An Altar on Ebal, or Gerizim?

"On the day when ye shall pass over Jordan… thou shalt set thee up great stones, and plaister them with plaister: And thou shalt write upon them all the words of this law." "Therefore it shall be when ye be gone over Jordan, that ye shall set up these stones… in mount Ebal… And there shalt thou build an altar unto the LORD thy God, an altar of stones: thou shalt not lift up any iron tool upon them."

Simeon, Levi, Judah, Issachar, Joseph and Benjamin stand on Mount Gerizim "to bless the people"; Reuben, Gad, Asher, Zebulun, Dan and Naphtali on Mount Ebal "to curse." The Levites cry out twelve curses, and all the people answer "Amen":

• "Cursed be the man that maketh any graven or molten image… and putteth it in a secret place."
• "Cursed be he that setteth light by his father or his mother."
• "Cursed be he that removeth his neighbour's landmark."
• "Cursed be he that maketh the blind to wander out of the way."
• "Cursed be he that perverteth the judgment of the stranger, fatherless, and widow."
• Four curses for sexual sins within the family and with animals.
• "Cursed be he that smiteth his neighbour secretly."
• "Cursed be he that taketh reward to slay an innocent person."
• "Cursed be he that confirmeth not all the words of this law to do them."

Ebal or Gerizim?

Many text critics think "Gerizim" is the older reading and that "Ebal" was introduced in the Jewish tradition as a polemic against the Samaritan temple: Ebal is the mountain of the curse, an odd place for an altar. Others think the Samaritan text changed "Ebal" to "Gerizim" to support its sanctuary, or that the original named no mountain. Michael Segal (2025) traces how the passage and Joshua 8:30–35 developed together. Neither reading should be called a simple copying slip, and no winner is declared here.

What archaeology has found

• Mount Gerizim: Yitzhak Magen excavated a large sacred precinct with thousands of inscriptions (Aramaic, Hebrew and Greek) and burnt animal bones. He dated its first phase to the mid-5th century BC; Jodi Magness (2025) questions whether the evidence securely establishes a 5th-century temple. The sanctuary was destroyed by John Hyrcanus around 110 BC.
• Mount Ebal: Adam Zertal (1980s) excavated an Iron Age I structure he identified as Joshua's altar. Others interpret it as a watchtower, farmhouse or a cultic site of a different kind; the identification remains contested.
• The Ebal "curse tablet": a small folded lead object found in 2019 by sifting debris dumped from Zertal's excavation. In 2023 Scott Stripling, Gershon Galil and colleagues announced that scans showed an early Hebrew curse naming YHW. A peer-reviewed response published in Heritage Science (2024) argued that the claimed letters cannot be demonstrated in the scans. The object's context is a secondary dump, and its inscription is unconfirmed.