Roundup of the Qeiyafa Ostracon Buzz

The story of the oldest Hebrew inscription ever has hit the usual news sources and lit up the biblioblogosphere. This post has all the links I've found up through 2 minutes ago.

Some of the news stories have a small photo of the Khirbet Qeiyafa ostracon. A few of the letters are barely legible. The photo obviously wasn't taken with the intention of providing a readable copy.

Photo courtesy of the University of Haifa

HT for the article with photo: Evangelical Textual Criticism

The ostracon elsewhere in the news and the biblioblogosphere:

Ha'aretz: Fair and balanced as always-"Deciphered etching sheds new light on Bible's origin"

Jerusalem Post: The award for best misleading headline--"Inscription indicates Kingdom of Israel existed in the 10th century BCE"

James McGrath: A NT guy wading into epigraphy in ancient Israel - but still with helpful cautions about linguistic dating of texts (which is a misguided effort in my opinion when applied to the biblical text).

Jim Getz: Why the fuss over one small stray inscription?

Jim Davila: "the more banal reading is to be preferred."

Menachem Mendel: "Never a dull moment for the history of the Hebrew language."

John Hobbins: I posted a completely different reading back in October.

Claude Mariottini: Bottom line - writing is occurring outside of Jerusalem earlier than thought.

Dr. Platypus: Something like a United Monarchy (found via link to Claude Mariottini)

Tony Cartledge: Interpretation is a Long Stretch (via Dr Platypus link)

Henry Neufeld: "Writing a small text on an ostracon and writing the final, redacted Pentateuch are substantially different things."

Joel Watts: Highlighting the press release and hounded by Hobbins. John, all he said was that it was interesting. No need to remind all of us that this has been in and out of the news for the last 18 months. (That said, I agree with John's evaluation of the importance of the find and mention him only to draw attention to his comments at these various posts which are quite helpful.)

Duane Smith: Abnormally interesting conclusion - "I do worry that some, myself included, are asking this inscription and the very few others from the same period to carry more linguistic, historical, theological and even political weight than they can bear."

If all of that doesn't keep you busy, there's more at the official site for the excavation (link via Jim Getz).