New Hebrew Inscription
Yesterday on the ANE-2 newsgroup, Aren Maeir announced that an important inscription had been found at Khirbet Qeiyafa in the Elah valley (see www.elahfortress.com). I missed it the first time, but Duane at Abnormal Interests was quite excited. There is also info at the BiblePlaces blog.
Duane laments how long we’ll have to wait for the inscription to be published. Well, this is highly unethical, but through unnamed sources I have gotten my hands on the text. It is a little difficult to read, but here it is with some proposed reconstructions:
1. אל שאול ברכת[כ לי]הוה ועת
2. הנ ה[כה ד]וד את הפלשתי
3. הערל את גל[..] ויקטלה
4. על כנ נכזבו
5. המנ[מל]יסטימ
בלשנות 
September 14, 2008 at 3:52 am
It’s good that’s finally settled.
September 15, 2008 at 6:41 am
Haha! Awesome. Thanks for putting line 5 in there; you would have gotten a lot of people excited over nothing had you not.
September 18, 2008 at 6:44 pm
Is this for real? What chronology are you using for Iron II, also?
September 18, 2008 at 6:46 pm
I mean your transcription. This could be the biggest inscriptional find ever!
September 18, 2008 at 7:19 pm
Jake, I didn’t say anything about Iron II, that was in Aren Maeir’s blurb on the ANE-2 list, and re-read the last two lines of my “transcription”
September 23, 2008 at 11:28 am
Oy gevalt – I got a bellyache laughing. Awesome!
September 25, 2008 at 5:51 pm
Cute, but too bad the ancient author didn’t know that centuries later there would be two lacunae at the names of Gol[iath] and [Da]vid — more than enough wiggle room for הכופנהגנימ to find a reference to Gil[ligan] and [Ing]vid instead.