3 Days until Christmas -- The Tel Dan Stele

Tel Dan Inscription at the Israel Museum. the name "House of David" (btdwd) is outlined in white.

​3 days until Christmas and we are down to our last 3 discoveries. Today’s archaeological discovery is the Tel Dan Stele.
 
The Tel Dan Stele was discovered in the 1993 at the site of Tel Dan during Avraham Biran’s excavation. It was written in Aramaic and in an ancient Phoenician Script closely related to an early Hebrew.
 
The stele dates to the 9th Century BCE and is said to be authored by Hazael of Aram-Damascus. He discuses how he took the city of Dan and killed the Northern Kingdom of Israel’s kings Joram and later Ahaziah from the Omride Dynasty. However, in this stele, it does not designate these kings as the Omride dynasty, instead he says they were kings from the “House of David.”

​This is a quite significant discovery considering that before this event, scholarship had not yet found any real historical confirmation of the biblical King David. It was assumed that he was a legendary figure like King Arthur. However, when this stele was discovered it changed everything we knew about the history of Israel.
 
It is interesting that that the king of Aram, from outside of Israel, mentions by name the House of David and designates it to the Northern Kingdom which separated itself from the Southern Kingdom of Judah after the reign of King Solomon. This shows that there was, at the very least, a tradition of both kingdoms once being united and the kingship was called the “House of David.” Also, kingdoms would call nations typically by the name of their ruler or most powerful ruler when they refer to them in monumental inscriptions.
 
This stele shows there is some historicity to the human figure of King David. It was obviously debated as to its authenticity after its initial discovery but now there is not too much debate on the subject. The Tel Dan Stele remains one of the most important archaeological discovery in the realm of biblical scholarship.
 
Tune in tomorrow as we will be two days away from Christmas!
 
-Tal