTC)
This facsimile needs to be replaced by a scientific one. SCHREIBER is evidently not aware that Semitic languages have 2 to 3 h's. So his reconstructions of both kings' names, Ah`ab and AHazyahu, are wrong - as any Israeli will immediately perceive. Please delete it - from all Wikipedias, not only from the English one. García 27/07/2008 84.148.103.149 ( talk) 19:46, 26 July 2008 (UTC)
THE HEBREW TRANSCRIPTION of the GERMAN WIKIPEDIA should be copied into the English version. García 27/07/2008 84.148.103.149 ( talk) 19:50, 26 July 2008 (UTC)
PiCo, your recent edit was unfounded on two primary grounds:
As usual, you made no response to this. You have continued to revert my edit on the grounds that it is NPOV. Explain yourself here please. -- Taiwan boi ( talk) 08:04, 29 October 2008 (UTC)
Why does "House of David" have to refer to an actual person, instead of, as in the case of Rome with Remus and Romulus, could it not refer to a mythic founder or even a local god? Even if the inscription is accurate why jump to the conclusion that this person actually existed? WjtWeston ( talk) 19:57, 5 September 2010 (UTC)
Concerning Thoth, I noticed that there was an interesting view among mythographers and egyptologists that Thoth was a supposed early incarnation of Enoch, who also held a special status among Jews. It would be interesting if we could show gather the ancient sources that make such a comparison in order to put it into perspective with the Tel Dan Stele. ADM ( talk)
The lead piece in this article is saying that the stele says house of David when that is obviously in dispute.The other article about it on the wikipedia page about David is much more on the neutral side.This lead piece is a bit biased and should be changed to a more neutral piece which reflects the actual reality. Owain the 1st ( talk) 17:15, 23 April 2011 (UTC)
Has no one anything to say about this lead? It is not very neutral and the only reference for anything on it comes from an obvious pro house of David source supposedly from one of his books, so not neutral at all.If no one has anything to say then I am going to replace it with something that reflects the dispute, which is more neutral. Owain the 1st ( talk) 19:38, 24 April 2011 (UTC)
Oh, great. Yet another one (Owain) who has a problem with Jewish history in Israel being proved correct scientifically.
However, the statement "If these letters refer to the Davidic line then this is the first time the name "David" has been recognized at any archaeological site" is inaccurate. It should say 'recognised reliably', since the Mesha stele is regarded by many serious scholars as mentioning David also. This should be reflected in the statement. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.14.31.130 ( talk) 23:29, 15 August 2011 (UTC)
For a fact folks, over the years I have read of more pro Atlantis sources than debunking Atlantis. The same for UFOs and Bigfoot. The number of sources is meaningless. If this is the criteria then there might as well be an article pretending David and Solomon and Biblical Israel were real rather than myths. TWIIWT ( talk) 11:59, 16 March 2012 (UTC)
I am unable to parse the quote from Biran in Tel Dan Stele#Dispute over the phrase "House of David" because it starts with a double quote, contains double quotes and does not appear to end with a double quote. It would be helpful if someone with access to the source could fix it. Joja lozzo 19:02, 27 June 2011 (UTC)
Look at the picture. There are dots separating words. There is the WORD "dwdtyb" (BYTDWD as in BYTLHM, Bethlehem) which is plain for all to see. A word is not a phrase, period. BYT means only something like "dwelling place." Its translation into English depends upon who or what dwells. Thus we have BYTYHWH as both TEMPLE of Yahweh and the poetic HOUSE of the Lord. Anyone wishing to translate BYTLHM as the Dynasty of Bread please feel free to do so. I prefer a town famous for its bread if you please.
Besides that House as in dynasty first appears in history in Renaissance Italy. For those not well versed in history that is more than two millennia after this inscription. Dynasty never means dwelling place or vice versa. The word is well known in all of its forms in all semitic languages. The meaning is consistent.
The best that can be said for this is a new meaning for the word was discovered but only when connected to DWD. So inserted beloved land for the single word on the inscription.
On top of that it is sort of incredible that a victory inscription is in a form barely at the quality level of a learner's exercise by a dimwitted learner. IOW forgery is most likely. — Preceding unsigned comment added by TWIIWT ( talk • contribs) 11:44, 16 March 2012 (UTC)
Funny thing how בית דו(י)ד occurs in the following passages in the Bible:
AnonMoos ( talk) 17:49, 16 March 2012 (UTC)
I came across "Those who deny there was a David... " in the text. This topic is hard core zionist, and out of 3 letters they make a torch procession out of a fart (Fackelzug aus Furz, as a Nazi would say). Denying would imply that the denier had witnessed the stele with its intended meaning why it was erected but pretends to not have observed it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 200.77.218.249 ( talk) 06:32, 29 May 2012 (UTC)
If you have sourced university material that there is universal consensus for the claims you have attributed to the book of Francesca Stavrakopoulou then quote it. This does not mean that you can remove well sourced, university material from other authors like Mykytiuk or Schmidt. Even more because this material is well sourced, reliable and accessible on line, contrary to your claims attributed to Stavrakopoulou which are not accessible. As you may notice I avoided any "universal claims" although I could use Grabbe 2007, p. 333. and write that the "reading of House of David as Davidic dynasty or the land of Davidic dynasty is today widely accepted by all relevant archeological scholars and other possibilities are ruled out" All material I used is attributed to its author, there are no "universally accepted truths" However your claims based allegedly to Stavrakopoulou book seems to be non existing as it is taken from Mykytiuk book, in opposite meaning than Mykytiuk is presenting them. To avoid this interpretation and to prove that I am mistaken, you have to provide clear accessible source to those pages in the Stavrakopoulou book, as I did for the material that I have used. Otherwise, you(or others) should remove claims, which are not based on any source. I wrote similar text to the talk page of the administrator of that site User:Dougweller in order to notice him about this problem. Third, the author of the book you referred is , Francesca Stavrakopoulou, without co-authors. Best regards Tritomex ( talk) 12:57, 4 September 2012 (UTC)
Neils Peter Lemche, for a start. He hasn't changed his mind from when he wrote (In Thompson and Jayyusi, Jerusalem in Ancient History and Tradition, Continuum, 2003, pp. 46-68, saying (p. 66) "that all arguments put forward against the genuineness of the Tel Dan inscription (including a letter at the top that continues down the broken side) are hardly strong enough to win over persons who are convinced that the inscription is genuine." (quote is from him in an email, not the book). Russell Gmirkin is another. Dougweller ( talk) 12:07, 5 September 2012 (UTC)
George Athas says BYTDWD should not be understood as a dynastic name ('House of David'), but as another name for Jerusalem, comparable to (YR-DWD (City of David). [1]. If we are serious about a good article, why aren't we using (besides Lemche's article) sources such as The Tel Dan Inscription: A Reappraisal and a New Introduction by George Athas,[ http://books.google.co.uk/books?
id=OPqpzmYBOxgC&printsec=frontcover&dq=George+Athas+%22house+of+david%22+Jerusalaem&source=bl&ots=bxRdqVhLDS&sig=_a7_rXmmZmDeJ9Dp5gmA46-meVs&hl=en&sa=X&ei=1UFHUIiqIMOh0QXNyYEg&ved=0CDAQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=George%20Athas%20%22house%20of%20david%22%20Jerusalaem&f=false and more] Dougweller ( talk) 12:18, 5 September 2012 (UTC)
This is the paragraph on "House of David" the way Tritomex wants it: In the early/mid 1990s, when the inscription was discovered, the world of biblical scholarship was being rocked by the strand of thought called by its detractors "biblical minimalism". The minimalists argued that the bible was not a reliable guide to the history of ancient Israel, and, specifically, that its story of a united kingdom of Israel ruled by David and Solomon could not be taken at face value. The Tel Dan stele therefore found great favour among those who wished to defend the biblical version of Israel's ancient past. Its significance for this argument lay particularly in lines 8 and 9, which mention a "king of Israel" and a "house of David". The latter is generally understood to refer to the ruling dynasty of Judah, the descendants of the biblical David. However, although the "king of Israel" is generally accepted, the rendering of the phrase bytdwd as "house of David" is disputed by Francesca Stavrakopoulou, not least because it appears without a word-divider between the two parts. Other possible meanings have been suggested by Stavrakopoulou : it may be a place-name, or the name of a god, or an epithet. Stavrakopoulou also suggested that even if the correct translation is "House of David", it does not logically support the assumption that the Bible's David was an historical figure.[11] Analyzing other proposed suggestion, Associate Professor of Library Science Lawrence J. Mykytiuk argues against the possibility that the term bytdwd could refer to the name of a god, cultic object, epithet or a place and concludes that in line with ancient Aramaic and Assyrian patterns for geopolitical terms, the phrase "House of David" refers to a Davidic dynasty or to the land ruled by a Davidic dynasty. [12] Brian B. Schmidt states that the reading of "House of David" in Tel Dan inscription "is now widely accepted" [13] Hallvard believes that the Tel Dan inscription is the most important archeological finding in Israel/Palestine since the discovery of Dead Sea Scrolls [14]
The problem is that it ascribes to Stavrakopoulou views which are not hers alone, and thereby makes them seem less significant than they really are. I'll list these:
So, for these excellent reasons, I'm going to revert tomorrow. I have no objection, by the way, to using a different source instead of Stavrakopoulou - they all say the same thing. PiCo ( talk) 12:40, 5 September 2012 (UTC)
I have nothing against the edition of well sourced material disputing the reading of HD. I never removed any sourced material-Therefor I have problem with the removal of other sourced material without any explanation PiCo. Also, I have problem with the fact that reference number 11 is identical with the analyzed proposals for the meaning of the "House of David" written by Lawrence J. Mykytiuk (page 124-126). Its very unlikely that both Stavrakopoulou and Mykytiuk analyzed the same proposals for the same phrase in the same year (2004) independently Its more likely that the editor of reference no 11 used the text of Mykytiuk in opposite way of its meaning, attributed it to non accessible pages of Stavrakopoulou book (and page 86-87 is not accessible) All arguments attributed to Stavrakopoulou can be found at Mykytiuk (page 125-126) Therefor its beyond reasonable doubt that reference no 11 originates from Mykytiuk (page 125-126 as all arguments presented here are written there) which were latter attributed to non accessible parts (page 86-87) of Stavrakopoulou book, avoiding atribution presented as universal oppinion and finaly completed with removal of other material which did not fit this interpretation.
Btw Pi Co How you were able to read page 86-87 of Stavrakopoulou book? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Tritomex ( talk • contribs) 12:48, 5 September 2012 (UTC)
Third, you can re write your editions, but you can not remove my well sourced material without any explanation as you did Tritomex ( talk) 12:52, 5 September 2012 (UTC)
No I cant access, page 79-91 is not accessible and in page summary I can not find this part "it does not in fact support the assumption that David was an historical figure or that the bible's version of history is accurate." However, what I disputed was the claim also written under this reference namely "Other possible meanings have been suggested : it may be a place-name, or the name of a god, or an epithet." This was also written under same reference. Other possible meanings have been suggested by whom? and where? (SOURCE??) Finally, even if this reference is found to be genuine what I oppose the most is the removal of other well sourced material-without any legitimate reason Tritomex ( talk) 13:33, 5 September 2012 (UTC)
1."[A]lthough the "king of Israel" is generally accepted, the rendering of the phrase bytdwd as "house of David" is disputed by Francesca Stavrakopoulou". But also by George Athas, N.P. Lemche, and others. In addition, the points Stavrakopoulou mentions - lack of word dividers etc - are objective facts, not suppositions".
2. "Other possible meanings have been suggested by Stavrakopoulou". Not true - Stavrakopoulou is simply repeating suggestions made by Athas and others, none of them are hers".
4. "Mykytiuk argues [that] the phrase "House of David" refers to a Davidic dynasty or to the land ruled by a Davidic dynasty." Very true - but Stavrakopoulou says the same, so why repeat it?"
5."Hallvard believes that the Tel Dan inscription is the most important archeological finding in Israel/Palestine since the discovery of Dead Sea Scrolls". This is trivial - sort of thing you get on National Geographic, not in an encyclopedia."
6."Associate Professor of Library Science Lawrence J. Mykytiuk..." Irrelevant. Yes, he is a professional librarian, but Lawrence has published a widely consulted book on Biblical names in ANE inscriptions, and THAT is why he's mentioned here, not because he's a librarian"
Tritomex ( talk) 14:11, 5 September 2012 (UTC)
Also please respect my work. You can rewrite your editions in accordance with standards and well known requirements stated above . However the section bellow is my contribution, well sourced and properly attributed. Therefore do not remove it:
"Analyzing other proposed suggestion, J. Mykytiuk argues against the possibility that the term bytdwd could refer to the name of a god, cultic object, epithet or a place and concludes that in line with ancient Aramaic and Assyrian patterns for geopolitical terms, the phrase "House of David" refers to a Davidic dynasty or to the land ruled by a Davidic dynasty. [12] Brian B. Schmidt states that the reading of "House of David" in Tel Dan inscription "is now widely accepted" [13] Hallvard believes that the Tel Dan inscription is the most important archeological finding in Israel/Palestine since the discovery of Dead Sea Scrolls [14] Tritomex ( talk) 17:13, 5 September 2012 (UTC)
I have already told Tritomex, but sources do NOT have to be on the web. You might have to pay for them, you might have to get them from inter-library loan, you might even have to go see them if they are records you can't see any other way. Dougweller ( talk) 11:02, 6 September 2012 (UTC)
Its not just about accessibility, as I have written the biggest problems here are:
1. The removal of well sourced material by PiCo
2. The avoiding of attribution of certain claims to theirs authors and the attempt to present them as universal
3. is disputed (by whom)soruce is claimed (by whom)source
This are basic standards, I was many time remined to adhere to them and PiCo has to do the same. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Tritomex ( talk • contribs) 11:15, 6 September 2012 (UTC)
I will rewrite the upper sections (which is/will referee to the criticism of bytdvd reading as Davidic Dynasty) in coming days, if PiCo does not want to do it, with well sourced material and proper attribution, Tritomex ( talk) 11:20, 6 September 2012 (UTC)
1.Where I have used sources that are self-published or creationist in this article??
2.Are Mykytiuk 2004, Hagelia or Schmidt self-published or creationist?
3. What this sentence means "Other possible meanings have been suggested: it may be a place-name, or the name of a god, or an epithet." and where is the source?
4. Why the next well sourced material "Analyzing other proposed suggestion, Associate Professor of Library Science Lawrence J. Mykytiuk argues against the possibility that the term bytdwd could refer to the name of a god, cultic object, epithet or a place and concludes that in line with ancient Aramaic and Assyrian patterns for geopolitical terms, the phrase "House of David" refers to a Davidic dynasty or to the land ruled by a Davidic dynasty." was removed? It was well sourced, contrary to the "suggestion" of unknown origin written above.
4. suggested by whom?
5, Disputed by whom?
6. "it does not logically support the assumption that the Bible's David was an historical figure"
Based on which facts this "logical conclusion" is done?
7.who is the author of that logic?
How such kind of conclusion can be written in a sense that assume that everyone agrees with this logic.(Not to mention the fact that all provided references with "It has been suggested", and "it has been disputed", are without any attribution.
8. Do you really think that the current form of this tickler is acceptable?
9. I would like to hear criticism of my removed editions! Tritomex ( talk) 14:26, 6 September 2012 (UTC)
10. * Extremely vague statements ("Alice Expert enjoys broad support") should normally be removed. What about our ""it does not logically support the assumption that the Bible's David was an historical figure" ??
11. I have used the author first name, that is certainly my mistake, but was that the reason that all my sourced material was reverted? Tritomex ( talk) 15:48, 6 September 2012 (UTC)
The next thing you need to do is justify the NPOV tag. How does this section fail WP:NPOV. Please be specific. Thanks. Dougweller ( talk) 18:24, 6 September 2012 (UTC)
Lawrence J. Mykytiuk was used in this article before. His book "Identifying Biblical Persons in Northwest Inscriptions of 1200-539 B.C.E." and many other books are widely used in many articles. Beyond this he is widely respected scholar. I don't know why you question this?
His Education
Ph.D., Hebrew and Semitic Studies, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1998.
M.A., Library and Information Studies, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1992.
M.A., Hebrew and Semitic Studies, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1988.
M.T.S. summa cum laude, Theological Studies, Asian Theological Seminary, Quezon City, Republic of the Philippines, 1983.
B.A. summa cum laude, English, Trinity International University, Deerfield, Illinois, 1972.
Award Purdue University Libraries Second Annual Award for Excellence in Teaching, 2012
Athos was already used in upper section but without proper attribution. As I did not wrrite the upper section, I did changed anything there. Tritomex ( talk) 20:44, 6 September 2012 (UTC)
I just first-rated the article in its current form, with a '2' for objectivity (moderate bias) on the Article Feedback Tool, because of the final sentence, which is poorly written - it sounds like an unattributed stance on what is 'likely' and 'logical'. If this is improved to sound less like pushing, I'll re-rate it higher. Til Eulenspiegel ( talk) 13:24, 6 September 2012 (UTC)
If I used a creationist in my article about King Ahaz Seal, I gave also another references too. However I agree to avoid using creationists, maybe I made mistake. Just to be clear I have no religious agenda and although, it is not subject here, I am not religious. Tritomex ( talk) 20:42, 6 September 2012 (UTC) WP:NPOV
the phrase bytdwd as "house of David" is disputed,(BY WHOM??)[11] in part because it appears without a word-divider between the two parts. In addition, the rest of the inscription uses dots to separate words, but bytdwd appears as a single word, ביתדוד, not בית•דוד. ...
but some have argued that "dwd" could be a name for a god ("beloved"), or could mean "uncle" (a word with a rather wider meaning in ancient times than it has today), or that the whole phrase might be a
name for Jerusalem (so that the author might be claiming to have killed the king of Jerusalem rather than a king of the "house of David".[12][13]
Other possible meanings have been suggested:(BY WHOM???) it may be a place-name, or the name of a god, or an epithet.[11] But even if (as seems likely)[14] the correct translation is "House of David", Francesca
Stavrakopoulou argues that it does not logically support the assumption that the Bible's David was an historical figure.[11]
__________NOTHING________Everything has been erased
" The latter is generally understood to refer to the ruling dynasty of Judah," can not been seen as argument in favor of reading bytdwd as Davidic Dynasty as it simply explains that "House of David" is generaly considered to be biblical phrase for Davidic dynasty, or even less, it does not clearly explains anything but is misleading.
0.Lawrence J. Mykytiuk argues against the possibility that the term bytdwd could refer to the name of a god, cultic object, epithet or a place and concludes that in line with ancient Aramaic and Assyrian patterns for geopolitical terms, the phrase "House of David" refers to a Davidic dynasty or to the land ruled by a Davidic dynasty. [1] Brian B. Schmidt states that the reading of "House of David" in Tel Dan inscription "is now widely accepted" [2] Hallvard believes that the Tel Dan inscription is the most important archeological finding in Israel/Palestine since the discovery of Dead Sea Scrolls [3]
Also why this materiel is avoided?
Lawrence J. Mykytiuk
1. David, founder of the dynasty that ruled Judah (r. ca. 1010–970), 1 Sam 16:13, etc. (IBP, 110–32, 265–77; Mykytiuk, “Corrections,” 119–21) Terms that incorporate his name in monumental Northwest Semitic inscriptions, leading to IDs, are as follows: a. David’s name is a clear element in the phrase bytdwd in the Tel Dan stele, line 9.17 b. David’s name is also an element in the phrase bt[d]wd in the Mesha Inscription, line 31, though its presence is unclear at prima vista, due to the fragmentation in that line.18 ● Aramaic usage of b(y)t + personal name in a variety of Aramaic sources, including the Tel Dan stele, is a way of indicating a dynasty by a phrase pattern that incorporates the name of its founder.19 That this phrase pattern has this significance is especially clear in instances where the incorporated personal name is known to be a royal name or where the phrase is known to refer to a kingdom. Since a dynasty governs a territorial realm, b(y)t + personal name is also a geographical name referring to that territorial realm.20 Thus the term in the Tel Dan stele incorporates a conventional phrase pattern which indicates that the David to whom it refers was the founder of a dynasty. This point of singularity is also found in the biblical text: both the Bible and the inscription refer to the one and only David who was the founder of the dynasty of Judah. Also, it can then be argued, from internationalization of this Aramaic usage and resulting—or simply parallel—Moabite usage, that bt + personal name in line 31 of the Mesha Inscription contains the same point of singularity. Besides such inscriptionalbiblical singularity, the fact that there is only one David in the biblical king lists, which purport to be complete, gives his ID also what can be called biblical singularity. c. An inscription written within about forty-five years of David’s lifetime by Pharaoh Sheshonq I sheds additional light on “the house of David” mentioned in the Tel Dan stele as a possible geographical reference to the territory ruled by “[the kin]g of the house of David.” Sheshonq’s inscription contains the phrase hadabiyat-dawit, “the heights (or highland) of David.” According to the geographically organized sequence in the inscription, this area should be in the southern part of Judah or the Negev, where the book of 1 Samuel places David when he was hiding from King Saul. An ID of King David as the person whose name is included in this phrase is entirely plausible, both in view of Kitchen’s research into the rendering of the name and in view of other ancient Hebrew phrases, such as “the city of David” and “the house of David,” which include a geographical dimension. It seems extremely doubtful that we shall suddenly discover some other, previously unknown David who was famous enough to have lent his name to the region mentioned in Sheshonq’s timely inscription.21
Also omitted from the text is
2..Hagelia, Hallvard (2005). "Philological Issues in the Tel Dan Inscription"
●Supporting that "house of David" refer to Davidic dynasty
3. Simcha Shalom (2005).
●Supporting that "house of David refer to Davidic dynasty even stating that it is usual practice not to use dots in royal names.
4.Schmidt, Brian B. (2006)
●Supporting that "house of David refer to Davidic dynasty and even pointing out to similar patterns like "BytHmria"-for Israel
5.Grabbe 2007, p. 333.
"The Tel Dan inscription generated a good deal of debate and a flurry of articles when it first appeared, and even accusations of forgery, "but it is now widely regarded (a) as genuine and (b) as referring to the Davidic dynasty and the Aramaic kingdom of Damascus"
6.Gary A. Rendsburg, “On the Writing ביתדוד in the Aramaic Inscription from Tel Dan,” IEJ 45 (1995): 22–5;
●Supporting that "house of David refer to Davidic dynasty
7.Hallvard Hagelia et all 2009 "The Dan Debate: The Tel Dan Inscription in Recent Research (Recent Research in Biblical Studies) "
●Supporting that "house of David refer to Davidic dynasty
and again we have "Other possible meanings have been suggested:(BY WHOM???)" and "it may be a place-name, or the name of a god, or an epithet" which is originating from Mykytiuk
the phrase bytdwd as "house of David" is disputed,(BY WHOM??)
Best regards
References
Thank you for rewriting the section. The only thing I suggest is the inclusion of Hagelia opinion about importance of this artifact.
"Hagelia considers that the Tel Dan inscription is the most important archeological finding in Israel/Palestine since the discovery of Dead Sea Scrolls [1]"
and , if it is possible I think it is important to name the scholars who suggested other meaning for HD and who disputed the phrase bytdwd as the House of David.Because "Others" is very wide term
However, thank you for correcting this article. Tritomex ( talk) 21:06, 6 September 2012
PiCo Can you show us here on talk page, references from that source about who those scholars exactly are? References are needed here: "Other possible meanings have been suggested (BY WHOM) and "Though the reference to a "king of Israel" is fairly secure, the rendering of bytdwd is disputed,(BY WHOM?) I think proper attribution is needed here. Tritomex ( talk) 11:08, 7 September 2012 (UTC) Hagelia has written two books regarding the The Tel Dan inscription which are widely used. She is a respected authority in this subject. Her opinion about the Tel Dan inscription is shared by many other scholars. As we have noticed, we wrote down what Stavrakopoulou personal thoughts about logic supporting the assumption of David existence, which I think has nothing to do in the section regarding the reading of the "House of David", especially as we know that her opinion about the historicity of David is not supported by any archeologist involved in this and other excavations in Israel/Palestine (when I said ANY I double checked) including those with close ties to minimalism like TAU scholars: Finkelstein, Silberman,Nadav Na'aman etc. Therefore in order to get objective view, and if the keeping of Stavrakopoulou personal opinion about David is "a must" I propose to balance it with Hagelia opinion, which is clearly related only to the subject(namely the Tel Dan inscription) but has a "contra-argument" in its essence Tritomex ( talk) 11:08, 7 September 2012 (UTC)
Thnak you. So does any one has any objection regarding the edition of Hagelia opinion in parallel with Stavrakopoulou? If this is done, the dispute is from my point of view finished Tritomex ( talk) 10:36, 8 September 2012 (UTC)
Yes my mistake, when I said she I taught about Stavrakopoulou. We already used Athas and I have nothing against it, his opinion has merit in this field. We did not use Hagelia, and I would not even object that, although I do not see the reason why we are avoiding him. However, with same logic I do not see any reason why we should keep Stavrakopoulou opinion about the historicity of David on this page. I am sure that the reason can not be because Stavrakopoulou opinion "is more important" than the opinion of Hagelia, Finkelstein, Mykytiuk, Schmidt, Biran Naveh and others. Considering Finkelstein and Silberman I did not qualified them as minimalists, I said that they have close ties with them. I propose therefor the removal of this sentence. Tritomex ( talk) 18:29, 9 September 2012 (UTC)
May I ask why should we have conclusions like this in last sentence "XY states that logically David is (not) historic figure". Tritomex ( talk) 14:27, 10 September 2012 (UTC)
To take a bit of heat out of this, let's take it step by step. Let's begin by taking a close look at the first few sentences of that section, as far as the first footnote (i.e., the first point at which we have a refernnced source for what's said). This is it:
Do we all have access to that book?
Now, I must say that I can't see anything on those pages to support the first few sentences - nothing on the first sentence, nothing on the second, although the third sentence is supported. (Stav. says: "Tel Dan stele has found particular favour among those seeking to defend the existence of the united monarchy".) It also supports the sentence about the significance of lines 8 and 9 of the stele. (She says: "Its significance is found in its mention of a "king of Israel" and a possible reference to the "house of David" in lines 8 and 9 respectively"). And the book also supports the next sentence, about the general understanding that House of David refers to the ruling dynasty of Judah, although she doesn't say anything about this house being the descendants of biblical David. ("This latter phrase is generally understood to refer to the dynastic name of the state of Judah"). And it supports the final line, about the dispute over the rendering of bytdwd and the importance of the lack of word dividers. ("Though the reference to a "king of Israel" is fairly secure, the rendering of bytdwd is disputed, not least because it occurs without the expected word dividers ...").
Please compare these sentences with the source, and make sure that they don't say anything (like the first few sentences and the bit about descended from biblical David) that isn't actually said in the source. This doesn't mean we can't go on to find more sources, but we should at least begin by making sure that what we have reflects the sources supposedly being used. PiCo ( talk) 02:28, 7 September 2012 (UTC)
"This latter phrase is generally understood to refer to the dynastic name of the state of Judah" and "the descendants of the biblical David" are synonyms which may have to be used to avoid copyright problems. However if we started the section with Stavrakopoulou and Athas i think it is too much to finish the section with them, like there is none other author involved in this issue. Tritomex ( talk) 11:08, 7 September 2012 (UTC)
Partially I agree with you, and it could be written in this artickle that as the "House of Omri" refer in other scripts to Israel, the phrase "House of David" could refer to Judah as a state. This would clarify this problem and avoid most of dispute.
However, I suggest you this: " Aramaic usage of b(y)t + personal name in a variety of Aramaic sources, including the
Tel Dan stele, is a way of indicating a dynasty by a phrase pattern that incorporates the name of its founder.That this phrase pattern has this significance is especially clear in
instances where the incorporated personal name is known to be a royal name or where the phrase is known to refer to a kingdom. Since a dynasty governs a territorial realm, b(y)t + personal name is also a geographical name referring to that territorial realm.20 Thus the
term in the Tel Dan stele incorporates a conventional phrase pattern which indicates that the David to whom it refers was the founder of a dynasty. This point of singularity is also
found in the biblical text: both the Bible and the inscription refer to the one and only David who was the founder of the dynasty of Judah." The same is truth with bytdwd, Beyt Omri as both names indicates founders of dynasty.
Tritomex (
talk) 12:09, 7 September 2012 (UTC)
We have again 70% of the article section based on Stavrakopoulou famous page 86. This can not stand in my opinion. Tritomex ( talk) 12:20, 7 September 2012 (UTC) In order to balance this clear unbalanced current form I propose the deletion of sentence "Francesca Stavrakopoulou argues that it does not logically support the assumption that the Bible's David was an historical figure."
This has nothing to do with tickler altogether. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Tritomex ( talk • contribs) 12:29, 7 September 2012 (UTC)
It is quite surreal to have Richard Freund calling doubters "extreme minimalists" when Freund is the one who is extreme. Lemche and Athas are mainstream, not extreme, but Freund on the other hand...his theory that Atlantis and Tarshish were the same and can be identified as a place in Spain is an example to go on with. Even if that wasn't true, it is ridiculous (not to mention, contrary to NPOV) to cite a person on one side of an argument as being a source of unattributed truth about people on the other side of the argument. Zero talk 02:27, 25 January 2014 (UTC)
The text says: "However, Biblical minimalists continue to question "which house of which David" as well as whether it says David at all "since the text has no vowels and can be read with different vowels" Personally I believe that the source itself is not sufficient for the lead for the same reasons as stated by Zero0000, however, if it is used it has to be used correctly per WP:V and without WP:OR . "extreme minimalists" can not be redefined to all biblical minimalists, without any source. -- Tritomex ( talk) 10:47, 25 January 2014 (UTC)
What is the problem with "House of David" that it requires a tag from 2012? I do not know the topic, but the section represents a diverse spectrum of attitudes and opinions.-- Inayity ( talk) 03:53, 2 February 2015 (UTC)
On p.43 of his 1998 work, Lemche writes: “In this way the short history of the reception of the Tel Dan inscriptions constitutes a classic example of how biblical scholars are moved not so much by evidence from the inscription itself as by the wish to create links between the inscription and the biblical narrative.”
This seems like an interesting quote to add into the article, but it clearly needs to be done in a sensitive fashion. Any ideas would be appreciated.
Oncenawhile ( talk) 17:32, 11 April 2015 (UTC)
My post from questioned source was suddenly deleted with no prior discussion by Doug Weller. I posted a well supported translation of the Dan Stele from this website which I found online which is in turn from a self-published book on Amazon which I now have. I did not delete anything from the Wikipedia article itself. My aim was to post a well supported alternative translation of the inscription. Any quality encyclopedia article about controversial subjects will provide the dominant viewpoint but they always mention the minority viewpoints in order to avoid the appearance of bias.
The author of this book (Olmsted) is suggesting that these texts were composed in a different language (Akkadian, the language of Babylon and Assyria) than what has been assumed (some form of early Hebrew). This is revolutionary! People need to know about this alternative approach since it seems to allow for the translation of All the early alphabetic inscriptions.
I have been following these inscriptions for a long time in the popular magazine “Biblical Archaeology Review” and with the exception of the Dan Stele and inscriptions found prior to 1940, they have not been translatable using Hebrew. Even the first inscriptions, Proto-Sinaitic found in the Sinai desert, have not been translated. Of course this make the existing Dan Stele translation very suspect in my eyes. How could this be translated when all others cannot be? Olmsted critiques these Hebrew language derived translations and finds them to be severely flawed with letters ignored or inserted to make the desired words. In the case of the Dan stele no letter by letter translation was actually provided. Instead it is a “connect the dot” translation (Olmsted’s term) in which some isolated words are recognized and then phrases are invented to connect them. So Olmsted’s translations are actually a better quality than any existing ones.
I think we need to take the author’s explanation about why his book was self-published to heart. He wanted to make these inscriptions available to everyone without copyright restriction so he published these under the same Creative Commons license as Wikipedia which no commercial publisher would do. I have lots of books with ancient inscription translations which I would love to post on Wikipedia but I can’t because they are copyright protected. So despite his translations being well supported with every letter included in the translation, Wikipedia is punishing an author with the same vision.
SalamisDragon ( talk) 10:40, 22 June 2015 (UTC)
I've deleted it and am discussing what part of it, if any, we can restore. Meanwhile, please don't revert me anyone, it's inclusion was a violation of our copyright policy. Doug Weller ( talk) 14:20, 22 June 2015 (UTC)
Drsmoo there really are only four. The Lemche quote in reference 3 is crystal clear. Your source is almost certainly referring to the references to Omri (see a table I created at: Omrides#List_of_proposed_Assyrian_references_to_the_House_of_Omri). Oncenawhile ( talk) 23:43, 18 December 2016 (UTC)
I deleted "only" because it subjectively implies that "four" generally accepted references in different languages are inadequate. The fact is Egyptian sources are largely lost because they used papyrus, therefore it would be natural for any reference to Israel to exist on a stele. We have far more records from the Assyrians who wrote with styluses on stone tablets and because of that the "one reference to Israel" may seem lacking, but the Assyrians made numerous references to the "House of Omri", aka the northern kingdom.-- Monochrome_ Monitor 02:44, 21 December 2016 (UTC)
Our conversations always seem to fall into this pattern. To avoid this spiralling downward any further, let's go for the easy route:
Oncenawhile ( talk) 01:11, 27 December 2016 (UTC)
"The finding of the inscription caused a major sensation and was published on the front page of the New York Times and in Time magazine. It continued to make news when Niels Peter Lemche, one of the most prominent members of the Copenhagen School, suggested that the inscription might be a forgery planted by the excavator, Avraham Biran. However, Biran was one of the oldest, most distinguished, and most trusted archaeologists working in the state of Israel—he was Albright's first PhD student at Johns Hopkins University and the longtime director of the Nelson Glueck School of Biblical Archaeology at the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in Jerusalem–and no serious scholar doubted the authenticity of the fragments. Nor did they question the interpretation of the inscription when other minimalists suggested that Beit David might not mean the "House of David" but something else entirely (such as the word "house" connected with the word "beloved," "uncle," or "kettle"). Today, after much further discussion in academic journals, it is accepted by most archaeologists that inscription is not only genuine but that the reference is indeed to the House of David, thus representing the first allusion found anywhere outside the Bible to the biblical David." - Eric H, Cline [7]
"(3.5) Question 1: reliability of the inscriptional data
References
As discussed above, this edit by Drsmoo added two sources which are unrelated to the specific statement they are being used to source. The sentence being sourced in the four articles states that there are "four known contemporary inscriptions containing the name of Israel", being the Tel Dan Stele, the Merneptah Stele, the Mesha Stele, and the Kurkh Monolith. Maeir and Fleming neither support or oppose this statement.
Unless Drsmoo can show how these sources are relevant to support the statement, they will be removed in a few days.
Oncenawhile ( talk) 11:54, 8 January 2017 (UTC)
To summarize the above threads, it has now been two weeks since Drsmoo was challenged on his proposed inclusion of two sources which do neither support nor oppose the sentence they have been placed against. None of his comments above have yet addressed this concern, despite being asked six times. If Drsmoo continues to refuse to provide a rationale here, I will revert his edit in the next few days. Oncenawhile ( talk) 07:41, 9 January 2017 (UTC)
it is very obviously yet another sock of Dalai Lama Ding Dong. See /info/en/?search=Wikipedia:Sockpuppet_investigations/Dalai_lama_ding_dong/Archive#16_June_2016 and the contribution history. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 50.185.55.19 ( talk) 02:50, 1 February 2017 (UTC)
@ Drsmoo: @ No More Mr Nice Guy: if you think these sources should be in this article, the WP:ONUS is on you to explain how they support the sentence they are being used to cite. Discussions about reliability, or ad hominem attacks, bear no relevance to the question. Oncenawhile ( talk) 00:11, 2 February 2017 (UTC)
Hi @ TransporterMan: ever since I first saw your essay WP:DISCFAIL, I have used your suggested modus operandi whenever a situation arises where the opposing editor refuses to engage but consistently reverts. The situation in the short thread above is similar but perhaps a little more complex, for reasons I won't explain in order not to lead the witness.
I'd be very grateful for any advice on the right next step here, or if you have the time it would be great if you could mediate this for us? Oncenawhile ( talk) 12:51, 4 February 2017 (UTC)
@ Drsmoo: On WT:CITE you wrote "The source is in fact directly and clearly appropriate for the text it's being used to cite". I consider this progress, as you have avoided being this explicit so far. If would please explain where these two sources make the claim they are being used to cite, we might be able to move on? Oncenawhile ( talk) 18:07, 4 February 2017 (UTC)
The DRN close stated "Closed. The editors are engaging in dialogue here. They should take their dialogue back to the article talk page and resume it there. Discuss content, not contributors. If discussion there is inconclusive, a new request can be filed here. In the meantime, go back to the talk page."
@ Drsmoo: as I mentioned in my last post before the close, ad hominem attacks and claims of consensus on straw man issues have not and will not result in progress. If you can point me to where the citations support the sentence, the discussion will be over.
Are you willing to do this?
Oncenawhile ( talk) 07:28, 15 March 2017 (UTC)
@ No More Mr Nice Guy: my edit was a proposal for summarising the Tel_Dan_Stele#.22House_of_David.22 section of the article in the lede. This section constitutes more than a third of the body of the article (excluding the transcription), so clearly is due space in the lede. Please make a counter proposal or otherwise state constructive feedback so a counterproposal can be made by me or others. Oncenawhile ( talk) 20:38, 8 January 2017 (UTC)
There's been a discussion of this at Talk:Israel#Earlier reference to Israel than the Merneptah Stele. If it's been largely ignored in academia, should it be in the article? I'm not sure it meets WP:UNDUE. Sorry to come in late, I hadn't picked up on this discussion. Doug Weller talk 19:15, 28 January 2017 (UTC)
It is considered the first widely accepted reference to the name David as the founder of a Judahite polity outside of the Hebrew Bible
Is Finkelstein arguing that this stele was the first extrabiblical text to be created with such a reference to David? Or is this a poorly written statement that it was the first such text to be discovered, or that it's the oldest such text currently known, or what? I've tagged it with {{ Huh}} because it's really not clear. Nyttend ( talk) 23:55, 12 February 2018 (UTC)