Archaeologica.org

The discovery of the Ebla archive in northern Syria in the 1970s has shown the Biblical writings concerning the Patriarchs to be viable. Documents written on clay tablets from around 2300 B.C. demonstrate that personal and place names in the Patriarchal accounts are genuine. The name "Canaan" was in use in Ebla, a name critics once said was not used at that time and was used incorrectly in the early chapters of the Bible. The word "tehom" ("the deep") in Genesis 1:2 was said to be a late word demonstrating the late writing of the creation story. "Tehom" was part of the vocabulary at Ebla, in use some 800 years before Moses. Ancient customs reflected in the stories of the Patriarchs have also been found in clay tablets from Nuzi and Mari.

But you cannot honestly.

The Ebla archive is found as a shelved room with ~2100 clay tablets. Subjects range from administration, textile- and metal accounting, tax deliveries, temple offerings, letters, state reports and scribal exercises. Texts and excavations show Ebla to be a complex mixture of (Sumerian) borrowings and local traditions. From ~2600-2350 BCE a good deal of Sumerian literacy and school tradition had been assimilated by Ebla scribes and in addition they used cuneiform for their own language.

You post a comment, most likely from one of your bible-thumpers, which makes claims about Ebla which are probably wildly inflated.

Perhaps it is time to remind you that Dever asserts that no one in the field of archaeology pays any heed to the patriarch stories

The city of Ebla was thus destroyed well over 1,100 years before the first "Israelistes" managed to drag themselves out of the mud. That's a long time

archaeologist wrote:

You post a comment, most likely from one of your bible-thumpers, which makes claims about Ebla which are probably wildly inflated.

no he doesn't as i made no claims that it was mine. plus placing it in quotes indicates i am quoting someone else. i can hide the identity if i deem it necessary for the purpose i had in mind.

Apparently, he does, as the Ebla library seems to be rather mundane stuff. Tax records? Accounting?? IT would take a bible-thumping moron to find anything in there to hallucinate about.

Perhaps it is time to remind you that Dever asserts that no one in the field of archaeology pays any heed to the patriarch stories

he may not but there are those that do, like me.

The aforementioned bible-thumping morons.

The city of Ebla was thus destroyed well over 1,100 years before the first "Israelistes" managed to drag themselves out of the mud. That's a long time

that isn't the point, the point is the tablets reflect the accuracy of the Biblical accounts and could not be made up thousands of years later as you and your buddies suggest.

Of course it is. It is yet one more manifestation of the discredited practice of ascribing everything that comes out of the ground to the friggin' bible....a document which not exist until 16 centuries after Ebla was destroyed. The patriarchal myths have been dismissed because of anachronisms contained in the myths themselves. No amount of biblical scholarship...to use the word loosely...is going to save them.