The Arad ostraca — "the house of YHWH"
Everyday army paperwork from a Judahite fort refers to the temple of YHWH and carries the same stock of personal names as the biblical books of the period.
Fakapapau'i 'e he keliTohi tongi makac. 600 BC
More than a hundred inked potsherds from a Judahite border fort: ration orders, troop movements, a warning about Edom. Several mention "the house of YHWH", and the names on them — Hananyahu, Gemaryahu, Meshullam — are the ordinary Judahite names of the same period as Jeremiah.
…and as to the matter which you commanded me — it is well. He is in the house of YHWH.
- Na'e 'ilo'i
- The fortress at Tel Arad, Israel, 1962 — Yohanan Aharoni's excavation
- 'Oku tauhi 'i
- Israel Museum, Jerusalem
- Lea
- Hebrew
- Na'e a'u mai fēfē kiate kitautolu
- Na'e keli hake, pe 'oku kei tu'u 'i he potu na'e langa ai.
Ko e me'a 'oku ne fakahā
No biblical individual is securely identified in the archive. Its value is the ordinary texture: literacy, administration, religion and names.
Founga hono ngāue'aki 'e he kau hisitōlia
Central to the debate on the spread of literacy in late-monarchic Judah, including recent handwriting analyses.
'I he Folofola
Fekau'aki mo
Ngaahi ma'u'anga fakamatala
- Aharoni, Arad Inscriptions (1981)
'Oku 'i he lea faka-Pilitānia 'a e ngaahi fakamatala ko 'eni he taimi ni. 'E muimui mai 'a e liliu.