Thursday, July 15, 2010

Rollston on the new Jerusalem cuneiform fragment

CHRISTOPHER ROLLSTON has just posted Reflections on the Fragmentary Cuneiform Tablet from the Ophel on his website. His conclusion:
I contend that (1) it could be some sort of administrative text (2nd person forms are used in memoranda sometimes, as Jack Sasson has noted); (2) it could be a legal text, as the 2nd person does occur in legal texts; (3) it could be an international letter, of course…but it might be a letter from one official in Jerusalem to another official in Jerusalem, or a letter to a neighboring “city” (e.g., Hazor) or “country” (i.e., Egypt is not the sole country to which a letter might be written); (4) it is conceivable that it is a literary text of some sort (as the 2nd person can occur in such texts). Therefore, there are a number of possible options for this tablet. And, thus, because there is such a dearth of actual preserved text on this tablet, I contend that it is best not to attempt to posit as probable this or that historical context, Sitz im Leben, or genre. Ultimately, the fact of the matter is that it could be one of various things…e.g., an epistolary text, a legal text, an administrative text, a literary text.
Read it all.

Background here.

UPDATE: Check that post again.