The Jerusalem Papyrus: Complementary Notations

by Dr. Christopher Rollston, George Washington University
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Introduction

Here are the readings of the editio princeps: [‘]mt. hmlk. mn‘rth. nblym. yyn. Yršlmh.
Translation of the readings of the edition princeps: [Maidse]rvant of the King, from N‘rth, (two) jars of wine to Jerusalem.

As the papyrus continues to garner attention, it is perhaps useful to convey certain additional reflections, especially with the release of the editio princeps (i.e., I have now received a copy of it and so can augment some of my reflections). I have also had some time to spend with a very fine high resolution image of the inscription.

Moreover, I should like to emphasize that I would be pleased for this papyrus inscription to be ancient, but the fact remains that forgeries have been produced in steady numbers during the past century (and much earlier), in a number of languages, including Greek, Latin, Hebrew, Aramaic, and Phoenician (for a synopsis of much of this data, see my “Forging History: From Antiquity to the Modern Period,” in _Archaeologies of Text_, eds. Morag Kersel and Matthew Rutz [2014], available on www.academia.edu). Therefore, vigilance should be the modus operandi of the entire field, as the great Joseph Naveh of Hebrew University often reminded us (e.g., his BASOR 247 [1982] article “Some Recently Forged Inscriptions,” his JNES 27 [1968] article “Aramaic Dubiosa,” and his IEJ 48 [1998] article with Israel Eph’al on the Moussaieff Ostraca) and as the great Frank Moore Cross reminded us (with his Orientalia 37 [1968] article on the forged Phoenician Inscription from Brazil and his IEJ 53 [2003] article on the Jehoash Inscription). Of course, the recent Gospel of Jesus Wife Papyrus forgery should also be instructive for all in the field.

On a different note, it should also be emphasized that we have many Old Hebrew inscriptions from First Temple Period Jerusalem, some of them particularly famous and especially important, such as the Siloam Tunnel Inscription, the Royal Steward Inscription (with N. Avigad’s masterful decipherment), the Ophel Inscription (see the list and full texts of inscriptions from Jerusalem in the volume entitled _Hebrew Inscriptions_ edited by F.W. Dobbs-Allsopp, J.J.M. Roberts, C.L. Seow, and R.E. Whitaker [Yale, 2005]. Furthermore, we have Mesopotamian inscriptions, such as the famed Sennacherib Prism, with its reference to Jerusalem and its King Hezekiah (r. ca. 715-687) during the 701 BCE siege of Judah. In addition, the city of Jerusalem is mentioned in a nice Old Hebrew inscription in stone from Khirbit Beit Lei (as Adam Bean and Nathaniel Greene have emphasized) that dates to the late First Temple Period. In other words, from inscriptions we know a lot about and from Jerusalem.

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(1) Carbon dates normally, of course, have a plus and minus range. In the media discussions of the Jerusalem Papyrus, there have been many references to an assumed secure 7th century carbon date for the papyrus….but this is too narrow…as it is without a stated plus and minus range. Important, therefore, is the fact that in the editio princeps of this inscription, a larger range is given (footnote 3, page 248), with a calibrated 2-sigma date being (756- 679 BC [34%], and 671-430 BC [61.4%]). Of course, this is indeed fairly important because it shows that the C 14 date for the papyrus is certainly not necessarily a 7th century date. That doesn’t necessarily change things all that much, but it is important, for a number of (fairly obvious, I think) reasons. Furthermore, Israel Finkelstein, Eric Cline, Benjamin Porter, and Felix Höflmayer have all drawn my attention to the fact that the “Hallstatt Plateau” is arguably to be factored in here…namely, according to the “Hallstatt Plateau,” radiocarbon dates of ca. 2450 BP (Before Present = 1950) consistently calibrate to ca. 800-400 BC, regardless of the measurement precision. The editio princeps of the Jerusalem Papyrus gives 2460 BP +/- 71. In short, the plateau is operative. Thus, it is quite problematic to suggest that the carbon date for the Jerusalem Papyrus is, and can only be, 7th century BCE. The plus or minus must be admitted to be considerably wider for the carbon date, arguably a couple hundred years.

(2a). The Restoration. A striking thing is that the authors of the editio princeps restore an ‘alep to get the word ‘mt (construct form of ‘mh, that is, “maidservant”). The assumption is that it was an ‘alep that was at the end of the preceding line (a few traces of that line are visible, so there was a preceding line, but *no* traces of an ‘alep are present at the end of that preceding line). The authors of the editio princeps do consider other options (noted on p. 241 of the editio princeps), but they settle on [‘]mt, that is, (the construct form of) “maidservant.” However, I would wish to emphasize that restorations are notoriously difficult things. Thus, without an initial ‘alep actually present, the restoration cannot be considered at all certain. Thus, and this is very important, this inscription might not be about “the maidservant of the King” at all, as the word maidservant is based on a restoration.

(2b) The Restoration Continued. In addition to positing a different letter or two that would result in a different noun (i.e., not “maidservant,” but some other nominal), it would also be possible to posit a verbal form (including even the root mwt, “die,” “dead”….which could make this inscription really interesting… although various other possibilities could also be posited). Again, though, that’s the problem with restorations….they are very uncertain, unless we’re dealing with highly formulaic language (e.g., a legal contract). And even then it’s not always easy. In this case, we do not have a highly formulaic text, and we have very little context, so I consider any particular restoration (whether it be ‘mh or something else) to be only a possibility.

(3a) Orthography and Lexicography. There are a couple of potential problems with the orthography in the Jerusalem Papyrus, the first one particularly concerning. Namely, regarding the words of the Jerusalem Papyrus nblym (with yod as an internal mater lections) and yyn, that is, “jars of wine” or “two jars of wine” (if the term for jar is understood as a dual, which is the way that the authors of the editio princeps wish to understand it), it must be conceded that the orthography of the inscription is problematic. After all, within Semitic languages, this construction (this juxtaposition of two nouns or nominals) is called a “construct chain” (i.e., x of y). And in Semitic construct chains (including Hebrew, Phoenician, Aramaic, Akkadian, Ugaritic, Ethiopic, etc.), the noun in construct takes the “construct form.” Sometimes there is no discernible difference (at least in the writing system), but when a masculine plural or masculine dual noun is in the construct form, the plural ending îm and the dual ending ayim (see Jouon paragraph 92 g on this) are replaced by the vowel ê (and, most importantly for our purposes) without the mem. That is, the mem is eliminated. Gone. Note, along these lines, that the very same expression is used in the Hebrew Bible, that is, “vessels of wine.” BUT in Standard Biblical Hebrew it is written: nbly.yyn (1 Samuel 25:18; for additional examples of the plural construct form of nbl “jar” in the Bible, see Job 38:37; Lam 4:2). That is, as is standard in Ancient Hebrew, no mem is present in the Biblical form (the yod in the biblical form is a mater lectionis). This is the way it worked in Ancient Hebrew. In essence, therefore, there is a serious orthographic problem (i.e., mistake) in the Jerusalem Papyrus inscription, and a rather large one at that: the word nblym is in construct and so there should be no mem (note that Ezekiel 47:4 and Numbers 9:20 are arguably corrupt; I am grateful to Jason Bembry for mentioning these texts to me) and arguably are reflective of a deep structure that is different from the context in the Jerusalem Papyrus. Of course, someone might posit that in the inscription we have a “frozen form” of some sort, but this would be a very strained argument to make, since we have the very same expression in Standard Biblical Hebrew and the mem is lost…just as it is supposed to be (across the Semitic languages). Someone might propose that although this syntactically like it should be a construct chain, it is not. But that is a really hard argument to make as this construction is basically a textbook case for a construct chain (and that’s the way Biblical Hebrew has it as well). Also, I suppose that someone might attempt to propose some sort of strained argument to account for the mistake in the Jerusalem Papyrus’s orthography, but I’m disinclined to embrace special pleading all that readily, especially in an inscription on papyrus (and thus ostensibly a first-class scribe). We do have some mistakes in inscriptions at times, but this would be a big one for an ancient scribe to make, and one that would be hard to explain for a *native speaker of Ancient Hebrew and a first-tier scribe (for as Professor Joseph Naveh has noted, papyrus was the medium that the most highly educated and gifted of official scribes would use). Conversely, this is the sort of mistake that someone might make if they didn’t know Ancient Hebrew all that well (note that Modern Hebrew often avoids construct forms…with the use of “shel” being a common substition in Modern Hebrew for something that would have been a construct form in Ancient Hebrew). In short, I consider this to be a howler of an error.

(3b) Orthography and Lexicography. It could be contended that the proposed reading (of the editio princeps of the Jerusalem Papyrus) of the place-name N‘rth is problematic. Note that the form in the inscription (i.e., the spelling in the inscription) is the same as that in Joshua 16:7. At first blush, this might seem good. But this may not be the case, once we look more closely at the context of Joshua 16:7. In the Joshua reference, this place-name has a directive heh on it (note the verb yrd “to go down” is present in the Joshua text, so a directive heh, with its semantic range of “direction toward” makes perfect sense). Note also that the standard dictionary of Biblical Hebrew (HALOT), as well as BDB, presuppose that the lexical form of the word in Joshua is n‘rh (so at the very least, the authors of the editio princeps differ with HALOT and BDB [p. 655] on the lexical form of the place name). Thus, the form in Joshua is a result of the presence of the directive heh (thus, again, BDB page 655). Significantly, the form in the Jerusalem Papyrus is preceded by the preposition min (with assimilation of the nun) and so the directive heh would not normally be used in Ancient Hebrew (as the directive heh signifies “direction toward,” not “direction from” and this is something the Rabbis noted long ago, when they reasoned that the directive heh stood in place of a prefixed lamed “to”…so Waltke and O’Connor, paragraph 2.1b, et passim). In short, in Ancient Hebrew, this place-name is N‘rh, and when the directive heh is attached, the form we have (as demonstrated by Joshua 16:7) is N‘rth. Thus, the form that should arguably have been in the Jerusalem Papyrus Inscription is N‘rh, not N‘rth (the “double feminization” line of thought is pretty strained). However, there are exceptions, with a small number of cases with both the preposition min and the directive heh (e.g., Jer 27:16 and Josh 15:10).

(3c) Orthography and Lexicography. In this connection, I should like to mention that, as both Jason Bembry and Joel Baden have emphasized to me (personal communication) that it is certainly possible to understand n’rth as meaning “his young (female) attendant” (i.e., n’rh [nfs meaning “female attendant,” “female maidservant,” etc.] with the 3ms ms possessive suffix….of course, it could also be a 3fs possessive suffix, but in this context, 3ms is more likely). In any case, if one accepts this lexcial understanding (i.e., a common noun, rather than a place-name), then the meaning of the text is certainly different from the way that the authors of the editio princeps understand it, and this understanding (i.e., the common noun) has the elegance of being a fairly common word and with orthography that is standard Ancient Hebrew.

(4) There are also some problems with the script…perhaps in part related to the morphology of some letters, but especially in the realm of the ductus of some letters (the term ductus refers to the number of strokes that form a letter, the direction of those strokes and the order of those strokes). I’ve spent a fair amount of my life looking through a microscope or jeweler’s loop at Old Hebrew ink-inscriptions from excavations. And I have some ductus concerns (forgers can often get the morphology of a letter pretty accurately, but they struggle more with ductus….because palaeographers don’t discuss it very much. As for ductus of some forgeries, I discussed this sort of thing in detail in Maarav back in 2003, with regard to the Moussaieff Ostraca and Jehoash Inscription, etc.). I will be discussing this in the journal article that is currently in preparation and will be in print during the spring of 2017.

Updated 2:30 eastern (Nov 2).

Sincerely,

Christopher Rollston

Here are some things to remember, as this Jerusalem Papyrus garners attention:

I. The fact that the papyrus itself has been carbon dated to the 7th century BCE certainly does not mean that the writing on the papyrus is ancient In fact, it really means nothing. After all, ancient papyrus is readily available for purchase online (check the web and see!), thus, no modern forger worth his or her salt would forge an inscription on modern papyrus. Rather, he or she would purchase some ancient papyrus online and then write a text on it. It happens fairly often (the Marzeah Papyrus is a good example of this, as is the Jesus Wife Papyrus). In short, for anyone to conclude that this (or any) inscription must be ancient because the papyrus is ancient is quite naïve (For similar statements about inks, see VII, below). Thus, Caveat Eruditus.

II. There are some palaeographic and orthographic anomalies and inconsistencies in this papyrus inscription that are concerning and may suggest that it is modern, not ancient. Thus, again, Caveat Eruditus.

III. Modern forgers often use sensational content….after all this *raises* the price and it *lowers* the critical thinking capacity of those who very much wish for something to be true (e.g., the Jesus Wife Papyrus, the James Ossuary, and Jehoash Inscription, Moussaieff Ostraca, etc.). The content of the Jerusalem Papyrus is certainly sensational…and it is ever so convenient that on this piece with so few words such sensational content was found.

IV. The Jerusalem Papyrus is from the antiquities market and it has been floating around on the market for a few years now. It was not found on an actual archaeological excavation. I saw some good images of it a few years ago in Jerusalem.

V. There are many modern inscriptional forgeries on the market, as I have argued in various publications, for some fifteen years now (most of these articles are available via www.academia.edu). The money that modern forgers and dealers can make on modern forgeries is astronomical, consistently in the five and six figure range. The motivation is strong. In this case, this papyrus was seized, but that does not mean that it could not have been produced in the modern period with the intent of marketing it.

VI. Forgeries are often reported to have “been found here, or there, at some specific location. This has been the case since long before the Shapira Forgeries of the mid to late 1800s. And it was the case with the Hebron Philistine Inscriptions, the Jehoash Inscription, the Ivory Pomegranate, the James Ossuary and so many others. In short, I’m sure that some story will surface about the purported “find spot” of this papyrus inscription. I would urge caution, though, as forgers and dealers have a strong vested interest in attempting to dupe.

VII. Regarding ink, it is also worth emphasizing, as I did long ago in my first Maarav articles on forgeries (2003, and 2004) that the chemical composition of inks has been the subject of study for some time (note, for example, that in the editio princeps of the Lachish Ostraca, published in 1938, there is reference to the chemical composition of the ink). Thus, forgers have the capacity to know that which they must replicate (in terms of chemical composition of the inks) for an ink to be the same, or virtually the same, in chemical composition to actual ancient inks. Furthermore, the core component of carbon-based inks is ancient carbonized remains….and such remains are readily available (e.g., on excavations and the antiquities market) in the form of burnt wood and so the capacity is present for faked inks to be produced in the modern period that yield an ancient C-14 date. Moreover, of course, a clever forger might simply purchase some ancient inscription on the antiquities market (e.g., one with mundane content and so not a high-value inscription) and then carefully scrape the ink from that inscription and then mix that (dry) ink with water and then use that ink in a ]modern-forgery with sensational content. Using such methods, a forged, modern inscription could pass all the lab tests. In short, this is a game of cat and mouse and modern forgers have substantial motivation for producing modern forgeries with ink that can “pass all the tests.” Again, caveat eruditus [NB: the material in this paragraph, that is, VII, was added on October 27, 2016, a day after my initial post].

VIII. In short, to those wishing to declare that the letters on this papyrus inscription are ancient, I would say: ‘Not so fast!’

IX. Ultimately, I believe that there is a fair chance that although the papyrus itself is ancient the ink letters are actually modern…that is, this inscription is something that I would classify as a possible modern forgery.

X. Recently, I signed a contract with Eerdmans Publishing for a volume (almost entirely completed at this time) entitled _Forging History in the Ancient World of the Bible & the Modern World of Biblical Studies_. The Jerusalem Papyrus inscription will be in that volume…

Dr. Christopher A. Rollston, George Washington University

Introduction:

Tel Aviv University’s Epigraphic Hebrew Project is among the most innovative and important in the world, with the collaboration of scholars from the hard sciences, epigraphy, and archaeology. During recent years, a number of seminal articles have been published as part of this project. Very recently, an additional multiple-author article has appeared in PNAS (April 2016). This article is entitled “Algorithmic handwriting analysis of Judah’s military correspondence sheds light on composition of biblical texts.” I have served as a consultant on Tel Aviv’s Epigraphic Project and find the project to be particularly important, productive, and auspicious. I am not among the authors of this article, but I find the technology, hard sciences, and mathematics in the article to be especially impressive. At this juncture, I shall summarize the salient components of the PNAS article, some of the conclusions of the article, and then I shall offer some sober reflections.
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I. The Tel Aviv University Study, the Postulates, the Conclusions:
The Tel Aviv study is based on an innovative an important algorithmic analysis of sixteen ostraca (i.e., ink inscriptions on broken piece of pottery called potsherds) from the Judean fortress of Arad. The English publication of the Hebrew-language Inscriptions from Arad appeared in print in 1981 (Aramaic inscriptions were also found there, but from a later period). The volume is entitled Arad Inscriptions, authored by Yohanan Aharoni (Jerusalem: The Israel Exploration Society). The Hebrew inscriptions in this volume number 112 (this includes ostraca, inscriptions incised into pottery, and seals).
(1) The Tel Aviv University study published in PNAS analyzed the following ostraca: 1,2,3, 5, 7, 8, 16, 17, 18, 21, 24, 31, 38, 39, 40, and 111. (2) The Tel Aviv study presupposes that all sixteen of these inscriptions were written ca. 600 BCE (pages 2-3). (3) Based on the analysis of the handwriting on these sixteen inscriptions, the authors stated that they “deduce the presence of at least six authors” in this group of sixteen ostraca (page 1). (4) The authors of the PNAS study believe that some of these ostraca were “most likely” composed at Arad (e.g., Ostraca 31 and 39) and some were probably dispatched from other locations (e.g., Ostraca 7, 18, 24, 40). Within the abstract it is stated even more emphatically. Namely, “our algorithmic analysis, complemented by the textual information, reveals a minimum of six authors within the examined inscriptions. The results indicate that in this remote fort literacy had spread throughout the military hierarchy, down to the quartermaster and probably even below that rank” (page 1). (5) Because Arad was a military fortress and there are some named military officials, the authors posit that there must have been “a proliferation of literacy” at this time period (NB: the term “proliferation of literacy” occurs numerous times in the article), that is, around 600 BCE. (6) Part of their reasoning is based on the fact that there were similar fortress sites at places such as Tel Malhata, Lachish, Horvat ‘Uza and so from this they contend that by “extrapolating the minimum of six authors in 16 Arad ostraca to the entire Arad corpus, to the whole military system in the southern Judahite frontier, to military posts in other sectors of the kingdom, to central administration towns such as Lachish, and to the capital, Jerusalem, a significant number of literate individuals can be assumed to have lived in Judah ca. 600 BCE” (page 3-4). (7) The authors then argue that “the spread of literacy in late-monarchic Judah provides a possible stage setting for the compilation of literary works. “ The authors concede that “biblical texts could have been written by a few and kept in seclusion in the Jerusalem Temple, and the illiterate populace could have been informed about them in public readings and verbal messages by these few.” But they contend that “widespread literacy offers a better background for the composition of ambitious works such as the Book of Deuteronomy, and the history of Ancient Israel in the Books of Joshua to Kings” (page 4). (8) Ultimately, the authors conclude that by ca. 600 BCE, therefore, all of this “implies that an educational infrastructure that could support the composition of literary texts in Judah already existed before the destruction of the First Temple” (586 BCE).

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II. Rollston’s Reflections
A. There has been sufficient inscriptional evidence for some time from the world of ancient Israel to contend that already by 800 BCE there was sufficient intellectual infrastructure, that is, well-trained scribes, able to produce sophisticated historical and literary texts. Indeed, I argued for this a decade ago in a detailed epigraphic article (Rollston 2006), and I was not the first epigrapher to do so. Moreover, among the most important recent monographs discussing scribal education in ancient Israel, within the broader context of the ancient Near East are those of David Carr (2005), Karel Van der Toorn (2007), Seth L. Sanders (2009). And long before this, the subject of schools and literacy in ancient Israel was the object of much discussion in scholarly literature, with Hermisson (1968), Whybray (1974), Lemaire (1981) being among the most enduring. Reference could also be made to the work of D.W. Jamieson-Drake’s work (1991), although a number of scholars have discussed the serious problems with the data and the assumptions that served as a foundation for that volume. And, of course, I would wish to emphasize the careful and enduring work of the great James Crenshaw on the subject of scribal education in ancient Israel (1985; 1998). In short, the subject of writing and literacy in ancient Israel and Judah has a long history within the field. As for my own work, the main point for which I have contended is that we have sufficient epigraphic evidence to demonstrate that there was detailed, sophisticated, standardized education in the Old Hebrew writing system (script, orthography, hieratic numerals, phonology) in ancient Israel and Judah. And the evidence for that is already present by ca. 800 BCE (Rollston 2006; 2008; 2010; 2012). For this sophisticated scribal apparatus, I used the term “intellectual infrastructure” during a presentation in Jerusalem during May of 2013 (now forthcoming 2016). I believe that the cumulative epigraphic evidence from sites such as Kuntillet Ajrud, Beth Shean, Tel Rehov, Arad, Samaria, Jerusalem, Lachish, Horvat Uza, Tel Ira, and Beer-Sheva is compelling. And epigraphs in Phoenician, Moabite, Aramaic, Ammonite, and even Edomite augment the Old Hebrew data substantially. More recently, I have discussed scribal curriculum in Old Hebrew in some detail (2015; forthcoming 2016). Thus, the first point that I would wish to make regarding the PNAS study is that with its date of ca. 600 BCE, this study is too conservative. I would contend that we have such evidence already two hundred years prior to this. As an ancillary note, I should like to emphasize that I am not arguing here arguing that this or that portion of the Bible hails from a particular place and time (that is a separate, longer discussion, of course, because of the long transmission history of much of the biblical material), although I concur with the consensus of the field that the late 7th and early 6th centuries were periods of substantial literary productivity in Judah. But most importantly, to reiterate, I am contending that the epigraphic evidence at hand demonstrates rather nicely that there were educated scribes in Israel and Judah by the late 9th and early 8th centuries BCE and that these scribes were capable of writing fine historical and literary texts. Thus, in sum, as for the PNAS article, I would say (with some good-natured humor and a turn of phrase), “I see your 600 and raise you 200” (i.e., to ca. 800 BCE).

B. The authors of this study contend that all sixteen of the ostraca they analyzed were written around 600 BCE. However, the original excavator (Yohanan Aharoni) argued that some of these ostraca (i.e., the ones studied in the PNAS article) came from stratum VI (e.g., 1-24, etc.), some from stratum VII (e.g., Arad 31, 38, 39), and at least one (Arad 40) from stratum VIII (Aharoni 1981). In other words, the original excavator argued that the sixteen ostraca used in this study were from three different chronological horizons, not one. That is, the original excavator believed that these ostraca definitely did not come from the same time-frame, but rather during the course of ca. a century. There has been a substantial amount of discussion regarding the stratigraphy of Arad (especially Z. Herzog 2002, 3-109) and even Aharoni noted that some of the inscriptions were found in loci that he viewed as mixed or unclear (see Aharoni 1981, 181-185 for a loci-table and also his discussion in the body of the volume for all the ostraca). I conversed with Professor Ze’ev Herzog about Arad about the stratigraphy of Arad VI and VII a number of years ago (namely, 1998), as I wished to see strata VI and VII as contemporary. At that time, he emphasized to me that these were separate strata, sequential, not contemporary. That is not to suggest that there is a vast expanse of time between these two strata, as there is not, but the point he emphasized was that stratum VII and VI were sequential, not contemporaneous. In terms of absolute dates, Aharoni dated the Stratum-VII destruction to ca. 609 BCE and the Stratum-VI destruction to ca. 586 BCE. As for stratum VIII, the dates for it have been much discussed as well. Aharoni argued that Stratum VIII-destruction was ca. 701 BCE (during the punitive campaign of Sennacherib against Judah). Some would wish to push the date a little later, of course. In any case, Arad Ostracon 40 is one that Aharoni considered to hail from Stratum VIII. Nadav Na’aman (one of the authors of the PNAS study) has argued that Arad Ostracon 40 is to be associated with the ostraca from Arad VI. His reasons are as follows: (a) “No eighth century letter written on a potsherd has been discovered in any site in Palestine….it seems that writing letters on pottery began only in the seventh century BCE.” (b) “the orthography indicates a relatively late date, with internal matres lectionis for ‘yš (lines 7-8) and yhwd[h] (line 13).” (c) “Epigraphically, the letter [Arad 40] has many parallels with both Stratum VIII and VII-VI ostraca…” (d) “The situation described in the ostracon closely matches the reality of the late years of the Judahite monarchy.” (e) In addition, Na’aman suggests that “Malkiyahu, the recipient of the letter [Arad Ostracon 40] is possibly the same officer Malkiyahu the son of Zerabu’ur, who led troops to Ramat-Negev according to Ostracon 24 from Arad” (Na’aman 2003, 199-204). The authors of the PNAS article embrace Na’aman’s view (see footnote on page 3, and note also that the authors of the PNAS study are also very much aware of the difficult stratagraphic history of Arad and the secondary literature discussing it). I would suggest that a fair amount of Na’aman’s reasoning is potentially problematic. (a) Thus, regarding epistolary texts in the ancient Near East, I would emphasize that this is a very old practice, centuries older than even the oldest Levantine alphabetic texts. That is, letters were around in the ancient Near East for a very long time. Moreover, using potsherds as a medium for writing alphabetic texts is also well attested long before ca. 600 BCE, of course. I would be cautious, therefore, about arguing on the basis of an absence of an epistolary ostracon, that we should date Arad 40 to the early 6th century (i.e., Stratum VI). (b) The usage of internal matres lectionis in Old Hebrew inscriptions does increase during the late 7th and early 6th centuries, but the fact of the matter is that we do have the usage of matres lectionis in Old Hebrew inscriptions already by the end of the 8th century, with the Royal Steward Inscription from Jerusalem being a prime example (Rollston 2006, 63-64). (c) As for the script, I find some of the forms in Arad 40 to reflect a time-frame prior to the late 7th or early 6th century. In short, I do not see a compelling palaeographic reason for dropping the date of Arad 40. (d) Judah was in a difficult political situation from the reign of Ahaz (d. ca. 715 BCE) to the assassination of the Judean Governor Gedaliah (sometime shortly after the fall of Judah in 586 BCE). And Edom was a alive and well in the region for much of this period, as the two-volume magnum opus edited by Thomas E. Levy, Mohammad Najjar, and Erez Ben-Yosef demonstrates (2014). Therefore, I find it difficult to assume that the only time during the final century of the First Temple Period that Edom could have been a nemesis for Judah was ca. 600 BCE. (e) As for the personal name Malkiyahu, note that Na’aman used the word “possibly.” That’s important. Moreover, a quick look at the Hebrew Bible reveals that some eight people have names based on this root, and I’m confident that there are more (if I looked harder). In short, this is not a rare name. So to assume that they are the same person is…well…an assumption that might be erroneous. Note in this connection Lawrence Mykytiuk’s foundational work on personal names, a work that reminds us all of the importance of having at least a shared name and a shared patronymic (or some other inscribed feature, such as the same title, etc., etc.) for any attempt to suggest some sort of identification between two individuals (2004). And, of course, in Arad Ostracon 24, we have reference to someone called Malkiyahu son of Zerab’ur, but in Arad Ostracon 40 we have reference simply to Malkiyahu (with no patronymic). That’s a problem for anyone attempting to posit a certain, or near-certain identification. Note, therefore, that because papponymy (naming after a grandfather) was a very common practice in the ancient Near East (including Israel and Judah), one could make a decent case that the Malkiyahu of Arad Ostracon 40 is the grandfather of the Malkiyahu of Arad Ostracon 24, with the former being a well-known patriarch of the family. Although this might (and I repeat, *might*) account for most of the data that we have (including the fact that in the case of Arad 40 we do not have a patronymic but in Arad 24 we do), I am disinclined to speculate. After all, without a patronymic, and with names based on the root mlk being fairly common, it is simply too problematic to argue that these two are definitely the same person. So, I won’t. In this too, therefore, I must differ with the authors of the PNAS study.

C. As for the contention of this Tel Aviv Study that we can posit a “proliferation of literacy” at ca. 600 BCE, based on the assumption that there are at least six different hands in the sixteen ostraca that were analyzed, I would simply suggest that this is a very broad assumption that I would not be inclined to make. After all, the assumption of the PNAS study that all of these ostraca come from ca. 600 BCE is difficult to embrace (see discussion above). Furthermore, in reality we do not know how many of these ostraca might, or might not, have been produced at the site of Arad. Compare, however, some of the assumptions of the Tel Aviv study (e.g., page 3, and footnote). That is, from my perspective, there is nothing in the content of these ostraca that make it at all compelling to state that any were definitely produced at Arad. After all, even lists could have come from elsewhere. That is not to say that there were not readers and writers at Arad. There were. After all, that’s where the ostraca ended up. But the origin-point is not something that can be ascertained on the basis of the data at hand. Thus, rather than arguing on the basis of sixteen ostraca (that ended up at Arad) that we have a “proliferation of literacy,” I would simply conclude that we have some readers and writers of inscriptions at Arad. That’s all we can say. Who were these readers and writers at Arad? I would emphasize that these writers may very well have been scribes associated with the army. After all, we do have references in the Hebrew Bible (e.g., 2 Kings 25:19; Jeremiah 52:25) to the “scribe of the leader of the army” (and I find this title to be something that can be considered a credible, historical thing). In addition, I do think that it is reasonable to contend that some military officials (at various levels of the command structure) could read and write, and I have noted this in print as well. But, I would wish to emphasize that we do not have evidence for enlisted soldiers, that is, the average soldier, reading and writing. We have evidence for some literacy among some of the army officials. That’s what I think we can say. Furthermore, although this study does not suggest this, per se, some have already seized upon it (within hours of the appearance of this study!) and begun to contend that we have people from all walks of life writing and reading in First Temple Judah. That’s quite a leap. I would, therefore, emphasize that we have no evidence for the common folk writing and reading, not from the epigraphic record and not from the Bible (see especially Ian Young’s articles on literacy, 1998a; 1998b). I’d like to be able to state that there were carpenters who built houses by day and read papyri manuscripts at night. And I’d like to say that there were blacksmith’s shaping metal over a furnace during the day and penning contracts at night. And I’d like to be able to say that there were potters turning pots on the wheel by day and writing alphabetic acrostics by the light of olive-oil lamps before dawn. And I’d like to say that there were shepherds guarding their flocks by day and writing out parchment king-lists by night. But I can’t. We have no inscriptions with content that causes us to think that people from these vocations are producing or consuming texts (on some poorly written texts, by people with little training, see below). Some might counter that we seem to have so many more inscriptions from the late First Temple Period and so we must assume the proliferation of literacy. I would counter that we also have a growing population and thus a burgeoning governmental apparatus during the late First Temple Period, and so we have a need for more professional scribes and literate elites. Governments need scribes and literate officials. And as government grows, so does the number of scribes. That’s fine, but it does not mean that we can assume that the general populace (people from all walks of life) is reading and writing texts. Furthermore, since we have a growing population in Judah, even though we have more scribes and literate officials, it could be argued that the percentage of the population that is literate stays about the same. Also perhaps of some consequence regarding readers and writers in antiquity, we actually have a Jerusalem scribe in the early 2nd century BCE who notes that scribes were reading, writing, traveling, and solving riddles….but the average person was simply not able to do such things (Sira 38:24-39:11). It is reasonable to posit that this was even more the case during the First Temple Period.

D. To be sure, most people contemplating the subject of literacy today bring their own experiences to the table, namely, the widespread literacy of the modern world. But in the modern world, we normally have government mandated education of (for all practical purposes) the entire population. Things were very different in antiquity. We have no evidence at all of government mandated education of large portions of the populace in antiquity. So what do we have? We know that scribes and high governmental officials (temple, palace) and military officials read and wrote. Did some of the trades-people sometimes learn to write? I suppose so. But was it common? No, I don’t think so. Furthermore, note that we have several hundred Old Hebrew inscriptions from the Iron Age that are very well done, with a sophisticated knowledge of letter morphology, stance, orthographic conventions, the use of hieratic numerals, knowledge of epistolary conventions, some understanding of phonology, the ability to use effectively different tenses, parts of speech, and to do so very well. I’d like to suggest that everyone could do that, but I can’t. And, in fact, when someone without formal, standardized education attempted to write an Old Hebrew inscription (or any other ancient script), it is painfully obvious. And we do have a few inscriptions to prove that! In short, much as it pains me to say it, the writers in readers of texts in ancient Israel and Judah were elites, not the common person. In essence, the common person could get along just fine in life without learning to read or write (see Rollston 2006, 48-49 regarding the time it takes to learn one’s first writing system, even an alphabetic one).

Conclusion:

So, in sum, the Tel Aviv Epigraphic Project is scintillating. The technology and talent that the authors of this PNAS article bring to the table is unmatched anywhere in the world. But the sociological conclusions about the “proliferation of literacy” in Judah is not something that can be posited on the basis of this study. The methodology is stunningly important, but I would wish to see more caution regarding the conclusions.

__

Citations
Aharoni, Y. Arad Inscriptions. Jerusalem: The Israel Exploration Society, 1981.
Carr, D.M. Writing on the Tablet of theHeart: Origins of Scripture and Literature. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005.
Crenshaw, J. L. “Education in Ancient Israel.” JBL 104 (1985): 601-615.
_____. Education in Ancient Israel: Across the Deadening Silence. New York: Doubleday, 1998.
Faigenbaum-Golovin, S.; Shaus, A.; Sober, B. ; Levin, D.; Na’aman, N.; Sass, B.; Turkel, E.; Piasetzky, E.; Finkelstein, I. “Algorithmic handwriting analysis of Judah’s military correspondence sheds light on composition of biblical texts.” PNAS Early Edition (April 11, 2016): 1-6.
Jamieson-Drake, D.W. Scribes and Schools in Monarchic Judah: A Socio-Archaeological Approach. JSOTSup 109. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1991.
Hermisson, H. J. Studien zur israelitischen Spruchweisheit. WMANT 28. Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener, 1968.
Herzog, Z. “The Fortress Mount at Tel Arad: An Interim Report.” Tel Aviv 29 (2002): 3-109.
Lemaire, A. Les écoles et la formation de la Bible dans l’ancien Israël. OBO 39. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1981.
Levy, T. E., Najjar, M., Ben-Yosef, E., eds. New Insights into the Iron Age Archaeology of Edom, Southern Jordan: Volumes 1-2. Los Angeles: Cotsen Institute of Archaeology Press, UCLA, 2014.
Mykytiuk, L. J. Identifying Biblical Persons in Northwest Semitic Inscriptions of 1200-539 BCE. SBLAB 12. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2004.
Na’aman, N. “Ostracon 40 from Arad Reconsidered.” Pp. 199-204 in Saxa Loquentur: Studien zur Archäologie Palästinas/Israels, Festschrift für Volkmar Fritz zum 65. Geburtstag, eds. C. G. Den Hertog, U. Hübner, S. Münger. Münster: Ugarit-Verlag 2003.
Rollston, C. A. “Scribal Education in Ancient Israel: The Old Hebrew Epigraphic Evidence.” BASOR 344 (2006): 47-74.
_____. “The Phoenician Script of the Tel Zayit Abecedary and Putative Evidence for Israelite Literacy.” Pp. 61-96 in Literate Culture and Tenth-Century Canaan: The Tel Zayit Abecedary in Context, eds. R. E. Tappy and P. K. McCarter, 2008.
_____.Writing and Literacy in the World of Ancient Israel: Epigraphic Evidence from the Iron Age. SBL Archaeology and Biblical Studies, 11. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2010.
_____. “An Old Hebrew Stone Inscription from the City of David: A Trained Hand and a Remedial Hand on the Same Inscription.” Pp. 189-196 in Puzzling Out the Past: Studies in Northwest Semitic Languages and Literatures in Honor of Bruce Zuckerman, eds. M. J. Lundberg, S. Fine, W.T. Pitard. Leiden: Brill, 2012.
_____. “Scribal Curriculum during the First Temple Period: Epigraphic Hebrew and Biblical Evidence.” Pp. 71-101 in Contextualizing Israel’s Sacred Writings: Ancient Literacy, Orality, and Literary Production, ed. Brian B. Schmidt. SBL Ancient Israel and Its Literature, 22. Atlanta: SBL, 2015.
Sanders, S. L. The Invention of Hebrew. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2009.
Toorn, K. van der. Scribal Culture and the Making of the Hebrew Bible. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2007.
Whybray, R.N. The Intellectual Tradition in the Old Testament. BZAW 135. Berlin: de Gruyter, 1974.
Young, I. “Israelite Literacy: Interpreting the Evidence, Part 1. VT 48 (1998a): 239-253.
_____. “Israelite Literacy: Interpreting the Evidence, Part 2.” VT 48 (1998b): 408-422.

A Woman’s Seal and a Man’s Seal from First Temple Jerusalem Excavations

By Dr. Christopher A. Rollston, George Washington University (rollston@gwu.edu)

Introduction:
The announcement of two Iron Age seals from Jerusalem is most welcome. These were found on scientific excavations that have been conducted in Jerusalem by Drs. Doron Ben-Ami, Yana Tchekhanovets, and Salome Doron. The photos of the seals that have been released are those of Clara Amit, courtesy of the Israel Antiquities Authority.

I. The Broader Context of the Jerusalem Seals

Seals were part and parcel of the economic and legal activities of the people of the ancient Near Eastern world, particularly the elites. Seals would be used in cases, for example, of the purchase or sale of something of substantial value (e.g., land, precious metals), or in the case of a marriage, or divorce, or adoption (etc.). Within Iron Age Israel, Judah, Moab, Ammon, Edom, Phoenicia, Philistia, and Syria, stamps seals were very commonly used. Many seals have been found on scientific excavations in these regions. Most of these seals are quite round and have about the same diameter as a small coin (although they are thicker than coins). Most were made of attractive, and sometimes rare, stones (incised with a sharp incising tool, made of metal). Most seals have holes drilled through them so that a string (“cord”) could be attached to them. Some were attached in antiquity to a ring, and on rare occasions (such as tomb contexts), the seal and ring are found together. Seals with words inscribed on them are called “Epigraphic Seals.” Seals without words inscribed on them are called “Anepigraphic Seals.” Seals with imagery (e.g., animals, people) on them are called “Iconic Seals.” Seals without imagery are called “Aniconic Seals.” Some seals have words and imagery, some just imagery, some just words. Seals are often divided into “lines.” Each line is referred to as a “register.”

There are some particularly nice references to seals and sealing practices in the Hebrew Bible. Among the most detailed descriptions is the one contained in the book of Jeremiah, a prophet of the late First Temple and early Exilic Periods. Within this biblical text (Jeremiah 32), the prophet is said to have purchased a field from a kinsman of his, in the tenth year of Judean King Zedekiah (ca. 587 BCE, just as Jerusalem was about to fall to King Nebuchadnezzar II of Babylon). Jeremiah is said to have signed a deed of purchase, in the presence of witnesses. There were two copies of this deed (both probably written on papyrus), one the “open copy” and one the “sealed copy.” The open copy would normally be retained for rapid reference and would often have been kept by the purchaser (or a close associate). The sealed copy, however, would normally be archived, often in the house of a scribe, or in an archive of a palace or temple. The sealed copy was the binding legal copy and would only be opened if and when there was some reason to verify in a decisive legal fashion the fact or the nature of the agreement (e.g., purchase, or sale, or marriage, or adoption, or divorce, etc.). In any case, the sealed copy would be rolled up or folded up, and a string would be wrapped around it and then a small clump of wet clay would be attached carefully and precisely to the string, and then the parties to the agreement would press their seals into the clumps of wet clay (the result would be an impression of the seal in the clay, the impressed clumps of clay are referred to as “bullae,” sing: “bulla”). The seals would serve as proof of the event (e.g., purchase, sale, marriage, divorce, adoption). Note that seals are normally incised (i.e., made) in mirror image, so that when they are impressed into the clay, the resulting image is positive (i.e., in the correct orientation). Within the narrative of Jeremiah, the prophet Jeremiah gives both the sealed copy and the open copy to Baruch ben Neriah for safe keeping.

II. The Readings of the Two New Jerusalem Seals

The first seal reads (Register 1): L‘lyhnḥ; (Register 2): bt. g’l. Translation: (Register 1): Belonging to ‘Elyhnḥ; (Register 2): daughter of Go’el. As is customary for seals, this seal (and the other one) begin with the letter lamed, that is, the “Lamed of Ownership.” The first personal name on this seal (i.e., on the first register) consists of two morphemes: ‘ly and hnḥ. Note that it is also arguably possible that the yod (y) is to be associated with the second morpheme (as a marker of the imperfect tense), rather than the first. In any case, the first morpheme is from the root meaning “to be high” and is associated with a number of personal names and divine names (e.g., the personal name ‘Eli in Samuel and the divine name ‘Elyon, for example, in Deut 32:8-9, et passim). The second morpheme is arguably that of the root nwḥ, in the Hiphil stem. From this verbal root come various names, including the personal name Noah of Genesis (Gen 6, et passim) and Samson’s father (Manoah, Judg 13). At this time, I would suggest that an acceptable translation of this personal name on the seal is something such as “God Most High has brought rest.” The second register begins with the standard word for daughter, that is, bt. Although this is not the first seal of a woman to be found, such seals are always of substantial importance because they were, and thus are, quite rare. The second personal name (G’l) is the standard word for “Redeemer” (e.g, a kinsman redeemer). This root is well attested in the Hebrew Bible. For example, Boaz is referred to as a kinsman redeemer (e.g., Ruth 3:13, et passim), because he functioned as a kinsman redeemer for the land and family of Elimelech. In the case of this seal from Jerusalem, that same root word is used as the basis of a personal name. Of course, the putative linguistic symmetry of the two verbal roots for the personal names on this seal is quite nice, with the first personal name referring to “bringing rest” and the second root revolving around the semantic realm of “kinsman redeemer,” (cf. Ruth 1:9, with Naomi’s statement that she hopes her daughters-in-law could find “rest” (nwḥ) in the house of a different husband, after the death of Naomi’s two sons).

The second seal can be read (Register 1): LS‘ryhw. b (or LS‘dyhw b); (Register 2): n.Šbnyhw. Translation: (Register 1): Belonging to Sa‘aryahu (or Sa‘adyahu), so- (Register 2): -n of Shebnayahu (with the word for “son” beginning at the end of the first register and concluding at the beginning of the second register, as is fairly typical at times in seals). The more difficult aspect of this seal is the proper reading of the fourth letter of the first register. The apparent morphology of the head of that letter in the published photo is strongly suggestive of a dalet, rather than a resh (because of what appears to be a slight overlap over of the head). But the length of the stem of that letter is more suggestive of a resh. To be absolutely certain of the reading (i.e., of the morphology of this letter), therefore, I’d prefer to be able to look at this under a microscope myself. Perhaps I can do that soon, permissions permitting. In any case, for the sake of argument, I will discuss both potential morphemes (i.e., of the reading dalet and of the reading resh) for the personal name on the first register. For S‘r, the lexeme is arguably the one that has the basic meaning “to visit, inspect, conduct affairs,” or the lexeme “heavy gale, high wind, to drive away, to blow away.” I slightly prefer the former lexeme, if the reading resh is accepted. Conversely, for the reading S‘d, the lexeme is arguably the one meaning “support, strengthen.” The presence of the yahwistic theophoric is also to be noted, as this is a nice marker of a Judean personal name, something that makes sense in a Jerusalem context, of course. The personal name of the second register (Shebnyahu) is attested in the Hebrew Bible and in the epigraphic record. For example, within Isaiah and Kings (Is 36:3; 2 Kgs 18:18, etc.), there is reference to an official state scribe during the time of Hezekiah (r. ca. 715-687 BCE) as Shebna (a shortened form of the same name on the seal; for additional references to this personal name, see Neh 9:4; 10:5, 12:14, etc.). Epigraphic references include the Old Hebrew Arad Inscriptions (e.g., Arad 27, late 7th/early 6th centuries BCE) and arguably the Royal Steward Inscription of Jerusalem (late 8th century BCE). In terms of meaning, some have suggested that the tri-literal root of this personal name means something such as “to come near, close.” Perhaps.

III. Script, Language, and Date

The script of both of these seals is the standard Old Hebrew script. The script of both seals is nicely done, certainly the work of a trained seal maker (for an important reference in Second Temple Jewish Literature to a seal-maker, see especially Ben Sira 38:27). I have seen some suggestions by some scholars that the script of the ‘Elyhnḥ Seal might be Ammonite. This is definitely not the case. The script of both of these seals is Old Hebrew. Note in particular the stance of the bet (on both seals), reflective of the standard recumbent stance of the Old Hebrew, rather than Ammonite. Regarding the date, I would contend that a date in the late 8th century or early 7th century BCE is the best palaeographic date. Regarding language, it can be said that the language of both of these seals is Old Hebrew, and, of course, the presence of the (Judean) Yahwistic theophoric on the Ben Shebnyahu Seal argues for this as well. Finally, I should also like to emphasize that the reason it was quite rare for women to have seals was not because, as some have apparently suggested, because of the “generally inferior economic status of women.” Rather, I would contend that it was because ancient Near Eastern societies (including that of the Iron Age Levant) were patriarchal. For this reason, men were normally responsible for most of the agreements that would require the sealing of documents. There were certainly some exceptions, as reflected in the lofty narratives about Job’s daughters (Job 42), the daughters of Zelophehad (Num 27), and the Noble Wife (Prov 31). But the biblical and epigraphic evidence converge to suggest that men were the normal brokers of agreements requiring sealed documents.

In sum, these two seals are Old Hebrew. They are both well done, the work of a well-trained seal maker. The palaeographic date that I would assign to them is that of the chronological horizon that spans from the late 8th century to the early 7th century BCE. The Yahwistic theophorics are predictable, but still important. The fact that one of these seals is that of a woman demonstrates that she was a very prominent woman indeed, someone who must have engaged in business and legal activities that necessitated her owning a seal. This is most impressive and certainly the most important component of these new finds.
Christopher A. Rollston, George Washington University (rollston@gwu.edu)

By Dr. Christopher Rollston, George Washington University (Washington, DC)

INTRODUCTION:

Myth Number One: Forgeries are Rare. Actually, forged inscriptions are quite common. In fact, people have been forging inscriptions for a very long time. True, recent decades have witnessed many modern epigraphic forgeries, coming on the heels of many notable forgeries during the late 19th century and early 20th century (Rollston 2003; Rollston 2004; Vaughn and Rollston 2005; Rollston 2005). But epigraphic forgeries are attested not just during the modern period, but also during the Middle Ages, and even earlier, with some of the earliest forgeries hailing from ancient Mesopotamia and ancient Egypt (Rollston 2014), and with ancient Christians producing scores of modern forgeries as well (Ehrman 2012). During the past 140 years, most forged inscriptions were sold on the antiquities market.

Myth Number Two: Forged Inscriptions are Easy to Detect. Some forgeries are of low quality and easy, therefore, to detect, but some are so good that they have fooled some of the best scholars in the world (for discussion, see Rollston 2003; Rollston 2014).

Myth Number Three: There was just one Jesus. Actually, this was a fairly common name in the Second Temple Period (i.e., the time when Jesus of Nazareth lived). In fact, within the New Testament, there are at least five people with the name Yeshua (Jesus): namely, Yeshua (Joshua) the successor of Moses (e.g., Acts 7:45); Jesus son of Eliezer (Luke 3:29), Jesus Barabbas (Col 4:11), a resident of Cyprus named Bar-Jesus (i.e., son of Jesus, Acts 13:6) and Jesus of Nazareth. Second Temple Jewish literature contains references to many additional people with this name. Significantly, therefore, even if the entire “James Ossuary Inscription” were ancient, there would be no guarantee that it belonged to the brother of Jesus of Nazareth. For that to be the case, there would need to be a more specific descriptor, something such as “the brother of Jesus of Nazareth,” or “the brother of Jesus who is called the Messiah.” Since we do not have that sort of data for this inscription caution is required.

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GENERAL COMMENTS ON THE JAMES OSSUARY

The James Ossuary was not found on a scientific expedition. Rather, it was pillaged from the ground and sold on the antiquities market. Thus, there is no reliable chain of custody for this ossuary. There are no photos of its discovery. There is no means of ascertaining the number of bones that were placed in this ossuary. Moreover, it should be remembered that the bones of multiple people were placed in a single ossuary at times (regardless of whether there was no name inscribed on the ossuary, or just one name, or two names, etc., etc.), and so even if some bone fragments were still in this ossuary, it would have been impossible to determine whose they were. Of course, because the James Ossuary was not found on a scientific expedition, and because the chain of custody cannot be determined with any certainty (because it has been in the hands of antiquities dealers and antiquities collectors), and because antiquities dealers sometimes place some bones in one ossuary that came from a different ossuary, to attempt to discern anything from any bone fragments in the James Ossuary would be fruitless. After all, without a clear chain of custody, forensic medicine is not at all decisive.

THE SCRIPT OF THE JAMES OSSUARY

The script of the first half of this inscription /Y‘qwb br Ywsp/ reflects distinct depth and clarity. In addition, kerning (quite common in this period) is present. However, the second half of the inscription /’hwy d yshw‘/ is not carved with the same depth, clarity, and kerning. Because of camera angle and lighting (as well as shadowing), some photographs capture this rather well. Personal collation confirms that there is indeed a distinct difference in depth, clarity, and kerning between the first and second halves the inscription. Compare also the predominant consistency of the depth, clarity, and kerning of some of the longer ossuary inscriptions (e.g., Rahmani 70 Lid, Plate 11 [deep with kerning, slight reduction in size because of space constraints]; Rahmani 80 Lid, Plate 13; Rahmani 370 Lid, Plate 52 [light incising throughout]; Rahmani 430 Rim, Plate 62 [deep incising and kerning throughout]; Rahmani 560 Lid, Plate 80 [consistent depth and clarity]; Rahmani 796 Front, Plate 116 [light incising throughout]. Cf. Rahmani 12 Lid, Plate 2 [with “signature” not as deep, etc.]; Rahmani 893 Front, Plate 135 [reduction of depth and size, arguably an issue of centering].

Most Tenable Conclusion: Two Hands, with the words “James son of Joseph” written by one person and “Brother of Jesus” (i.e., brother of Yeshua) written by another person. However, based just on the script, it is tenable to suggest that (a) the hands are both ancient; or (b) the second hand is modern; (c) the entire inscription is modern and the forger was not assiduousness enough in forging. Within the fields of biblical studies, hermeneutics of suspicion have been invaluable. In my opinion, it is prudent to retain such hermeneutics with this market inscription as well, as it is the “brother of Yeshua” component (written in a different hand) that arguably makes this ossuary financially valuable. I should note that I have heard it suggested that “there is no logical reason for someone to add ‘brother of Yeshua’ to this inscription.” However, I can think of a million (financial) reasons for a forger to have done so. Of course, someone might retort that this assumes the modern forger would have *known* that this would make it valuable. I would think a forger would certainly know this. Someone might further retort that Golan did not know this reading until he was told and so would not have added it. I would suggest that any forger worth his salt would *want* epigraphers to *believe* that he did *not* know how significant this addition might be. It is a very savvy technique.

LAB REPORTS.

The Geological Survey of Israel performed SEM-EDS analyses on the patina of the “Ya‘akov Ossuary” (Rosenfeld and Ilani 2002). The results showed that the patina is composed mainly of CaC03 (93%) and contains Si – 5.0%; A1 – 0.7%; Fe – 0.3%; P – 0.4%; and Mg – 0.2%. The report notes that there are no modern elements (such as modern pigments), and the patina adheres firmly to the stone. Again, this is valuable information, but it is imperative that one not conclude or assume, on the basis of this evidence, that this entire inscription is ancient. Rather, this test simply demonstrates that this object need not be disqualified on the basis of anomalies in the chemical composition of the patina. It certainly does not authenticate the patina. Indeed, the report implicitly concedes this point with the words: “no evidence that might detract from the authenticity of the patina and the inscription was found.” This is an important and honest assessment; however, it must be noted in the strongest possible terms that the absence of certain anomalies in the chemical composition of a patina is not the same as a demonstration of the antiquity of a patina. Note, however, that subsequent laboratory tests were performed and problems with the distribution of the patina were noted (Ayalon, Bar-Matthews, Goren 2004).

CONCLUSIONS:

Forgers continue to produce some very sophisticated forgeries. These are sold on the antiquities market. High quality forgeries can and do sell for tens of thousands of dollars, sometimes even hundreds of thousands of dollars. The James Ossuary was not found on a scientific expedition, but rather appeared mysteriously and was sold on the antiquities market. The chain of custody for this ossuary and its inscription cannot be known. The second half of the inscription on this ossuary (i.e., the part that says “brother of Jesus”) is the part that would potentially make this ossuary worth some money. Dramatic claims required decisive evidence. In the case of the James Ossuary, we simply do not have that caliber of evidence. Indeed, I consider (at least) the second half of the James Ossuary Inscription to be a probable modern forgery, not an inscription that can be said to be an ancient inscription connected with the brother of Jesus of Nazareth. I wish that this inscription could be said to be entirely ancient and I wish that it could be said that it is certainly to be connected with the brother of Jesus of Nazareth. But the evidence supporting this conclusion is simply too tenuous, alas.

SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY

Ayalon, A., Bar-Matthews, M., Goren, Y. “James Ossuary. Journal of Archaeological Science 31 (2004): 1185-1189).

Ehrman, B. Forgery and Counter-Forgery: The Use of Literary Deceit in Early Christian Polemics. Oxford University Press, 2012

Rollston, C. “Non-Provenanced Epigraphs I: Pillaged Antiquities, Northwest Semitic Forgeries, and Protocols for Laboratory Tests.” Maarav 10 (2003): 135-193.

Rollston, C. “Non-Provenanced Epigraphs II: The Status of Non-Provenanced Epigraphs within the Broader Corpus of Northwest Semitic.” Maarav 11 (2004): 57-79.

Rollston, C. “Navigating the Epigraphic Storm: A Palaeographer Reflects on Inscriptions from the Market.” Near Eastern Archaeology 68 (2005): 69-72.

Rollston, C. “Forging History: From Antiquity to the Modern Period.” Pp. 176-197 in Archaeologies of Text: Archaeology, Technology, and Ethics, eds. Matthew Rutz and Morag Kersel. Joukowsky Institute Publication Series of Brown University, Oxbow Books, 2014.

Rosenfeld, A. Ilani, S. “SEM-EDS Analyses of Patina Samples,” BARev 28 (Nov/Dec 2002).

Vaughn, A. and Rollston, C. “The Antiquities Market, Sensationalized Textual Data, and Modern Forgeries.” Written with Andrew Vaughn. Near Eastern Archaeology 68 (2005): 61-69.

The first time that I saw a good image of this papyrus (early fall of 2012), I was suspicious about its authenticity and told my wisdom lit class (which happened to ask about it one evening, during a class in the early fall of 2012) that I believed it to be a probable modern forgery….the ink and the script just didn’t look right to me. That’s still the way that I feel. I have worked in Sahidic Coptic for ca. twenty years, having studied it formally during my doctoral program and having taught it recently at the graduate level. Moreover, I’ve read pretty heavily in the Nag Hammadi Corpus as well. And Hellenistic Greek is also in my wheelhouse, as are ancient inscriptions in general.

As for the laboratory tests, the carbon tests on the papyrus demonstrate that the papyrus is ancient. That’s no surprise. Just as modern forgers of ostraca use ancient pottery sherds for their logia, so also a modern forger of a papyrus inscription would use some ancient papyrus (which, although certainly not as readily available as pottery, is still available….with or without ancient ink). It should be emphasized that papyrus was often reused (note the phenomenon of palimpsests) and so the putative date for the papyrus itself (prior to the Common Era) is not an important issue at all, neither for authenticity, nor against authenticity. It is an absolute non-issue. Also, the fact that the “ink” used on this is consistent with the chemical composition of ancient ink is also not necessarily evidence for antiquity. After all, the chemical composition of ancient “ink” has been known for some time and the chemicals available in antiquity are certainly still available today. Thus, the chemical composition of the ink is not necessarily an argument in favor of authenticity. Also, it is also possible for someone to scrape off (e.g., from a papyrus) ancient ink from the words of some mundane ancient inscription….and then add a little water to the dried ink which had been scrapped off and then resuse the ink. Some people (including some scholars) assume that modern forgers are not all that bright (and thus would not be that clever in forging something). In contrast, I believe that modern forgers (at least from the final quarter of the 20th century and on) are quite sharp…..and for good reason they try to be very clever: after all, there is much money to be made and modern forgers knows this….so, as for this piece, I remain very suspicious of its authenticity. Perhaps it’s ancient….but I doubt it.

I should also note that if it turns out that Jesus of Nazareth was married (i.e., if some good, credible, first century evidence comes to light at some point in the future and demonstrates this), that sounds fine to me. In other words, I have no theological objections to this sort of thing. My concerns about this papyrus (which is later than the first century CE anyway), are only epigraphic in nature. I have no vested interest one way or the other.

Sincerely, Christopher Rollston

THE JAMES (YA’AKOV) OSSUARY

The broadcast in its original airing may be viewed .

The Ninth Century ‘Moabite Pedestal Inscription’ from King Mesha’s Ataruz: Preliminary Synopsis of an Excavated Epigraphic Text and its Biblical Connections

Christopher A. Rollston
National Endowment for the Humanities Research Scholar
Albright Institute of Archaeological Research, Jerusalem
e-mail: Christopher.Rollston@gmail.com
____

Introduction

The site of Khirbet Ataruz is located in modern Jordan, on the ridge of Jebel Hamida, with Wadi Zarqa Ma‘in to the north and Wadi Wala to the south. Khirbet Ataruz is located some fourteen kilometers to the northwest of Dhiban. The site has been known for some time (e.g., Glueck 1939; Schottroff 1966; Timm 1980; Niemann 1985), but Chang-Ho Ji is the first to conduct full scale excavations at the site (Ji 2012). During the process of these ongoing excavations, Ji discovered a pedestal (arguably of an incense altar) with an inscription on it (cf. the inscribed incense altar from Mudeyineh, Dion and Daviau 2000). Significantly, the archaeological context for this inscription from Ataruz was an Iron Age II Temple, with a striking assemblage of cultic objects (Ji 2012; cf. also Finkelstein and Lipschits 2010; Finkelstein and Lipschits 2011).

Shortly after the initial discovery, Chang-Ho Ji requested that I analyze and publish the inscription and I accepted this gracious invitation. Moreover, because of the complex nature of this inscribed pedestal, particularly, the presence of several sets of hieratic numerals, I have since brought Stefan Wimmer and P.Kyle McCarter in to assist with the publication. The editio princeps will be completed during 2014, co-authored by the three of us, with formal publication probably appearing during late 2014 or early 2015 (e.g., ADAJ and also something such as Levant, ZDPV, BASOR, or Maarav). This preliminary synopsis, however, is something I have written, based primarily on the document that I previously submitted to the Department of Antiquities of Jordan when I agreed to publish it. I wish to express again my gratitude to the Department of Antiquities of Jordan and to Excavator Chang-Ho Ji for permission to publish it.

Prologue to the Discussion of the Ataruz Moabite Pedestal Inscription: The Mesha Stele and the Bible

The Moabite site of Atarot (Ataruz) is prominently mentioned in the Mesha Stele, along with several additional sites (Dearman 1989). Namely, after four lines of introductory material (including reference to King Mesha’s dedication in Qarḥoh of a high place for Kemosh, the national God of Moab; cf. 1 Kgs 11:7), King Mesha, son of King Kemoshyat, states that because Kemosh was angry with his land (Moab), he (Kemosh) gave the land of Moab into the hand of King Omri of Israel (r. 876-869). Mesha then continues, noting that Omri’s son (bn) succeeded him (Omri) and wished to continue to maintain hegemony over Moab, but Mesha rebelled. Several sites are selected for particular emphasis in this section of the Mesha Stele, notably Madaba, Atarot, Nebo, and Yahaṣ. Regarding the land of Madaba, Mesha states that “Omri had taken possession of all [the land] of Madaba, and he dwelt in it during his days and half of the days of his son, (around) forty years. But Kemosh returned it in my days.” Regarding the land of Atarot, Mesha states that “Now the people of Gad had dwelt in the region of Atarot for a long time, as the king of Israel had built Atarot for them [cf. Num 32]. But I fought against the city and I took it and I killed all the people of the city, (as) it was for Kemosh and for Moab. And I brought back from there the altar hearth…and I [drag]ged it before Kemosh in Qiryat. And I settled the Sharonites and the Maḥarites in it.” At that point, the narrative continues with Mesha’s conquest of Nebo, including its “seven thousand [Israelite] warriors, as well as male sojourners (grn), women, female sojourners, and young maidens.” All of these Mesha, “devoted to ‘Aštar of Kemosh.” Moreover, Mesha took from Nebo “the vessels of Yahweh and dragged them before Kemosh.” Regarding Yahaṣ, Mesha states that “Now the King of Israel had built Yahaṣ and he dwelt in it while he was fighting against me. But Kemosh drove him out from before me”(Rollston 2015). Much of the remainder of the Mesha Stele is devoted to the public works of King Mesha of Moab, coming on the heels of his military successes against the Northern Kingdom of Israel.

It should be remembered that the language of the Mesha Stele is Moabite, with the consistent use of the nun throughout this inscription to mark the masculine plural, thus, distinguishing the Moabite language from the Old Hebrew language (and also from Phoenician, etc.). Furthermore, the phonology of the Mesha Stele distinguishes it from the Aramaic language and from the Deir Alla Dialect (Garr 1985; Huehnergard 1989). That is, the Mesha Stele is written in the Moabite language and this is not something that can be disputed on linguistic grounds (pace Segert 1961).

Within the Hebrew Bible, there is a similar account of Omride hegemony over Moab and Mesha’s subsequent rebellion, with reference to (an annual) tribute from Moab to Israel of 100,000 lambs and the wool of 100,000 rams (2 Kgs 3:4-27). The Israelite account in Kings and the Moabite account in the Mesha Stele are different in some respects, though. (1) For example, the Israelite account states that Mesha rebelled after the death of King Ahab of Israel (r. 869-850 BCE), namely, during the reign of Ahab’s son, King Jehoram of Israel (r. 849-842 BCE), the brief reign of King Ahaziah of Israel (r. 850-849 BCE) not part of the equation. The Moabite account, however, suggests that this rebellion occurred after Omri’s death and, thus, during the time of Omri’s son (Ahab). (2) Furthermore, the Israelite account in Kings states that King Jehoram of Israel was successful in crushing the rebellion of Mesha (but with the human sacrifice of his [Mesha’s] son and the ensuing wrath of Yahweh or Kemosh precipitating an Israelite military withdrawal). However, the Moabite account in the Mesha Stele declares that Mesha was very successful in the rebellion against Israel and won major victories against Israel, regaining lost Moabite territory, and even gaining new territory. (1) The first difference (i.e., son of Omri in the Mesha Stele over against son of Ahab in Kings) is not necessarily much of a tension because the term “son” could be used in a broader sense to refer to a son or grandson of Omri (cf. also Rollston 2010, 52-55). Nevertheless, it is also possible that there is a real tension and that the Israelite account or the Moabite account got it wrong. (2) The second difference (the Israelite account claiming victory over Moab and the Moabite account claiming victory over Israel) could be understood as a demonstration of the fact that in the ancient Near East kings preferred to proclaim victories, regardless of the precise facts and actual outcomes. Note, for example, that both Ramesses II and the Muwatalli II claimed victory against the other in the Battle of Kadesh in 1274 BCE. Conversely, it could be that the Moabite account and the Israelite account are of different military episodes or different victories in the longer conflict. It should also be mentioned here that the events described in the Israelite account would be dated to ca. 849 BCE (i.e., the time when Jehoram was on the throne of Israel and Jehoshaphat was on the throne of Judah).

Finally, it should also be emphasized that the repeated campaigns of King Shalmaneser III (r. 859-825 BCE) of Assyria into the Levant during the middle of the 9th century (cf. Kurukh Monolith, Black Obelisk) arguably provided the Moabites with some relief from Israelite hegemony, probably contributing to some of Mesha’s military successes and public works. Of course, the Aramaic (Tel Dan; Biran and Naveh 1995) and Hebrew (2 Kings 8-9; cf. 1 Kgs 19:17) narratives about the deaths of King Jehoram of Israel and King Ahaziah of Judah around 842 BCE (and thus the usurpations of King Jehu of Israel and Hazael of Damascus) are also part of the broader tableau as well.

The Tell Ataruz Moabite Pedestal Inscription

The inscribed pedestal contains seven lines of text incised into the stone (of the pedestal). Four lines of the inscription are written along the vertical axis and three lines are written along the horizontal axis. This inscription was not written by one hand. The inscription is abraded in some places. Based on the morphology, stance, and ductus of the script, I date the writing comfortably to the 9th century BCE. It would be most difficult to date the script of this pedestal to the 8th century. After conveying my palaeographic date of this inscribed pedestal to Ji, he indicated to me that he dated the temple and its associated finds to the 9th century as well. Also of substantial import, Finkelstein and Lipschits also have indicated that the architecture of this component of this site dates to the 9th century (2010; 2011), and they have indicated to me (personal conversation) that the pottery and objects can be dated to this chronological horizon as well.

It should be emphasized that during the 9th century BCE, the script used to write inscriptions in the Moabite language was the Old Hebrew script, arguably a fact related to the hegemony of Northern Kingdom of Israel during the Omride period (Naveh 1987, 65; Rollston 2010, 54). Of course, this hegemony is something that King Mesha of Moab discusses in his stele. Nevertheless, the Moabite script developed further during succeeding chronological horizons into an independent national script, that is, the distinctive Moabite national script, something demonstrated very nicely by the script of the Mudeyineh Incense Altar Inscription (Dion and Daviau 2000; Rollston 2010, 62-63).

The Khirbet Ataruz Moabite Pedestal Inscription is written in the Moabite language. The linguistic markers in the Ataruz inscription correspond with those of the Mesha Stele. Most prominently and importantly, the masculine plural marker used in the Ataruz inscription is the nun, rather than the mem of Phoenician and Hebrew (and congeners). The fact that this inscription is written in the Moabite language is not surprising, based on the location of this site and the historical details about this site that are contained in the Mesha Stele (namely, Mesha of Moab conquered this territory, establishing Moabite hegemony). Of substantial importance in this inscription is the presence of some rather impressive hieratic numerals, some of which are particularly high in numeric value (in the thousands). Word dividers do occur in this inscription, as expected, but not with absolute consistency (this too is quite customary).

The structure of the initial line of the inscription is a hieratic numeral, followed by /mn/ and then an additional lexeme. A similar structure is present in line three and arguably (a truncated version) in line two as well. There are a finite number of possibilities for the semantic domains of the words that are present, but the brevity of the inscription does complicate the matter. In any case, the structure is numeric + mn + lexeme. Because this inscription was found in a temple context, I believe that it is reasonable to propose that the numeric refers to the amount of a commodity offered. The word /mn/ is arguably the prepositional morpheme “from” (I am less inclined to think that it is a reference to a “mina,” that is, a unit of measure). The prepositional /mn/ does not occur in all cases (it is clearly present in lines one and three). The lexeme following /mn/ can be understood to refer to the source of the offering. It is plausible to understand the source (i.e., the lexeme after the word “from”) as a person, a category of persons, a place (and there is some semantic bleeding and overlap with regard to these enumerated categories). In any case, the first line seems paradigmatic in this respect. The hieratic numeral is followed by “from” (mn) and after the word divider the consonants present are /‘brn/, with nun the masculine plural marker in Moabite. The lexeme after /mn/ in the first line could refer, for example, to a category of people “those across” (e.g., a wadi, or some geographic feature or territory), or a people group (e.g., “Hebrews”), or something such as an eponymous ancestor of a clan. Lexical and textual support can be found for all of these (e.g., Deut 32:49; Num 27:12 for the mountainous district in northwestern Moab and associated with Nebo; a Gadite chief mentioned in 1 Chr 5:13; and the common gentilic “Hebrews” attested in the Pentateuch, Deuteronomistic Literature, and the Prophets). As for the second line, there is a hieratic numeral and then the consonants /grn/, with nun arguably as the masculine plural marker (although /grn/ “threshing floor” must also be considered). It should be mentioned that /prn/ is also a possible reading (palaeographically), which could, of course, refer to a category of offering, “bull” or the like. I should note that reading a dalet here (instead of a resh) is not really plausible. The absence of the /mn/ “from” in such a terse text as this does not necessitate the supposition that the structure of this line is entirely different from the first line and third line, but that possibility must be considered. The fact that /grn/ (“sojourners”) occurs in the Mesha Stele is of some importance, of course. Also of import, line two is rather long and arguably contains the lexemes gdl (reading a /p/ for the first letter rather than a /g/ is palaeographically possible; note that I am disinclined to read the second letter as a possible /r/ because of the shortness of the stem) and šlm (with the various lexical possibilities for this sequence of letters, including those with the semantic domain of “pay,” and those with the semantic domain of “peace offering,” etc.). As for the third line, the preposition “from” recurs. The fourth line is difficult, but reasonably legible in the best of the photographs at our disposal. The final three lines of the inscription (or, one could argue, the first three lines of the inscription) are different in terms of formula, and perhaps most interesting mathematically. More precisely, in lines five and six, the formula is: hieratic numerals + /sh/ and /L/, arguably a shortened form of the word for sheqel. The seventh line contains /kl/ and then after this a hieratic numeral as well.

At this juncture, we now have access to additional (and better) photographic images of this important inscription and we will begin working in earnest on this text in the coming months. Kyle McCarter and I have most (probably all, I suppose) of the lexical and syntactic options on the table (not all of which are included here, of course) and Stefan Wimmer has reasonable and cogent readings for the hieratic numerals (and he is also a fine scholar of Northwest Semitic in his own right). Because this inscription hails from the period very shortly after Mesha’s conquest of the site (remember that the inscription is written in the Moabite language, a fairly diagnostic indicator of those controlling the site at the time of the production of the inscription, I believe), the inscription provides useful and important data for attempts to reconstruct the nexus of power in the second half of the 9th century. In addition, this inscription lends credence to the claims Mesha makes in his stele (e.g., his conquering of Atarot, etc.), something that may suggest that the materials in Kings about the victory of Jehoram over Moab were either legendary or short-lived, or about a slightly different chronological horizon. The reflections detailed here will not necessarily be those embraced in the final publication, but they do convey the interpretive contours that have been part of my preliminary reflections and will probably be formative for the final publication.

Basic Bibliography

Biran, Avraham and Naveh, Joseph.
1995 “The Tel Dan Inscription: A New Fragment.” IEJ 45:1-18.

Dearman, Andrew, ed.
1989 Studies in the Mesha Inscription and Moab. Atlanta: Scholars Press.

Dion, Paul E. and Daviau, P.M. Michèle
2000 “An Inscribed Incense Altar of Iron Age II at Ḫirbet el-Mudēyine (Jordan).” ZDPV 116: 1-13.

Finkelstein, Israel and Lipschits, Oded.
2010 “Omride Architecture in Moab: Jahaz and Ataroth.” ZDPV 126: 29-42.

Finkelstein, Israel and Lipschits, Oded.
2011 “The Genesis of Moab: A Proposal.” Levant 43: 139-152.

Garr, Randall.

1985 Dialect Geography of Syria-Palestine, 1000-586 B.C.E. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania.

Huehnergard, John.

1989 Remarks on the Classification of the Northwest Semitic Languages. Pages 282-93 in The Balaam Text from Deir ‘‘Alla Re-evaluated. Proceedings of the International 84 Symposium held at Leiden 21–24 August 1989. Ed. J. Hoftijzer and G. van der Kooij; Leiden: Brill.

Ji, Chang-Ho
2012 “The Early Iron Age II Temple at Khirbet Atarus and Its Architecture and Selected Cult Objects.” Pp. 203-221 and Plates 44-49 in Temple Building and Temple Cult: Architecture and Cultic Paraphernalia of Temples in the Levant (2m-1. Mill. BCE), ed. Jens Kamlah. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz.

Naveh, Joseph.
1987 Early History of the Alphabet: An Introduction to West Semitic Epigraphy and Palaeography. 2nd ed. Jerusalem: Magnes.

Niemann, Hermann Michael
1985 “Ein Statuettentorso von der Ḫirbert Aṭārūs.” ZDPV 101: 169-177.

Rollston, Christopher A.
2010 Writing and Literacy in the World of Ancient Israel: Epigraphic
Evidence from the Iron Age. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature.

Rollston, Christopher A.
2015 Northwest Semitic Royal Inscriptions: Writings from the Ancient
World. ed., Theodore Lewis. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature.

Schottroff, Willy.
1965 “Horonaim, Nimrim, Luhith und der Westrand des „Landes Ataroth“:
Ein Beitrag zur historischen Topographie des Landes Moab.” ZDPV 81: 163-208.

Segert, Stanislav
1961 “Die Sprache Der Moabitischen Königsinschrift.” Archiv Orientální:
29: 197-267.

Timm, Stefan
“Die territoriale Ausdehnung des Staates Isael zur Zeit der Omriden.” ZDPV 96: 20-40.

Wimmer, Stefan
2008 Palästinisches Hieratisch die Zahl- und Sonderzeichen in der althebräischen Schrift. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz.

This post is a draft of a selection from my (forthcoming) volume entitled, Forging History in the Biblical World: Textual Forgeries from the Ancient and Modern Middle East, Medieval Europe and the New World

…..

Professor Leopold Messerschmidt authored an article for Berlin’s Orientalistische Litteratur-Zeitung, a particularly prestigious German journal. The year was 1903. The article was about an inscribed piece of clay, about two inches in diameter, and round. The script of the inscription was written in ancient Hebrew, but poorly formed. Messerschmidt, however, could read it. He was a distinguished Semitist, well-known for his work in Assyriology, and with important contributions to the field of Hittite as well. The inscription was owned by Paul Mauersberger. He had purchased the inscription near a Jerusalem train, reportedly for a mere trifle. Quite understandably, he had brought the inscription to Leopold Messerschmidt because he wished for someone to read it.

The preceding decades had witnessed the production of hundreds of forged inscriptions, most from the antiquities market, but scores had actually been salted in archaeological tells. Shapira’s “Moabite Forgeries” were among the most notorious, but there were countless additional forgeries during the final decades of the 19th century. Therefore, caution was the modus operandi for most scholars, especially for those working on inscriptions in the languages such as Hebrew, Phoenician, and Aramaic, as well as for those working in Greek and Latin. Vigilance was mandatory. Messerschmidt had some concerns about the authenticity of this inscription, but he reasoned that it might just be ancient. He entitled his article “Fälschung?” (Messerschmidt 1903).

Because Messerschmidt was not a Hebraist, he contacted one of the most esteemed and prolific scholars of Northwest Semitic at the time, Mark Lidzbarski (1868-1928). Although still quite a young scholar, Lidzbarski had published the most authoritative collection of Northwest Semitic inscriptions, Handbuch der Nordsemitischen Epigraphik (1898), completed during his time in Kiel and still a useful compendium today. Lidzbarski had been born into an Hasidic Jewish family. His given name was Abraham Mordechai Lidzbarski, but he had converted to Christianity and so changed his given name. Lidzbarski’s verdict on Messerschmidt’s inscription was quite decisive: “Das Plättchen is nach meiner Ansicht sicher eine Fälschung,” a forgery modeled on the coinage of Hasmonean King John Hyrcannus (r. 134-104 BCE).

Although the inscription was brief, just five or six words on four short lines, Lidzbarski noted both palaeographic and orthographic problems. In fact, on this inscription the name “Yohanan” and “Jews” were both misspelled. Letters were grossly malformed. But Messerschmidt was not convinced that it was a forgery. After all, he wondered “why, if it were a forgery, would someone ever attempt to forge a coin out of clay?” And he also noted that this inscription was bought for a trifle. And in addition, its previous owner, the poor workman from whom Mauersberger purchased it, was not actually attempting to sell it. It was Mauersberger who initiated the sale. Do not these things, Messerschmidt asked, “gegen eine Fälschung zu sprechen?” That is, “Do these things not speak against it being a forgery” (Messerschmidt 1903, 241).

But even F.E. Peiser, the editor of the journal Orientalistische Litteratur-Zeitung in which Messerschmidt’s article appeared, appended a footnote at the bottom of the page on which Messerschmidt’s article concludes. Peiser succinctly and decisively states that “This clay disk is a part of a forger’s apparatus” basically, a modern mold which had been formed to produce forged metal coins. Messerschmidt, however, was not at all certain that Lidzbarski and Peiser were correct. Presumably his concern was that he did not wish to declare prematurely an important ancient inscription to be a modern forgery. In certain ways, some might reasonably suggest that his caution is commendable.

Charles C. Torrey of Yale University, however, was astounded that Messerschmidt might even attempt to consider this inscription ancient. Writing in the lofty Journal of the American Oriental Society, Torrey entitled his article “On a Palestinian ‘Forgery’” (Torrey 1903). He began his article with these words: “It is a disk of baked clay, about two inches in diameter, reproducing very clumsily and on a much enlarged scale a well-known coin of John Hyrcannus. Nothing more be said, of course, as to the value of this ‘antique’; it does not even deserve to be taken so seriously as would be implied in giving it the name ‘forgery.’”

Torrey then continues, however, writing that “The fact is, this is one of a class of objects not infrequently hawked about the streets of Jerusalem by certain vagabonds of a familiar type—half beggar, half rascal. The things are made by pressing clay into forms which some idler has amused himself by fashioning. The conditions which produce such works of art as this are a little spare time, a sense of humor, and the remote possibility of gulling some brother rascal, or perhaps even a tourist. It would take perhaps an hour to whittle out of wood such a form as the one from which this ‘coin’ was made. I have frequently been offered just such discs in Jerusalem, the would-be vender always accompanying his offer with a broad grin. One of these objects now in my possession (a clay disc, about two inches in diameter, pressed from a form) bears a representation of Eve and a serpent, with a few meaningless letters appended. Apparently there was never a thought of getting more than a few paras each for these ‘inscriptions.’ It is not surprising, then, that the native workman mentioned in this case did not show any great eagerness to turn his property into money.” Then Torrey concludes his article with this sentence, “As for this worthless Palestinian trinket, it is certainly a misuse of language to call it a ‘forgery’” (Torrey 1903, 209-210).

It would be permissible to suggest that Torrey’s retort is harsh. Indeed it is. But I suppose that it would also be permissible to suggest that Messerschmidt should have listened to Lidzbarski’s reasoned and detailed demonstration (all provided in a letter from Lidzbarski to Messerschmidt) that this inscription is a forgery of particularly modest quality. Messerschmidt, however, persisted. Often in the long history of forgery, Messerschmidt would have found good company.

Christopher A. Rollston
National Endowment for the Humanities Research Scholar
Albright Institute of Archaeological Research
Jerusalem

About one year ago, on 31 August 2012, the Huffington Post published an article of mine. The topic was the marginalization of women in the Bible. Little did I know then that the article would alter the course of my life. The article was the standard fare, heavily anchored in the actual content of the Hebrew Bible, with some reference to the Greek New Testament as well. And within the article, I was careful to note that there were some voices in the text of the Bible that attempted to push back against patriarchy. And I also noted that patriarchy was the norm not only in the Bible, but also within the ancient Near Eastern world in general. The Bible, therefore, was largely reflecting a predominant worldview of ancient times. The article concluded by affirming that the marginalization of women was a tragically common viewpoint and practice in the ancient world and that this viewpoint and practice is not something that should be perpetuated in the modern world. That is, the recognition of the importance of gender equality is a must. It’s probably important for me to mention, in the interest of full disclosure, that the subject of gender equality is not simply an academic tenet of mine. It’s personal. I have three daughters. I would like to believe that if I had three sons, I would feel just as strongly about gender equality. I think that I would and I hope that I would. But I must admit that when I think about this subject, the first thing that comes to my mind are my three marvelous daughters, no longer little girls, but confident and educated and broad-minded young women. Gender equality is part of their bone and marrow. And it is part of mine.

The weeks prior to the appearance of my Huffington Post article had been difficult. My mother had not been feeling well during the early summer of 2012 and tests revealed that she had cancer. The physicians could not localize it. Our entire family was very concerned, as are all families when heart-wrenching news like this comes down the pike. And it was so startling. My mother had always been one of the healthiest people I know, so strong, so active, so vibrant. During my youth, she had always worked the night shift at the local hospital, tending to patients day in and day out, month in and month out. And each morning, as she returned home from the hospital, she would often stay up, rather than attempting to sleep, preferring to continue to work throughout the day. Then, after dinner in the evening, she would sleep for a few hours and then return to the hospital each night to work with patients. She did this year after year. And my father modeled the same sort of hard work and kindness to all. And so when my brother phoned to tell me that our mother had cancer it seemed surreal, entirely impossible. Not mom. And at the same time, in terms of bad news, the financial situation at Emmanuel had continued to worsen during the weeks of the summer of 2012, with the faculty being notified by email that the situation was very serious. Not a few faculty members believed that the institution might not survive. I didn’t communicate much about Emmanuel’s financial woes to our daughters, believing that the news about their grandmother was enough. And I continued my normal schedule during the summer, doing some editorial work for Maarav, writing some, and delivering papers at the University of Michigan and at Brigham Young University.

On Labor Day weekend of 2012, we traveled to Michigan. My mother’s physician had scheduled exploratory surgery for mid-September. I wanted to see my mother. We walked the Mackinac Bridge on Labor Day, as we have often done and then drove to my parents’ home. The Huffington Post article had just appeared a few days prior to this. My mother and father were pleased with the article and they were proud of me. But they had noticed that Emmanuel’s Church Historian had been castigating me on facebook for the article. They were worried about this. I told them that I would not respond to him and that they should not worry about this. But I could see that they were. Although neither of my parents had the opportunity to go to college, they have tried to read most everything I have written. This has always meant so much to me, knowing that they were interested and supportive. And I was raised in a home in which religious dogmatism was absent. My parents are Christian, as am I, but narrowness about religion was not part of their world, nor mine. They have always focused most heavily on living kindly and justly. They have been great models. Needless to say, they had a hard time understanding the Church Historian’s desire to criticize the content of the article or the venue. Well, after a few hours, we said our goodbyes on the afternoon of Labor Day, and drove back home to Tennessee, arriving early the next morning. There was much on my mind. But I have always loved to teach and so I was still looking forward to getting back into the classroom for the Fall 2012 semester at Emmanuel.

A few days later, my phone rang. I couldn’t take the call at that moment. He left a message. It was someone I didn’t know. He said that he had found a German Shorthair and my name and number were on the collar. He’s been hit by a car, the young man said. It’s pretty bad. My heart sunk. Having grown up in rural Michigan, I have always loved dogs. And I had bred a litter of pups some two years earlier, and Tristan, the young German Shorthair, was mine. And I had trained him, and he drank from my bowl and slept in my bed. He was such a winsome and wonderful dog and he had carved a niche into my heart like no other dog had. After he was trained, I gave him to one of our daughters and she loved him as much as is humanly possible. He had been with her the whole time she was going through her master’s in Occupational Therapy. There was just something about that dog, his smile, his mannerisms. But Tristan was lighting fast…I should have named him Blitz…and in a heartbeat, he had gotten into the road. We rushed him to the University of Tennessee Veterinary Hospital. He was in very bad shape, but it looked like he would pull through the surgery, never quite the same, but still, he was going to make it, the Vet said. We were relieved. The days were long.

A couple days later, Emmanuel’s president sent me an e-mail. The first line of the e-mail said “Dr. Rollston, You may be aware that there have been some serious concerns expressed as a result of your Huffington Post blog.” He requested a meeting on September 19, with Emmanuel’s Dean and Emmanuel’s New Testament Professor present. I replied by indicating that I would be able to meet and I also requested that he put any concerns in writing. I was aware, of course, that Emmanuel’s Church Historian was very disturbed by the content of the article. The Church Historian’s father had been a famous trustee at Emmanuel and so I took the e-mail from Emmanuel’s President rather seriously. But I wasn’t entirely sure what to expect. A few years earlier, I had been criticized for a public lecture of mine at Emmanuel. Among other things mentioned as a criticism was the fact that I had stated in the lecture that the canonical gospels were anonymous. “Beauford Bryant” (a long-time Professor of New Testament at Emmanuel), one of the attendees declared “would roll over in his grave if he had heard someone from Emmanuel say that.” I had also suggested in the lecture, to the students who would soon be ministers and educators, that we have a religious obligation “to speak truth to power,” to be salt and light in the world. And I was critiqued for this as well, as the critic stated that I had drawn the term “speaking truth to power” from the Carey Campaign and that I was being political. Truth be told, Beauford Bryant was my teacher of New Testament and in his classes he also affirmed the anonymity of the canonical gospels. And the term “speak truth to power” was an expression I knew from the civil rights battles of the 1960s. I still have the e-mails with these sorts of criticisms, which I was given by those in power at Emmanuel, several days after the lecture. But this time, things were different, as the criticisms were coming especially from a fellow faculty member, the Church Historian, and in a very public way, social media. I was apprehensive, concerned.

On September 19th, the meeting occurred. Emmanuel’s President read me a written statement. It all seemed so formal, which is the way I think it was intended. Within his statement, the President indicated that some students had told him that my critical Introduction to the Old Testament course had created faith crises for them. My approach to courses has always been a “Bible in Context” sort of approach, and I have always used historical-critical approaches to the text, just as they had been used when I took the critical Introduction to the Old Testament under Robert Owens (during my time as an Emmanuel student). I have always believed that a sympathetic but honest approach to the Bible is best. It is the way that I had taught for a decade at Emmanuel. But as the President was reading his statement, I sensed that times had changed. And he also stated in his written statement that Emmanuel had (and this is a direct quote) “some potentially significant donors (one of whom is capable of regular gifts in the 6-figure range) who refuse to support Emmanuel because they regard your influence as detrimental to students….they will not support the school so long as you are teaching here.” Just a few weeks before this, Emmanuel’s (then) Dean had written a letter of recommendation for me for a fellowship. Within his letter he had written (and this is a direct quote), “As the Dean I am privy to the evaluations that students submit for their courses. Dr. Rollston regularly scores in the high to highest percentile in our curriculum. One of his courses is Old Testament Introduction, which is the first class that many students enroll in. As such, the class is usually our largest. Students report that this class changed their ways of thinking and dealing with the biblical text.” Within that letter, the Dean had also written that “Emmanuel is a small seminary, probably not widely known in higher education. Dr. Rollston has done more to build our reputation among other schools than any professor we have had for a number of years.” But none of this mattered now. The President continued reading his statement, he focused in heavily on my Huffington Post article. He reprimanded me for the content of the article and for writing it on a “secular website,” the Huffington Post. After finishing the reading of his statement, the President said: “You are going to have to resign or be fired.” I was quite taken aback. I did not see that coming. The President then said that on Friday (i.e., just two days later), the “Area Chairs” (Emmanuel’s faculty council) would meet to decide my fate, but the President made it clear that, regardless of the decision of the Area Chairs, he was moving forward with my termination. I had gone into that meeting with the thought that I would be told not to write for the Huffington Post again. I walked to my office quite stunned and saddened, not really knowing what to think. Emmanuel had no statement of faith which faculty were required to sign. And Emmanuel’s faculty handbook contained a strong statement on Academic Freedom, pulled verbatim from the American Association of University Professors. But, at the end of the day, none of that seemed to matter at all.

A few hours later that same day, my daughter phoned me, crying. The University of Tennessee had phoned her. Tristan, the German Shorthair, had taken a turn for the worst. We needed to go there. Before leaving for the University of Tennessee Veterinary Hospital, I went to our neighbor’s house to tell them that Tristan’s situation very bad. They have always been like family to us and I wanted them to know, so that they could phone our daughter. While in their foyer, I broke down into tears. I told them everything…about my mother’s cancer and her upcoming exploratory surgery and about the meeting that morning with Emmanuel’s President. They were tremendous, kind, supportive, as always. I left their home and drove to the University of Tennessee. We were able to see Tristan, but it was clear that the infection had begun to take over. It could not be controlled. They told us that he would need to be put to sleep. During the course of the next few hours, we said our tearful goodbyes to this precious German Shorthaired Pointer, and held him as life ebbed from his broken body. The drive home was the most somber and difficult of my life. Tristan was truly a member of the family and he was so young and now he was gone. Although I have always tried to be very open with my daughters, I did not have the heart to tell them about the meeting that morning with Emmanuel’s President. I wanted to spare them that news for as long as I could. After all, our oldest daughter was to be married in just three months, our middle daughter had just lost her beloved Tristan, and our youngest daughter was in her first semester of medical school…and on top of this, their grandmother had cancer, and was slated for exploratory surgery the next day to see if it could be localized. The surgery occurred. It was a Thursday. I was teaching an evening class at Emmanuel, Wisdom Literature. That evening, as I began to lecture, I had told the class that my mother was having surgery and that if my brother phoned me, I would need to take the call. He did phone. I took the call in the hallway. “Chris, they found the cancer. It is stage four.”

I cancelled the remainder of the class, pulled myself together and began to drive home. I have never been more discouraged, more demoralized, on so many levels, as I was at that time. As I was driving home, my phone rang. By this point, I was almost afraid to answer the phone, fearing that some more bad news was coming. I pulled off on the side of the road. On the phone was Heather Parker. She was at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, writing her dissertation. She had been a student of mine at Emmanuel. She knew that the Area Chairs would be meeting the following day to discuss the President’s ultimatum and my fate. She said, “Where can we meet you?” I replied “What? I can’t really hear you because of the road noise.” She said again, “Where can we meet you?” I said, “I’m afraid I can’t hear you very well. It sounded like you said ‘where can we meet you?’” She said, “I did say that.” Adam and I are driving into Johnson City from Baltimore and we’re almost to your house. Can we meet you there?” I was stunned. Adam Bean was also an Emmanuel alum and was at Johns Hopkins as well. Unbeknownst to me, Heather and Adam had been sitting in the Eisenhower Library at Johns Hopkins that morning and they were concerned about me. My research assistant at the time, Jack Weinbender had told Adam about the situation at Emmanuel and Heather and Adam wanted to be with me on Friday, when the Area Chairs met. So they had driven from Maryland to Tennessee to camp out in my office on Friday. Heather said, “It’s not just us. Adrienne Armes is coming over from Duke and will be here late tonight. She will be at your office tomorrow morning as well.” I don’t remember much about what we conversed about that Thursday evening at my house, but I remember that their presence was terribly consoling.

The next morning , camped out in my office were Adam, Heather, Adrienne, and my research assistant Jack. The coffee was brewing and someone had brought donuts as well. I know a lot about the events that occurred that morning in the meeting of the Area Chairs. Jason Bembry was representing the Old Testament Area (I had been the Area Chair of Old Testament for a number of years, but when Jason was promoted to full professor, he and I decided that it would be nice for him to be the Area Chair for the next term of two or three years) and he made a passionate defense of me and he was supported strongly by Samuel Kip Elolia, a senior theologian and the Area Chair for Theology at Emmanuel. Emmanuel’s Church Historian led the charge, but Jason and Kip stood firmly. Although not part of that meeting, Miriam Perkins strongly supported me as well. In fact, these three stood firmly with me through it all, even now, though everything is “water under the bridge” at this point.

As news of everything rippled through Emmanuel and Johns Hopkins, I phoned my beloved Doktorvater, Kyle McCarter. Kyle has always fulfilled the meaning of that beautiful German term….I could never ask for more from a teacher and friend. But Kyle was convinced that it was important for me to get a lawyer. Other senior scholars in the field echoed those same sentiments. Up to that point, I had never actually had a lawyer in my life. During the coming weeks, the painful saga continued. But I continued to teach my classes, putting everything I had into them, just as I had always done. And I attended and presented at the annual meetings of the American Schools of Oriental Research and the Society of Biblical Literature in November 2012. During the entire fall semester, and beyond, Emmanuel students and alums rallied around me. Ned Greene, an Emmanuel alum came and camped out in my office during his fall break at the University of Wisconsin, where he is a doctoral student now. Emmanuel alumnus Josh Covey came and spent three weeks at our house in order to help me renovate the kitchen entirely, new cupboards, new counter, new ceramic tile, new plumbing. And Jason Bembry rewired the kitchen. I felt that the house needed to be ready to go on the market. And former Emmanuel student Thom Stark wrote a methodologically sophisticated, cogent, and spirited defense of my Huffington Post article, and still other Emmanuel alums started a letter-writing campaign, with the hopes of swaying the Emmanuel Administration. And colleagues in the field sent letters to Emmanuel’s President and Dean, asking them to reverse course. And an army of bloggers took to the web to defend me, with the brilliant and indefatigable Robert Cargill leading the way. Kent Richards, the former Executive Director of the Society of Biblical Literature, provided wise counsel and encouragement. And Andrew Vaughn, the Executive Director of the American Schools of Oriental Research, wrote a letter of support for me to Emmanuel’s President and Dean. The American Association of University Professors wrote a letter to Emmanuel’s Dean and President, stating that my Huffington Post article was protected speech. And “Inside Higher Education” did an expose of Emmanuel’s actions. But the handwriting was on the wall. There was no way for me to stay, tenured though I was. My goal through it all ultimately became survival. Each day, I would tell myself that I just needed to put one foot in front of the other and to teach my courses. My research and writing basically ceased. The stress of it all was enormous.

The only thing that sustained me was the many kind and generous letters from students, former students, and colleagues around the world. To this day, I still re-read some of those letters and notes. And there were other positive developments. I think that it was sometime in October that Eric Cline contacted me. Eric and I have known each other for almost twenty years now. Eric said, “Chris, I’m going to try to get you a Visiting Professorship for the spring semester, if you are interested.” I said, “I am very interested. If you can put that together, I will happily accept.” By this point, I could see that my days at Emmanuel were very numbered. And Eric has always been a miracle worker and because of his influence and actions, George Washington University offered me a Visiting Professorship for the Spring 2013. Not long after Eric’s initial contact, Oded Lipschits contacted me to say that he thought Tel Aviv University could put together a Visiting Professorship for the Spring 2013 as well. He noted that I had much support at the University. Because Eric had contacted me first, I ended up accepting the offer from George Washington, my resignation from Emmanuel being final on December 31, 2012. To this day, and forever, I shall be grateful to Tel Aviv University and to George Washington University. I could never ask for better friends. The day that I announced publically that I would be teaching at George Washington for the Spring 2013 semester, Matthew and Sarah Wilson contacted me and said that they would like for me to stay in their guest room for the semester, such a generous act by two dear friends formerly from Emmanuel. During the spring semester at George Washington, I taught two courses, “Dead Sea Scrolls” and “Gods and Goddesses of the Ancient Near East.” It was a blissful and restorative period, with the students, faculty, and staff at George Washington being simply marvelous to work with. For that semester, I shall always be so very thankful. Thankful beyond words. And as the academic year concluded, I traveled to Jerusalem and presented a paper at the Institute for Advanced Studies of Hebrew University, making some new friends and meeting up with some old friends. Upon my return from Jerusalem, our family traveled to northern Michigan, as the Yencich Family offered the use of their cabin on a lake for a week, arranged in large part by Danny Yencich, a wonderful, bright, and generous Emmanuel alumnus…who has now moved on to do a doctorate at the University of Denver and Illiff. So, as the semester concluded, I had, and have, a deep sense of gratitude. The many acts of kindness of so very many…it was all quite overwhelming.

And during the Spring 2013 semester, I was notified that I had been selected for a National Endowment for the Humanities Research Fellowship at the Albright Institute of Archaeological Research in Jerusalem. I am so grateful for this opportunity. As I write this, I am preparing to leave tomorrow morning. During my time there I will be conducting research for a monograph on the subject of “Royal Assassination in the Ancient Near East,” focusing on Mesopotamia, Egypt, the Hittites, and the Hebrew Bible. I have long wanted to be able to spend a substantial block of time at the Albright and so I am very much looking forward to being there, from September through January. I am also finalizing a book manuscript on the history of textual forgeries from antiquity through the present, a continuation of a subject I have been working on for some time. The preliminary title is “Forging History.” And a volume I am editing entitled “Enemies and Friends of the State: Ancient Prophecy in Context” (Eisenbrauns) will soon be going to the publisher. And, of course, my work with Maarav continues as well.

So, as I attempt to be philosophical about this past year, I suppose that I am still fortunate. Our oldest daughter walked down the aisle in December 2012, with her mother, my wife, at her side (rather than me walking her down the aisle…this was my daughter’s idea, quite fitting at so many levels) and I performed the wedding. She is an ESL Teacher in an Elementary Ed School in Nashville. We are so proud of her. Our youngest daughter is now in her second year of medical school, having survived the first year so very nicely. She will be a fine physician. Of this I am certain. And not long ago, our middle daughter found a marvelous Chesapeake Bay Retriever, a source of joy and laughter for all. This daughter is now a full-fledged Occupational Therapist in North Carolina. I am so happy for her. And, although my mother shall never again walk without assistance, her jovial attitude and passion for life continue to be her hallmarks. At this juncture, I am not entirely certain about the distant future or the place at which I will teach for the long term, but I am content, at peace. And I am in preliminary conversation with some fine institutions, so there may be reason for at least some optimism. And at this very moment, I look forward to traveling to, and living for a time in, a city which has long been dear to me. This year in Jerusalem. Yes, this year in Jerusalem.