Interpreting Epigraphical Texts
As a follow-up to this post on a recently discovered Hebrew epigraphical text and the problems of its interpretation, one of the more famous examples of interpreting epigraphical texts through potentially Biblically-biased eyes comes to mind. For some years people felt that an Ugaritic text describing the cooking of a kid in its mother’s milk in a ritual context, paralleling the Biblical prohibition of such a practice. After scholars revisited the original Ugarit text and knowledge of ancient Near Eastern languages expanded, many scholars now believe that the Ugaritic text actually says something different and should not be read in direct juxtaposition to the Biblical text.
See here and here for more discussion of this particular text and the difficulties in its interpretation.
These words of caution apply to any text, not only those in early Hebrew and Ugaritic, and especially those which are incomplete in which scholars have to “fill in the blanks.”