Talk:Deir Alla Inscription

new page
i broke this page off from the Deir Alla page and expanded it.--XKV8R (talk) 00:10, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

Text in modern Hebrew letters
The article states that the text in modern Hebrew letters is available online. I am having difficulties finding it. Can someone please link it to the article TIA 98.103.13.34 (talk) 15:11, 14 July 2017 (UTC)

Translation overhaul
I plan to bring in a translation that follows CoS IV's^H^H^H "Child Sacrifice in Ancient Israel" p 91's more coherent take. Until that's finished I'd like to make the current translation available in copy here on the talk page.

[This is the inscrip]tion of [Bala]am [son of Be]or. He was a divine seer, and the Gods came to him at night. [And they spoke to] him according to the vision of El, and they said to [Bala]am, son of Beor: "This will the [ ... ] do in the future, no man has [seen what you have he]ard." And Balaam rose on the morrow, [ ... ] days [ ... ] and on the [ ... ] day [ ... ] and truly he wept! And his people came to him, [and they said] to Balaam, son of Beor: "Why do you fast? Why do you weep?" And he sa- -id to them: "Be seated, and I will show you what the Sha[ddayin have done,] and go, behold the workings of the Elo[h]in! The Elo[h]in have joined forces, and the Shaddayin have established a council, and they have said to Sha[gar-we-Ishtar]: "Sew up and cover the heavens in dense cloud, so that darkness, and not brilliance, will be the- -re, concealment, and not bristling (light?), that you may instill dread. [ ... ] darkness, and never raise your voice again!" For the swift crane will shriek in- -sult to the eagle, and the voice of vultures will resound [ ... ] Distress and trouble! The chicks of the heron, sparrow, and cluster of eagles, pigeons and birds of [ ... ] and [ ... ] a rod, where there are ewes, there shall be brought the staff. Hares – feed together! Free[ly ... ] drink, asses and hyenas! Hear the admonition, adversaries of Sha- [-gar-we-Ishtar! ... ] To skilled diviners you shall be taken, and an oracle, a perfumer of myrrh, and a priestess, [ ... ] to one wearing a belt. One augurer after another, and yet another! O[ne] [augurer ... ] and give heed to incantations from afar! [ ... ] And all beheld acts of restraint. Shagar-we-Ishtar did not [ ... ] The piglet [ ... ] the leopard, the [ ... ] caused the young of the [ ... ] to flee. [ ... ] two girded, and [ ... ] beheld [ ... ] [ ... ] A more recent and complete English translation can also be found online. The second inscription is translated thusly: [ ... ] [ ... ] [ ... ] [ ... ] [ ... ] El satisfies himself with lovemaking. And El built an eternal home, a hou[se ... a house ... ] a house which no travelers enter, nor does a bridegroom, [a house ... ] as wormrot from a grassy grave. From the reckless affairs of man, and from the lustful desires [ ... ] to me? If it is for counsel, no one will consult you! Or, for his advice, no one will take counsel! He breaks [ ... ] [From] the bed, they cover themselves with a wrap. One, behold, you hate him! He will become mortally ill, behold, you [ ... ] punishment, [and wormrot] under your head, you shall lie on your eternal bed. To pass away to [ ... ] [ ... ] all [ ... ] in their heart! The corpse moans in his heart! He moans [ ... ] daughter. There, kings shall behold Bal[ ... ] There is no compassion when Mot seizes an infant! And an infant [ ... ] An infant [ ... ] there [ ... ] shall endure, the heart of the corpse is desolate as he approaches [Sheol ... ] To the edge of She[ol ... ] and the shadow of the hedge [ ... ] The quest of the king becomes his moth, and the q[ue]st of [ ... ] [ ... ] and [ ... ] seers. Your quest has become dis[tant] from you! Why [ ... ] To know how to deliver an oracle to his people, you have been condemned for what you have said, and banned from pronouncing words of execration. [ ... ] [ ... ] [ ... ] [ ... ] Temerarius (talk) 00:37, 10 December 2023 (UTC)

Archaeology
I'd love to see at least some mention of the excavation and first descriptions of the context, first mentions in the news, on this page. I'm not sure what it needs, but it's pretty bare. As it is I can see what museum it's in, but not who dug it up. I'd be happy to add it, just send me the right paper. Temerarius (talk) 19:08, 5 January 2024 (UTC)


 * The Deir Alla article seems to cover this in a bit more detail. I haven't been able to track down the sources they quote, but I wonder if WP:REREQ might be able to help? P.S. Thanks for your work on this article; it's looking much better! -- Yodin T 01:08, 6 January 2024 (UTC)
 * @Temerarius I've managed to find the sources after all:
 * Excavations at Tell Deir ʻAllā (1969) at Internet Archive
 * H. J. Franken's Deir Alla articles at Brill (via the Wikipedia Library)
 * -- Yodin T 01:26, 6 January 2024 (UTC)
 * Thanks @Yodin! I appreciate the hand. I'll read them add them to external or bibliography. Temerarius (talk) 01:31, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

Two questions about the translation
Hi, I cannot access the now given source for the translation of the first complex combination ; and have two questions which I hope you can answer: Levine? JoergenB (talk) 00:01, 18 February 2024 (UTC)
 * 1) Is the reference roughly relevant, in the sense that the text given in our article essentially coincides with the one given by Hooftijzer and van der Kooij?
 * 2) Specifically, do H & vdK give the suggested vocalised forms Elohin and Elo[h]in for lhn and l[h]n; or do they instead translate the word to "gods" (or "g[o]ds"), as does


 * Hi, Joergen. Are you asking about the "first combination?" I don't think I did much on the first one. The only thing I remember doing in the first combination was minor, maybe cleaning up some interlinking. If I recall correctly I wasn't able to find the Hooftijzer paper either; just some short review of it. Maybe we should ask the citation people. Temerarius (talk) 00:11, 18 February 2024 (UTC)
 * https://imgur.com/a/pDb94v4 There's Levine's Temerarius (talk) 00:18, 18 February 2024 (UTC)
 * Oh, dear. This is all a bit confusing; I'll attempt to untangle it, according to my (obvously limited) understanding. Please correct me, where I've missed or misunderstood the facts!
 * Of course, your guess that I meant "combination" rather than "complex" is correct; sorry for (contributing to) the confusion!
 * Temerarius, in December (2023) (and some time before and after), you undertook some mayor editing of the article, both textual and as regards the offered translations. I can see from the article history that the edits of the translations started 2023-12-11 (except a sporadic correction to Levine's text in November), and went on intensively for some weeks, and extensively until 2024-01-15 (I think).
 * The compound effect of the changes of the translations under this period is witnessed by this diff. It shows a rather radical change also of the first combination; which is what I saw.
 * This made me direct some questions to you about that translation. However, you've protested that you (Temerarius) didn't do any substantial changes of that part of the text; and I now see that you're right. Those changes were interpollated in your general editing, mainly here, by the user Shetarlo@undefined, who also changed the reference for that combination from Levine to Hooftijzer and van der Kooij. I should have noted this; again, I contributed to the confusion, and I'm sorry.
 * You suggested that we perhaps "ask the citation people". I'm not quite sure what that term includes; but it is (almost) impossible to ask either of the users Shetarlo or (who made the original contribution of the translation and of the references to Levine), for the reason that both are banned (for being sockpuppets of the same ban evading user).
 * I do believe that is 'responsible' for almost all the changes of the translation of the second combination (except possibly changes in the division into lines). Am I right?
 * I suppose that the references to "Drewell 2017" and to "Dewrell, Heath D. (2017)" are identical, up to a typo. Unhappily, I do not have access to this source (or to either, if I'm wrong).
 * There are now a number of commenting footnotes intermingled with the source notes. I believe this may confuse unnecessarily, and suggest a split into a Notes and a References part. (This is easily done, if you agree).
 * Some of the former footnotes contain comments that do go beyond the "just a plain editor" limits; including the one added here. In such cases, the recommendable procedure should be to provide the respective "Note" with a "Reference"
 * (As for the concrete "doggerel" example, note, that the quotation from Levine is not quite exact; in fact, he wrote "The quest of a king becomes his "moth,"" (see l. 40) on of the second combination here, on p. 200), which indicates that he is not very happy himself with this suggested translation. IMHO, employing the word "doggerel" for a serious scolarly suggestion could only be justified if we have a peer's reviewed source with that or equivalent attributes. However, this should be easy to change, e. g., to Here, Levine signals a justifiable doubt about the translation "moth" for "ssh". In fact, the phrase is....)
 * I also suppose that the replacement of Death with the untranslated personification (the deathgod) Mot is supported by D(r)ew(r)ell. If not, it should be better to give the Mot link in a footnote.


 * I do not quite know what to do with the first combination. One possibility would be just to restore the older version, including a change of Elohin to gods (with or without a footnote). (Anyhow, I'd like to know if the marking of a missing "h" is motivated by known differences between (old) Hebrew and other Caananite dialects. After all, both (אלהימ) Elohim (אלהים) and Elim (אלים) occur in the Bible, for pluralities of 'gods' or 'messengers/angels' (or whatever), don't they? Thus, in my rather amateurish opinion, I wouldn't dismiss the use of both lhn and ln in this text as completely impossible. Since this bounds on WP:OR, I'll leave it here.)


 * I would like to rewrite some other parts a little, to explain a few things, which may be slightly harder for (us) laymen to understand. I'll return to that. Good night! JoergenB (talk) 22:43, 18 February 2024 (UTC)
 * Thanks kindly for your thoughtful communication. For now, I retract the "fantastic" comment as I was inhabiting an abundance of feeling when I wrote --in part, from concern the reader might think the arbitrary lexicographic combination was a contributor's. I'll delete it now if it isn't gone. Temerarius (talk) 23:02, 18 February 2024 (UTC)
 * The reason I made more changes in the second combination was that the scholars' options were harmonizable in that part. am I glad that Shetposter is no longer monkeying around, I'm not surprised they were evading a ban. The last I did on studying this topic was start reading the first edition, which I didn't persevere in because it was a standout snoozefest. I've been hoping for release of fresh papers, since the inscription is far from exhausted in analysis. Temerarius (talk) 23:20, 18 February 2024 (UTC)
 * (I corrected a few stupid errors in my former answer.)
 * Thanks! I'll 'restore' Levine's exact formulation, and add a reference to it in "your" footnote; and I'll start my attempt at a 'layman's explanation' of the work with text by restoring a piece about the fragmentation you happened to remove.
 * I see that you've already separated the comments from the references; thanks! JoergenB (talk) 12:40, 19 February 2024 (UTC)
 * No worries; I'm glad to see this article keeping improving 🙂 -- Yodin T 13:04, 19 February 2024 (UTC)
 * Thanks for participating folks. It wouldn't hurt my feelings if we started from scratch on the translation. I copied the inscription in unknown script, too, which is fun. I'll add that today. Temerarius (talk) 13:41, 19 February 2024 (UTC)


 * I don't think "Mot" instead of death is supported by Drewell; my recollection is they said "death". I changed that accordingly. Wasn't my addition. I retained the link to Mot which doesn't probably matter either way. Temerarius (talk) 14:23, 19 February 2024 (UTC)
 * OK; thanks!
 * You again write "Drewell". Am I right in assuming that this is the same person as the author "Dewrell, Heath D." (see the bibliography)? JoergenB (talk) 16:55, 19 February 2024 (UTC)
 * Well, You didn't answer my two questions about "Drewell" vz. "Dewrell"; but since I was able to verify that "Dewrell" indeed had a book published 2017 as claimed, but was unable to find any information about "Drewell", I feel morally convinced that indeed "Drewell" was a typo. I thus corrected(?) your reference. (If I was wrong, then revert, but please provide some information ablut "Drewell"'s book.)

The 2 combinations: zero credibility?
They are COMPLETELY different from each other. There should be more clarity as to the way they came about and the plausibility of each, because now they look like utter guesswork, and thus useless. Take for instance Bala'am son of Be'or, a centrepiece of the 1st comb., who's totally missing from the 2nd.

User leaves thinking, it's just a bunch of rubbish/rubble. Is it? Arminden (talk) 09:15, 8 April 2024 (UTC)


 * I dont think they are two translations of the same text, but two assemblages of fragments (with some fragments not assigned to either) - ie two distinct parts of the original text. "Scholars have succeeded in arranging many of the fragments into two large 'combinations'. At least to some extent, they had use of information about which fragments were found close together or wide apart on the ground. Still, uncombined fragments remain." Vultur~enwiki (talk) 20:14, 1 May 2024 (UTC)