First Glance

One of the subjects we are asked about most frequently is Ebla, so we are pleased to respond by publishing Alan Millard’s “Ebla and the Bible—What’s Left (If Anything)?” A sensational archaeological discovery of the 1970s, the 16,500 inscribed tablets and tablet fragments found at the site of the ancient city of Ebla, in Syria, captured world attention not only because of the exceptional size of the archive, but because of what the tablets seemed to say. Their early translation yielded tantalizing suggestions of the names of such biblical cities as Hazor, Megiddo and Sodom and Gomorrah; the name of the Israelite God Yahweh; and even a fragment of a creation story similar to Genesis. When scholars took a closer look, however, these early identifications turned out to be a mirage of mistranslation. Nevertheless, what’s left, as Millard shows, is a record of an opulent city of the third millennium and early second millennium B.C. that provides insights on life in biblical times.