Bible Written Centuries Earlier Than Believed

Scientists have discovered the earliest known Hebrew writing—an inscription dating from the period of King David's reign in the 10th century B.C. The breakthrough could mean that portions of the Bible were written centuries earlier than previously thought—until now, the Bible's Old Testament is thought to have been first written down in an ancient form of Hebrew in the 6th century B.C., because it was believed that the Hebrew writing was thought to stretch back no further.
Gershon Galil, a professor of Biblical Studies at the University of Haifa in Israel, who deciphered the ancient text showed that this text is about four centuries older. "It indicates that the Kingdom of Israel already existed in the 10th century B.C., and that at least some of the biblical texts were written hundreds of years before the dates presented in current research.”
The writing was discovered more than a year ago on a pottery shard dug up at Khirbet Qeiyafa, near Israel's Elah valley, during excavations carried out by archaeologist Yosef Garfinkel of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. At first, scientists could not tell if the writing was Hebrew or some other local language, but Galil was able to decipher the text. He identified words particular to the Hebrew language and content specific to Hebrew culture to prove that the writing was, in fact, Hebrew.
"It uses verbs that were characteristic of Hebrew, such as asah ('did') and avad ('worked'), which were rarely used in other regional languages," Galil said. "Particular words that appear in the text, such as almanah ('widow') are specific to Hebrew and are written differently in other local languages."
The ancient text is written in ink on a trapezoid-shaped piece of pottery about 6 inches by 6.5 inches. It appears to be a social statement about how people should treat slaves, widows and orphans. The content, which has some missing letters, is similar to some Biblical scriptures, such as Isaiah 1:17, Psalms 72:3, and Exodus 23:3, but does not appear to be copied from any Biblical text.