Perspective Digest

Volume 11 Issue 1 Winter Article 7

2006

"Goliath" Found in New Inscription (What's New in Archaeology)

Michael G. Hasel Southern Adventist University, [email protected]

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Recommended Citation Hasel, Michael G. (2006) ""Goliath" Found in New Inscription (What's New in Archaeology)," Perspective Digest: Vol. 11 : Iss. 1 , Article 7. Available at: https://digitalcommons.andrews.edu/pd/vol11/iss1/7

This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Adventist Theological Society at Digital Commons @ Andrews University. It has been accepted for inclusion in Perspective Digest by an authorized editor of Digital Commons @ Andrews University. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Hasel: "Goliath" Found in New Inscription (What's New in Archaeology) determines what we do with our offers. The words “Don’t let the WHAT’S NEW IN ARCHAEOLOGY body now. To waste a mind is to world squeeze you into its own waste a person. To waste a person is mold” (Rom. 12:2, Phillips), suggests to waste eternity. If the mind is our just how alive we can be to our world greatest resource, then we must ask and its point of view. how do we prevent its loss or renew The idea that we are transformed a damaged or neglected mind. with new patterns of thinking, how- The idea of a renewed mind im- ever, implies that our mind can be Michael G. Hasel* plies that it has already been wasted. reclaimed. Paul tells us that our Scripture teaches such: the human mind can be renewed such that we mind has become “debased” (Rom. will be interested in God. Interested he story of David and other postmodern scholars, 1:28, NKJV), “hardened” (2 Cor. 3:14, in spiritual things. Renewed to the Goliath has captured “GOLIATH” the characters and stories of NASB), “blinded” (4:4, KJV), “dark- place that we can know, appreciate, the imagination of FOUND IN NEW the Bible must have a histor- ened” (Eph. 4:18, KJV), “hostile” and then choose what is pleasing to millions of Bible stu- ical (archaeological) coun- (Col. 1:21, NASB), “delude[d]” (2:4, God (Rom. 12:2b). We can be alive G dents through the ages. INSCRIPTION terpart. “Unless this is done, NASB), “defraud[ed]” (vs. 18, NASB), to God and heavenly realities more It is the story of the faith of a there can be no real basis for “depraved” (1 Tim. 6:5, NASB), “cor- than toward our world. vulnerable young boy withstanding claiming that biblical ‘Israel’ has any rupt” (2 Tim. 3:8, KJV), “defiled” Stewarding our mind toward an armored Philistine champion. It is particular relationship to history.”2 (Titus 1:15, KJV). heavenly realities means keeping it the story of an Israelite army cower- The Bible is considered guilty until This does not mean that humans redemptively focused on Jesus ing in the Valley of Elah while the proven innocent. But such arguments are reduced intellectually to the level Christ as our Savior and Lord and Philistines taunt them and their God. from silence are dangerous in any dis- of animals or that they cannot being renewed regularly by exposure Five stones against iron shields, hel- cipline. In archaeology—with hun- achieve extraordinary accomplish- to the thinking and will of God mets, and sword. dreds of archaeologists working in ments. Nor does it mean that they found in Scripture. Scripture is the But what is the history behind the the Middle East today—it can be dev- cannot perform good deeds or live mind of God. Not all of His mind, to story? Was there a Goliath and a astating. according to some set of moral val- be sure, but all that He cared to give David? Recent critical scholarship Just this past summer, an exciting ues. It does mean, however, that the us. To think like God, we must think questions the historicity of this bib- archaeological discovery was made human mind has difficulty in under- like Scripture. That’s why Paul en- lical story. In 1992, Philip Davies, that sheds new light on the story of standing life from God’s perspective. couraged the Colossians to let the professor of biblical studies at the David and Goliath. According to the That we are no longer alive to God, Word of Christ richly dwell within University of Sheffield, appealed to Bible, Goliath came from Gath, one rather we are alive to self, alive to our them (Col. 3:16). This is what Per- archaeology and wrote, “The biblical of the five cities of the Philistines (1 world, alive to all that our world spective Digest is all about. ‘empire’ of David and Solomon has Sam. 17:4). Modern excavations at not the faintest echo in the archaeo- Gath (Tel es-Safi) directed by Aren logical record—as yet.”1 He con- cluded that David and Solomon are *Michael G. Hasel, Ph.D., is Director of no more historical than King Arthur the Institute of Archaeology and Cura- Q of the Round Table. tor of the Lynn H. Wood Archaeological But his argument is one from Museum at Southern Adventist Uni- silence. In the view of Davies and versity in Collegedale, Tennessee.

52 Published by Digital Commons @ Andrews53 University, 2006 1 Perspective Digest, Vol. 11 [2006], Iss. 1, Art. 7 Maeir of Bar-Ilan University in Tel of the city that archaeologists have Aviv, uncovered a broken piece of identified with the military campaign pottery with an inscription during of Hazael of Syria (2 Kings 12:17). the 2005 season. According to Dr. The inscription is then sealed in a Maeir in his November 2005 presen- stratigraphic context and can be tation to the American Schools of dated to the 10th-9th centuries B.C., Oriental Research in Philadelphia,3 around 950 B.C. to no later than 880 the letters are written in a proto- B.C. The context is important, be- Canaanite script (in Semitic letters). cause it establishes that the name The letters written without vowels Goliath was known at Philistine Gath are: ALWT and about 70 years after WLT. Though the the event between script is Semitic, David and Goliath however, it is writ- as recorded in 1 ten in the Indo- Samuel 17. Dr. European language. Maeir, a well re- The names could spected archaeolo- thus be constructed gist who is cur- as “Wylattes or Aly- rently director of attes.” In the hear- the Institute of ing of an Israelite it might sound like Archaeology at Bar-Ilan University, this Wylattes/WLT/Goliath. That the concludes that though the inscription names are written in Indo-European probably does not name the biblical in a Semitic script is significant. Goliath directly, it does point to “a Indo-European points to an Aegean Goliath or rather two Goliath-like (Greek) origin, which is the same names.”This affirms that these names place that the Bible describes as the were used at Philistine Gath some origin of the Philistines (Gen. 10:14). years after the Bible records the con- Its writing in a Semitic script indi- flict between David and Goliath. cates some adaptation of the lan- guage in written form to the local REFERENCES 1 “In Search of Ancient Israel,” Journal for Canaanite environment where the the Study of the Old Testament, Supplement Philistines settled. 148 (Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1992), p. 67. Where was this inscription found? 2 Ibid., p. 60. As archaeologists uncover the ancient 3 Aren Maier, “An Iron Age IIA Proto- cities layer by layer, they can date arti- Canaanite, Philistine Inscription and Other New Finds From Tel es-Safi-Gath.” A Paper facts stratigraphically within those Presented to the Annual Meetings of the layers. This inscription was clearly American Schools of Oriental Research, found below the massive destruction Philadelphia, Penna., November 18, 2005. https://digitalcommons.andrews.edu/pd/vol11/iss1/754 2