More on That Pottery Shard
Biblia Hebraica continues to gather more reactions to the Khirbet Qeiyafa inscription. See here for his latest summary. He also links to this post by Christopher A. Rollston. Rollston categorically states that “[the] script of this ostracon is definitively NOT Old Hebrew” and offers the following sober reaction, emphasis added.
Because of its state of preservation, it is difficult to read this ostracon. Moreover, various “renderings” of it have been proposed. Rather than accepting some reading (especially the sensational ones…which often get much attention, much to my chagrin), it is better to state at this time that the interpretation of this inscription is at a preliminary state. As for me, I will release my readings at the ASOR and SBL meetings in Atlanta, with a refereed article coming out at about the same time. Nonetheless, suffice it to say that I am disinclined to see this ostracon as containing some sort of startling content. This is an important ostracon and it joins a relatively rare group of late 2nd millennium and very early 1st millennium linear Northwest Semitic inscriptions, but these recent attempts to sensationalize it should be rebuffed.