The Mt. Ebal Curse Tablet By Dr. Scott Stripling

Renowned archaeologist William Dever has stated that the first 5 books of the Bible (i.e., “The Pentateuch”) were likely written at the end of the Israelite Monarchy in the 8th or 7th century B.C. He asserts “literacy was not widespread in ancient Israel until the 8th century at the earliest.” This would imply that Moses could not be the principal author of much of the Pentateuch as other biblical authors have attested. In 2019 archaeologist Dr. Scott Stripling and his team discovered a lead curse tablet on Mt. Ebal in Israel. The tablet contained proto-alphabetic text with numerous references to the Israelite God YHW. The tablet appears to be connected with curse ceremonies described as taking place on Mt. Ebal in the books of Joshua (8:30-35) and Deuteronomy (27:12-26) and appears to date sometime between the 12th and 14th centuries B.C. If the find holds up to scrutiny it would arguably be the most important biblical archaeological discovery of this century demonstrating literacy in Israel centuries earlier than some have asserted and confirming a historical practice detailed in the Bible. In this presentation Dr. Stripling will describe the discovery, detail the criticisms, and provide responses to the various criticisms to date.