Ancient Inscriptions from the Levantine World
Through the years, I have often been asked by journalists and scholars about the Inscribed Stones from Puerto Rico, associated with Father Nazario. Several years ago, at the invitation of Dr. Reniel Rodriguez Ramos, I traveled to Puerto Rico to see most of the extant corpus and to collate some of the best exemplars. Here […]
Professor Christopher Rollston (rollston@gwu.edu) George Washington University, Department of Classical and Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations An Overview. On occasion, inscriptions with some very important content will come to light (much like the Mesha Stele, the Tel Dan Inscription, or the Kuntillet Ajrud inscriptions, etc.). With these three Megiddo Mosaic inscriptions, written in Greek,…
Recently, various press outlets have run stories about a stone artifact with a very fragmentary Old Hebrew Inscription on it (e.g., https://www.israeltoday.co.il/read/bibles-reliability-further-affirmed-as-king-hezekiah-inscription-deciphered/ , citing the proposed restorations and interpretations of Gershon Galil and Eli Shukron), discovered ca. 15+ years ago on an excavation. I would like to…
The Mount Ebal Lead ‘Curse’ Inscription in Late Bronze Age Hebrew: Some Methodological Caveats Christopher Rollston (rollston@gwu.edu) George Washington University, Professor of Northwest Semitic Languages and Literatures, Chair of the Department of Classical and Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations. _ Setting the Stage: Some sensational claims were made in a press conference on March 24, […]
Tell Umm el-Marra (Syria) and Early Alphabetic in the Third Millennium: Four Inscribed Clay Cylinders as a Potential Game Changer Christopher Rollston, George Washington University Introduction: The excavations at Tell Umm el-Marra in Western Syria were conducted from 1994-2010. The excavations were sponsored by Johns Hopkins University and the University of Amsterdam, and they […]
Déjà vu all over Again: The Antiquities Market, the Shapira Strips, Menahem Mansoor, and Idan Dershowitz By Christopher Rollston, George Washington University (Rollston@gwu.edu) Introduction Idan Dershowitz has authored an article entitled “The Valediction of Moses: New Evidence on the Shapira Deuteronomy Fragments,” ZAW 133 (2021): 1-22. In his article, Dershowitz states that he offers “new […]
The Forger Among Us: The Museum of the Bible Dead Sea Scrolls and the Recent History of Epigraphic Forgeries Prof. Christopher Rollston (Ph.D. Johns Hopkins University) rollston@gwu.edu Dept. of Classical and Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations George Washington University On March 13, 2020, the Museum of the Bible held a symposium in Washington, D.C. […]
The Bible, a New Hebrew Inscription from Jerusalem, and a High Official of Judah Christopher A. Rollston, George Washington University (rollston@gwu.edu) __ Introduction: During October 2018, a particularly important piece of ancient Judean officialdom was found: an Old Hebrew bulla with the name of a high official. The press reports about this important inscription began […]
The ‘Isaiah Bulla’ and the Putative Connection with Biblical Isaiah: A Case Study in Propospography By Christopher Rollston, George Washington University (rollston@gwu.edu) The Old Hebrew bulla excavated by Dr. Eilat Mazar, and published in Biblical Archaeology Review (March-May 2018) in an article entitled _Is this the Prophet Isaiah’s Signature(pages 65-73, notes on page 92) is […]
The Isaiah Bulla from Jerusalem: 2.0 By Christopher Rollston, George Washington University (rollston@gwu.edu) The Old Hebrew bulla excavated by Dr. Eilat Mazar, and published in Biblical Archaeology Review (March-May 2018) in an article entitled _Is this the Prophet Isaiah’s Signature(pages 65-73, notes on page 92) is of much interest, as noted in my previous post […]