Fascinating Discovery in Israel

Archaeologists working at Mt. Ebal in Israel have discovered a tablet bearing a Hebrew inscription of a curse, which includes "YHWH", one of the Abrahamic God's many names. The find dates to around 1200 BC, making it the earliest example of Jewish religious writing known to man, giving researchers hard evidence that the Jewish people were literate far earlier than was previously proven.

For context, Biblical scholars agree that if the Exodus did occur, it was sometime between 1600 BC and 1200 BC. I personally lean towards the 1200 BC date, as it coincides with the Bronze Age collapse, and the Israelites are recorded (in the Bible) as having worked on cities built by Ramesses II (d. 1213 BC). 

If the Jews of 1200 BC were literate, it actually becomes entirely plausible that Moses did author the Torah. Of course, this is an extrapolation, but it does rewind the clock on the age of Judaism as we know it by nearly 700 years.

What does this mean for the dating of other events in the Bible?

My theory has been that scholars are off on the date for Exodus by a few hundred years, and I think this cements it. Charles Ryrie suggests c. 1500 BC as the dating for Moses's life, but Exodus 1:11 mentions a city (Pi Ramesses) that wasn't built until the 1200s BC. We don't have an exact date for its construction, but we know the century.

This would mean that the Jews left Egypt sometime in the latter half of the 13th Century BC, and would have thus arrived in Canaan/Israel/Phoenicia again around 1200 BC (give or take up to forty years). This tablet is dated to approximately 1200 BC, so it just about confirms my timeline. 

Also, since Genesis 15 records God's promise to Abraham that the Jews would be afflicted by servitude in Egypt for 400 years, it places the life of Joseph around 1600 BC, or alternatively 1400 BC if you go by the belief that God was referring to both Canaan and Egypt in Genesis 15, or 1700 BC if you account for the generational gap between Joseph's death and "the pharaoh who knew Joseph not" and enslaved the Jews.

Essentially, this is proof that Judaism is at least as old as the late Bronze Age, if not older.