The Tablet Of Gilgamesh
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This object is the single most famous cuneiform text and caused a sensation when its content was first read in the 19th century because of its similarity to the Flood story in the Book of Genesis. It is a baked clay tablet inscribed with the Babylonian account of the Flood.
This archaeological find goes to show that the Hebrew Bible is not the only place where we find an account of a flood in this time period. Floods may very well have been a common occurrence, or this is the result of one great flood that many different communities of people wrote about. This relates to our topic, because it demonstrates how there could be more that one account of the same event, similarly to how in Genesis we see two different stories of the same event. Which led scholars to believe that these are two different accounts coming from different authors or communities of people.
This archaeological find goes to show that the Hebrew Bible is not the only place where we find an account of a flood in this time period. Floods may very well have been a common occurrence, or this is the result of one great flood that many different communities of people wrote about. This relates to our topic, because it demonstrates how there could be more that one account of the same event, similarly to how in Genesis we see two different stories of the same event. Which led scholars to believe that these are two different accounts coming from different authors or communities of people.
The Merneptah Stele
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The Merneptah Stele has long been touted as the earliest extrabiblical reference to Israel. The ancient Egyptian inscription dates to about 1205 B.C.E. and recounts the military conquests of the pharaoh Merneptah. Near the bottom of the hieroglyphic inscription, a people called “Israel” is said to have been wiped out by the conquering pharaoh. This has been used by some experts as evidence of the ethnogenesis of Israel around that time.
The Tel Dan Stela
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The Tel Dan inscription, or “House of David” inscription, was discovered in 1993 at the site of Tel Dan in northern Israel in an excavation directed by Israeli archaeologist Avraham Biran. This discovery would help to confirm the the Davidic dynasty did exist and was present in isreal as its oneof the only sources found from that time period to mention both the "House of David" and the name Isreal. Few modern Biblical archaeology discoveries have caused as much excitement as the Tel Dan inscription writing on a ninth-century B.C. stone slab (or stela) that furnished the first historical evidence of King David from the Bible.