I just skimmed some comments here. Let me help out in response? Foundation Stone played various roles in the excavation from 2008-2009.

in a Sept 2008 meeting several dozen archaeologists viewed the pottery from that season and were unanimous that is was not Philistine- as Sy Gitin said, “It is not a coastal assemblage. ” The gathering included the excavators of Tel es-Safi, Ashkelon, Tel Batash, Tel Miqne, etc. I was there. All agreed early 10th Century for the dating, based on the pottery alone, eve before the carbon-14 results were in. Also, the petrography of the pots was of local soil from the valley.
Prof Garfinkel published his 2008 ASOR presentation on his Qeiyafa website which lists 9 reasons why it is Israelite and not Philistine, based on the evidence at that time. He has also published his 2007-2008 report, available from the Israel Exploration Society.

Now that the Second Gate has been excavated and restored, his contention that it is biblical Sha’arayim (Josh15:36, Sam. I 17:52, Chr. I 4) is stronger than when various scholars including Nadav Neeman of Tel Aviv U claimed that without excavation this was baseless. Their contention that the gate of the city only faces the safe side, and therefore the existence of a Western Gate facing Ashdod- Gat suggesting it is Philistine, is countered by the fact that the more massive gate- the most massive gate ever found in the country- directly faces Socho and Judah, towards Elah Valley.

Prof Israel Finkelstein in accepting the Dan David prize proved the reformation of Hezekiah was clearly evident in 4 sites and should not be confused with the later reformation of Josiah, and is in agreement, as he stated in a BAR interview printed years ago, with the 8th century events, it is the David and Solomon and earlier accounts he has taken issue with.He says there definitely was an historical David,as evidenced in the Tel Dan inscription etc, but he was sort of a Bedouin chieftain whom the bible blows out of proportion. I have not heard him since recent developments have been presented at Elah Fortress- Khibet Qeiyafa, like the second Gate
I include in a separate post some comments I wrote in response to Prof Galil’s article, and suggest watching our latest video accessible at http://www.foundationstone.org under “Rough Videos” in two parts.

Barnea Levi Selavan
CoDirector
Foundation Stone

Like I wrote above, the consensus is that the corpus is definitely not Philistine (only a few random Philistine sherds have been found), but hill country in orientation. Now if you associate settlements in the southern hill country from the Iron IIA with the Israelites, then the pottery is a bit of strong evidence. The only other evidence that I can think of is Garfinkel’s claim that the site has to be Shaaraim due to the double gate, which is still a bit tenuous although a few historical geographers (like Anson Rainey) support this connection.

Now, since Yahweh is nowhere mentioned in the text but must be assumed to be the missing personal name, this story is a non-story essentially. For all we know the missing name could be Baal. We don’t even know that the fragment supports Judaism and already smucks are saying “wow! It proves the Bible was written earlier than we thought.” Why are people so stupid?

More later when I have time to think.

I failed to remember that you and Schniedewind are colleagues. Perhaps you can do us a favor and see if he’s willing to make a few remarks on Galil’s readings for the blogosphere.

I really think highly of Galil as a scholar, don’t get me wrong. I wish his recent book on Assyria and Israel would be translated pronto into English. It stands a chance to move the field significantly, in the same direction that Schniedewind has been urging. But it’s important to compare Galil’s proposals on this inscription with those of Misgav and the others who took a good long hard look at it.

Finkelstein is actually a moderate in comparison to card-carrying minimalists like Lemche, Davies, and Thompson. F has carefully distanced himself from them in print. But now F has gone on to advocate some seriously minimalist positions for the Persian Period. An energizer bunny, he; I think he makes a great contribution to the field even when (as happens) I think he is out to lunch.

I realize I’m not saying things you didn’t already know; I’m thinking of those who will be reading this thread.

The importance of the inscription is enormous because it was found in situ in a massive fortress on the border with Philistia in an Iron Age stratum dated by pottery assemblage and C-14 dates to sometime between the time of Saul and Solomon in terms of biblical chronology. For a variety of reasons, the most plausible date for the site is the reign of David, with now overwhelming evidence that it was an Israelite site. This despite the fact that the kingdom of David was supposed by minimalists to be basically a myth. It doesn’t look that way any longer. It never really did, but it’s amazing what can be argued on the basis of absence of evidence.

I say that not because I am a maximalist. I am not. I’m convinced for example that David did not slay Goliath but someone else did, as in fact the Bible says elsewhere: maximalists love to overlook idsy-bitsy problems like that one.

The whole question of the importance of a vast corpus of epigraphic Hebrew from the mostly 8th-6th cent. BCE has been handled masterfully by Seth Sanders in his recent book:

http://ancienthebrewpoetry.typepad.com/ancient_hebrew_poetry/2009/12/seth-sanders-and-the-historical-uniqueness-of-the-biblical-mode-of-address-.html

The bulk of the Hebrew Bible was probably written in the 8th-6th cent. BCE, with some poetry in the Primary History and the Psalms and possibly elsewhere dating earlier, and an important subcorpus securely dated later (1-2 Chronicles, Ezra-Nehemiah, Esther, Daniel).

Maximalists and minimalists are the only ones who seriously disagree. But there are a lot of both out there, and they tend to drown out positions in the middle.

am i missing something, or are you suggesting that i’m not familiar with what schniedewind thinks about this inscription? lol.

i agree with owen too.

published? ok. discussed? sure. i’m at sbl and asor too. but that didn’t stop galil from re-releasing this as a new piece of news. sorry i missed your summary post from a few months ago.

as for taking issue with maximalism, no, i don’t buy much of the conservative/evangelical/maximalist argument, but neither am i a minimalist. david and goliath is legend, but that does not mean that portions of the bible were not written under hezekiah. daniel and esther are obviously late, but that does not mean that all books are late. likewise, this is probably a genuine inscription (little doubt in my mind), and i’m confident that it is evidence of hebrew literacy near jerusalem. this, however, does not prove that david existed (even though i believe he did). it does demonstrate that literacy was widespread and, as we see with lachish 3, socially fashionable and expected to some. and, as i said above, it does support ‘evidence of an established or coordinated scribal system in israel.’

and as for ‘sound[ing] the death-knell of minimalism as we know it,’ probably not. it also depends on what you’re calling ‘minimalism.’ does this hurt finkelstein’s argument of no 10th century israel? sure. does it mean the bible was written earlier than we already think? no.

thanx for your comments. -bc