Tel Dan Stele

Background

Tel Dan is a mound site at the foot of Mount Hermon in northern Israel. One of the sources of the Jordan River rises here. Scholars identify the site with the biblical city of Dan; that is, they match the ancient place name to this present-day location. A "tel" is a mound formed by the accumulation of occupation layers from many periods. The Israeli archaeologist Avraham Biran excavated the site over many years beginning in 1966.

In the mid-ninth century BC, after the division of the kingdom, the northern kingdom of Israel fought repeated wars with the Aramean kingdom, whose capital was Damascus. The Bible records the following:

• The account of how Hazael became king of Aram, in connection with Elisha, appears in 2 Kings 8:7-15.
• In the same period, Jehu killed Joram king of Israel and Ahaziah king of Judah (2 Kings 9:24, 9:27). Joram was the son of Ahab.
• Hazael later attacked Israelite territory (2 Kings 10:32-33).

Discovery and Decipherment

• July 1993: The excavation team found a large fragment of a basalt stele (commonly called Fragment A) near the city gate. The fragment is reported to have been reused as building material in a later structure.
• 1994: Two smaller fragments (B1 and B2) were discovered.
• Biran and the epigrapher Joseph Naveh published their decipherment in two installments, in 1993 and 1995, in the Israel Exploration Journal.

The inscription is written in Aramaic, and a substantial portion of the stele is missing. In the surviving text, the king who erected the stele states that the god Hadad made him king. He then claims to have killed the king of Israel and the king of "bytdwd." The term "bytdwd" is generally read as "House of David," that is, the Davidic dynasty. Only the endings of the two kings' names survive; scholars usually restore them as "[Jo]ram" and "[Ahaz]iah." The name of the king who erected the stele has not survived, but many scholars identify him as Hazael on the basis of the inscription's date and content.

Significance and Impact

The inscription was widely accepted as the first attestation of David's name in an extrabiblical source. In the 1990s some scholars had raised the possibility that David was a literary figure invented at a later date, and this discovery had a major impact on that debate. It also prompted the French scholar André Lemaire to publish, in 1994, a new reading proposing that "House of David" can also be read on the stele of Mesha, king of Moab. The Tel Dan Stele is reportedly housed today in the Israel Museum in Jerusalem.

Assessment and Debate

• The reading "House of David": Most scholars hold that the phrase refers to the Davidic dynasty. There are dissenting views, however. Noting that words elsewhere in the inscription are separated by dots but that no word divider appears between "byt" and "dwd," some have argued that the phrase should be read as a place name or a divine title. Some have also questioned the way Fragments A and B are joined and have raised the possibility of forgery. The forgery hypothesis, however, remains a minority view among scholars.
• Differences from the biblical account: Second Kings records that Jehu killed the two kings, whereas the inscription claims that the author of the stele killed them. Several explanations have been offered for this discrepancy. One view holds that Jehu allied himself with Hazael or acted under his influence. Another notes that ancient royal victory inscriptions tended to attribute achievements to the king himself. Still another interpretation holds that the same events were recorded from different perspectives.
• Scope of significance: In churches and Christian media, the inscription is often presented as archaeological evidence supporting the historicity of the Bible. Scholars regard it as showing that a dynasty called the "House of David" existed in the ninth century BC. The prevailing view, however, is that caution is needed in treating it as proof of the details of the biblical narrative.