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One of the most important archaeological finds in history was the Dead Sea Scrolls. These documents include some of the earliest written records of the Bible. Now archaeologists say they've found what they claim is the most significant archaeological discovery in Israel since those documents. They found a shard of pottery that's about 3,000 years old—a thousand years older than the Dead Sea Scrolls. This would have been about the time of the legendary King David.
Pottery inscribed with ink is called an ostracon. This ostracon was found in the oldest Judean city unearthed to date. Archaeologists say the city is near where David killed Goliath. It's south of current-day Beit Shemesh. The site has been excavated only since June of this year. Archaeologists say what they uncover at this site will help us learn more about life at the time of David.
The ostracon has five lines of text in black ink. It's written in Hebrew, making it the earliest Hebrew text ever found. Researchers have deciphered some of the words, including slave, judge and king. So it could be part of a legal code that might provide insight into early Hebrew civilization.
—Cynthia Graber
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37 Comments
Add CommentJust as almost everything witty has been attributed to Mark Twain, lot's of heroic deeds are attributed to David, who almost certainly did not slay Goliath.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe founders of Judaism and Christianity would be incredibly proud to see just how far their little invention has come. They successfully have had people believing in spirits, souls, angels, demons, and a God who cares more about if you touch yourself while watching a flick than divinely doing a worthy "God thing" by helping children who want only for a glass of clean water or a bowl of rice. It's amazing how fickle, impressionable, and fragile we humans are.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI hope rationale, not illogical faith, prevails in the age of my children or my children's children. Discoveries like these are definitely fascinating but they don't prove the existence of Yahweh so much as simply showing that maybe one day a guy named David finally beat the pants off of the big bully who always picked on him. Let's not be so desperate to prove the existence of your God via the discovery of a shard of pottery with some hebrew text on it, folks, okay? lol.
-Stephen
Site: http://eradicatereligion.blogspot.com
You guys have to get over yourselves.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe article is about archeology - not religion.
Was it John McCains birth certificate?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe only reference to "religion" I've seen is the one that chides anyone who has faith. I mean, at some point, we all accept something not based on what we see with our own two eyes, but an illogical gut feeling. Things like the Big Bang theory. We may never know for sure exactly how everything got here, but somewhere along the way to any belief one has to take an illogical leap.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe fact is that people believed in the existence of God and developed a unifying culture based on that belief. Belief itself is the last major barrier to reality, Understanding belief, not what is believed, may help to objectify the problem.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"Older than the Dead Sea Scrolls?!!"
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWow!
sciam.com needs to get writers with better knowledge, and better headline writing skills. This is a relatively important find for Hebrew writing, pushing it further back by about 200 hundred years.
The Abrahamic religions adherents will make it into something it is not.
But why is Scientific American embarrassing itself, by stating that, "...most important archaeological finds in history was the Dead Sea Scrolls...."?
Anyway, this pales when compared to something like the 8,600 year-old examples of writing found in China (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/2956925.stm). Or even to the Harappa tablets (about 5,500 years old, from Pakistan), or to the various Sumerian finds (from just over 5,000 ago.)
If someone is going to argue, that these shards lend any support to the Abrahamic religions, then they should be really, really impressed by a god like Anu, who was mentioned in writing way, way before the myth of Yahweh started to emerge.
I'm perplexed by the non-religion comments being made.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe dead sea scrolls were an immensely important find in Israel and for Western Civilization. This article explains this new find's importance in relation to the Dead Sea Scrolls.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThere is nothing in the article that claims this shard of pottery proves any god's existence, Nor does it claim that other, older, archeological finds are "not important". This is a fascinating, historically significant, discovery, and that's that.
When reading Scientific American, you really should get off your high horses about religious fanatics, because the writer/editors of this magazine definitely are not. Find another website on which to flame.
To those comments alluding to the thought that this discovery will lend support to any particular religious worldview, I think you're missing the point. Sure, some schmuck somewhere may say it proves such and such. But that's beside the point. The point is that there's an interesting find, no matter what your worldview is. It can potentially provide insight into a culture that has had a significant amount of influence in many parts of our world today.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSure, you can argue about how significant this is, and it's not as if there aren't many, many interesting finds over the years. Sure, there may be older documents found from other parts of the world-- this article isn't meant to downplay those at all. But from a standpoint of the history of a particular group/nation, this is a very big find that could potentially shed a lot of light on its history.
If you're on here to either bash or promote religion, it seems that you're missing the point and only distracting the conversation.
The oldest religion in the world should be shown some respect,wether you believe it or not.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe oldest and 1 of the biggest religions in the world should be shown some more respect, wether you believe it or not
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAs far as big bang and evolution is concerned, we only find evolution as a good example of that modern intelligence which, if it destroys anything, it destroys itself. Evolution is either an innocent scientific description of how certain earthly things came about; or, if it is anything more than this , it is an attack upon thought itself. If evolution destroys anything, it does not destroy religion but rationalism. If evolution simply means that a positive thing called an ape turned very slowly into a positive thing called a man, then it is sting-less for the most orthodox; for a personal God might just as well do things slowly as quickly, especially if, like the Christian God, he were outside time. But if it means anything more, it means that there is no such thing as an ape to turn into, and no such thing as a man for it to turn into. It means that there is no such thing as a thing. At best there is only one thing, and that is a flux of everything and anything. This is an attack not upon the faith, but upon the mind; you cannot think if there are no things to think about. You cannot think if you are not separate from the subject in question.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAs far as big bang and evolution is concerned, we only find evolution as a good example of that modern intelligence which, if it destroys anything, it destroys itself. Evolution is either an innocent scientific description of how certain earthly things came about; or, if it is anything more than this , it is an attack upon thought itself. If evolution destroys anything, it does not destroy religion but rationalism. If evolution simply means that a positive thing called an ape turned very slowly into a positive thing called a man, then it is sting-less for the most orthodox; for a personal God might just as well do things slowly as quickly, especially if, like the Christian God, he were outside time. But if it means anything more, it means that there is no such thing as an ape to turn into, and no such thing as a man for it to turn into. It means that there is no such thing as a thing. At best there is only one thing, and that is a flux of everything and anything. This is an attack not upon the faith, but upon the mind; you cannot think if there are no things to think about. You cannot think if you are not separate from the subject in question.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis is a great find , like the discovery of the text of Judas not judas thomas but the one hated the most. I would love to see it and hear what it actualy says.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"... the oldest religion in the world?!!!" -- You could not possibly be THIS ignorant, can you?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"..this is a very big find..." -- Actually, it is not. At best it implies that a desert tribe was able to write less than a couple of hundred years earlier, than the evidence available until now showed.
The only reason some are spinning as a "big" find is, that the Abrahamic religions can get fodder for their argument, that because the ability to record events in Hebrew was pushed earlier by 200 years, the King David stories must be derived from written records, instead of made up by superstitious nomads by the camp fire. This is the reason why some are reacting this way to the article -- it's the context, .............!
3000 years is the oldest shred of evidence of Abrahamic religion ?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe Sumerian Flood Myth and creation story which is evidently the source of the biblical plagiarisms, the iconography of harrapan seals with Bull slayer and the transubstantiation idea, the Egyptian Horus, and the Mother of god, all predate this by atleast a milliena or two.
By no stretch of imagination and timeline can one escape the inevitable conclusion that but for its intolerance, there is nothing unique or novel about the religious myths of Biblical faiths.
Whether you are religious or scientific, this is an amazing discovery.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAnd how so almost certainly?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI second that.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWoops. I second something else. Nevermind.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisA brief sysnopsis of the REAL significance of the Dead End... er, Sea Scrolls:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThese were texts, a few complete... most partial, found in caves along the Dead Sea beginning in 1947, that were writen by the Essene Commnunity of Qumran (in Palestine). They were an ascetic, communal, apocalyptic, baptist, non-rabbinical jewish sect (the other two major sects were the Sadducees & Pharisees) who lived before & during (200 BCE - 68 CE) the time of the alleged historical jesus.
The Essence community was referenced in the writings of both Philo & Josephus. Their leader was referred to as "the Teacher of Righteousness" & they called themselves the "Sons of the Light" & "The Way"...and their enemies were, of course, the "Sons of Darkness". Despite the many manuscripts written (over 800), & the fact they were a clearly a Messianic sect (wrote of TWO messiahs), NONE of the scrolls refer to an historical jesus or the arrival of the 'savior' on earth!
Further, the term "Son of God" was used, but referred to someone other than jesus... which revealed it to be not an unusual phrase among the jewish sects of those times. Once again, no historical jesus of the bible. Why not?
Hmmm. seem as if Albert Scweitzer was not alone since his epic Quest for an Historical Jesus came up... like the tomb myth, completely empty.
Move along folks... no supernatural god-man roaming our Pale Blue Dot in the vastness of the Cosmos ever so briefly, milenia ago.
Think clearly... think Natural!
SUNDAYmonday is seriously needs a reality check:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisEXHIBIT A: "As far as big bang and evolution is concerned, we only find evolution as a good example of that modern intelligence which, if it destroys anything, it destroys itself. ... If evolution destroys anything, it does not destroy religion but rationalism. ... But if it means anything more, it means that there is no such thing as an ape to turn into, and no such thing as a man for it to turn into. It means that there is no such thing as a thing."
Hmmm... the words incoherent and specious immediately come to mind, while sophistical is way too flattering, eh?
Seriously, this is symptomatic of a breakdown in basic reasoning that should ideally be addressed in a clinical setting.
Please... get professional help and refrain from any further comments in the realm of science, reality and reason.
In the words of Keith Olberman, Good Night and Good Luck!
Yes, it's the oldest shred because all the other myths you cite have only the most passing relationship to the Abrahamic faith. Saying the Christian idea of the last supper is a plagiarization of the Bull slayer is like saying saying the KJV Bible plagiarizes Shakespeare (after all, they both use Elizabethan English).
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisRiiiight. Because Son of God can only have one absolute meaning.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI can't wait to hear what it says!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI find it highly amusing that atheists so hate Christians that it makes them study the christian religion and bible. GOD do work in mysterious ways....
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI think someone should do a study on the lengths that some people will go to to deny religion. This article has got nothing to do with religion and some of these so called "rational" thinkers want to get thier digs in before anyone of faith can possibly comment on it. Give it a rest. You guys dont believe in God. Thats your perogative. Dont force your lack of moral standards on me. I also find it somewhat amusing that most of the bashers target Christianity and kind vaguely refer to Judaism and even more vaguely toward Islam. If anything the shard would have little to nothing to do with Christianity at all, but would be a piece of Jewish writing. So why all the focus on Christianity?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOh and for the VERY ignorant Spin-oza; The Dead Sea scrolls wouldn't have mentioned Jesus. The entire area was razed to the ground by the Romans circa 70-80 AD when the Pharisees were the main sect in charge of the Temple and the Sadducees where second. These two sects are the ones who pushed for the Romans to kill Jesus. They wouldn't have written about him. The Essene sect were isolated and kept only what was written and rabbinicly approved despite your assertions that they were a non rabbinical sect. They were non rabbinical only in that they did not have rabbis amoungst themselves. No one in religious power at that time wanted any referance to Jesus kept. Yet despite that Christianity spread like wildfire. Why don't you just leave religion alone? You obviously dont care for it and you just as obviously know next to nothing about it.
ZenaV: "GOD do work in mysterious ways...." -- And I thought your made up deity has been resting all this time....
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAgain, this find is ONLY of tremendous significance to religious simpletons, who can somehow see twist and stretch it to imply veracity to a loose collection of Bronze Age mythology.
But in reality, it simply implies that a relatively minor desert tribe may have started developing somewhat specific to them writing LESS THAN 200 YEARS earlier, than currently assumed.
So, only a Hebrew specialist, or a delusional Abrahamic religious believer, would deem this to be a story of great importance to their reason for being.
What did I do to you to elicit such a cruel and bitter comment? My beliefs neither breaks you leg or picks ur pocket. Why would you speak to me in such a manner?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis article (podcast) may well be about archaeology, but the nature and location of the find give it religious significance.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe Dead Sea Scrolls, as well as this shard, derive their perceived importance from their connection to Judaism and Christianity. To some they may only be archaelogical finds, but they are inextricably linked to religion.
The manner of keeping of the scrolls and use of black ink is subject to archeological questioning. The scrolls can be carbon dated for autheticity. In 900 AD there were those who wanted to exclaim the impersonators of the true king David- who was a judge, a king and turned into slave for a short time by the imposters. Was this true? By Kiumars L.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI think most of the guys are getting it wrong .this is not about the existance of God but the fact that jews had been there and there was a civilization.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe dead sea scrolls had opened an insight and cleared some doudt about the jews history.
The problem with desbelievers is to launch an offensive with the slitest opportunity.Always remember that no one is coersing you to believe and if you are content with theories and forsake God is up to you.Abeliever has nothing to regret because religion only bind us to do good and nothing evil,even if God did not exist there is nothing wrong with been Good
Where in this article is the mention of religion? I really do not think that these comments are worthy of SciAm readers. This is a straightforward report about an artifact found which shows that Hebrew was a written language in a place that has been found to show that David of David and Goliath fame was a real historic figure - and not a myth that "many heroic deeds have been attributed too". Give me a break, folks. It seems that your comments show a distinct lack of scientific objectivity.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhere in this article is the mention of religion? I really do not think that these comments are worthy of SciAm readers. This is a straightforward report about an artifact found which shows that Hebrew was a written language in a place that has been found to show that David of David and Goliath fame was a real historic figure - and not a myth that "many heroic deeds have been attributed too". Give me a break, folks. It seems that your comments show a distinct lack of scientific objectivity.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNobody knows what it even says yet you bore. You would take an old saying and use it to justify your filthy attacks on people? You are rude, crude and socially unacceptable. And that's besides being off-topic. No wonder you can't get a girlfriend.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI agree. Although I must say MORE people believed in one god or another back then be it pagan or divine. It was one of the most important thing in their lives worthy of documentation other than their family history.
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