TUESDAY 1st JUNE 2010 at 6.00 p.m.
PROFESSOR GERSHON GALIL (University of Haifa)
THE KHIRBET QEIYAFA INSCRIPTION AND THE KINGDOM OF DAVID AND SOLOMON
This lecture will offer a new and updated reading of the Qeiyafa inscription, unearthed two years ago at excavations carried out by Prof. Yosef Garfinkel and Mr. Saar Ganor at Khirbet Qeiyafa near the Elah valley. The first part of this lecture will re-examine the diverse aspects of Prof. Galil's new reading, including its implications for the dating of Biblical texts. In his opinion this is a prophetic text, dictated by a teacher to his student, and it is the most ancient and the most important Hebrew inscription ever found. It indicates that there were scribes in Israel who were able to write literary texts and complex compositions as early as the beginning of the 10th century BCE. The second part of the lecture will re-examine the reliability of the Biblical description of the kingdom of David and Solomon in light of the Qeiyafa inscription; and a new identification of Khirbet Qeiyafa will be presented.
Professor Gershon Galil, Ph.D (1983), the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, is Professor of Biblical Studies and Ancient History and former chair of the Jewish History Department of Haifa. He has published extensively on Ancient Near Eastern culture and History including The Chronology of the Kings of Israel and Judah, (Brill, 1996); Israel and Assyria (Hebrew; Zmora-Bitan, 2001); The Lower Stratum Families in the Neo-Assyrian Period (Brill, 2007) and more.
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