Dictionary Article

Tablets, dating c. 2220–2240 BC, discovered in the ancient Syrian city-state of Ebla, now identified with the site of Tell Mardikh.

Ebla was a commercial center, manufacturing items of textiles, wood, ceramics, gold, silver, and other metals. A large number of the clay tablets unearthed are economic documents, recording transactions with many other cities, stretching from Asia Minor to Egypt and from Cyprus to Iran (Persia). Thousands of cities are named in these documents. Included are many familiar biblical names, such as Hazor, Megiddo, Dor, Joppa, Gaza, and Uru-salim (Jerusalem, or possibly “city of Salem”). In one text we also see Sodom, Gomorrah, and Zoar. Zoar is described as “in the territory of Bela” (cf. Gn 14:2). According to the biblical account, Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed in the days of Abraham (Gn 19:24-29); hence, the details recorded in Genesis 14 and 19 could not have been reconstructed at a later date unless there was a living tradition recording the events.

Many personal names appear in the tablets from Tell Mardikh that have biblical equivalents, e.g., Abram (ab-ra-mu), Israel (ish-ra-ilu), Saul (sha-u-lu), and David (da-u-du). To some, this fact raises questions, while others find it to be a confirmation of the biblical record. For example, it might be asked how the name “Israel” could be found four or more centuries before God gave the name to Jacob. The Bible does not suggest that the name was new. Names in those days were often composed of the name of a deity plus a verbal form (e.g., Isaiah = “Yah is salvation”). It is entirely conceivable that parents named their children ish-ra-ilu, “El [God] has prevailed,” before the days of Jacob. What was new in the biblical experience was the personal encounter with God and the blessing that it brought on Jacob.

A number of the names from Ebla seem to appear in two forms, one compounded with -ilu (El), the other with -ya (Yah). Thus the names mi-ka-ya (Micaiah, Micah) and mi-ka-il (Michael) are reported by Pettinato, along with other theophoric (God-bearing) names. The appearance of the ending -ya, if it has been properly interpreted as a divine name (Yah, the Lord), raises an important question. According to Exodus 6:3, God told Moses that he appeared to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob as El Shaddai, “but by my name Yahweh I did not make myself known to them.” This seems to say that the name Yahweh was not known prior to the revelation to Moses at Sinai. On the other hand, the name Yahweh is found many times in Genesis, not only in narrative portions (where a later author or editor might have inserted a name, such as was done with certain place-names), but also in oaths taken in the name of Yahweh and in quotations that imply that the name of Yahweh was actually in use. This problem has long been recognized, and biblical scholars have divided into two groups: those who held that the name was not known prior to the time of Moses, and those who held that the name was known but that it took on a new meaning in the light of the Sinai-exodus event. If the interpretation of the Eblean materials proves to be correct—namely, that -ya is a divine-name element in personal names—then we shall have to conclude that the name Yah(weh) was known in patriarchal times but that its true significance, that Yahweh is the ever-living and life-giving God, only began to be fully revealed in his deliverance of his people from Egyptian bondage.

The Eblean materials have certainly opened a new door to a rich storehouse of knowledge. It will be many years before all the implications of this discovery are fully realized. But certain facts are already clear, and among these is this very important truth: the patriarchal stories in Genesis 11–35 can no longer be ascribed to authors of the eighth or seventh centuries BC. To assume that such an author could have included hundreds of names of places and persons, items of trade, and the many details that are found in these chapters, and then to suggest that it is mere coincidence that has brought to light the same names, places, trade relationships, and countless other details through modern archaeological discoveries, is simply unreasonable. Ebla has delivered the coup de grâce to such theories.

Do the Ebla Tablets Prove the Bible?

The discoveries at Tell Mardikh, astounding as they are, do not “prove” the Bible, for it does not need the proof of archaeology or of any other human skill. The Bible is God’s Word. Any attempt to “prove” it only exhibits our doubts. As other archaeological discoveries have done, the discoveries at Ebla will help us to see what kind of men and women God was dealing with, what kind of world they were living in, and how much he must have loved them to want to deliver them from the ways of the world to walk in his way. We still have much to learn, and Ebla will supply some of the background for that learning process.

Tyndale Open Bible Dictionary