Earliest Textual References to Israel

A list of earliest known textual references to the name "Israel". There are at least four known inscriptions, from the Iron Age, that date to the time of and mention ancient Israel, under this name.

Merneptah Stele

circa 1208 BCE

The earliest certain mention of the ethnonym Israel occurs in a victory inscription of the Egyptian king MERENPTAH, his well-known Merneptah Stele or the “Israel Stela” (ca. 1210 BCE); recently, a possible earlier reference has been identified in a text from the reign of Rameses II as well. The text is largely an account of Merneptah's victory over the Libyans and their allies, but the last 3 of the 28 lines deal with a separate campaign in Canaan, then part of Egypt's imperial possessions. The stele is sometimes referred to as the "Israel Stela" because a majority of scholars translate a set of hieroglyphs in line 27 as "Israel".

Shalmaneser Stele

circa 852 BCE

The inscription on the Shalmaneser III Stela deals with campaigns Shalmaneser made in western Mesopotamia and Syria, fighting extensively with the countries of Bit Adini and Carchemish. At the end of the Monolith comes the account of the Battle of Qarqar, where an alliance of twelve kings fought against Shalmaneser at the Syrian city of Qarqar. This alliance, comprising eleven kings, was led by Irhuleni of Hamath and Hadadezer of Damascus, describing also a large force of two thousand chariots and and ten thousand foot soldiers; led by King Ahab of Israel.

Mesha Stele

circa 840 BCE

The Mesha Stele also known as the Moabite Stone, is a stele (inscribed stone) set up around 840 BCE by King Mesha of Moab (a kingdom located in modern Jordan). Mesha tells how Chemosh, the god of Moab, had been angry with his people and had allowed them to be subjugated to Israel, but at length, Chemosh returned and assisted Mesha to throw off the yoke of Israel and restore the lands of Moab. Mesha describes his many building projects.

Tel Dan Stele

circa 800 BCE

The Tel Dan Stele, is a broken stele (inscribed stone) discovered in 1993–94 during excavations at Tel Dan in northern Israel. It consists of several fragments making up part of a triumphal inscription in Aramaic, left most probably by Hazael of Aram-Damascus, an important regional figure in the late 9th century BCE. Hazael (or more accurately, the unnamed king) boasts of his victories over the king of Israel and his apparent ally the king of the "House of David" (bytdwd). It is considered the earliest widely accepted reference to the name David as the founder of a Judahite polity outside of the Hebrew Bible, though the earlier Mesha Stele contains several possible references with varying acceptance. A minority of scholars have disputed the reference to David, due to the lack of a word divider between byt and dwd, and other translations have been proposed.

See Also

• Pediiset Statue

References

• Cline, Eric H. (28 September 2009). Biblical Archaeology: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford University Press.
• Kenton L. Sparks (1998). Ethnicity and Identity in Ancient Israel: Prolegomena to the Study of Ethnic Sentiments and Their Expression in the Hebrew Bible. Eisenbrauns. pp. 96–. ISBN 978-1-57506-033-0.
• The Ancient Arabs: Nomads on the Borders of the Fertile Crescent, 9th–5th Centuries B.C., p. 75
• Lemche 1998, pp. 46, 62: “No other inscription from Palestine, or from Transjordan in the Iron Age, has so far provided any specific reference to Israel... The name of Israel was found in only a very limited number of inscriptions, one from Egypt, another separated by at least 250 years from the first, in Transjordan. A third reference is found in the stele from Tel Dan - if it is genuine, a question not yet settled. The Assyrian and Mesopotamian sources only once mentioned a king of Israel, Ahab, in a spurious rendering of the name.”
• Mykytiuk, Lawrence J. (1 January 2004). Identifying Biblical Persons in Northwest Semitic Inscriptions of 1200-539 B.C.E. Society of Biblical Lit. ISBN 9781589830622. Some unfounded accusations of forgery have had little or no effect on the scholarly acceptance of this inscription as genuine.
• The Biblical Archaeologist, American Schools of Oriental Research, 1997, p. 35.
• Maeir, Aren. "Maeir, A. M. 2013. Israel and Judah. Pp. 3523–27, The Encyclopedia of Ancient History. New York: Blackwell". The earliest certain mention of the ethnonym Israel occurs in a victory inscription of the Egyptian king MERENPTAH, his well-known “Israel Stela” (ca. 1210 BCE); recently, a possible earlier reference has been identified in a text from the reign of Rameses II (see RAMESES I–XI). Thereafter, no reference to either Judah or Israel appears until the ninth century. The pharaoh Sheshonq I (biblical Shishak; see SHESHONQ I–VI) mentions neither entity by name in the inscription recording his campaign in the southern Levant during the late tenth century. In the ninth century, Israelite kings, and possibly a Judaean king, are mentioned in several sources: the Aramaean stele from Tel Dan, inscriptions of SHALMANESER III of Assyria, and the stela of Mesha of Moab. From the early eighth century onward, the kingdoms of Israel and Judah are both mentioned somewhat regularly in Assyrian and subsequently Babylonian sources, and from this point on there is relatively good agreement between the biblical accounts on the one hand and the archaeological evidence and extra-biblical texts on the other.
• Michael G. Hasel (9 June 2011). "The Battle Of Kadesh: Identifying New Kingdom Polities, Places, And Peoples In Canaan And Syria". In S. Bar; D. Kahn; J.J. Shirley (eds.). Egypt, Canaan and Israel: History, Imperialism, Ideology and Literature: Proceedings of a Conference at the University of Haifa, 3-7 May 2009. BRILL. p. 67. doi:10.1163/ej.9789004194939.i-370.27. ISBN 978-90-04-19493-9.
• The Hebrew Bible: New Insights and Scholarship edited by Frederick E. Greenspahn, NYU Press, 2008 P.11
• Ancient Canaan and Israel: New Perspectives By Jonathan Michael Golden, ABC-CLIO, 2004, P.275
• Israel in Transition 2: From Late Bronze II to Iron IIA, edited by Lester L. Grabbe, p56, quote "The single case where "Israel" is mentioned is Shalmaneser's account of his battle with the coalition at Qarqar"
• Kelle 2002, p. 642: "The question of the identity of a-ha-ab-bu involves the fact that the other Assyrian inscriptions for 853-852 do not mention this person as a leader or participant in the coalition. They mention only Adad-idri and Irhuleni (see Bull Inscription and Black Obelisk). This lack of any further references leads some writers to assert that one should not equate the reference on the Monolith Inscription with Ahab of Israel. For example, W. Gugler supports A. S. van der Woude's thesis that tile inscription simply refers to an unknown northwest Syrian ruler. [Footnote:] W. Gugler, Jehu und seine Revolution (Kampen: Kok Pharos, 1996), 70-77. Some earlier readings also suggested "Ahab of Jezreel" (see Cuneiform Inscriptions of Western Asia [ed. H. Rawlinson; 5 vols.: London: British Museum, 1861-1909], 3:6). However, this no longer appears to be considered, and the mot recent studies do not mention it (e.g., Grayson, Assyrian Rulers, 11-24)."
• Assyrian Reliefs from the Palace of Ashurnasirpal II: A Cultural Biography edited by Ada Cohen, Steven E. Kangas P:126
• Rollston, Chris A. (2010). Writing and Literacy in the World of Ancient Israel: Epigraphic Evidence from the Iron Age. Society of Biblical Lit. p. 54. ISBN 9781589831070.
• "When God Wasn't So Great: What Yahweh's First Appearance Tells About Early Judaism". Haaretz. 13 September 2018. Retrieved 11 October 2018.
• Finkelstein, Israel; Na'Aman, Nadav; Römer, Thomas (2019). "Restoring Line 31 in the Mesha Stele: The 'House of David' or Biblical Balak?". Tel Aviv. 46: 3–11.
• Ariel David, 'Biblical King, Starts With a B: 3,000 Year-old Riddle May Have Been Solved,' Haaretz 2 May 2019.
• Athas, George (2006). The Tel Dan Inscription: A Reappraisal and a New Introduction. A&C Black. p. 217. ISBN 9780567040435. Retrieved 1 April 2019.
• Aaron Demsky (2007), Reading Northwest Semitic Inscriptions, Near Eastern Archaeology 70/2. Quote: "The first thing to consider when examining an ancient inscription is whether it was discovered in context or not. It is obvious that a document purchased on the antiquities market is suspect. If it was found in an archeological site, one should note whether it was found in its primary context, as with the inscription of King Achish from Ekron, or in secondary use, as with the Tel Dan inscription. Of course texts that were found in an archaeological site, but not in a secure archaeological context present certain problems of exact dating, as with the Gezer Calendar."
• Grabbe, Lester L. (28 April 2007). Ahab Agonistes: The Rise and Fall of the Omri Dynasty. Bloomsbury Publishing USA. ISBN 9780567251718. The Tel Dan inscription generated a good deal of debate and a flurry of articles when it first appeared, but it is now widely regarded (a) as genuine and (b) as referring to the Davidic dynasty and the Aramaic kingdom of Damascus.
• Avraham Biran and Joseph Naveh (1995). "The Tel Dan Inscription: A New Fragment". Israel Exploration Journal. 45 (1): 1–18. JSTOR 27926361.