The Bible… As Old As Moses Toes?
The oldest known Hebrew writing has been discovered on a piece of potery. The piece dates from the period of King David’s reign, the 10th century B.C. It reads:
1′ you shall not do [it], but worship the [Lord].
2′ Judge the sla[ve] and the wid[ow] / Judge the orph[an]
3′ [and] the stranger. [Pl]ead for the infant / plead for the po[or and]
4′ the widow. Rehabilitate [the poor] at the hands of the king.
5′ Protect the po[or and] the slave / [supp]ort the stranger.
Gershon Galil, a professor of Biblical Studies at the University of Haifa in Israel, deciphered the text. Galil said,
“It indicates that the Kingdom of Israel already existed in the 10th century BCE and that at least some of the biblical texts were written hundreds of years before the dates presented in current research. It uses verbs that were characteristic of Hebrew, such as asah (‘did’) and avad (‘worked’), which were rarely used in other regional languages. Particular words that appear in the text, such as almanah (‘widow’) are specific to Hebrew and are written differently in other local languages.”
The text is about four centuries older than any previous writing associated with the Bible.