The REAL House of David

Thirty-some years ago, excavators at Tel Dan pulled three broken pieces of basalt out of the ground, and six of the letters carved into them spell out something no other inscription clearly does: the house of David.

This week, Dan M walks us through what the Tel Dan Stele actually says, why an Aramean king was bragging about killing two kings you can find in your Bible, and what it means that his version of events contradicts both biblical accounts.

Also: how one hunk of stone helps date the oldest historical prose in the Hebrew Bible, and no, Steely Dan was not named after it.

_______________________________________________

Get your Data Over Dogma merch at our online store:

https://data-over-dogma-shop.fourthwall.com/

_______________________________________________

Support Data Over Dogma and get every episode early and ad-free, plus exclusive bonus content — become a patron:

https://www.patreon.com/DataOverDogma

_______________________________________________

Listen to the podcast on every app:

https://pod.link/1681418502

_______________________________________________

Follow us:

Instagram — https://www.instagram.com/dataoverdogmapod

TikTok — https://www.tiktok.com/@data.over.dogma.pod

Threads — https://www.threads.com/@dataoverdogmapod

X — https://x.com/data_over_dogma

Facebook — https://www.facebook.com/DataOverDogmaPod

_______________________________________________

Get Dan McClellan's New York Times bestselling book, The Bible Says So:

https://static.macmillan.com/static/smp/bible-says-so-9781250347466/

_______________________________________________

Chapters:

0:00 Steely Dan Jokes

1:18 What Is a Tel

2:06 Gates, Altars, Standing Stones

3:31 Three Fragments, One Inscription

4:19 Dating It to Hazael

5:00 The Chalk-Filled Letters

5:52 Dots Instead of Spaces

6:34 Bragstones and Royal Resumes

7:13 Reading the Inscription

9:04 Two Dead Kings

10:01 Kingdom Versus Dynasty

11:08 Evidence for a Historical David

12:30 Hazael in Second Kings

13:21 Jehu Drives Like a Maniac

13:53 Who Killed Ahaziah

16:22 Taking Credit for the Kill

17:53 Dating Kings and Chronicles

19:07 Who Really Killed Goliath

19:58 The Birth of Historical Prose

21:32 Poetry Came First

23:01 Story, Then Song

24:19 Steely Dan Came First

_______________________________________________

#DataOverDogma #BibleScholarship #TelDanStele #KingDavid #BiblicalArchaeology