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In December 2019, an expedition on Mt. Ebal to examine the discarded material from Adam Zertal’s 1982–1989 excavation yielded a small, folded lead tablet. The east dump pile, from which the object emerged, contained the discarded matrix from two structures that he interpreted as altars dated to the Late Bronze Age II and Iron Age I. The earlier and smaller round altar lay underneath the geometric center of the later and larger rectangular altar. The tablet could not be opened without damaging it. A team of scientists performed X-ray tomographic measurements with different scanning parameters. The tomographically reconstructed data were subjected to advanced processing to reveal the hidden text. Epigraphic analysis of the tomographic data revealed a formulaic curse written in a protoalphabetic script likely dating to Late Bronze Age II. The inscription falls within the literary genre of Chiastic Parallelism and predates any previously known Hebrew inscription in Israel by at least 200 years.

This article was published in Heritage Science (2023) 11:105

To read the entire article, open the PDF here.

New Insights on Israeilite Practices

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New Insights on Israelite Religious Practice

Shay Bar interview

To read the entire article that was featured in the Spring 2023 Bible and Spade, please select the PDF below.

Interview-with-Dr.-Shay-Bar-BAS-Spring-2023.pdf

The Relationship between archaeology and apologetics To read the entire article please select the PDF link below,

The_Relationship_Between_Biblical_Archaeology_and_Apologetics_Henry_B_Smith_Jr_BAS_Winter-Spring_2021.pdf

Creation, Adam & Early Man ca. 5500 BC
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