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Journal of Semitic Studies 2005 50(1):23-34; doi:10.1093/jss/fgi002
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© The University of Manchester 2005. All rights reserved

Articles

The Tell Dan Aramaic Inscription: The Problems of a New Minimized Reading

Victor Sasson

New York

Originally a doctoral thesis, The Tel Dan Inscription: A Reappraisal and a New Interpretation by George Athas aims to be a definitive study of the Old Aramaic inscription from Tell Dan. Its author has adopted the methods of the deconstructionists (= Minimizers). The Hebrew Bible is said to be ‘an unknown quantity at best and a pure fabrication at worst’; the term bytdwd in the inscription is not in reference to the House of David (= Judah) but to Jerusalem as ‘a small principality’ or ‘a small feudal estate’. According to the author the waw consecutive does not exist here, nor elsewhere in Aramaic. The reviewer argues that both the Hebrew Bible and the Tell Dan text are thereby downsized and devalued. Despite a detailed, minute palaeographical and epigraphical analysis which occupies 156 pages, as a published book aimed at professional epigraphers and established biblical scholars, it is generally disappointing, neither definitive, nor authoritative.


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