Historical Dictionary of Ancient Israel by Niels Peter Lemche

Author:Niels Peter Lemche
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Scarecrow Press
Published: 2004-04-24T16:00:00+00:00

- I -

IBZAN. From Bethlehem, a judge in Israel, who functioned for a period of seven years. He was renowned for having 30 sons and 30 daughters (Judg 12:8-10). He belongs to the list of five judges (Judg 10:1-5; 12:8-15) who together judged Israel for 70 years but have left no records about their exploits.

INSCRIPTIONS. Texts written on stone, clay tablets, papyri, tree, or metal. Over the period of the last 200 years, literally hundreds of thousands of inscriptions have emerged from the soil of the ancient Near East. These inscriptions have illuminated many aspects of life not only of the ancient Near East in general, but also of Palestine in biblical times. Thus several inscriptions have been found relevant to persons or events mentioned in the Old Testament. Most references to Old Testament personalities are short. However, some inscriptions provide additional information not included in the Old Testament and may elucidate episodes of history as preserved by the Old Testament. Generally speaking, the inscriptions from the ancient Near East should be considered a kind of “reservoir.” Their importance is indirect rather than direct. They contain a wealth of information about living conditions, the enactment of justice, religious beliefs, and literary conventions, common to the world also shared by the authors of Old Testament literature.

Nevertheless, their value is limited. First of all, scholars are depending on luck. Only inscriptions found by excavators are known. There can be no idea of what may still be hidden in the ground. Neither is it known how many inscriptions have been lost over time. The present may possess a fairly extensive collection of information but there is no reason to believe it to be complete. Rather, what is left is a highly fragmentary image of the past. Second, inscriptions found in the ground are often in bad shape. Sections have been lost, tablets have partly crumbled, inscriptions on stones have been obliterated either intentionally or in the course of time, or they are incomprehensible. Interpretation is often problematic.

The more important discoveries of inscriptions and assemblages of inscriptions have been made not in Palestine but in the great cultures of Egypt, Mesopotamia, and Asia Minor—especially at Hattushash, the Hittite capital—and Syria. Inscriptions from Palestine are far apart and mostly very short.

Apart from the casual historical information in official war reports or victory hymns, the Egyptian inscriptions have only minor interest for the study of Palestinian society—with some notable exceptions. Among the important collections of references to Palestine may be mentioned the Execration Texts from the Middle Kingdom, at the beginning of the second millennium B.C.E. These are small inscriptions on figurines intended for magical purposes, mentioning leaders of Palestinian cities. The Amarna Letters from the Late Bronze Age are most important. Several of these include messages sent from Palestinian potentates to the Pharaoh. Merenptah’s victory inscription (c. 1208 B.C.E.) (see Israel Stele) is of special importance for the early history of Israel as it—apart from mentioning a number of localities such as Ashkelon and Gezer—also includes Israel among the vanquished foes of the Pharaoh: “Israel is destroyed.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.