Ebla and the Bible:

A Case Study in Comparative Semitics and Literature

David Danzig

Introduction to the Bible II, Fall 2003

Dr. Barry Eichler

7/25/2010
 1. Introduction
The archaeological finds of the excavation of ancient Ebla in Syria are significant for Near Eastern
archaeology and history, Semitic linguistics, and, to some degree, biblical studies. The city was centrally located in
Syria, lying approximately midway between the Orontes and Euphrates rivers. It played a significant role in regional
and perhaps international politics in the middle of the 3rd millennium BCE, during the Early Bronze Age III-IV. A
large archive of over 15,000 fragments of probably around 4,000 tablets was discovered, which dates to that period
of occupation. Another important era of major occupation, though only of import on a regional level, was during the
first third of the 2nd millennium BCE, or Middle Bronze Age I-II.1
Several important issues have arisen out of the discoveries of both the city and its EB archive. First, the
chronology of Ebla’s major occupation levels has come into question vis-à-vis its correlation to the Mesopotamian
and Egyptian chronologies. Second, determining the extent of Ebla’s international contact and influence in both
major occupational eras has been difficult. Third, the confirmed existence of a large cultural center in Syria in the
Early Bronze Age has overturned consensus opinion on the spread of civilization at that early time. Fourth, the
discovery of a new Semitic language has engendered much contention, with regard to its positioning relative to the
other known languages in that family as well as to its impact on understanding of those languages and their
interrelations.2
From when the first interpretations were published, controversy has surrounded the possible connections
between Ebla and the Bible, namely whether and to what extent the textual material from the archive is useful for
biblical studies. Most tantalizing for the biblical scholar or enthusiast has been the discussion of the ending -ia of
many Eblaite names, which some scholars have identified as a theophoric element connoting the god “Ya.” That
proposed interpretation immediately raised questions regarding that name in connection with the god of the
1
General works on Ebla include: Michael C. Astour, “A Reconstruction of the History of Ebla (Part 2),” in Cyrus
Gordon and Gary A. Rendsburg, Eds., Eblaitica: Essays on the Ebla Archives and Eblaite Language, Vol. 4 (Winona
Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2002), 57-196; Chaim Bermant and Michael Weitzman, Ebla: A Revelation in Archaeology
(New York: Times Book, 1979); “Ebla,” Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th Edition (October 2009), 1,
Academic Search Complete EBSCOHost (accessed July 2, 2010), <https://yulib002.mc.yu.edu:8443/login?url=
http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=39004313&site=ehost-live&scope=site>; Paolo
Matthiae, Ebla: An Empire Rediscovered2, trans. by Christopher Holme (Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Company,
Inc., 1981); idem, “Ebla in the Late Early Syrian Period: The Royal Palace and the State Archives,” The Biblical
Archaeologist, 39:3 (September, 1976), 94-113; idem, “New Discoveries at Ebla: The Excavation of the Western
Palace and the Royal Necropolis of the Amorite Period,” ad loc., 47:1 (March, 1984), 18-32; idem, “Tell Mardikh:
Ancient Ebla,” American Journal of Archaeology, 82:4 (Autumn, 1978), 40-543; Giovanni Pettinato, Ebla: A New
Look at History2, trans. by C. Faith Richardson (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1991); idem, The
Archives of Ebla: An Empire Inscribed in Clay (Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1981); idem, “The
Royal Archives of Tell Mardikh-Ebla,” The Biblical Archaeologist, 39:2 (May, 1976), 44-52; Francis Pinnock, “The
Urban Landscape of Old Syrian Ebla,” Journal of Cuneiform Studies, 53 (2001), 13-33; Lorenzo Vigano and Dennis
Pardee, “Literary Sources for the History of Palestine and Syria: The Ebla Tablets,” The Biblical Archaeologist. 47:1
(March, 1984), 6-16.
2
General works on the language of the tablets from Ebla include: Alfonso Archi, “Ebla and Eblaite,” in Cyrus
Gordon, Gary A. Rendsburg, and Nathan H. Winter, Eds., Eblaitica: Essays on the Ebla Archives and Eblaite
Language.,Vol. 1 (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1987), 7-18; Richard I. Caplice, “Eblaite and Akkadian,” in Luigi
Cagni, Ed., La Lingua di Ebla (Napoli: Don Bosco, 1981), 161-164; Mitchell Dahood, “The Linguistic
Classification of Eblaite” in Cagni, Ed., La Lingua di Ebla, 177-190; I.M. Diakonoff, “An Evaluation of Eblaite” in
Pelio Fronzaroli, Ed., Studies on the Language of Ebla (Firenze: Istituto di Lingustica e di Lingua Orientali,
Universita di Firenze, 1984), 1-10; idem, “The Importance of Ebla for History and Linguistics,” in Cyrus Gordon
and Gary A. Rendsburg, Eds., Eblaitica: Essays on the Ebla Archives and Eblaite Language, Vol. 2 (Winona Lake,
IN: Eisenbrauns, 1990), 3-30; P. Fronzaroli, “Eblaic Lexicon: Problems and Appraisal,” in idem, Ed., Studies on the
Language of Ebla, 117-158; Ignace J. Gelb, “Ebla and the Kish Civilization,” in Cagni, Ed., La Lingua di Ebla, 9-
74; idem, “The Language of Ebla in the Light of the Sources from Ebla, Mari, and Babylonia,” in Luigi Cagni, Ed.,
Ebla: 1975-1985: Dieci anni di studi linguistic e filologici (Napoli: Don Bosco, 1987), 49-74; idem, “Thoughts
about Ibla: A Preliminary Evaluation, March 1977,” Syro-Mesopotamian Studies, 1/1 (1977), 1-30; Cyrus Gordon,
“Introduction,” in Gordon, Rendsburg, and Winter, Eds., Eblaitica 1, 1-6; idem, “The Ebla Archives,” in idem,
Forgotten Scripts: Their Ongoing Discovery and Decipherment3 (New York: Dorset Press, 1987), 153-172; Wilfred
G. Lambert, “The Language of Ebla,” in Cagni, Ed., La Lingua di Ebla, 155-160; Piotr Michalowski, “Language,
Literature, and Writing at Ebla,” in Cagni, Ed., Ebla: 1975-1985, 165-176.
Israelites, Yahweh. Second, several connections between names in Ebla texts with those in the Bible have been
attempted, including the possible discovery of the names of the five “cities of the plain” mentioned in Genesis. In
addition, there have been many small linguistic points made which may illuminate cruces interpretum in the Bible
and vice versa in Eblaic texts. Last, the content of the Ebla texts has given more context in which to see the
development of civilization, including social modes, religion, law, and economics of the ancient Near East overall
and Syro-Palestine in particular, a milieu which later fostered the growth of the Bible.
2. Ebla: Archaeology and Major Issues
The ancient city of Ebla, presently lying beneath Tell Mardikh, was located in Syria, approximately 40
miles south of Aleppo. The tell covers some 140 acres of land and, as is common to many tells, is divided into the
acropolis, or upper city, and lower city.3 Unusually for a tell of that size, it had not been excavated at all before the
University of Rome’s Italian Archaeological Mission began excavation in 1964. Highlighted by the discovery of the
archive in 1975, the excavation is still in progress today.
The two major figures initially involved in bringing the finds to the public were the excavation’s director,
Paolo Matthiae, and its epigrapher, Giovanni Pettinato, who have disagreed at times about the interpretation of the
archaeology and the texts. Since the reigns of chief epigrapher were passed to Alfonso Archi a few years after the
discovery of the archive, even more heated argument has been printed. Initially sensationalized in the press as some
spectacular finds are, the discovery of the Ebla archive and the initial proposals of connections with the Bible
brought international attention to the obscure discipline of Near Eastern Languages, Literatures and Archaeology.
Several popular accounts of the excavations and textual finds were published, including ones by Matthiae and
Pettinato. The hubbub attracted many scholars in related disciplines to participate in some way in grappling with the
tablets’ significance. Possibly for reasons related to this more public academic controversy, much of the initial back
and forth was published in the semi-popular journal, Biblical Archaeologist, an unusual phenomenon within these
disciplines.4
The archive discovered in Ebla is the third major archive found in the area of greater Syria in the last
hundred years. The other two, at Mari on the Euphrates and Ugarit near the Mediterranean, relate to periods in the
2nd millennium BCE, making the archive of Ebla, the oldest yet found in the area. Also, as an archive, it is the oldest
ever found, even though numerous texts predate it both from Mesopotamia and Egypt. It also has close affinities to
texts found at Abu Salabikh and Fara, ancient Shuruppak that date much closer to the Ebla tablets than those of Mari
and Ugarit.5 It contains texts of the following types: administrative/economic (the vast majority, approximately
90%), lexical, historical and historical-juridical, syllabaries, and literary texts. 6 The texts are written in cuneiform on
clay tablets of varying sizes.
The language of the texts has been termed Eblaite or Eblaic. The feature of the texts which makes their
decipherment and interpretation much more difficult than many other cuneiform texts (and even those are often
difficult to read), is that over 80% of the signs used are Sumerian. The few places in which the epigrapher knows he
is reading Eblaite are only in the few lexical and literary texts (themselves hard to discern as such) and in personal
and geographical names, which are spelled out syllabically. Aside from those instances, words are written directly in
Sumerian, either as logograms or syllabically, so that there is no hint as to how the word would be pronounced in
Eblaite. Oftentimes, the content of the texts can be constructed, since Sumerian has a significant interpretative
history, but the way they would have been spoken by a scribe in Ebla is unknown.7
The position of Eblaite among other Semitic languages is still a matter of debate. The language has
similarities with both Eastern (Akkadian, Assyrian, and Bablyonian) and Northwest (Amorite, Ugaritic, Canaanite)
Semitic languages, and even some with South Semitic (South Arabian). Claims have been made to call it Paleo-
3
Pettinato, Ebla: A New Look at History, 13.
4
See Giovanni Pettinato, “The Royal Archives of Tell Mardikh-Ebla,” BA 39:2; idem, “Ebla and the Bible,” BA,
43:4 (Autumn, 1980), 203-216; Paolo Matthiae, “Ebla.” BA, 43:3 (Summer, 1980), 133-134; Alfonso Archi, “Further
Concerning Ebla and the Bible,” BA, 44:3 (Summer, 1981), 145-154; Robert Biggs, “The Ebla Tablets: An Interim
Perspective,” BA, 43:2 (Spring, 1980), 76-87; Giorgio Buccellati, et.al., “A Rejoinder to G. Pettinato” BA, 44:3
(Summer, 1981), 137.
5
See Robert D. Biggs, “Ebla and Abu Salabikh: The Linguistic and Literary Aspects,” in Cagni, Ed., La Lingua di
Ebla, 120-134; Piotr Michalowski, “Third Millenium Contacts: Observations on the Relationship Between Mari and
Ebla,” Journal of the American Oriental Society, 105:2 (April-June, 1985), 293-302; P.R.S. Moorey, “Abu Salabikh,
Kish, Mari, and Ebla: Mid-Third Millenium Archaeological Interconnections,” American Journal of Archaeology,
85:4 (October, 1981), 447-448.
6
Pettinato, “The Royal Archives,” BA, 39:2, 45.
7
On the difficulties in reading and interpreting the Ebla tablets, see Biggs, “The Ebla Tablets,” BA, 43:2, 77-80.
Canaanite, a precursor to Aramaic, and a dialect of Akkadian. Connections to Northwest Semitic include the use of
malikum for “king,” instead of the standard Akkadian šarrum, and abbu for “elders.” On the other hand, the
prepositions are Akkadian in character, such as for “and,” “to,” “from,” etc.8 In recent years, some scholars have
envisioned a different approach to the standard family tree paradigm of language relationships. In such a scheme, in
which language contact is given more significance with respect to familial development than traditionally assumed,
Eblaite would be seen as literally a middle ground between east and west, hence embodying influences from both
directions.9 It is also of issue whether the language of the texts is particular to Ebla and its environs or may have
been more regionally spoken. It is probable that it did not originate in or around Ebla, but as an accident of history it
was recorded there in these tablets that survived to be discovered. 10
In terms of the chronology of the Early Bronze occupation phase, there has been significant debate.
Pettinato maintains a higher chronology, placing the level of Mardikh IIB1, the stratum of the archive, in Early
Bronze III (2800 – 2400 B.C.E.), possibly at approximately 2500 B.C.E. Matthiae maintains a low chronology,
fitting Mardikh IIB1 into Early Bronze IV, dating it between 2400 – 2250 B.C.E. He correlates one of its major
Kings, Ebrum, with Sargon the Great of Akkad, and its destruction with the claimed destruction of Ebla by Naram-
Sin of Akkad.11 This argument fits into the general discussion of Early Bronze Age chronology, in which there has
been a trend over the past few decades toward downdating. Correlating chronological evidence was found in the
excavation in the cartouches of Pharaohs Kephren (fourth dynasty) and Pepi I (sixth dynasty) of the Old Kingdom
Egyptian period.12 The reign of Pepi I may overlap with that of Sargon, but there is a margin of error of almost 150
years between the two chronologies making definitive statements as to the destruction of Mardikh IIB1 difficult. In
the end it may well be that it does not fit into a known political, military event at all. As Astour has pointed out,
accidental fires are quite common in world history and the material culture of the next occupational level, Mardikh
IIB2, is identical to that of its predecessor, as admitted by Matthiae. This indicates that there was no significant
cultural break after the destruction of Mardikh IIB1. Even though the palace in which the archives were found was
not rebuilt (a necessary circumstance for the archive to have remained in situ), the other areas of the tell in the next
level contain similar pottery and structures as did the previous. 13
Due to difficulties in reading geographical names as well as in identifying their toponymy, there has been a
range of opinion as to how wide was Ebla’s sphere of influence. Pettinato determined that it spanned from the
Levant through upper Mesopotamia, finding references to the Levantine cities of the plain, Anatolian Kanesh, and
Mesopotamian Ashur. However, others suggest that names found in the tablets refer mainly to places within smaller
distances of Ebla and that the term “empire” is an overstatement. It is still an open question as to how much
interaction Ebla may have had with the Levant, Old Kingdom Egypt, Anatolia, and heartland Mesopotamia. There is
mention of a place called Ebla in tablets from Nuzi, although their connection to Syrian Ebla has been challenged. 14
Nevertheless, it seems certain that Ebla was the most powerful city in northern Syria in EB III-IV. An example of a
power relationship is Ebla’s with Mari, on the upper Euphrates (for which we have a later archive of 19th-18th
century BCE texts). Sometimes Ebla claimed dominion over Mari, but at others it was impinged economically by it,
and yet other times related to it as an equal.15

8
See Alfonso Archi, “Prepositions at Ebla,” in Gordon and Rendsburg, Eds., Eblaitica 4, 1-22.
9
Cyrus H. Gordon, “Eblaite and Northwest Semitic,” in Gordon and Rendsburg, Eds., Eblaitica 2, 130-131.
10
Ignace J. Gelb, “The Language of Ebla,” 71; Gary A. Rendsburg, “Eblaite and Some Northwest Semitic Lexical
Links,” in Gordon and Rendsburg, Eds., Eblaitica 4, 207-208.
11
David Noel Freedman, “The Real History of the Ebla Tablets: Ebla and the Cities of the Plain,” The Biblical
Archaeologist, 41:4 (December, 1978), 146.
12
Ibid.
13
Astour, “History of Ebla (Part 2),” 73-76. For chronological issues of Ebla in general, both internal and external,
see: Ibid., 57-76; Mander, Pietro. “First Hypothesis on the Systematic Classification of the Administrative Texts in
Diachronical Succession
.” In Luigi Cagni, Ed., Ebla: 1975-1985: Dieci anni di studi linguistic e filologici. Napoli: Don Bosco, 1987, 395-
408; Alfonso Archi and Maria Giovanna Biga, “A Victory Over Mari and the Fall of Ebla,” Journal of Cuneiform
Studies, 55 (2003), 1-44; Matthiae, An Empire Rediscovered; Moorey, “Mid-Third Millenium Archaeological
Interconnections,” 447-448; Pettinato, Ebla: A New Look at History.
14
Nadezhda Freedman, “The Nuzi Ebla,” The Biblical Archaeologist, 40:1 (March, 1977), 32-33.
15
For Ebla and Mari, see: Archi and Biga, “A Victory Over Mari.” For Eblaic toponymy, see: Michael C. Astour,
“Toponymy of Ebla and Ethnohistory of Northern Syria: A Preliminary Survey,” Journal of the American Oriental
Society, 108:4 (October-December, 1988), 545-555.
 Important archaeological finds at Ebla include parts of Palace G discovered at the edge of the acropolis,
pieces of beautifully carved wooden furniture, and bullae of cylinder seals containing friezes of animals, goddesses,
and other designs. These expertly crafted objects, along with the extensive catalogues of the Ebla-dominated textile
trade, help form a picture of the place greater Syria held in the Early Bronze Age in the manufacturing of fine
goods.16 This fits neatly as the precursor to Late Bronze Age and Iron Age finery that was produced in the same
areas as evidenced by the Nimrud ivories. That tradition of craftsmanship was already in place almost two thousand
years earlier.
An interesting minor note is the possible mention of a king of Ashur named Tudiya, who may be identified
with the first king of the Assyrian King List, the first seventeen of which are spoken of as dwelling in tents and were
therefore assumed to be legendary by most scholars. This identification raises the possibility that the records of the
early parts of the Assyrian King List might be at least partially real and would significantly push back the time at
which we have good historical-political evidence in Mesopotamia. 17 If so, it would be one piece of evidence for not
dismissing very ancient records too handily. However, it remains a quite uncertain reading and identification. 18
3. Ebla and the Hebrew Bible
Since the initial discovery of and first readings from the Ebla archive, some scholars and laypersons have
been intrigued with possible connections between it and the Bible.19 Fueling these flames were initial claims by the
first epigrapher attached to the archaeological mission, Giovanni Pettinato, of the magnitude of power of Ebla and
several tie-ins to the Bible. Pettinato thought he had discovered a tablet recording the subjugation by Ebla of Akkad,
which would have put Ebla at least on equal footing with a significant central Mesopotamian city.20 However, this
claim was later negated as the purpose of the tablet was questioned as well as the reading of “Akkad” in it and
Pettinato admitted to the misreading.21 Pettinato also read the names of five cities, which he identified with the
biblical five cities of the plain for which Abraham is said to have gone to war against eastern rivals. Although
several scholars latched onto this claim, some confusion seems to have occurred by which the names were thought
to have been found in sequence. In the end, the readings were challenged and it became public that the names were
not on the same tablet anyway. Pettinato’s most eye-opening assertion was that he found significant evidence for
reference to a god named “Ya” in segments of personal names. In general, in the ancient world, naming was very
important, as is seen in the Egyptian custom of Pharaoh’s receiving several throne names. A majority of ancient
Semitic names consist of sentences meant to say something about the child or expressing a wish for the child so
christened. A large segment of these names are sentences that contain a verb and the name of a god, also known as a
theophoric element, such as Ishmael, or Yishma‘’el, which means “God or ’el has listened (to the parents’ prayers).”
Pettinato showed minimal pairs of such names paralleling another divine name with what he read as “ya,” and
interpreted that as referring to a god by that name. But, this assertion has also largely met with disapproval from the
much of the scholarly community.
Regarding the last assertion, Pettinato’s evidence seems fairly good at first glance, since he shows that “the
alternation in the personal names such as Mi-ká-il/Mi-ká-yá, En-ná-il/En-ná-yá, Iš-ra-il/Iš-ra- yá amply
demonstrates that at Ebla at least Ya had the same value as Il and points to a specific deity.”22 Although Pettinato was
careful not to claim any connection with biblical Yahweh, his reading easily leans in that direction for many. In
adducing evidence for the wider existence of the god Ya/Yo, Mitchel Dahood points out the existence of non-
Israelites in the bible who have names containing that theophoric element, such as in the name Yobab. He explains
the name as “Yo is the door” in order to separate Yo- from -bab, bringing other possible proof for similar names with
gods being referred to as “door” or “gatekeeper,” including some names in the onomasticon of Ebla. He finds that

16
Matthiae, “Ebla in the Late Early Syrian Period,” 103-5.
17
Pettinato, “The Royal Archives,” 48.
18
Biggs, “The Ebla Tablets,” 81-82.
19
For some general connections between Ebla and the Bible, see: Alfonso Archi, “Further Concerning Ebla and the
Bible;” Pinhas Artzi, “Ten Years of Ebla Research: Retrospective Notes on Ebla as a ‘Western’ Precursor,” in Cagni,
Ed., Ebla: 1975-1985, 409-418; Mitchell Dahood, “Ebla, Ugarit, and the Old Testament,” in J.A. Emerton, et. al.,
Eds., Supplements to Vetus Testamentum, Vol. 29 (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1978), 81-112; Freedman, David Noel.
“Epigraphic Evidence from Ebla: A Summary.” The Biblical Archaeologist. 43:4 (Autumn, 1980): 200-203;
Pettinato, “The Royal Archives.”
20
Pettinato, “The Royal Archives,” 45-46.
21
Biggs, “The Ebla Tablets,” 81.
22
Pettinato, “The Royal Archives,” 48.
name used for five different people in the Hebrew Bible, including three of an Edomite, a Canaanite, and the name
of an Arabian group, which does seem to indicate the possibility of non-Israelite use of that theophoric element. 23
However, there are significant problems with the reading and identification of a god named Ya in Ebla
texts. First, if it is a theophoric element, it is possible that “Ya” is a hypocoristicon, or shortening, of a longer name.
Second, even if it is the full name of a god, Ya, the existence of such a deity does not necessarily indicate any
connection to biblical Yahweh. Third, the name of such a deity does not as of yet appear in any other context in the
Ebla tablets, excluding appearance in offering lists and invocations of gods in contexts such as treaties. Fourth,
granting Pettinato’s reading of the Sumerian sign NI as Eblaite “ya,” some scholars argued that it should be
interpreted as indicating a type of nickname, similar to English Tommy as a nickname for Thomas, which was
common throughout the ancient Near East. That type of nickname may even appear in the Bible in names such as
’ahiyah, which does not make sense as referring to Ya or Yahweh, since it would mean “Ya is brother” or “Ya is my
brother,” which runs counter to the general Israelite notions of man’s relationship with God. Last, there are some
scholars who dispute reading NI as “ya” in these instances and prefer reading NI as one of its other possible values,
such as “ili,” referring to a deity or deities in general, or “ni,” the first person singular pronominal suffix, rendered as
“- me” or “- to me.” In sum, Pettinato’s claims seem less convincing as time goes on, though there are no mean as of
yet to disprove them conclusively.24
Much has been made of the supposed discovery of the names of the five biblical cities of the plain, Sodom,
Gemorrah, Admah, Zeboim, and Bela. Although, Pettinato has backed down from his initial reading, he still
maintains the identification of the first two place names as correct. Initially, it seemed to indicate that the biblical
series of names was a standard pentad belonging to a tradition spanning over a thousand years before the
composition of the biblical verses. Even without the full complement of five cities strung together in a single,
ordered list, confirmation of the existence of the first two in Early Bronze times is still significant, especially since
none of the cities have been securely identified with a tell in the Dead Sea vicinity. David Noel Freedman, an
eminent biblical scholar, posited a new theory based on Pettinato’s name identifications that the ancient cities could
be identified with five tells in the Dead Sea region that had occupation levels ending with the close of EB IV.
According to his theory, now founded on extremely tenuous supports, parts of the biblical stories in Genesis that
relate Abraham’s adventures connected to Lot in the Levant and Syria should be dated to the middle of the 3rd
millennium corresponding to the time when the occupation of those five tells was active. This would push back the
earliest partially historical attestations in the bible by over one thousand years. 25 This extreme hypothesis, though
containing some interesting ideas has found no support in the scholarly community and seems to have been the
largest leap taken by a generally credible scholar in the midst of the Ebla rush of the late 1970s.
Some other notes by Pettinato of varying reliability are as follows. One possible connection is the
identification of a Melchizedek, king of Salim, with the similar biblical personage, which may be the earliest
mentioning of Jerusalem, if correct. 26 Another is the use of “judges” to denote heads of vassal states of Ebla,
reminiscent of the employment of a similar word, shofet, for the heads of the Israelite tribes in the period after their
settlement in the Land of Israel.27 This stands as an interesting connection between Ebla and the Bible that is not
direct, but illuminates the biblical usage of a term that has not been fully understood. That is, Biblical Hebrew shofet
means “minor ruler,” not “judge,” revealing two different possible meanings of the word in the Bible. Third, the
word “Canaan” is used in reference to the Levant, supporting the biblical “Land of Canaan” as the designation of the
area of greater Israel.28 This stands in parallel to the Egyptian designation of Syro-Palestine as Ḫattu.
Over time, consensus has been built that in the main, the Ebla texts are most useful in relation to the Bible
for providing further linguistic and cultural background. Linguistically, many interesting points have been made.
One is the elucidation by Cyrus Gordon of the prefix particle in w- or wm- in Northwest Semitic and in Hebrew. He
has shown that this particle was initially a tense indicator and a type of helping verb, possibly related to Egyptian
iwa-. In Biblical Hebrew, a change has already occurred by which the meaning has shifted in general to “and.” But,
in contexts where w- is read as the waw conversive, which inverts the tense of a verb, Gordon has shown that the
23
Mitchell Dahood, “The God Yā at Ebla?” Journal of Biblical Literature, 100:4 (December, 1981), 607-608.
24
See Archi, “Further Concerning Ebla and the Bible,” 145-146; Mitchell Dahood, “Ebla, Ugarit, and the Old
Testament,” 105-107; Ziony Zevit, “A Chapter in the History of Israelite Personal Names,” Bulletin of the American
Schools of Oriental Research, 250 (Spring, 1983), 1-2.
25
Freedman, “The Real History of the Ebla Tablets,” 143-164; Mitchell Dahood, “Ebla, Ugarit, and the Old
Testament,” 99.
26
Pettinato, “The Royal Archives,” 46.
27
Ibid., 47.
28
Ibid., 48.
original meaning he discovered in Ebla texts still survives in Hebrew. That is, the tense of the verb is not inverted,
but rather the perfect or imperfect verb stands tenseless aside from context, and with the aid of w(a)- its tense
becomes the opposite of what one would expect from the aspect alone. He also gives new simpler meaning to
several instances in the Bible where a word written wm-(verbal root) should be interpreted as the qal form with
prefix of waw conversive and enclitic mem, instead of a regular pi’el or verbal form in which the mem is a normal
morphological feature.29
In building up the cultural background of the Bible, examples of three areas of interest from Ebla are as
follows. The pantheon of Ebla of over 100??? gods has been collected, from the onomasticon, historical and literary
texts, and offering lists. Although it contains major Mesopotamian deities such as Enlil and Enki, the majority of
gods are of Canaanite origin including Dagan (=biblical Dagan), Sipiš (=biblical Šamaš), Rasap (=biblical Rešef),
Adad (=biblical Hadad), Aštarte (=biblical ’Aštoret), Malik (=biblical Molek), Kašalu (=Ugaritic Košar, possible
biblical košarot), Ašera (=biblical ’Ašerah), and Kamiš (=biblical, Moabite Kemoš).30 This partial list shows the
antiquity of the tradition of the pantheon of gods in Canaan against which Israelite prophets fought. Realizing the
large degree to which the Syro-Palestinian religious mode incorporated these deities in its worldview aids in
understanding the nearly insurmountable task which faced the biblical prophets, the intensity of the invective they
aimed against it, and the ease with which the Israelites reverted to the polytheistic norm.
Light is shed on the occurrences in the bible of religious interactions with the dead, such as yid’oni and
she’ol. Mention is made of inquiry of the dead as a way of decision making. Also, royal Eblaite religion seems to
have included a large component of worship and deification of dead monarchs. Lists of such monarchs were found
that may allow for a reconstruction of a royal history of 33 kings, amounting to a history of Ebla preceding the era of
the archive of over 600 years. This would push back the beginning of Ebla as a city-state to the turn of the 4th
millennium!31 In this context, assuming the continuation of such religious notions in the Syro-Palestinian milieu,
evidence for which may be adduced from the prominence of the battle between Ba’al and Mot in Ugaritic literature,
it is easy to understand biblical passages such as Saul’s use of a necromancer, which otherwise do not seem to have
much precedence in the Bible.
Another interesting religious connection has been made in the area of purification or elimination rituals. Ida
Zatelli argues that two parallel texts found at Ebla, which, as part of a coronation ritual, mention the use of a goat
that is sent to the wilderness to purify a mausoleum, connect to the biblical ritual of the goat that was sent to ’Azazel,
which was incorporated into the temple ritual on yom hakkipurim. Zatelli argues that the Ebla ritual stands as a
precursor in the Syro-Palestinian religious milieu to the biblical one, which may also include Hurro-Hittite aspects
of sacrificial blood sprinkling. However, she takes pains to point out that she has “not the slightest intention to
establish a preferential link between Ebla and the Bible. [She] think[s] one may simply say that certain cultural
factors and certain traditions covered a wider area than many had thought.”32 Her approach coincides with the
appropriate measure of caution needed when analyzing possible far flung comparisons. By taking what Ebla and the
Bible have in common, which is participation in a common cultural milieu, and maintaining caution due to the large
temporal difference between the two, one may still propose comparisons that hold interpretive value in both
directions.33
4. Conclusion
The discovery of Ebla and its archive mark a watershed in the understanding of the whole of the fertile
crescent in the early period of ancient internationalism during the last phases of the Early Bronze Age. The vast
space between Egypt and Mesopotamia was not stuck in nomadic lifestyles as had been previously believed, but had
a thriving, sedentary, agricultural, fully-stratified, culturally sophisticated civilization, which minimally was a
significant part of the civilized world at that time, but may even have rivaled its bookend powers for commercial and
political ascendancy. Although culturally influenced by its neighbors, especially of Mesopotamia, Ebla stands as
evidence that greater Syria had developed its own cultural traditions. This has huge implications for our picture of
29
Cyrus Gordon, “Eblaitica,” in idem, Rendsburg, and Winter, Eds., Eblaitica 1, 21-22; idem, “WM- ‘and’ in Eblaite
and Hebrew,” in ad loc., 29-30; idem, “The ‘Waw Conversive’: From Eblaite to Hebrew,” Proceedings of the
American Academy of Jewish Research, 50 (1983), 87-90.
30
Pettinato, “The Royal Archives,” 48; Mitchell Dahood, “Ebla, Ugarit, and the Old Testament,” 99-105; Robert R.
Stieglitz, “Ebla and the Gods of Canaan,” in Gordon and Rendsburg, Eds., Eblaitica 2, 79-90.
31
Robert R. Stieglitz, “The Deified Kings of Ebla,” in Gordon and Rendsburg, Eds., Eblaitica 4, 215-222.
32
Ida Zatelli, “The Origin of the Biblical Scapegoat Ritual: The Evidence of Two Eblaite Texts,” Vetus Testamentum,
48:2 (April, 1998), 263.
33
For a similar assessment of the relationship between the Mari texts and the Bible, see: Andre Lemaire, “Mari, the
Bible, and the Northwest Semitic World,” The Biblical Archaeologist, 47:2 (June, 1984), 101-108.
the Early Bronze Age Near East. Taken in combination with data of trade and archaeological evidence of places such
as Dilmun (eastern Arabia), Magan (Oman), Meluḫḫa (Indus Valley), which spread over a vast area to the east of
Mesopotamia, a picture of a much more populated, urbanized, and civilized Early Bronze Age seems to be
emerging.
No matter how one classifies Eblaite in specific, it is clear that it has significant importance for
understanding the growth of Northwest Semitic languages and literatures. As such, the unearthing of Ebla and its
archive is another major find in a long chain of discoveries which have relevance for the understanding of the
Hebrew Bible. Primarily, it builds a fuller picture of the Levantine-Syrian, or Canaanite, culture from which the
Bible emerged, as well as explaining the early bridge between Mesopotamian and Canaanite culture, which is
evident in the Bible. How significant the value of Eblaite documents is for understanding biblical details is still
undetermined, although there are a number of new interpretations of biblical and Ugaritic texts which have been
posited.
As always with any new discovery, soon afterward many grandiose theories and connections are
entertained, but it takes time to build consensus opinions about them. In that light, the Ebla discoveries are only 35
years old and have not reached an age of maturity for more certain, authoritative statements to be made. In addition,
it seems that the fact that a bulk of the publication has been in Italian has become a hindrance to widespread study of
Ebla, especially in connection to the Bible. Now that the main scholars involved initially have reached retirement or
passed on, it is time for a new generation to investigate this crucial site and body of literature.
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