BIBLE HISTORY DAILY

Promises and Pitfalls

Sensational inscriptions from the biblical world

From time to time, an ancient inscription or group of inscriptions is discovered that substantially illuminates the historical background of the Bible. Written records such as the Tel Dan Stele, the Moabite Stone, and the Dead Sea Scrolls have unquestionably improved our understanding of the peoples, places, and events mentioned in the Bible. We access these records by means of epigraphy, the study of ancient inscriptions.

Because of our insatiable appetite for new insights into the biblical world, we are always eager to learn any new details that expert epigraphers might be able to share. But this appetite for fresh insights can have a downside: it sometimes drives even the most learned experts to overstate, misrepresent, or mischaracterize what we can glean from newly discovered inscriptions. In his article “Too Good to Be True?” in the Fall 2024 issue of Biblical Archaeology Review, epigrapher Christopher Rollston offers three cautionary examples of sensational claims gone wrong.

Rollston’s first example is a roughly palm-sized stone fragment discovered in Jerusalem about two decades ago. Inscribed on the fragment are six letters in ancient Hebrew script, clearly part of some larger written text. The fragment’s antiquity and authenticity are beyond question, and based on the paleography—the shapes of the letters—the script can be dated securely to the late eighth or early seventh century BCE.

In recent years, however, some scholars have offered a sensational reconstruction of the inscription, claiming that it reads in full, “Hezekiah made the pool in Jerusalem.” They associate the text with King Hezekiah’s improvements and fortification projects at the end of the eighth century, in advance of the Assyrian siege in 701 BCE.

As reasonable as this may seem, it involves a whole series of assumptions. First, this reading requires that fully a dozen letters be restored—twice what is actually visible on the stone fragment—in order to complete the inscription, including the entirety of the Hebrew words for “made” and “Jerusalem.” Second, the letters that are visible are hardly conclusive with respect to the rest of the reconstruction. True, the name “Hezekiah” fits what appears in the text’s first line; but so do dozens of other possible names—and that’s assuming the visible letters reflect a personal name in the first place. The same can be said of the word “pool,” of which only the final two letters are visible: such a reading is plausible, but is hardly the only possibility. Thus, with this ancient inscription, the problem is simply that we don’t have enough information to propose such a reading with any certainty.

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A second instructive example is the supposed “curse tablet” from the site of Mt. Ebal in the West Bank. In 2022, a team of scholars announced the discovery and decipherment of a tiny 1-inch-square folded lead tablet, which they dated to the late second millennium BCE. Using sophisticated imaging techniques, the team was able to produce scans of the object’s interior, which they contend revealed a 48-letter inscription: “Cursed, cursed, cursed—cursed by the god Yhw [Yahweh]. You will die cursed. Cursed you will surely die. Cursed by Yhw—cursed, cursed, cursed.” This claim made significant waves as the scholarly community considered what it could mean with regard to early literacy in the region.

Problems arose with the publication of the “curse tablet” in 2023, however. The published images did not demonstrate the presence of any actual letters within the tablet; even the drawing produced by one of the epigraphers seemed to bear little or no correspondence to what was visible within the tablet. Before long, other experts began to refute the assertion that the object should be understood as an ancient inscription at all. One prominent scholar proposed instead that the “tablet” is simply a fishing net weight, with haphazard markings that do not amount to any form of writing.

The final example Rollston presents is an inscription that was discovered by a tourist on a visit to the important ancient site of Lachish in the Judean foothills. It is a small pottery sherd on which is a brief Aramaic inscription that reads “Year 24 of Darius,” the Persian ruler who was on the throne when the exiled Judean community returned to Jerusalem and built the Second Temple in the late sixth century BCE. Soon thereafter, in 2023, the Israel Antiquities Authority announced the chance discovery of the inscription. Laboratory tests purportedly confirmed the authenticity of the “Darius inscription.”

Just two days after the IAA’s announcement, however, the person who made the inscription came forward, describing how they had made this “ancient” object just a few months before, scratching the letters into the surface of the sherd as part of an on-site teaching exercise. The IAA was forced to issue a retraction and declare that the “Darius inscription” was not authentic.

In the field of epigraphy, our appetite for incredible material sometimes drives an unfortunate cycle of events: a scholar or two will make a sensational claim about a newly discovered ancient inscription; the media repeats the claim, often without sufficient vetting or caution; and the public is left to assume that this interpretation of the evidence must be correct. On the heels of such an assertion, even as more cautious scholars seek to treat the matter more judiciously, widespread fascination with this supposed new insight into the world of the Bible often takes hold in such a way that more reserved opinions never circulate with the breadth or fervor of the initial problematic assessment.

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For Rollston, at least, dramatic claims require compelling, reliable evidence, organized and presented by careful, circumspect scholars who work hard not to overstate the facts. Phrases like “the oldest,” “the first,” “the most important,” and the like should serve as red flags for popular audiences. “If it sounds too good to be true,” Rollston concludes, “it probably is.”

For more on these finds and the fraught interpretive discussions that have arisen since they came to light, read the article by Christopher Rollston, “Too Good to Be True? Reckoning with Sensational Inscriptions,” published in the Fall 2024 issue of Biblical Archaeology Review.

Editor’s Note: Christopher Rollston is a member of the Editorial Advisory Board of Biblical Archaeology Review.

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Subscribers: Read the full article, “Too Good to Be True? Reckoning with Sensational Inscriptions,” by Christopher Rollston, in the Fall 2024 issue of Biblical Archaeology Review.

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