The Deir 'Alla Plaster Inscription (or Balaam Inscription, or Bal'am Son of Be'or Inscription), known as KAI 312, is a famous[1] inscription discovered during a 1967 excavation in Deir 'Alla, Jordan. It is currently at the Jordan Archaeological Museum. It is written in a peculiar Northwest Semitic dialect, and has provoked much debate among scholars and had a strong impact on the study of Canaanite and Aramaic inscriptions.[2][3]
The excavation revealed a multiple-chamber structure that had been destroyed by an earthquake during the Persian period, on the wall of which was written a story relating visions of Bal'am, son of Be'or, a "seer of the gods", who may be the same Balaam mentioned in Numbers 22–24 and in other passages of the Bible. The Deir Alla inscription's take on Bala'am differs from that given in the Book of Numbers. Bal'am's god is associated with the goddess Šagar-we-Ishtar. Deities with such names, "Šagar-and-Ishtar", certainly are known to history, but quite separately. The enigmatic narrative also foregrounds the "Shaddayin" who establish a council. (שדין, perhaps meaning gods and goddesses).[4] It also features the word "Elohin", taken to mean "gods" in the plural rather than the Hebrew deity.
It was on ink on plastered wall; like in the plaster inscriptions at Kuntillet Ajrud, black and red inks were used. Red apparently emphasized certain parts of the text.[5][6] The inscriptions were written with a broad nibbed pen with ink, an extremely early example.[7] They represent the earliest point of evidence in the history of the West Semitic alphabet. The Oxford Handbook of Biblical Studies describes it as "the oldest example of a book in a West Semitic language written with an alphabet, and the oldest piece of Aramaic literature."[8]
^THE IRON AGE PITHOI DRAWINGS FROM HORVAT TEMAN OR KUNTILLET {AJRUD: SOME NEW PROPOSALS 1 BRIAN B. SCHMIDT p 103
^"The Dialect of the Deir Allah Inscription". Archived from the original on 2014-11-29. Retrieved 2022-01-17.
^B. Halpern, "Dialect Distribution in Canaan and the Deir Alla Inscriptions", in D.M. Golomb, ed., "Working With No Data": Semitic and Egyptian Studies Presented to Thomas O. Lambdin (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1987), pp. 119–39, in particular p. 139.
^Thomas L. Thompson (2000). "Problems of Genre and Historicity with Palestine's Descriptions". In André Lemaire, Magne Saebo (ed.). Supplements to Vetus Testamentum, Volume 80. Brill. p. 322. ISBN 978-9004115989.
^Renz, Johannes; Röllig, Wolfgang (March 2016). Handbuch der althebräischen Epigraphik (in German). Darmstadt: WBG (Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft). p. 57. ISBN 978-3-534-26789-7.
^J. Hoftijzer and G. van der Kooij, Aramaic Texts from Deir 'AllaDocumenta et Monumenta Orientis Antiqui19 (Leiden) 1976.
^Context of Scripture 2.27 pg II:141
^Alan Millard (2006). "Authors, Books and Readers in the Ancient World". In J. W. Rogerson , Judith M. Lieu (ed.). The Oxford Handbook of Biblical Studies. Oxford University Press. p. 554. ISBN 978-0199254255.
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