Deir Alla Inscription | |
---|---|
Created | c. 825 BC |
Discovered | 1967 Balqa, Jordan |
Present location | Amman, Amman Governorate, Jordan |
The Deir 'Alla Plaster Inscription (or Balaam Inscription, or Bal'am Son of Be'or Inscription), known as KAI 312, is a famous [1] inscription discovered during a 1967 excavation in Deir 'Alla, Jordan. It is currently at the Jordan Archaeological Museum. It is written in a peculiar Northwest Semitic dialect, and has provoked much debate among scholars and had a strong impact on the study of Canaanite and Aramaic inscriptions. [2] [3]
The excavation revealed a multiple-chamber structure that had been destroyed by an earthquake during the Persian period, on the wall of which was written a story relating visions of Bal'am, son of Be'or, a "seer of the gods", who may be the same Balaam mentioned in Numbers 22–24 and in other passages of the Bible. The Deir Alla inscription's take on Bala'am differs from that given in the Book of Numbers. Bal'am's god is associated with the goddess Šagar-we-Ishtar. Deities with such names, "Šagar-and-Ishtar", certainly are known to history, but quite separately. The enigmatic narrative also foregrounds the "Shaddayin" who establish a council. (שדין, perhaps meaning gods and goddesses). [4] It also features the word "Elohin", taken to mean "gods" in the plural rather than the Hebrew deity.
It was on ink on plastered wall; like in the plaster inscriptions at Kuntillet Ajrud, black and red inks were used. Red apparently emphasized certain parts of the text. [5] [6] The inscriptions were written with a broad nibbed pen with ink, an extremely early example. [7] They represent the earliest point of evidence in the history of the West Semitic alphabet. The Oxford Handbook of Biblical Studies describes it as "the oldest example of a book in a West Semitic language written with an alphabet, and the oldest piece of Aramaic literature." [8]
When the text was found, it was broken into fragments, which were lying on the ground. The fragments are poorly preserved, [9] and only a part of the text has been found. In all, 119 pieces of ink-inscribed plaster were recovered. The wall, near the summit of the tel, was felled by a tremor. [6]
Scholars have succeeded in arranging many of the fragments into two large 'combinations'. At least to some extent, they had use of information about which fragments were found close together or wide apart on the ground. [9] Still, uncombined fragments remain. For the reading of damaged or missing parts of the text, they sometimes had to guess; however, where the same group of words seems to appear in several places, but with different parts damaged in different occurrences, they could reasonably reconstruct a combined text.
The first complete translation and reconstruction of the inscription was published in 1981. [9] Today, the text in modern Hebrew letters is available online. The text is difficult to read and to interpret. [10] Here is one reconstruction and translation of the first combination: [11]
A more recent and complete English translation can also be found online. [12]
The second combination: [9] [note 1]
Though containing some features of Aramaic, such as the word bar "(son of [Beor])" rather than the Canaanite ben, it also has many elements of Canaanite languages, leading some to believe it was written in a dialect of Canaanite rather than an early form of Aramaic. The inscription has been dated to 880–770 BCE. [10]
In the 1960s, in addition to hundreds of vessels like bowls and jars, seven clay tablets were found with an unknown script. They still haven't been deciphered, nor has their clay been tested to see if it's local to Deir Alla. [13] Cannabis has been found as hemp here and at another religious archaeological site, Tel Arad, as burned incense or drug. [14]
Balaam, son of Beor, was a biblical character, a non-Israelite prophet and diviner who lived in Pethor. According to chapters Numbers 22–24 of the Book of Numbers, he was hired by King Balak of Moab to curse Israel, but instead he blessed the Israelites, as dictated by God. Subsequently, the plan to entice the Israelites into idol worship and sexual immorality is attributed to him . Balaam is also mentioned in the Book of Micah.
Asherah is the great goddess in ancient Semitic religion. She also appears in Hittite writings as Ašerdu(s) or Ašertu(s). Her name was Aṯeratum to the Amorites, and Athiratu in Ugarit. Significantly, Yahweh and Asherah were a consort pair in ancient Israel and Judah.
The Moabite language, also known as the Moabite dialect, is an extinct sub-language or dialect of the Canaanite languages, themselves a branch of Northwest Semitic languages, formerly spoken in the region described in the Bible as Moab in the early 1st millennium BC.
Edomite was a Northwest Semitic Canaanite language, very similar to Biblical Hebrew, Ekronite, Ammonite, Phoenician, Amorite and Sutean, spoken by the Edomites in southwestern Jordan and parts of Israel in the 2nd and 1st millennium BCE. It is extinct and known only from an extremely small corpus, attested in a scant number of impression seals, ostraca, and a single late 7th or early 6th century BCE letter, discovered in Horvat Uza.
Aram was a historical region mentioned in early cuneiforms and in the Bible, populated by Arameans. The area did not develop into a larger empire but consisted of a number of small states in present-day Syria and northern Israel. Some of the states are mentioned in the Old Testament, Damascus being the most outstanding one, which came to encompass most of Syria. Furthermore, Aram-Damascus is commonly referred to as simply Aram in the Old Testament.
The Canaanite languages, sometimes referred to as Canaanite dialects, are one of three subgroups of the Northwest Semitic languages, the others being Aramaic and Amorite. These closely related languages originate in the Levant and Mesopotamia, and were spoken by the ancient Semitic-speaking peoples of an area encompassing what is today Israel, Jordan, the Sinai Peninsula, Lebanon, Syria, Palestine, as well as some areas of southwestern Turkey (Anatolia), western and southern Iraq (Mesopotamia) and the northwestern corner of Saudi Arabia.
Mot was the Canaanite god of death and the Underworld. He was also known to the people of Ugarit and in Phoenicia, where Canaanite religion was widespread. The main source of information about Mot in Canaanite mythology comes from the texts discovered at Ugarit, but he is also mentioned in the surviving fragments of Philo of Byblos's Greek translation of the writings of the Phoenician Sanchuniathon.
Proto-Canaanite is the name given to
Ancient Semitic religion encompasses the polytheistic religions of the Semitic peoples from the ancient Near East and Northeast Africa. Since the term Semitic itself represents a rough category when referring to cultures, as opposed to languages, the definitive bounds of the term "ancient Semitic religion" are only approximate, but exclude the religions of "non-Semitic" speakers of the region such as Egyptians, Elamites, Hittites, Hurrians, Mitanni, Urartians, Luwians, Minoans, Greeks, Phrygians, Lydians, Persians, Medes, Philistines and Parthians.
Deir Alla is the site of an ancient Near Eastern town in Balqa Governorate, Jordan. The Deir Alla Inscription, datable to ca. 840–760 BCE, was found here.
Red letter edition bibles are those in which the words considered as being spoken by Jesus Christ are printed in red ink.
The West Semitic languages are a proposed major sub-grouping of ancient Semitic languages. The term was first coined in 1883 by Fritz Hommel.
Northwest Semitic is a division of the Semitic languages comprising the indigenous languages of the Levant. It emerged from Proto-Semitic in the Early Bronze Age. It is first attested in proper names identified as Amorite in the Middle Bronze Age. The oldest coherent texts are in Ugaritic, dating to the Late Bronze Age, which by the time of the Bronze Age collapse are joined by Old Aramaic, and by the Iron Age by Sutean and the Canaanite languages.
El Shaddai or just Shaddai is one of the names of the God of Israel. El Shaddai is conventionally translated into English as God Almighty.
Pethor or Petor (פְּתוֹר) in the Hebrew Bible is the home of the prophet Balaam. In the Book of Numbers, Pethor is described as being located "by the river of the land of the children of his people". The River usually refers in the Bible to the Euphrates River, the rest of the description is somewhat vague and perhaps corrupted. In Deuteronomy, Balaam is from "Pethor of Mesopotamia". It is widely accepted that Pethor is the town Pitru, which is mentioned in ancient Assyrian records.
Samalian was a Semitic language spoken and first attested in Samʼal.
Jo Ann Hackett is an American scholar of the Hebrew Bible and of Biblical Hebrew and other ancient Northwest Semitic languages such as Phoenician, Punic, and Aramaic.
The Canaanite and Aramaic inscriptions, also known as Northwest Semitic inscriptions, are the primary extra-Biblical source for understanding of the society and history of the ancient Phoenicians, Hebrews and Arameans. Semitic inscriptions may occur on stone slabs, pottery ostraca, ornaments, and range from simple names to full texts. The older inscriptions form a Canaanite–Aramaic dialect continuum, exemplified by writings which scholars have struggled to fit into either category, such as the Stele of Zakkur and the Deir Alla Inscription.
The Revadim Asherah is a significant artifact representing a third genre of Asherah figurines. Like the inscriptions found at Khirbet el-Qom and Kuntillet Ajrud, it's one of the most pivotal discoveries in the field from the latter half of the 20th century. These findings reoriented scholarship to the fact of Asherah's prominence in Canaanite and Hebrew religion.