Scholars who support the biblical "minimalist" view—that the Old Testament is myth because the Hebrews were wandering tribesmen who never learned how to write until sometime after the Babylonian captivity began in 586 B.C.—received a rude awakening last summer.

At an excavation in Tel Zayit, an ancient site about 30 miles southwest of Jerusalem, archaeologists noticed an inscribed stone imbedded in a wall. Examining it more closely, they realized they had found an ancient example of an abecedary—a listing of the letters of the alphabet written out in sequence from beginning to end.

Even more remarkable, an analysis of pottery and the position of the wall in the ruins showed that the inscription dated to the 10th century B.C.—well before minimalist Bible critics say any Israelites could write.

Inscriptions from the Old Testament period are extremely rare. Only a few have been found, and many critics dismiss them as forgeries. Only stone, clay and metal objects from this period have survived. Other writing media, such as papyrus and parchment (which the Bible clearly says were in use at the time, as recorded in Jeremiah 36), have long since decayed into dust.

Critics use such "absence of evidence" as "evidence of absence," as some archaeologists put it. They have contended that the lack of actual hard evidence of writing from this period means that people of that period didn't know how to read and write. Therefore, they have argued, the Bible couldn't have been written when it claims to have been written, but was fabricated long after the supposed events and history recorded in it. Consequently, they have asserted, the biblical picture of the 10th century—the time when King David and his son and successor Solomon ruled a powerful Israelite empire—is simply a fabrication.

This latest find, like others reported in this section of The Good News, demonstrates again the shallowness and inaccuracy of such arguments, not to mention the willful denial of hard evidence. It shows that even in an outlying border town like this one, far from the national capital at Jerusalem, the Hebrew alphabet was in use.

Further, an analysis of ancient structures at the site indicates that it likely was a significant border town established by a growing Jerusalem-centered Israelite kingdom just as the Bible describes, says Ron Tappy, the Pittsburgh Theological Seminary archaeologist directing the excavations. GN