For those who want proof of the exodus

[Drich]

When did I say was a commandment? It's an observation. the Jews did not engrave (carve religious words) into stone. The only example is when God did this. (the Hand writing on the wall and the 10 commandments)

This is "one of a kind" 3ft tall stone tablet from the period of the second temple. and it was written in INK/Not carved.

http://www.timesofisrael.com/jerusalem-u...ew-tablet/

That said their are commands that they engrave into gold and jewls.

For once in your life you have actually made an almost relevant post, drippy.  Congratulations.

As noted:

Bible experts are still debating the writing’s meaning, largely because much of the ink has eroded in crucial spots in the passage and the tablet has two diagonal cracks the slice the text into three pieces. Museum curators say only 40 percent of the 87 lines are legible, many of those only barely. The interpretation of the text featured in the Israel Museum’s exhibit is just one of five readings put forth by scholars.

This is totally accurate and a perfect example of why inscriptions were carved and not written.   A scholar named George Athas has done extensive work on the Tel Dan Stele, down to a blow by blow recap of each stroke of the chisel which is a bit tedious to read but it makes his point.  Anyway, what you have to remember is that in the ancient world literacy was rare.  There were far more people who could use a chisel and hammer than there were who could read and write.

An inscription on a stone was written out, in ink, by a scribe who was literate enough to do so.  When the scribe was finished someone else would come in to chisel out the marks made in ink.  Such work would be beneath the dignity of a scribe.  The engraver who most likely was not literate himself would simply obliterate the lines written in ink and the result was an engraved version.

I can not find Athas' work online so you'll just have to take my word for it.  Unless you want to read "The Tel Dan Inscription: A Reappraisal and a New Introduction" yourself.  (You won't like it.)

You have to lose the idea that the ancients were stupid.  They weren't.  They knew exactly what would happen if they posted an ink on stone sign.  It would be obliterated by the elements in virtually no time at all.  That's why they went through the trouble of engraving them in the first place.  In this instance, Israel Knohl who did the first serious work on the stone notes that it coincides with the upheavals at the end of the reign of Herod the Great.  He specifically refers to a man named Simon who led a revolt and died in the process.  One envisions a scribe writing this stuff out and then the Romans overrunning the site before the engraver could get to work.  Hard to engrave much of anything with a sword stuck in your belly.

I am aware this is how things normally work.. (inking out a message and later having an engraver chisel out the lines.) The problem with this is their are NO examples of Hebrew religious texts engraved in stone. We have 2000+ year old inked out examples. This may have been a problem for us, but the religious structure of the Levitical priesthood would indeed maintain maintained the inked tablets. Even if they didn't their ink is obviously not the disappearing ink of today as the story notes nearly 1/2 is still ledgable.

The great point being. This stone tablet is the only thing we have from that time period that has anything close to scripture written in stone. This counters brakeman's empty argument that because nothing is written in stone before recorded history well documents the hebrews, they did not exist. That foolish argument presupposes that they wrote in stone, even though the evidence proves otherwise. Foolish in that the absence of evidence does not prove anything.