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Tyndale Open Bible Dictionary

INSCRIPTIONS

Term used to refer to writing in the ancient world that was done on a material of a permanent nature, such as stone or clay, rather than on ordinary and impermanent substances, such as papyri or parchment.

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• Introduction

• Inscriptions on Monuments

• Historical Records

• Official Announcements

• Dedications

• Correspondence

• Mosaic Floor Decorations

Introduction

There are occasional references to inscriptions in the Bible; for example, the Ten Commandments were inscribed on stone (Ex 31:18) and given to Moses, and later written by Joshua on stone and set up at Mt Ebal near Shechem (Jos 8:32). In the excavations at Shechem, G. E. Wright found a large stone prepared to receive an inscription that he dated to the time of Joshua on stratigraphic grounds. It may still be seen at the site. A message from the hand of God to the Babylonian king Belshazzar was inscribed on the walls of his palace (Dn 5:5, 24). Paul observed an altar with the inscription “To an unknown god” in the marketplace of Athens (Acts 17:23). The book of Revelation speaks of the names of the 12 tribes of the sons of Israel being inscribed on the gates of the heavenly city (Rv 21:12).

Inscriptions in the ancient world can be found in almost any language and from any period of history: Egyptian, Babylonian, Persian, Greek, Latin, Hebrew, Aramaic, Nabatean, Moabite, and so on. It was once popular to argue that Moses could not have written the Pentateuch because writing had not been invented that early. Inscriptions found at the turquoise mines of Serabit el-Khadim dating to the 15th century BC have disproven this allegation. In addition, it might be noted that clay tablets found at Ras Shamra by Claude Schaeffer and dated to about 1400 BC demonstrate a considerable period of literary activity, as do the tablets at Ebla from approximately 1,000 years earlier.

Inscriptions may be found in almost any position or place, but the most common locations are in the floors of synagogues, church buildings, and mosques; the pavements of forums; the walls of public buildings; dedicatory stones and statues; stelae and monumental plaques; tombs and sarcophagi; and Roman milestones. An exhaustive list is impossible, but a few representative samples will illustrate the various kinds of extant inscriptional material.

Inscriptions on Monuments

The Egyptian pharaoh Merneptah commemorated his victory over the Sea Peoples in the 13th century BC by inscribing a black granite stele with a record of his victory. It contains the earliest known reference to Israel outside the land of Palestine: “Israel lies desolate.”

The Israelite king Omri (1 Kgs 16:16-30) is referred to in a text carved in the Moabite language on a stone dating near the end of the reign of the Moabite king Mesha, about 830 BC. It was found at Diban (OT Dibon) in 1868 and contains a record of the successful rebellion of the king against Israelite oppression.

Another monumental inscription was found in Persia carved into the steep slope of Mt Behistun. It is a trilingual (Old Persian, Elamite, Akkadian) record of the exploits of Darius I, providing the key to unlocking the mystery of the cuneiform script in which several of these ancient languages were written.

The Assyrian king Shalmaneser III left a record of his first six campaigns of conquest inscribed on a monolith found in 1861 at Kurkh on the Tigris. The stone is carved front and back in cuneiform that is written over a bas-relief of the king. This same king left a black stone obelisk, six and a half feet (2 meters) high, depicting his triumphs over several other kings, among whom is Jehu, king of Israel, depicted in the second panel from the top, prostrating himself before the Assyrian monarch. This is the earliest picture available of an Israelite and the only known representation of an Israelite king by a contemporary. The inscription above the picture reads, “The tribute of Jehu, son [descendant] of Omri . . .” It dates to the mid-ninth century BC.

Historical Records

Frequently in the region of Mesopotamia, ancient kings recorded important events or proclamations in stone or clay. A notable example is the clay prism containing the final edition of Sennacherib’s Annals dated to 691 BC. It is hexagonal, 15 inches (38.1 centimeters) high and 6 inches (15.2 centimeters) wide, and written on all sides in cuneiform script. The inscription speaks of “Hezekiah the Jew (king of Judah), who did not submit to my yoke. . . . Like a caged bird, I shut him up in Jerusalem, his royal city” (cf. 2 Kgs 18; Is 36–39).

Even though no annals comparable to those produced by the Assyrian kings have survived among the Babylonians, we do have some chronicles written on clay tablets covering the years from 626 BC to the fall of Babylon to Cyrus in 539. One of these, the Babylonian Chronicle, provides an exact date of March 16, 597 BC, for the fall of Jerusalem to the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar (cf. 2 Kgs 24:10-17).

Babylon itself fell to Cyrus the Mede, king of Persia, in 539. The event is not only referred to in the Bible (Ezr 1:1-3) but is also described on a clay barrel-shaped cylinder nine inches (22.9 centimeters) in length, written in cuneiform script, during the reign of Cyrus. It refers to his policy that allowed captive nations to rebuild their cities and temples. This provides an explanation of his encouragement and financial help to the Jews in returning to Jerusalem to rebuild the temple of Solomon that Nebuchadnezzar had destroyed (Ezr 1:2-4).

Egyptian pharaohs were fond of publishing records of their exploits in hieroglyphic script on the walls of temples and tombs. These were usually incised into the stone and then painted. One of the most interesting is Shishak’s description of his invasion of the land of Israel incised on the southern wall of a court of the temple of Amon at Karnak. The inclusion of Megiddo, as well as other cities in Israel, among the more than 75 cities whose names can still be read adds historical interest to the biblical account of Shishak’s invasion and conquest of Jerusalem and “Judah’s fortified cities” (1 Kgs 14:25-26; 2 Chr 12:2-10). Archaeological finds confirm a destruction and burning of the city at this time.

Official Announcements

When an ancient monarch or public official wanted to publish an announcement with some degree of permanency, it would be carved in stone or set in mosaic. An inscription on a marble slab dating to the reign of Claudius (AD 41–54) was found in 1878, originating in the city of Nazareth. It contains a warning against grave robbing or any other desecration of cemeteries. The penalty for such violation was declared to be death. The inscription may reflect some of the troubles Claudius had in Rome over the person of Christ (Suetonius, Claudius 25) which led to the expulsion of Jews from the capital city (Acts 18). At issue must have been the resurrection of Christ as proclaimed in Rome.

Announcements were placed even in temples. Josephus referred to a small wall surrounding the Jewish temple in Jerusalem that contained slabs of stone at regular intervals giving warning in Greek and Latin to Gentiles entering the temple (War 5.193-34; 6.125-26; Antiquities 15.417). Two fragmentary examples have been found. One discovered by Clermont-Ganneau in 1871 reads: “No foreigner is to enter within the balustrade and embankment around the sanctuary. Whoever is caught will have himself to blame for his death which follows.” The Romans allowed the Jews to put anyone to death, even a Roman, who went beyond this barrier (War 6.126).

An important inscription commissioned by the emperor Claudius, was found at the beginning of the 20th century in Delphi, Greece. It was written in Greek and mentions Gallio as proconsul with a date that can be established as AD 51–52 for his term of office. This Gallio is the proconsul before whom Paul was brought by the Jews of Corinth (Acts 18:12-17). It is therefore extremely important for establishing the date of Paul’s 18-month stay in Corinth, and an important pivotal date for Pauline chronology in general. The inscription is an imperial announcement to the citizens of Delphi regarding the need for increasing the population of the city with eminent people.

The name Pontius Pilate has appeared in a Latin inscription carved into a stone found in the Roman theater at Caesarea Maritima on the coast of Israel. It refers to him, in partially mutilated words, as prefect and contains the name Tiberium, which designates a structure built in honor of the emperor Tiberius.

Dedications

Inscriptions were commonly placed on walls or floors of buildings or attached to some other structure dedicating the completed edifice. An inscription was cut into the wall of a long tunnel built by the Jewish king Hezekiah in Jerusalem when the tunnel was finished (2 Kgs 20:20). It is in Hebrew and is now in the Istanbul museum. One of the oldest inscriptions we have in that language, it describes the construction of the Siloam tunnel.

In the city of Corinth in Greece there is a dedicatory inscription cut into the pavement of a plaza on the north side of the large theater. The abbreviated Latin inscription reads: Erastus pro aedilitate sua pecunia stravit (“Erastus, in return for his aedileship, laid the pavement at his own expense”). The bronze has long since been removed from the letters deeply cut into the gray Acrocorinthian limestone. This is probably the same “Erastus, the city treasurer” mentioned by Paul in Romans 16:23. A similar inscription from the Corinthian agora of Paul’s day reads: “Gnaeus Babbius Philinus, aedile and pontifex, had this monument erected at his own expense, and he approved it in his official capacity as duovir.”

A monumental dedicatory inscription in Greek was found in Jerusalem during excavations in 1913–14, which once stood on the wall of a first-century AD synagogue on Mt Ophel. It refers to a Theodotus, the son of a ruler of the synagogue named Vettenos, who built the synagogue. Since the name Vettenos is Roman, it may be that Theodotus was a Jewish slave who had been freed and given the Roman name of his master. If so, this inscription may have hung on the “synagogue of the Freedmen” in Jerusalem (Acts 6:9).

The British Museum contains a portion of a broken arch that stood over an entrance into the Greek city of Thessalonica from the first century AD until 1867, when it was torn down to provide stone for the repair of the vast city wall. The inscription begins: “In the time of the politarchs . . .” This is a rare word referring to Roman officials and is used in the book of Acts (Acts 17:6) in reference to city authorities of Thessalonica. This word is found nowhere else in Greek literature.

Correspondence

In the second millennium before Christ, it was common practice to write correspondence on small clay tablets. More than half a million have been found in Mari, Nuzi, Nineveh, Ebla, and elsewhere. Interesting examples of such correspondence may be found in a great number of clay tablets found at Tell el-Amarna in Upper Egypt. They were written in the Babylonian language using the cuneiform script during the time when Akhenaton was captivated with his reformation of Egyptian art and religion at his new capital Tell el-Amarna (Akhetaten), and Palestine and Syria were left to the mercy of marauders called Habiru in the documents. Many of these are written from cities in Canaan under attack and ask for help from the pharaoh, whose vassals they are at this time (late 14th century BC). Some think that these Habiru were the ancient Hebrews who invaded the land under the direction of Joshua.

Sometimes correspondence was written in ink on broken pieces of ceramic pottery (potsherds) called ostraca. In 1935, 18 of these were found in the excavations at Lachish in southern Israel. They are written in Hebrew and provide examples of the kind of script used by the Judeans in the time of Jeremiah. The language is essentially identical with the Hebrew of the OT. The letters were sent by Hosha’yahu, an officer in charge of a nearby town, to Ya’osh, the military governor of Lachish, during the invasion of Judea by the Babylonians, which ended in the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem in 586 BC.

Eleven such potsherds were found in Masada, on the western shore of the Dead Sea, in excavations conducted by Yigael Yadin from 1963 to 1965. Masada was destroyed by the Roman army under the command of Flavius Silva in AD 73. Nine hundred and sixty men, women, and children committed suicide rather than surrender to the Romans. Ten men were chosen to cut the throats of those who remained. They drew lots for the heartbreaking task, according to Josephus (War 7.395), and Professor Yadin thinks the ostraca he found were the ones used in the drawing. One of them contained the name of Ben Yair, who was probably Eleazer ben Yair, the commander of the fortress.

Mosaic Floor Decorations

In the Roman and Byzantine periods it was popular to decorate the floors of basilicas, baths, synagogues, churches, and other public buildings with elaborate tesselation containing inscriptions and artwork. Excavation in 1972 disclosed a building in Caesarea Maritima with mosaic inscriptions in six floors throughout the structure. Two of them are the Greek text of Romans 13:3 set in a circular border. Another is a blessing on the one who enters and exits the room: “May the Lord bless your entry and your exit.” Two of them invoke the aid of Christ for people associated with the function and construction of the building. These were a part of a building that was destroyed in the seventh century AD.

The floors of the synagogues at Tiberias-hamath, Beth Shan, Beth Alpha, Eshtemoa, Susiya, Hamath-gader, En-gedi, and others in Israel have inscriptions in Greek and Aramaic that usually refer to benefactors of the synagogue. A synagogue floor has been found in Naro, Tunisia, which contains a Latin inscription. In the Tiberias synagogue, Hebrew was used only for defining the astrological symbols that appear in the zodiac. Aramaic was used primarily for Halakah (religious rule or law), and Greek was principally used in honoring donors.

One of the best-known mosaic floor inscriptions in churches was in Madaba, Jordan, where the oldest known map of Israel and Jordan was set into the floor in the sixth century AD. The place-names of cities, geographical features, and passages of Scripture are given in Greek. Church floors typically contain dated or undated dedications, blessings, and Scripture quotations that appear in Aramaic, Coptic, Syriac, Latin, and Greek. Symbolism often accompanies the inscriptions, but in AD 427 an edict was issued forbidding the use of crosses and other religious symbols on pavements so that they might not be stepped on. It is not clear how widespread this prohibition was.