Talk:Merneptah Stele

message: in the paragraph about israel it is said that the next non - biblical evidance about israel is the meisha stele but there is another stele found in "tel-dan" talking about hazael ben hadad and how he won over an israeli king from the "house of david". i think that one is a bit older, allthough they are very close  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.130.217.64 (talk) 17:38, 8 September 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: old thread

message: I have moved the article to "Merneptah Stele" as Wikipedia official naming policy is that articles have the "most common name" rather than any technical definition - see Wikipedia:Naming conventions#Use common names of persons and things.
Also note that it requests the titles be simple (in the "specifics" of that part of the policy). ~~~~ 18:59, 7 Jun 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Name 

message: ::Reading it in middle Egyptian using Gardiner and Faulkner 
::The last three lines of the stele are a titulary signature as evidenced by the cartouches (prenomen)| son of the sun (nomen)|.
::Miriam Lichtheim, Berkley, 1976, translates them as 
::Line 26 
::The princes are prostrate saying: "Shalom!" Not one of the Nine Bows lifts his head Tjehenu is vanquished, Khatti at peace,Canaan 
::Line 27 
::is captive with all woe, Ashkelon is conquered, Gezer seized,Yanoam made nonexistent;Israel is wasted, bare of seed, Khor is become a widow for Egypt. All who roamed have been subdued.
::Line 28
::By the King of Upper and Lower Egypt, Banere-meramun, Son of Re, Merneptah, Content with Maat, Given life like Re every day. 
::The end of Line 26 refers to Tjenhu,(Libya) Hatti, and Canaan
::Line 27 summarizes the first 25 lines which are about the defeat and plunder of the Libyan Nine Bows, 
:: specifically the Tjenen, Meshwesh, and Libyans near Alexandria.
::Where Petrie's philologist Wilhelm Spiegelberg, Breasted and Lichtheim read "Ashkelon is conquered, Gezer seized, 
::Breasteds transliteration reads"inw iskrny" Ashkelon is conquered, 
::but there he has mistaken a T10 pd bow for an r to get rny instead of pdty (bowmen). 
::Breasted goes on "mhw m kdr" Gezer seized where the stele reads n mr hst w (Nubians) m tmhi (foreigners) 
::Breasted omits the determinative and there is no kdr or ynw' = Yenoam. 
:: Breasted has ir w m tm wn to be "made nonexistent" Yanoam made nonexistent; is derived from a determinative
::Where Breasted continues  [y](end of sentence) sr i3r fk.ti and translates it Israel is wasted, bare of seed, 
::the stela continues s:y:r iA r:Z1 T14 A1*B1:plural f:n:t:wr  (converting VSO to SOV = Her great foreign voice ruined)
::Where Breasted has bn prt f h3rw 
::the stela has bn pr r t f plural h3rw 
::Where Breasted has hpr.w m h3 rt n Khor is become a widow for Egypt. 
::the stela has hp r w Mn:sw w r s3(red crown of lower Egypt) and 
::Gardiner has for widow M12 h3 Ar:t Det D3B1. 142.0.102.239 (talk) 13:51, 4 April 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: Not propaganda, just a mistake.  I.si.ri.ar sounds an awful lot like like Assyra to me. 2600:1004:B042:D95B:BF5E:862D:4EC8:D5A2 (talk) 22:24, 22 December 2021 (UTC)
thread_title: 2015

message: Is it just me, or does the picture of the stele mentioning Israel only say "Isreal" and just the fragment of the word/concept "waste"?   The label under the picture reads "Israel is wasted, its seed is no longer."   Maybe the label needs to be changed to reflect this?   Possibly change it to "Segment of the Merneptah Stele mentioning Israel"..?  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.168.100.252 (talk) 23:55, 1 November 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Picture label incorrect?

message: Is all of this really appropriate for this article?  Shouldn't this be in an article about Israel?
:Absolutely not. The discussion here is about the Merneptah Stele which never mentions Israel, and how it mistakenly came to be called the Israel Stele.142.0.102.15 (talk) 14:10, 6 July 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, the Merneptah Stele is one datum of evidence relevant to the complicated question of the origins of the Israelites, but perhaps much of that material should be on an article dealing mainly with the topic of the origins of the Israelites... AnonMoos (talk) 02:33, 2 December 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Maybe if the discussion were summarized we could leave the key points and move the rest to another article on the subject in question.  Sweetmoose6 (talk) 16:51, 2 December 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: The main article appears to be Israelites, but there's very little discussion of the subject there now... AnonMoos (talk) 21:14, 2 December 2008 (UTC)
replies: text:  The main article is about the Merneptah Stele which is about a failure of the inundation resulting in no harvest and famine for the Meshwesh of Pe Buto. The Stele itself never mentions Israel nor Ashkelon, Yenoam, Khor or Gezar. Its a bad translation made by William Steadman for Petrie in 1896 which has created the confusion, and subsequent similar errors of translation that have made the situation worse. Those of us who can read and write Egyptian occasionally try to make the point that you can make it much easier to read it for yourself if you focus on one task at ta time. Grab a good graphic of the stele, edit it online or print it out and highlight the most
commonly repeated glyphs on the stele which are the letter y used as a word ending and the determinative for enemy so you can recognize them when you see them. Maybe go through and look for a verb like "make" so you can translate a whole sentence verb subject object (VSO). Break out the parts that are the titularies which begin and end the stele. Look for the word Thenu which means Libya, look for where there are references to people plural (peoples)observe that the determinatives like the names of enemy peoples come at the ends of the words.142.0.102.15 (talk) 13:43, 6 July 2015 (UTC)
thread_title: Discussion regarding the state of Israel

message: :::: The main article is about the Merneptah Stele which is about a failure of the inundation resulting in no harvest and famine for the Meshwesh of Pe Buto. The Stele itself never mentions Israel nor Ashkelon, Yenoam, Khor or Gezar. Its a bad translation made by William Steadman for Petrie in 1896 which has created the confusion, and subsequent similar errors of translation that have made the situation worse. Those of us who can read and write Egyptian occasionally try to make the point that you can make it much easier to read it for yourself if you focus on one task at ta time. Grab a good graphic of the stele, edit it online or print it out and highlight the most
commonly repeated glyphs on the stele which are the letter y used as a word ending and the determinative for enemy so you can recognize them when you see them. Maybe go through and look for a verb like "make" so you can translate a whole sentence verb subject object (VSO). Break out the parts that are the titularies which begin and end the stele. Look for the word Thenu which means Libya, look for where there are references to people plural (peoples)observe that the determinatives like the names of enemy peoples come at the ends of the words.142.0.102.15 (talk) 13:43, 6 July 2015 (UTC)
thread_title: 2015

message: The discussion of the "Israel" mention is rather overblown in this article. The main significance of the stele is the campaign in Libya. I also don't see the reason for three h3 subsections to the "Israel" point. As far as I can see, it is undisputed that the demonym "Israel" is mentioned among a bunch of defeated nations in Canaan. Period. This is rather notable, seeing that an identifiable state called "Israel" emerges only 300 years later, but it is also very simple and can be stated in a single brief paragraph. --dab (𒁳) 11:10, 13 July 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Like it or not, this would be an obscure inscription of very little interest to anyone other than a few professional Egyptologists, if Israel were not mentioned.  It owes almost all its general notability to the mention of Israel... AnonMoos (talk) 11:37, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

text: Its widely and correctly asserted that the original translation by Petries translator William Steadman in 1896 misread a set of glyphs on line 27 as a reference to Israel which simply does not exist. Subsequent translations have repeated the same mistake, but if you are even aware that Egyptian is VSO you can't make that mistake you have no verb in the passage, and then when you go back to the previous phrase (made completely non existent) to get the verb you should realize the y taken as an i by steadman is just a word ending. 142.0.102.15 (talk) 14:17, 6 July 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: The problem with that is Israel is not mentioned. People discuss a set of glyphs on line 27 which stripped of the y ending from the previous word and the determinatives is s:y (her) i:a (ruin) with the y ending and determinatives it reads y s:y:r (her name) ia (ruin) det.enemy det people. Because Egypt is VSO to make any sense of it you need to go back to find a verb. Now we discover that an inundation failed, the crops were not renewed, the harvest was made (verb) non existent y ending s:y:r (her name) ia (ruin) det.enemy det.people their seed is no more, but this is not Israel, its the walled village of Pe Buto, the Libyan home of the Apis Bulls near Alexandria.
142.0.102.15 (talk) 13:58, 6 July 2015 (UTC)
thread_title: article scope

message: : Its widely and correctly asserted that the original translation by Petries translator William Steadman in 1896 misread a set of glyphs on line 27 as a reference to Israel which simply does not exist. Subsequent translations have repeated the same mistake, but if you are even aware that Egyptian is VSO you can't make that mistake you have no verb in the passage, and then when you go back to the previous phrase (made completely non existent) to get the verb you should realize the y taken as an i by steadman is just a word ending. 142.0.102.15 (talk) 14:17, 6 July 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: The problem with that is Israel is not mentioned. People discuss a set of glyphs on line 27 which stripped of the y ending from the previous word and the determinatives is s:y (her) i:a (ruin) with the y ending and determinatives it reads y s:y:r (her name) ia (ruin) det.enemy det people. Because Egypt is VSO to make any sense of it you need to go back to find a verb. Now we discover that an inundation failed, the crops were not renewed, the harvest was made (verb) non existent y ending s:y:r (her name) ia (ruin) det.enemy det.people their seed is no more, but this is not Israel, its the walled village of Pe Buto, the Libyan home of the Apis Bulls near Alexandria.
142.0.102.15 (talk) 13:58, 6 July 2015 (UTC)
thread_title: 2015

message: The transliteration: y-z-y-r-j-A-r is given at:
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:YsyriAr.gif 
Is it possible that this could refer to Assyria? Does Assyria appear in the Egyptian records, and how is it written? Italus (talk) 22:10, 20 October 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Doubt it; the original form of this word was like "Aššur".  Where does the second "r" come from under your reading?   Anyway, "Assyria" doesn't make too much sense geographically in the context of Ascalon and Gezer... AnonMoos (talk) 03:08, 30 November 2009 (UTC)
replies: text:  It's the set of glyphs taken as the reference to Israel. The y is the ending of the previous word (made non existent)y. The z is a reference to a Hebrew spelling as is the j which makes no sense on an Egyptian stele and is actually s:y:r (s:y her :r det name) iA (ruin)throwing stick det. foreign enemy r det, name. 142.0.102.15 (talk) 14:05, 6 July 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Assyria? 

message: :: It's the set of glyphs taken as the reference to Israel. The y is the ending of the previous word (made non existent)y. The z is a reference to a Hebrew spelling as is the j which makes no sense on an Egyptian stele and is actually s:y:r (s:y her :r det name) iA (ruin)throwing stick det. foreign enemy r det, name. 142.0.102.15 (talk) 14:05, 6 July 2015 (UTC)
thread_title: 2015

message: I am always a little sceptical about translations based upon one known example as almost inevitably there will be genuine differences of opinion. So perhaps my own thoughts may help muddy the waters a little more.
The Pharoah of Exodus was named Shishak and seems to have looted the Temple of Soloman and removed "twelve gold shields". The biblical account seems clear enough that the temple was looted and not destroyed. Trying to put the assumed details into context it may be possible to come up with another version of Merneptahs stele that satisfy others.
Ramesses II was also apparently named Sesotris and led at least one military campaign deep into the Middle East. After passing through Aramaic/Greek translation etc the change from Sesotris to Shishak seems possible.
If it was Ramesses army that looted the Temple of Soloman, the equivalent of emptying the Bank of England or Fort Knox, then the economy of Israel must have then collapsed completely, similar to the Great Depression perhaps? 
If this can be assumed then a possible translation of this stele becomes,
"Israel remains (econonomically)prostrate". The reference to seed may mean that the population have reverted to their ancestral ways of herding being no longer settled enough to grow crops. 
 AT Kunene (talk) 10:20, 19 December 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Would you lease read WP:NOR and WP:VERIFY - our speculations don't belong here or in the article. Dougweller (talk) 12:13, 19 December 2010 (UTC)

text: Kunene -- There was no temple in Jerusalem until Solomon's reign, and the Israelites didn't control Jerusalem until David conquered it from the Jebusites... AnonMoos (talk) 12:15, 19 December 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: We don't know that David did conquer it, just that there was most likely a David who had a royal house named after him. The biblical record at that time is spotty. Of course it's the only recording of that period we have to go on (even if it was written about 300 years later, which makes it dubious at best). We also have no proof for Solomon (as Yadin's chronology is incorrect) and nothing definite for a first Temple... yet anyway. Maybe if the Waft weren't given free reign over the Temple Mount to toss out everything, we could find something. Thank God for that project excavating the rubble from their last little 'renovation'. Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie Say Shalom! 07:43, 20 March 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: The Only known evidence for Exodus is a book of the Pentateuch which dates it 430 years from the first entry of the sons of Israel into Egypt and 480 years back from the 4th year of the temple generally taken as convergent at 1446 BC. Eighty years before the Exodus Moses is born in a time when war threatens. War threatening is generally taken as a reference to the expulsion of the Hyksos by a campaign waged by Kamose at the end of the 17th Dynasty who took the name Ahmose to begin the 18th dynasty c 1550 BC. During the 18th Dynasty the capital of Egypt was at Thebes which was getting rich beyond measure off the trade to funish the mortuary industry at Karnak with goods coming from where Mount Horab joins the wadi Arabah with the head of the the Gulf of Aqaba at Elat. The trade consisted of Ben Jamin or juniper berries and cedar from Lebanon for their wooden sarcophagi, bitumen and natron from the Dead Sea to deal and dry the mummy, linen from Byblos to wrap the mummies in, Frankincense from Punt and Myhhr from ethi ophir to make the rotting flesh smell sweet, copper and semi precious stones from the Arabah and the Red Sea. Collectively Thebes Red Sea ports were known as the chain of Aphrodite.  Rameses II dates to the 12th Dynasty and has nothing to do with the Exodus although he did engage in the last of the battles with the king of Kadesh begun half a millenia earlier with Thutmosis III and the battle of Megiddo.142.0.102.8 (talk) 00:49, 21 July 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  A new thought? 

message: :::The Only known evidence for Exodus is a book of the Pentateuch which dates it 430 years from the first entry of the sons of Israel into Egypt and 480 years back from the 4th year of the temple generally taken as convergent at 1446 BC. Eighty years before the Exodus Moses is born in a time when war threatens. War threatening is generally taken as a reference to the expulsion of the Hyksos by a campaign waged by Kamose at the end of the 17th Dynasty who took the name Ahmose to begin the 18th dynasty c 1550 BC. During the 18th Dynasty the capital of Egypt was at Thebes which was getting rich beyond measure off the trade to funish the mortuary industry at Karnak with goods coming from where Mount Horab joins the wadi Arabah with the head of the the Gulf of Aqaba at Elat. The trade consisted of Ben Jamin or juniper berries and cedar from Lebanon for their wooden sarcophagi, bitumen and natron from the Dead Sea to deal and dry the mummy, linen from Byblos to wrap the mummies in, Frankincense from Punt and Myhhr from ethi ophir to make the rotting flesh smell sweet, copper and semi precious stones from the Arabah and the Red Sea. Collectively Thebes Red Sea ports were known as the chain of Aphrodite.  Rameses II dates to the 12th Dynasty and has nothing to do with the Exodus although he did engage in the last of the battles with the king of Kadesh begun half a millenia earlier with Thutmosis III and the battle of Megiddo.142.0.102.8 (talk) 00:49, 21 July 2015 (UTC)
thread_title: 2015

message: Anonmoos, I'll concede that the Temple of Soloman was indeed built in stone by Soloman but there must have been some sort of structure before Soloman. Possibly there was an original more modest stone structure which was rebuilt on a much larger scale by Soloman.
If the biblical record is accepted, there had been three generations settled in Israel before we hear of Solomans Temple and I find it difficult to believe that some temple structure wouldn't have been built as the centre of the new city soon after settlement.
Ramesses II may have used his army to loot most of the Middle East but equally must have spent vast sums on his grandiose building schemes. By the time Merneptah became Pharaoh there may well have been almost empty coffers,which possibly explains why Merneptah recycled a modest stone stela from the earlier dynasty rather than having a much larger inscription on a temple.
Working from fragments I don't suppose that there will ever be an explanation that will satisfy everybody.AT Kunene (talk) 10:00, 5 March 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Except we have nothing from that Temple to prove its existence yet (keyword being yet of course). Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie Say Shalom! 07:46, 20 March 2011 (UTC)

text: Kunene -- If you wanted to reply to my message of "12:15, 19 December 2010", then it would have been better to do so in the original thread.  And according to the Bible, before the time of David the site of the later Temple was the "threshing floor of Araunah" in a non-Israelite (Jebusite) city.  In the immediate pre-monarchy period, the main Israelite site of worship (again according to the Bible) was Eli's and Samuel's headquarters at Shiloh... AnonMoos (talk) 09:18, 13 April 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: The Bible is talking about something from over 400 years before the earliest known written instance of a biblical passage (the Silver Scroll amulet from 586 that was a portion of Deuteronomy). It isn't proof there was anything there at that time. Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie Say Shalom! 09:32, 13 April 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Not sure too exactly what you're trying to say -- according to the Bible, the later temple mount site was sanctified by associations with Abraham etc., but it wasn't under the control of Israelites until the time of David, and there was no Israelite temple there until the time of Solomon.  This is a few centuries after the time of the Merneptah Stele... AnonMoos (talk) 13:37, 13 April 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Oh, well I'm saying that the Bible just isn't a good source of info for what happened in the time of David (over 400 years before the earliest known written down passage of the Bible and 200 years after the Stele), and that we don't even have proof of the First Temple (which I said in the comment before). We don't know that Israelites didn't actually control Jerusalem (and yonder Mount Moriah) till the time of David. Of course the Bible is our only source of information even if it is most probably incorrect. I do also understand you're just saying what the Bible is saying and don't think you actually believe it. =p Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie Say Shalom! 16:06, 13 April 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Modification 

message: in the Merneptah Stele the Israelites are not depicted as Shasu, but wear the same clothing and have the same hairstyles as the Canaanites, who are shown defending the fortified cities of Ashkelon, Gezer, and Yanoam.
Which can be found in:
Stager, Lawrence E., "Forging an Identity: The Emergence of Ancient Israel" in Michael Coogan ed. The Oxford History of the Biblical World, Oxford University Press, 2001. p.92
Look at the stela, apart from the figures at the top there ARE NO DEPICTIONS at the stela. No Canaanites defending fortified cities. I have been looking for that book "Forging an Identity" and I can't find it. This is not as it should be, sources should be easy to find.
I have googled some time, and my best guess at this moment is that the battle pictures of Ashkelon etc. are at the Karnak reliefs. So I changed it. But still we need better sources, we also need high quality pictures of ALL markings on the Stela and at Karnak.Mismeret (talk) 10:08, 18 April 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Depictions at the Stela? 

message: "It is also, by far, the earliest known attestation of the demonym Israel." Wouldn't it be more accurate if this said  "It is also, by far, the earliest known attestation of the demonym Israelite." Because of the meaning of demonym this seems the appropriate word. Nitpyck (talk) 16:09, 17 October 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: The only problem with that is that the stele never mentions Israel. Its was mistranslated by William Steadman, Petries traslator in 1896. and its been repeatedly questioned ever since. For some reason Biblical archaeologists keep trying to treat the Egyptian as if it were Hebrew, substituting glyphs and ignoring the VSO word order which simply doesn't work.  without the y word ending from the previous word and the determinatives the gylphs cited as reading Israel read s:y (her) iA (ruin) when you go back to get the verb its inundation harvest renewal (made completely non existent)(verbal phrase) y as a word ending 142.0.102.15 (talk) 14:34, 6 July 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Israelite Israel 

message: :The only problem with that is that the stele never mentions Israel. Its was mistranslated by William Steadman, Petries traslator in 1896. and its been repeatedly questioned ever since. For some reason Biblical archaeologists keep trying to treat the Egyptian as if it were Hebrew, substituting glyphs and ignoring the VSO word order which simply doesn't work.  without the y word ending from the previous word and the determinatives the gylphs cited as reading Israel read s:y (her) iA (ruin) when you go back to get the verb its inundation harvest renewal (made completely non existent)(verbal phrase) y as a word ending 142.0.102.15 (talk) 14:34, 6 July 2015 (UTC)
thread_title: 2015

message: Looking at an image of the stele in The Oxford Bible Atlas, I don't see that the image of the "Israel" section is reversed. It IS the other way round to the transcription shown later. It seems to be on the second line up from the bottom and in the middle. Is this right? Myrvin (talk) 18:21, 1 April 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Mirror image? 

message: We can present attributed significant views, but we cannot come to conclusions about what reasonably follows. I need to read the recent revisions more carefully when I have time, but I'm not convinced that what I see represents the major current opinions well. Dougweller (talk) 17:45, 26 June 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  We cannot say "reasonably follows" 

message: For the recent article edit, when is this considered to end?  With the Persian invasion, or the Greek invasion, or the Roman invasion?  It would be nice to know... AnonMoos (talk) 04:52, 24 August 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: Good question. Hasel says "the only mention of this entity in Egyptian literature", which is technically even wider than in our sentence... My guess is it means Egyptian hieroglyphs. Oncenawhile (talk) 09:13, 24 August 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: By the way, on a related point, i'm working at the moment on an article which has been ignored for some years now - the Kurkh Monoliths. I believe they contain the only reference in cuneiform to the entity Israel. Oncenawhile (talk) 09:15, 24 August 2013 (UTC)
replies: text:  Ancient Egypt runs through the pyramid age and the 12th Dynasty to the first intermediate; The Persians, Greeks and Romans are Late Egyptian; Middle Egyptian is the half millenia for which Egypt was at war with Kadesh; generally the 18th and 19th dynasties.12.187.94.139 (talk) 18:15, 16 September 2013 (UTC)
thread_title: Ancient Egypt

message: I've promoted this article to 'B' class as it is well-referenced and supported by additional materials, and covers the history and context of the stele as well as describing the reasoning behind different translations. Once remaining tags are resolved and contributors are happy, I feel that the article has a strong chance of passing Good Article Review.
I've also rated it as 'mid-importance' for WikiProject Ancient Egypt, as it is supposedly the most famous find of Flinders Petrie, whose own article is rated as 'high-importance'. Please feel free to revise the importance rating up further if believed appropriate. — Sasuke Sarutobi (talk) 13:32, 9 January 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: I also think this article stands a good chance of passing a Good Article review. Oncenawhile (talk) 12:42, 10 April 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Promoted to 'B' class 

message: This article takes on a very skeptical tone to the point of inaccuracy - for example: "It is not clear, however, just who this Israel was or where they were located" distorts both the quotes referenced. 
The first reads: "while the Merneptah stele may indeed prove beyond doubt that shortly before 1200 B.C.E. Egyptian intelligence either encountered or was informed of an inimical "Israel" residing in the highlands of Palestine, and that it was considered significant enough to warrant inclusion in the only known campaign of Merneptah in this region, any attempt by biblical scholars to translate this practical category into the substantialist idiom of an internally homogeneous, externally bounded group which serves to demarcate the evolution of that singular, regulative and constituting cultural tradition identified textually and archaeologically as "Israel" simply cannot be sustained"...
First off, before this passage he gives a rundown of what other scholars think the stele says about "Israel" and comes to the conclusion that Israel is a "socio-ethnic entity" subsisting on agriculture in the highlands of Palestine. Nowhere does it say its not clear who and where they are, in fact he says the stele may prove these things beyond doubt. What he says "cannot be sustained" is the idea that that the Israelites are a homogeneous, clearly defined people with borders that correspond to the borders of the later Israeli polity- from what we know we cant relegate Mernephtah's Israel to a stage in the continuous cultural tradition of the Israel we know from the Iron Age. He's not saying we can't know anything about "Israel" for sure (since that's true for pretty much everything), he's saying we must be careful in our interpretation of what the stele implies. He must've meant "essentialist idioms", as in "they are Israelites so they must be X, Y, Z". Substantialism is related but humorously different. 
Going straight to the source - the quote continues "Yet, while the cognitive perspective outlined in this work may well offer resources for avoiding such analytical groupism by viewing ethnicity and indeed ethnic groups not as substances, but as collective cultural representations, my attention is necessarily drawn towards the political, cultural and psychological processes through which such categories become invested with groupness." Here it becomes evident that this book is not a history of Israel- it's a cognitive perspective on the formation of israelite identity. And not just Israel, he's interested in the cognitive basis of cultural constructs such as ethnicity in general. This source doesn't support what it references.
The next quote is:
"Assuming we have Merneptah's dates correctly as 1213-1203, and that the reading "Israel" is correct, the reference places an Israel in Palestine in the thirteenth century. The word read (probably correctly) as "Israel" also has a sign indicating a people and not a place. That makes the alternative reading "Jezreel" less likely — though Hebrew "s" and "z" could both be represented by the same Egyptian letter; also, since "Jezreel" is partly made up of the word for "seed", the inscription could be a pun by a Semitic speaking scribe. It might also be considered that Merneptah would find it easier to fight in the plain of Jezreel than in the highlands."
It says while the (probably correct) reading is Israel, it could in theory be Jezreel. Keep in mind that this quote is used to support the idea that even if it says israel we don't know what "Israel" is. The quote does not say that.
There's UNDUE weight on Jezreel in general: though its a minority interpretation, its also mentioned in Eissfeldt 1965 - "Unfortunately, even the supposed earliest mention of the name Israel in the triumphal hymn of Merenptah composed about 1230 b.c. does not provide any unambiguous answer to this question, for this name may also be explained as Jezreel." Maybe it did in 1965 but this theory has few proponents today- now that we've discovered a distinct material culture in the highlands of southwest Canaan contemporaneous to the stele.
This article rightly says the (vast) majority of scholars read the word as Israel- but fails to mention that the majority also interpret this Israel as related to Israel. There is no quote mentioning this. In fact the longest quotation in the whole article is of a biblical minimalist who believes the bible has no basis in history (and Jesus is a myth) yet has the nerve to say "to begin the origins of biblical Israel with Merneptah ... on the grounds that we have extra-biblical rather than biblical attestation is willful. These texts are, mirabile dictu, even less relevant than the biblical traditions [that I already think are irrelevant]" He's not exactly a neutral source. The belief that the whole bible is a lie is just as fanciful as the belief that the whole bible is truth. (just because it says "Israel" doesn't mean it's referring to Israel, it could refer to a region called Israel! Even though the hieroglyph for a people is used!) Of course none of these biblical minimalists would write a history of England without the Anglo-Saxon Chronicles. Anyway, I'm tagging relevant wikiprojects.--Monochrome_Monitor 22:11, 15 July 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: You're probably right. AnonMoos (talk) 14:00, 17 July 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: You make some interesting points MM. They will be even more interesting when you make them at the proper time which is not now! Please avoid all Jewish and Israeli-related subjects be till the agreed time is up. Don't test the boundaries here G ;) Irondome (talk) 17:52, 17 July 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Biased article 

message: This is not accurate: "The stela represents the earliest textual reference to Israel and the only reference from ancient Egypt.[4] It is one of four known inscriptions, from the Iron Age"
The other 3 inscriptions are proper Iron age as far as we know. The Israel Stele is still bronze age.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Coldcall (talk • contribs) 12:59, 4 July 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: The user who changed back your edit explained why into the edit summary: "The start of the Iron Age depends heavily on the region, thus a general explanation does not suffice as a source. You need a source specific to this region." To which I personally agree. There are multiple sources within the article claiming that the stele is datable to the Iron Age, thus you have to find other reliable sources claiming that it is still datable to the Bronze Age in order to add validity to your argument. Khruner (talk) 08:50, 20 July 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  1208 BCE described as Iron age?  

message: It would be a stretch of any imagination to say that this article is not biased. This has clearly been a problem for nearly a decade as anybody can see from reading the previous notes. This is a disappointing indicator of the general degradation of the quality of Wikipedia. Ikjbagl (talk) 02:19, 2 September 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: You haven’t even bothered to say in what way it is biased. This is an absolutely useless comment of yours to make that will not lead to any change in the article since no one can have any clue what your actual problem with the article is, let alone any suggestions for improvement or reliable sources supporting any changes to it. —OuroborosCobra (talk) 04:03, 2 September 2023 (UTC)

text: The majority of scholars with relevant expertise think it refers to the name "Israel".  Of course, this only "corroborates" the Bible in a very limited way.  Not sure exactly what you're referring to... AnonMoos (talk) 23:19, 27 November 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Heavily biased article