However, much of the initial media excitement about a supposed Eblaite connection with the Bible, based on preliminary guesses and speculations by Pettinato and others, is now widely described as "exceptional and unsubstantiated claims" and "great amounts of disinformation that leaked to the public".
[1] The tide turned after a bitter personal and scholarly conflict between the scientists involved, and an alleged interference by the Syrian authorities on political grounds.
[3] Pettinato, in a meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature in St. Louis on October 29, 1976, said that he had identified the names of Sodom, Gomorrah, and Zoar/Bela in the Ebla tablets, locations which are known from Genesis 14 of the Hebrew Bible.
[7] Many ancient Hebraic names that have not been found in other Near Eastern languages have been reported to occur in similar forms in Eblaite (Adamu, H'à-wa, Jabal, Abarama, Bilhah, Ishma-el, Isûra-el, Esau, Mika-el, Saul, David).
Also among Pettinato's claims, rituals like the release of a scape goat laden with impurities[8] in purification rites connected with a wedding and enthronement were immediately recognized as ancient Near Eastern parallels to Hebrew practice in the first millennium, recorded in Leviticus 16.
[18] On the other hand, both Archi (at first) and Anson Rainey,[19][20] have suggested that the -ya is actually a diminutive ending used in shortened forms of personal names, while Hans-Peter Müller has argued that the cuneiform sign NI should be interpreted in this case as an abbreviation for NI-NI (Sumerian: 𒉌𒉌) and read as í-lí which mean My God,[16] a view that Archi has since adopted with a modification, his reading of NI being íl (god).
[21] No list of gods or offerings mentions a deity by the name of Ya,[21][22] and the connection with Yahweh is largely rejected today by scholars.