A Inscrição de Joás: Mais Uma Falsificação? 

Desde o dia 13.01.2003, data  da apresentação para a imprensa de uma inscrição em pedra, de proveniência ainda desconhecida, reproduzindo um trecho de 2Reis 12, onde o rei Joás, do século IX a.C., fala da reforma do Templo de Jerusalém, vem monopolizando o debate de especialistas, especialmente israelenses. Nas listas de discussão, não se fala de outra coisa: é falsa, é autêntica, há um trecho em hebraico moderno na inscrição, não há... Por enquanto, predomina o ceticismo!

Para acompanhar o debate e ver a foto da inscrição:

http://www1.folha.uol.com.br/folha/ciencia/ult306u8162.shtml (14.01.2003)  

http://www.baptiststandard.com/2003/2_3/pages/tablet.html (03.02.2003)

http://www.orientalisti.net/?page_id=358

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Em Bible and Interpretation  leia os seguintes artigos:

 Jehoash tablet said found near Muslim cemetery (Haaretz: January 17, 2003)

 Controversial 'First Temple tablet' reputedly dates to King Joash (Jpost: January 17, 2003)

Romancing the stone (Haaretz: January 17, 2003) 

Expert says 'First Temple' find a fake (Jerusalem Post: January 19, 2003)

Temple tablet or forger's art? Patina fits, words don't (National Post: January 31, 2003)

Joash Inscription Almost Certainly a Forgery (By Professor Yuval Goren - Bible and Interpretation: February 2003)

Report on the Temple Tablet (By Dr. Rochelle I. Altman - Bible and Interpretation: February 2003) 

"The Temple tablet was announced in a manner disturbingly reminiscent of the initial yellow journalism that accompanied the fake 'James' ossuary -- right on down to the 'unknown' owner, partial photograph, dubious provenance, and authentication of certain aspects by the Geological Service of Israel (GSI)". 

An Alternative Interpretation of the Stone Tablet with Ancient Hebrew Inscription Attributed to Jehoash King of Judah (By Yuval Goren - Bible and Interpretation: February 2003)

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Listas de discussão: ANE,  Biblical Studies e Ioudaios-L 

Procure por joash inscription ou jehoash inscription, joash tablet ou ainda joash photo.

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Newsletter Explorator:

Explorator 5.38, de 19.01.2003, diz: "In the wake of the James Ossuary fooferah, the recent discovery
of the so-called 'Jehoash Inscription' -- which supposedly details
some repairs to the Temple -- is being much hyped (but
is meeting *much* skepticism from academics)".

E Explorator 5.40, de 02.02.2003, diz: "The Washington Post has a somewhat strange (especially in light
of other coverage) piece on the similarities between the James
Ossuary and Jehoash Inscription discoveries.

 Archaeologists Skeptical on Authenticity of Temple Tablet

The discovery of an ancient sandstone tablet with inscriptions attributed to contemporaries of King Joash of Judea claims to provide proof of a parallel Biblical passage describing renovations on the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem. Israeli archaeology experts say the unknown origin of the tablet and the use of contemporary Hebrew idiom in its inscription, point to a forgery attempt reminiscent of the recently discovered "Jesus box." 

The tablet, which measures twenty-four inches wide and twelve inches high and is just over three inches thick, bears a ten-line inscription, written in the first person, in an apparent ancient Hebrew script. The text resembles descriptions in Kings II, 12:1-6, 11-17 and refers to King Joash Ben Ahaziya, who ruled Judea from 836-798 B.C.E. In it, the king tells priests to fund repairs on the Temple by taking "holy money ... to buy quarry stones and timber and copper and labor to carry out the duty with faith." If the work is completed well, "the Lord will protect his people with blessing," reads the last sentence of the inscription. 

According to experts from the Israel's Geological Institute, including Dr. Shimon Iloni and Dr. Amnon Rosenfeld who examined and tested the tablet, the stone is not a forgery. Researchers believe that the sandstone was brought from Jordan or the Dead Sea area, and say that its script is almost identical to that of Misha, King of Moab and Hazael, King of Aram, unearthed at the Tel Dan archaeological dig. 

Microscopic flecks of gold were found embedded into the surface of the tablet, which may have been burned on if the tablet was present during the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem, experts suggested. 

Bar-Ilan archaeologist Dr. Gabi Barkai told Maariv that if the tablet was proven to be authentic it would be considered one of the greatest Israeli archaeological finds in history since it would offer for the first time physical evidence of the existence of a Jewish Temple on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. 

According to Dr. Mordechai Kidar, an eastern scholar specializing in the connection between Islam and the Temple Mount, proof of the presence of the Jewish Temple on the Temple Mount would create a problem for Islamic groups, who deny all claims of a Jewish temple in the area. Dr. Kidar said that during recent renovations near the El-Aqsa Mosque, the Islamic Waqf disposed of large quantities of archaeological soil dug up from the southeastern corner of the Temple Mount area. The tablet may have been among items unearthed in the discarded soil, he said. 

Adnan Husseini, the director of the Islamic Trust that administers the Temple Mount mosque compound, denied that the tablet was found on the Temple Mount. "At the best this is a joke. I'm sure the item was not taken from the Temple Mount grounds, and it does not provide any proof of the existence of a Jewish Temple," Husseini said. 

The greatest obstacle to determining the authenticity of the tablet is the lack of information available regarding the origins of the tablet. The Jerusalem collector has not identified himself, and David Zailer, a lawyer for the collector, would not say where the tablet was found or give any further details. 

"There is no information on where and under what circumstances the item was found, and these are important details to determining credibility," Barkai said. 

Dr. Eilat Mazar, an archaeologist at Hebrew University specializing in Temple Mount excavations said, "I am speculative about the authenticity of an item that is not found in an organized archaeological dig. In a case like this, authenticity is doubtful." 

Barkai says another one of the major problems regarding the tablet's authenticity is that geologists, instead of historians, archaeologists and ancient language specialists, are currently conducting the research effort. Israeli archaeological scholars are equally doubtful, and believe the tablet is a forgery citing that the tablet bears contemporary Hebrew idiom, rather than biblical language and because artifacts unearthed in the "Solomon's Stables" area of the Temple Mount have dated at most to the 1st century BCE. 

Ha'aretz reported that the anonymous collector offered to sell the tablet to the Israel Museum, but his offer was rejected due to speculations regarding its authenticity. Israel Museum officials refused to comment on the report.

By Debbie Berman - Israelinsider - January 17, 2003

On Relics, Forgeries, and Biblical Archaeology

(...) Is there anything we can learn about the underlying assumptions of the James Ossuary and the Jehoash Inscription even as we await the final verdict on their authenticity?

Those who have closely followed the discussions over the interpretation of the Dead Sea Scrolls in the last 15 years surely know that one of the most controversial assertions was that of the iconoclastic scholar Robert Eisenman, who in his book James the Brother of Jesus (1997) stressed the historical primacy of James the Just and his leadership of an uncompromising radical nationalist sect, that had little or nothing to do with Jesus. Indeed the search for the historical James, and more so, the historical Jesus, has widened the gap and heated up the rhetoric between the historical "maximalists" and "minimalists" in the field of Christian origins. The association of James with both Joseph and Jesus on his own funerary inscription suggests—even demands—belief in a more traditional history. 

This is also the case with the Jehoash Inscription. At a time when the date of composition of the Deuteronomic History has become a matter of acrimonious disagreement between biblical "maximalists" and "minimalists," the Jehoash Inscription offers a powerful lapidary reply to those who would deny that the Deuteronomic History contains a reliable record of events. Indeed in 1999, the historian Nadav Naaman opposed a post-exilic date for the DH, by suggesting that the biblical text could have been based at least in part on public inscriptions. And that is, in fact, what he argued in his article "Royal Inscriptions and the Histories of Joash (sic, NAS) and Ahaz, Kings of Judah," Vetus Testamentum 48 (1998): 333-49—just four years before the Jehoash Inscription was found.

Coincidences do, of course, happen. But the sudden surfacing of two unprovenanced artifacts within the span of just a few months, both explicitly linked to major biblical personalities and both providing powerful ammunition to bolster "maximalist" positions would be a very great coincidence indeed. Naaman himself responded in the Israeli daily Haaretz that after he had first read the inscription in press reports, he assumed "one of two things—either I hit the nail on the head, and my theory was confirmed fantastically, or the forger read my theory and decided to confirm it. In any case, if in the near future another inscription turns up, the "Ahaz inscription," I will be convinced that it's a forgery. At present I'm only suspicious."

Suspicions should never invalidate serious scholarly research, but there is something even more ominous at stake. In the ever-widening public discussion, the James Ossuary has quickly transcended mere epigraphic interest to provide seeming confirmation for religious faith in the historicity of the Gospel accounts. And the Jehoash Inscription has not only served to bolster the "maximalist" position in biblical research, it has become a stone of contention in the bitter contemporary battle for the spiritual and physical possession of Jerusalem's Temple Mount, where, according to some sketchy and unsubstantiated reports, it was originally found. The militant Israeli group "The Temple Mount Faithful" posted photographs and detailed descriptions of the Jehoash Inscription on their website, declaring it "completely authentic," and noting that "people feel that the timing is no accident and that it is a clear message from the G-d of Israel Himself that time is short, the Temple should immediately be rebuilt..." A few days later, Abdullah Kan'an, secretary-general of Jordan's Royal Committee for Jerusalem Affairs, issued a press release asserting that extremist factions in Israel were using the claims of the discovered tablet to support their bid to destroy the Al-Aqsa Mosque and rebuild the Temple, and further warned that "If that happened, God forbid, a holy religious war will definitely inflame the whole region."

By Neil Asher Silberman -  Religious Studies News: SBL Edition - February 2003 - Vol. 4, No.2 

The Joash Inscription Remains an Antique Mystery

(...) Mystery also surrounds exactly how the tablet reached the public domain and who is actually the owner. When the story broke in January, the Israel Antiquities Authority and the police decided to question many of the experts who had been given the stone to examine by a mystery man identified only as "Isaac Tzur." Following a number of leads, including a cellular telephone number left with Professor Yosef Naveh of the Hebrew University, the police arrested a man at Ben Gurion Airport who allegedly held a cellular telephone with that number. However, at the Jerusalem Magistrates Court later that month, despite positive identification by another of the experts questioned, the man denied all connection with the affair and was released under restricted conditions. Suspicion has fallen on Oded Golan, an antiquities collector, as the owner of the inscription. Through his lawyers, however, Golan has also denied this, but does claim that he does know the true identity of the owners. It now seems that the original "Isaac Tzur" was actually a private detective called Tzaki Tzuriel, working at the behest of Golan. It was Tzuriel who offered the stone to the experts. Meanwhile, mystery surrounding the true identity of the owner and the authenticity of the stone continues.

By Haaretz Service - Haaretz.com - Wednesday, March 05, 2003

 Cf. também a lista ANE e o tema  Haaretz and Maariv on Joash Inscription de 05.03.2003

Antiques Collector Hands Over 'Joash Inscription' to Police

The "Joash Inscription", a dark gray sandstone tablet, measuring 1 foot by 2 feet, with 15 lines in ancient Hebrew found some years ago during renovations on Jerusalem's Temple Mount, was transferred to the police fraud squad by antiques collector Oded Golan on Monday.  Golan had been arrested and interrogated over the past few days in connection to the inscription, and has previously denied owning the inscription. The inscription was located by the police after a six-week undercover investigation, and will be transfered from Tel Aviv to the inspection of the Antiquities Authority in Jerusalem. The Antiquities Authority will appoint a team of archeologists, geologists and other experts to determine whether the inscription is authentic. 

By Nadav Shragai and Jonatan Lis -  Haaretz.com - March 17, 2003

Exhibit A: Ninth-century King Jehoash Tablet

While archaeological experts determine the authenticity of the ancient Hebrew inscription, the police are quizzing the man who supposedly found it 

The King Jehoash inscription (15 lines in ancient Hebrew script inscribed on a black sandstone tablet, and said to date from the ninth century BCE) has been designated a courtroom exhibit, and the state, which seized it yesterday, will hold onto it until the investigation of the tablet is concluded. Collector Oded Golan, who handed it over to the police and to the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA), was assured he would not be prosecuted, providing he tells everything he knows during the investigation presently underway. The IAA says that in Golan's home and in warehouses he owns they found evidence that Golan is the owner of the inscription. Golan himself continues to claim he is not the owner. Amir Ganor, director of the IAA's antiquities theft unit, told Haaretz that if the inscription was in fact found in the Temple Mount area, as Golan claims, it is possible it was discovered during the unofficial digs carried out by the Waqf Muslim religious trust on the Temple Mount in recent years, and not many years ago, as Golan has claimed; this issue may require further examination. In the coming months, two multidisciplinary teams set up by the IAA will examine the inscription, to determine its authenticity (...) The details of the investigation that led to the seizing of the inscription whose existence was first revealed in Haaretz last January, were told yesterday to Haaretz by Amir Ganor, head of the IAA's antiquities theft unit. 

By Nadav Shragai - Haaretz.com - March 19, 2003

Assessing the Jehoash Inscription

No sooner did an inscription purporting to describe repairs to the Jerusalem Temple come to light than scholars began to question its authenticity. Two such scholars explain why they have concluded the inscription is a fraud.

The Paleographer: Demonstrably a Forgery

Was it too good to be true? In recent months, the world learned of an inscribed tablet apparently written by Jehoash, the ninth-century B.C.E. king of Judah. But almost immediately, questions were raised about its authenticity. After examining the text of the Jehoash Inscription, Frank Moore Cross, professor emeritus at Harvard and America’s leading expert in ancient Semitic inscriptions, to cite one notable example, has concluded that the inscription itself “leaves little doubt that we are dealing with a forgery, and that, fortunately, it is a rather poor forgery.” In a manuscript submitted to the Israel Exploration Journal, published for scholars in the field, Cross explains in highly technical language why he has reached this conclusion (...) Cross then examines the inscription line by line. In lines 3-4, he finds that the expression nml’h ndbt lb ‘s (meaning “generosity”) includes a post-Biblical usage. It is a “curious composition,” Cross tells us. The last two words, lb ‘s, appear to have been inspired by lb ‘ys, as found in 2 Kings 12:5. “Clearly we are not dealing in these instances with ninth-century [B.C.E.] Hebrew.” In Line 8, the forger refers to “Edomite copper [or bronze—the same Hebrew word],” one of the materials purchased with the sacred donations to repair the Temple. The passage in Kings mentions wood and stone, but not copper. In Chronicles, however, copper (or bronze) is among the purchases. The forger took this detail from Chronicles. However, he also identified the copper as being Edomite copper. Cross concludes, “The mine smelters of Edom were a chief source of copper in Biblical antiquity, and the forger is sufficiently knowledgeable to know this.” In Line 10, the forger uses the word bdq to mean “repair,” its meaning in modern Hebrew. But “in ancient/Biblical language ... [it] refers to something damaged or broken,” just the opposite of the meaning intended by the forger. Cross calls this error “a howler.” (...) Cross’s conclusion: “Demonstrably a forgery.”

By Hershel Shanks - Biblical Archaeology Review - May/June 2003

The Linguist: Hebrew Philology Spells Fake

The language of the Jehoash Inscription is fake. It is not idiomatic ancient Hebrew but rather a perversion of it. If authentic, it would be a phenomenal find. But clearly it is not a genuine artifact. (...) ...the language, rhetoric and form of the inscription must be those common to monumental royal inscriptions of the First Temple period (tenth through early sixth centuries B.C.E.). This is the philological test, the area of my expertise. Paleographers have already declared the inscription a forgery. Geologists are apparently divided. As an expert in the language of the Hebrew Bible, I have no difficulty in declaring the Jehoash Inscription a fake. Colleagues with whom I have discussed the matter agree. (...) If the text has been forged, you may ask, why would someone invest so much into producing an object that seems authentic physically but not linguistically? There are at least two possible answers: (1) The forger does not realize how poorly he (or she) understands Biblical Hebrew. He or she possesses certain technical skills, but not of the linguistic kind. The chutzpah of the forger is evident in the length and full legibility of the inscription that he or she has tried to put over on us. (2) The forger may also be relying on the public’s trust of the so-called hard sciences and distrust of philology, which belongs to the humanities. If the geologists can’t find anything wrong with the inscription, many people might wonder, how can the philologists be so sure it’s a fake? Sometimes we do not have an adequate basis for making determinations; but sometimes, as in the present case, we do. I have not the slightest doubt that this inscription is a phony. It was not written in ancient times.

By Edward L. Greenstein, Department of Bible, Tel Aviv University

Biblical Archaeology Review - May/June 2003

Don’t Rush to Judgment

Jehoash Inscription May Be Authentic

BAR’s reports on the so-called Jehoash inscription—which describes repairs to the Solomonic Temple by King Jehoash in the ninth century B.C.E.—are unhesitatingly condemnatory: It is a fake (...) Nevertheless, a number of scholars have indicated they are not convinced that the inscription is a forgery. According to the BAR article just cited, these include André Lemaire of the Sorbonne; Ada Yardeni, a leading Israeli paleographer; and Gabriel Barkay, of Bar-Ilan University in Tel Aviv. At the meetings of the Society of Biblical Literature and the American Academy of Religion held in Atlanta this past November, BAR sponsored a panel of experts that considered the Jehoash inscription (as well as the famous “James, son of Joseph, brother of Jesus” inscription on a first-century bone box). Professor Greenstein flew in from Tel Aviv to serve as prosecutor. It would take a brave scholar to appear for the defense. Chaim Cohen, of Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in Beer-Sheva, however, stepped into the lion’s den and argued that the case against the inscription had not been proved. I believe Professor Cohen effectively demonstrated that there is nothing in the language of the Jehoash inscription that requires us to label the writing a fake.

By David Noel Freedman - Biblical Archaeology Society - March 2004