Friday, June 29, 2018

The Mesha Stele and Numbers 21

EPIGRAPHY, THE BIBLE, AND HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY: North Israelite Memories of the Transjordan and the Mesha Inscription (Prof. Israel Finkelstein and Prof. Thomas Römer, TheTorah.com).
The Mesha Inscription describes Omri’s conquest of the mishor in the Transjordan, and Moab’s subsequent (re)taking of it, in the 9th century B.C.E. Reading Numbers 21 in conversation with archaeological findings confirms much of this and offers us a glimpse at the history of this region before the Omride conquest.
Past PaleoJudaica posts on the Mesha Inscription (Mesha Stele, Moabite Stone) are here and links. For more on the lost books quoted in Numbers 21, see here.

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