The Sean McDowell Show - Mt. Ebal Curse Tablet: A Response (w/ Chris Rollston)

Episode Date: October 6, 2024

Have archaeologists discovered the oldest proto-Hebrew text at Mt. Ebal? Recently, I interviewed archaeologist Scott Stripling about his team's peer-reviewed article in defense of the legitimacy of the writing on the tablet. Today, I bring another perspective from one of the leading epigraphers–Dr. Christopher Rollston. WATCH: Oldest Hebrew Writing? Mt. Ebal Curse Tablet (w/ Scott Stripling): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FEVEKX_0x08 Dr. Chris Rollston blog: http://www.rollstonepigraphy.com/ READ: "You are Cursed by the God YHW" an early Hebrew inscription from Mt. Ebal: https://shorturl.at/bmKSX *Get a MASTERS IN APOLOGETICS or SCIENCE AND RELIGION at BIOLA (https://bit.ly/3LdNqKf) *USE Discount Code [SMDCERTDISC] for $100 off the BIOLA APOLOGETICS CERTIFICATE program (https://bit.ly/3AzfPFM) *See our fully online UNDERGRAD DEGREE in Bible, Theology, and Apologetics: (https://bit.ly/448STKK) FOLLOW ME ON SOCIAL MEDIA: Twitter: https://twitter.com/Sean_McDowell TikTok: @sean_mcdowell Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/seanmcdowell/ Website: https://seanmcdowell.org

A stunning early inscription that refers to God, Jesus Christ, discovered at biblical Armageddon, challenges a common skeptical claim about the divinity of Jesus Christ. Our guest today is one of the leading epigraphers in the world, Dr. Christopher Rolston, Department Chair of Northwest Semitic Languages and Literatures at George Washington University. He's also served as a consultant for the National Geographic Society, but perhaps most significant, it's his second visit back on our YouTube channel. I'm glad you smiled and knew that last point was tongue in cheek, but thanks for coming on and drawing my attention to this literally stunning, fascinating

find that we're going to talk about. Well, thank you so much. It's tremendous to be here, Sean. You're a friend and I'm grateful for you and I appreciate your work. And this really is a great inscription and it deserves a lot of attention, although I don't know that it's receiving it yet. But I think that may change in the future because it's actually come to the United States. And so we can talk about that in due time. Well, that's a part of my question. I can't believe more attention is not being paid to this. It's that significant. Now, before we talk about maybe why, you wrote an article of this on your website and you seem to put it in the same category, at least in terms of its significance as the Tel Dan inscription and the Mesha Stele. Now, let's take these one by one. And I think when you explain why these are so significant,

it'll get people's attention to realize we should be talking about this one. So let's start with the Tel Dan inscription. What was that and why did that matter so much? That's an Aramaic inscription. It was, there are basically three pieces. One was discovered in 1993, the largest piece. The two smaller pieces were discovered in 1994. It's really consequential. It dovetails with 2 Kings 9. And 2 Kings 9 mentions that Jehu was responsible for the death and battle of Jehoram of Israel and Ahaziah of Judah.

So that's pretty fascinating. This inscription seems to have been commissioned by Hazael, who's mentioned as a usurper in the Book of Kings. He's actually said in Kings to have smothered his predecessor on the throne, Hazael is, basically with a wet blanket. And that's all in the Bible. And then he became king, Hazael became king. This inscription in Aramaic, he was an Aramaic king, seems to dovetail wonderfully with that biblical material about Hazael and Jehu's activities. So really fascinating. It garnered a lot of attention early on because the inscription mentions Ahaziah

as being king of the Beit David, the house of David, the dynasty of David. And at that point within biblical scholarship, there were people who were suggesting that David was a figure of fiction And at that point within biblical scholarship, there were people who were suggesting that David was a figure of fiction and legend and not at all historical. This inscription, and not very many people

embraced that view, but it was something that was being contended, that David wasn't historical, that he might not have ever lived, that he was a person just of fiction and legend. That inscription comes from basically a century after David, and it mentions the dynasty of David. And obviously, if there was a dynasty of David, there must have been a David. It stands to reason. And so that inscription was really consequential in all sorts of ways, fascinating Aramaic inscription with that sort of content. The Mesha Stele is equally fascinating. It was discovered in basically 1868,

and it had been known by residents of the region for some time. But in 1868, it came to the attention of some Europeans. And it became famous because it mentioned Mesha, king of Moab. That's also consequential because it connects with 2 Kings three and verse four, which also mentioned Meshach king of Moab. And in the Bible, Meshach king of Moab is said to have been under the hegemony of the Israelites under Omri and Ahab. And this inscription basically has the same basic content. It's written in the Moabite language. It's written in the old Hebrew script, which is fascinating. The Israelites had hegemony, so that's not surprising that the Moabites chiseled this inscription into stone, the Mesha Stele into stone in the old Hebrew script. But it was written in the Moabite language, but it dovetails fascinatingly with the biblical text

as well. By the way, as an aside, I've discussed those two inscriptions in print in a couple of places and basically said look some people suggest there's there's nothing historical in the bible and i'll point out a few texts including these in which we have inscriptions one in aramaic one in moabite and they dovetail really nicely with material and kings and suggest that clearly these materials and kings are historical in nature. This inscription from Megiddo is sort of similar in certain ways. Okay, now we're going to get to that, but I just want to make sure people grasp that there was doubt by some people that David existed. And this description is one piece along potentially with his palace that shows he was minimally a real historical person. Of course, the Mesha Stele is

from the Old Testament, the time of the kings. Now we're talking about Jesus. So it's in the category of those, but arguably more significant because it's the earliest inscription known that identifies Jesus as God. And it's called the Akeptos or Akeptos. You can pronounce that in a minute correctly for us. But maybe before we talk about the archeological dig and some of the background, you know, questions people have about it, what does this inscription actually say? Right. So the inscription is indeed really fascinating. And in essence, what it says is, and there are a couple of abbreviations in here as well,

but it mentions a keptus is basically someone who's a friend of God or a lover of God. That word is used within the text. A keptus, by the way, is a woman. We know that because the Greek definite article, the, basically, is gendered. In Greek, there are three genders, masculine, feminine and neuter. And the article that accompanies the word of captives is the feminine. So we know that a cactus was a woman and the text describes her this inscription describes her mosaic inscription describes her

as a friend of God or a lover of God. And it mentions basically that there was a table, which was dedicated in essence as a memorial to God, Jesus Christ. And it was published by two scholars from Israel and really fascinating find. It's written in Greek and it is dated by the excavator to circa 230, that's a very precise date. But I think that his date will actually hold up to scrutiny. When you look at the material culture that's accompanying this inscription, the pottery, for example, fits nicely in the early third century. The numismatic

evidence that's associated with it, and one has to be careful with numismatic evidence, of course, yeah. But when you look at the preponderance of the coins uh the date of 230 or you know give or take a decade or two something such as that makes perfect sense and even the script we can date scripts this is a mosaic so one wouldn't want to push the the shapes of the letters all that hard but the shapes of the script uh discussed for example, by the script, the paleography of Greek has been discussed by many people, including Bruce Metzger, who taught at Princeton Theological Seminary for a long time. Great New Testament scholar. And he has a really wonderful book on the paleography of early Greek texts and the shapes of the scripts as he describes them, the shapes that we have from a he never, of course, discussed this Megiddo inscription, but he discussed Greek scripts in

general. And when you look at the data he has, and the the paleography of these letters and early third century makes sense. So I'm sure people will push back on that date, but I think that dating it to the early 3rd century CE, the early 3rd century AD, makes really good sense. And I think the date will stand up to scrutiny. And so this is a really early reference to the divinity of Jesus, and it's hard to understand that text any other way and the excavator and the epigraph er the the excavator was a guy named Yota is a guy named Yotan Tepper a very fine Israeli archaeologist and the epigraph er is Leah de signi very distinguished epigraph er that's the way that they interpret this is a statement yeah that's that's really helpful let's talk about why this date is so significant.

230 AD, most at least conservative scholars would argue that the canon was written maybe John into the 90s. And so we're dealing with maybe 120 to 150 years after this time, two full generations. That's one way to look at it. But the other way is to fast forward a century to the Council of Nicaea in 325, when the claim is often made that the deity of Jesus or the divinity of Jesus was invented at that

point. How do you place, why is this so significant in terms of the timing of when this description was made? Right, good. Yeah, you do hear people, not scholars, scholars don't suggest, generally speaking, some might, but scholars don it an awful lot in other contexts from people. That's a really hard, it's not actually convincing, and right, this inscription makes that clear as well. So we know what Nicaea, the Council of Nicaea, as you said, 325 AD.

Constantine had called that council early fourth century. The Edict of Milan in 312 had declared Christianity to be a tolerated religion. Constantine, being the first Christian emperor, you know, he wanted to have Christian scholars come together, decide the views for Christendom regarding major components of Christian belief and there were people at Nicaea such as Athanasius who said look Jesus is divine and there were there were other people at Nicaea such as Arius both of these people by way, happen to be from Alexandria, Egypt. They were both prominent within early Christianity. Arius said, no, Jesus is the son of God, but he's not divine. He's a created being. Athanasius said, no, no, no, that's not the case. Jesus is divine. And ultimately the verdict of Nicaea was that Jesus is divine.

And that was the conclusion. And of course, the Nicene Creed, very famous, still available today. One can read it. Oftentimes when I teach Hellenistic Greek texts, we'll read through the Nicene Creed. And I enjoy it very much. And it declares definitively and unambiguously that jesus was divine but that's fourth century as you indicate and this inscription is early third century and makes the same declaration long before nicaea and so it's really important because it's it's an archaeological artifact right and

it also unambiguously uh affirms the divinity of jesus and it's really hard to contend that it doesn't mean that i sort of discuss some of those philological and historical details in that blog post of mine yep very good is it a surprise to find this inscription because i guess for me obviously this is not my specialty in one hand i go well i'm not surprised if the scriptures we're going to talk about teach that jesus is god if we have people like planet younger who's a roman and early church fathers we'll get into that affirm this we we shouldn't be surprised. Yet on the other hand, like you said, the Edict of Milan, early fourth century, you know, trying to temper some of this persecution, maybe some of these kinds of things, if they existed, would have been destroyed.

So is this a surprise or not, archaeologically speaking? Yes, I think that it is, at one level, you're absolutely right. It's surprising, and at another level, just as you suggest, it's not surprising. It's always nice when these sorts of things come to the fore, when they're discovered. And so, yes, at one level level it's surprising that it survived and at one level it's not surprising because we know that most early Christians second century third century fourth century and subsequently affirmed the divinity of Jesus but some as we've just discussed uh didn't and uh so yes it it it's really fascinating and i certainly like it

it's just really fascinating to see the ways in which archaeology often dovetails with textual material such as as you mentioned you know Ignatius of Antioch actually has this reference in early third century or early second century for our God Jesus Christ was crucified that's in Ignatius of Antioch an early christian figure of the second century clement of alexandria right uh flourished during the late second century basically refers to the the word who alone is both god and man and word here uh just as in john chapter one is a reference to Jesus of Nazareth. And Polycarp, the same sort of thing. Polycarp says, believe in our Lord.

These are direct quotations from them. They're written in Greek and Latin, but believe in our Lord and God, Jesus Christ, and in his father. So that last reference from Polycarp, it's preserved in Latin, but he wrote in Greek. But yeah, so you get these references in Ignatius of Antioch, Clement of Alexandria, in Polycarp, and they reference Jesus as divine. We know that the Ebionite Christians, for example, of the second century, these are early Jewish Christians uh declared that Jesus was the

son of God but not Divine and this inscription though early third century makes the declaration very clearly and emphatically that Jesus was Divine so yeah at some level it's surprising at some level it's not surprising well I can't tell you how thrilled I am that you sent me this. And in part, I was like, how have I missed this story? Now, we're still going to come to why more people aren't talking about this. But your title is you called this a stunning biblical discovery. You use that word, which is totally appropriate, I think, here. But for someone like yourself that doesn't strike me as a sensationalist if anything you calm stuff down on the other angle like that got my attention so

let's focus on the inscription itself and i'm going to read obviously the english translation of it again says the god-loving akeptus has offered the table to god jesus Christ as a memorial. Now let's take that phrase, God Jesus Christ. Help us understand the original language of what this is written in. Oh, maybe, yeah, there we go. Help us understand the original language that this is written in and how high of a Christology is this? Is it a God Jesus Christ or is it like the eternal self-existing God of the Old Testament ascribed to Jesus Christ? Yeah, it's right. The text is emphatic in declaring Jesus Christ, both those terms are present, to be divine,

to be God. And the word used is the Greek word theos. It's the dative form of it, but it is the Greek word theos. It's the dated form of it but it's the Greek word theos and so it's the o in this context because it's dated but so it's crystal clear and of course for the early Christians for Christianity today for the most part Jesus is considered divine the father is considered divine and the Holy Spirit is considered divine, the Father is considered divine, and the Holy Spirit is considered divine. And that was discussed also not only in Nicaea, but also in subsequent councils there were discussions of that.

But this inscription is really not at all ambiguous. I mean, the Greek word is theos. Theos means theos. Theos means God. And it's a reference to Jesus Christ. And there were multiple people, including multiple people in the New Testament who are referred to as Jesus. And so this is, if you look at Bauer and Gingrich's Greek lexicon, for example, six or eight people, and I list them in the blog post who are named Jesus.

And so we know that this is a fairly common name. It's the same name as Joshua, for example, within the Old Testament, within the Hebrew Bible. And there are multiple people in the Old Testament with the name Joshua. So that's part of the equation but in this in this inscription it says God Jesus Christ so there's no ambiguity about which Jesus is being referenced here it's clearly Jesus of Nazareth the word Christ is pretty fascinating it comes from the Greek word creo the Greek verb krio, which means to anoint.

Christos means the anointed one. In Greek, Christos is literally the Greek word for anointed one. And the Hebrew equivalent of that term is Messiah comes into Greek because Greek has a shin, a sh sound. Greek just has a s. us so Messiah which is the Old Testament term for Messiah comes into New Testament Greek comes into Greek as

Messiah and we could English word Messiah from that so Messiah and Creeks Messiah and Christ are synonyms Messiah means anointed one in Hebrew Christ means anointed one in Greek and these are titles used for Jesus of Nazareth in the New Testament and in early Christian literature so all of that sort of well does converge to make it really crystal clear that when it says God Jesus Christ that there's only one person historically this can going to be referenced to and it's jesus of nazareth the figure of the new testament so in some earliest physical inscription that we have dates to early third century 230 roughly give or take maybe a decade a.d and it refers to jesus christ so it's not any other

jesus even though the new testament has other jesus this is jesus of nazareth and not referred to like the son of god which could be referred to jesus being god but also had other meanings in that context he's called theos which means the one true God, early 3rd century. That's what we have. So unmistakable physical inscription, early 3rd century, that Jesus was viewed as the one true God by Christians. Now, there's a lot of discussion. We could do a whole show on this about how the Bible, the Gospels, and the other letters in the New Testament implicitly and explicitly affirm the deity of Jesus. So some things are a little bit more implicit, like walking on water

implies his divinity. Miracles through his own authority applies his divinity. Healing on the Sabbath, that he could kind of overrule certain Sabbath laws. These things, I think, imply the divinity of Jesus, but there are certain passages where Jesus is called, in a sense, Theos in the New Testament. Can you give us one or two examples of those kind of literary teachings to help us map this onto the New Testament? Sure. Yeah. Yeah. So in the New Testament, and Raymond Brown wrote a really nice article decades ago, the late Raymond Brown, not so long ago, about the texts within the New Testament that definitively must be viewed as New Testament statements about the divinity of Jesus.

So just to say affirming the divinity of Jesus. And among the ones that he mentioned, and I would concur, texts like John 1.1, In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. It's difficult to interpret that any other way. Word in this text is a reference to Jesus of Nazareth. That's very clear if you read verses one through 18 of chapter one, mentions that the word dwelt among us walked among us, etc. And, and so

there's really no way to convincingly argue that john one one doesn't refer to Jesus as divine. John 20 28, same sort of notion is present. Thomas sees Jesus in a post-resurrection narrative and says, my Lord and my God. And then you have texts like Philippians 2, the great Christian hymn. That's why it's often set off in verse in translations, including English translations. So it seems to be an early Christian hymn that's why it's often set off in verse in translations including english translations so it seems to be an early christian hymn that's what most new testament scholars suggest i think it makes perfect sense it's in a pauline epistle uh philippians but uh seems that paul may very well be quoting an early christian hymn which was sung as part of worship and that hymn it also from my

perspective from the perspective of of many perhaps even most New Testament scholars, that verse also affirms the divinity of Jesus. So we do have such references in the New Testament. There are not many of them, and Brown references those that he considers to be really unambiguously understood as such. Other people will include others. That's fine. The discussion continues. But with regard to texts that are pretty clear, we do have some statements such as that within the New Testament. And so that's a declaration that's present.

And as you know, the other fascinating thing, and I think a crucial thing, you're probably about to ask about this, was the Roman writers, who also made statements that suggest the same. And so, Pliny the Younger, which we've referenced a couple of times, flourished during the late first century, the early second century. Here's a direct quote in English, an English translation of his writing. He refers to Christians and he said this, they, quote, met regularly before dawn on a fixed day to chant verses alternatively among themselves in honor of Christ as if to a God. So as Pliny, who's certainly not a Christian, is describing Christian worship services,

he makes a statement that they're singing hymns to Christ as if to a God. That's his vantage point. But that's the way he views it, is that these Christians are believers in Jesus as divine, Jesus as God. And then another similar reference from later is Julian, the Emperor Julian. And he also contends against this view, but he basically makes it clear that early Christians, Christians in his time period and before before affirmed the divinity of Jesus and he's arguing against it he was born into a Christian home ultimately he's often known within certain circles as Julian the Apostate because he

ultimately renounced Christianity and was famous for being fairly anti-christian during his reign but he also and this is mentioned by Robert Wilkin for example in his book the Christians is the Roman saw them Julian made it clear that early Christians believed this so I think this became or it was a predominant early Christian view so you have the New Testament references. You have Roman authors referring to Jesus as divine. So you have New Testament references to Jesus as divine. You have Roman authors

who weren't Christian who affirmed that early Christians believed this. And then you have this inscription. And again, not all Christians believed in the divinity. We know that the Ebionites of the second century didn't, for example. We know that Arius at the Council of Nicaea didn't. But I think it was the predominant view among early Christians that Jesus was divine. And this inscription therefore is fascinating because as you indicate it's pre-nicea and it makes this affirmation and i sort of discuss other possible ways to interpret that phrase in this inscription in my blog post and ultimately i come to the conclusion the only way really to understand this phrase,

you know, God, Jesus Christ is just that way. And of course, you know, I would also emphasize Leah de Cygne and Yotam Tepper actually understand it the same way, the excavator and the epigrapher are all the same. And Leah de Cygne is associated with the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. And Yototan tepper i believe is an archaeologist uh he's certainly an archaeologist working for the ia the israel antiquities authority so it's their view as well so uh

so there's a constellation of evidence suggesting demonstrating i think that the content of this inscription is the content of this inscription. And it's really difficult to interpret it any other way. And I tried, actually. So I tried to understand it a different way. And ultimately, philologically, it just doesn't work. And historically, it just doesn't work. And historically, it just doesn't work. It really has to be understood this way. And that makes it a pretty fascinating inscription.

And yeah, it really should receive a lot of attention. And I think it's going to. But as you indicated, it hasn't taken off yet. It was discovered 20 years ago. Now, we haven't talked about this, and this would take us aside, but I would argue there's a very high Christology also in Mark, especially in chapter 14 when he's on trial and cites himself as a divine figure from Daniel chapter 7 coming on the clouds to judge. But nonetheless, we've got at least one of the synoptic gospels,

and I think more, but minimally. We've got John. We've got the letters of Paul. And we have these early church fathers you cite, Ignatius, Polycarp, Clement of Alexandria. Then we've got people like Pliny the Younger citing that at least in the early second century, Christians worshiped Jesus as if he's a God. And then we find this early physical inscription in the early third century, a century before Nicaea. I mean, the case here is about as strong as one could get that at least Jesus was viewed as God very early and very consistently. Now, is there anything else? There's a couple other inscriptions that were found here we'll get to in a minute, but is there anything else? There's a couple other inscriptions that were found here. We'll get to in a minute.

But is there anything else about this inscription itself? If not, we can move on. But anything else we missed about it that's significant too? Yeah, no, your summary is very good, of course. And I think it's fascinating that it was a woman who commissioned this inscription. And we'll talk about the other two inscriptions perhaps in a moment. But I think it's fascinating that it was a woman who commissioned this inscription. And we have her name, which is also fascinating. You know, we often don't get the names

of women at times within the biblical record. So I'll sometimes say to students, I'll say something like this, the name of the fellow who built the ark, and they'll say Noah. And I'll say the names of his sons were and they'll say Shem, Ham and Japheth. I'll say very good. And I'll say the name of his wife was, and they'll be like, and I'll say, go ahead and look carefully in Genesis six and following. And I'll wait for them to flip through the text and it's not there. And I'll say go ahead and look carefully in Genesis 6 and following and I'll wait for them to flip through the text and it's not there and I'll say ah the names of the wives of Shem, Ahim and Japheth you know they were on the big boat as well and I'll say what were those they'll be like I'm not so sure and I'll

say we don't have them in the biblical record and we'll sometimes find that and so I love the fact that here we actually have the name of this woman who's affirming as you indicate I think a fairly calm making a fairly common affirmation or an affirmation that was fairly frequently made about the divinity of Jesus in this time period but it is it's really nice that, from my perspective, we have this beautiful text commissioned by a woman, and it's a mosaic inscription, so it's glorious, and all three of these inscriptions are so beautiful.

So I'd sort of mention that as something I think is also really fascinating about it. I love that. In many ways, it's fitting with who Jesus was and is. His treatment of women, his followers of women. I mean, so far ahead of his time that it shouldn't be shocking at all. It's just a nice reminder of just how inclusive in a biblical sense the gospel really was meant for everybody to come and believe. And a woman's name is tied to this and called the Akeptus inscription. Now, one thing I haven't asked you, I probably should have at the beginning, is describe for us what this inscription looks like. Is it made out of tile?

Was it in the floor? How big was it? I understand I had a mutual friend of ours also send me an article from the Museum of the Bible that they're going to have this displayed this fall. What does it look like? Describe this inscription to us. Yeah, it's a really great, it's an inscription, it's a mosaic inscription. So it is mosaic tiles, basically, small pieces that are put together in such a fashion that you have, among other things, there's some iconography or imagery there as well, one with a fish,

which is fascinating. But basically, they have tiles that are a different color from the other tiles and the words are made out of those so basically there are three inscriptions it's a mosaic tile in the floor and the room in which it was found is a fairly small room and yet not terribly small it's five meters by ten meters that's the the room where this is the mosaic takes up a fairly large area within that room that the excavator called you know a Christian prayer hall. I think that's fine.

I think maybe we'll talk about what I might consider it to be. Yeah. I would prefer as a terminology. But, yeah, it's basically a room in residential architecture used by Roman soldiers near the site of biblical Armageddon, right, from Revelation 16, 16. And at least some of those Roman soldiers and the families associated with them and perhaps other people from the area were clearly Christian and created this place of worship. And right, and it's coming to the Museum of the Bible and it actually is slated to be on exhibit in September so as soon as it's fully in place you know

it's been removed it's actually it's been removed it's it underwent conservation to preserve it fully. So it's really helpful to have the conservation. I think the Museum of the Bible actually is paying for the conservation. And they're of course paying for the shipping, the personnel who are bringing it, we've brought it and so it's going to be there at the Museum of the Bible in Washington, DC. And I'm gonna, I'm gonna definitely make sure that I looked at photos, but I'll be there soon. And I'll, I'll write

about it again with some photos with the permission of Museum of the Bible and Israel. I'll, you know, write about it some more, summarize some things about the exhibit, maybe read your reiterate some of the things that I've mentioned here. But yeah, I can't wait to see it. And I hope that people go and see it. It's so very consequential, so very important. And it's an artifact, or actually sort of a collection of artifacts, really, this massive artifact with great content from early Christians in the land of the Bible and the Holy Land. Great play on words, by the way.

You said it's slated to be at the Museum of Bible on September 9th. I don't know if that was intentional or not, but I was like, boom, boom, boom. That was awesome. Good word. Is there anything significant about it being found at Armageddon, other than Armageddon being cool and famous and tied to Revelation 16 but is there anything beyond that that makes that location significant yeah I think it's fascinating for a number of reasons I mean I think all inscriptions found

wherever they happen to be found are fascinating but this is this is in the holy land it's early christians in the holy land uh and uh you know at this famous site sort of a a biblical crossroads and armageddon literally means uh greek doesn't have a so basically the hebrew word for mountain is har h-a-r hey rage, in Hebrew. Greek doesn't have an H. So what happens is Har Megiddo, the mountain of Megiddo, comes into the Greek New Testament as Ar, because there is no H in Greek, Ar Megiddo. And it's written Ar Megiddo, Armageddon, in the Greek New Testament, Revelation 16, 16.

Fascinating reference. And we know that there were early Christians from the New Testament, right, in this region and in various other regions, especially because of the travels of Paul as recorded in the book of Acts, of course. And, yeah, this, you know, from the Levantine Christian world is really fascinating. So I like it. Megiddo is a great site. I excavated there long ago, 1996.

I have great memories of the site. I enjoyed it immensely. Met some of my dear people who subsequently became among my dearest friends there. So I love the site of Megiddo. And this was actually found at a place that's known within scholarly circles at times as the Megiddo prison, because in the modern period, it was a prison. There were conservation and expansion efforts that were going to occur.

They came down on this and they basically said, wait a minute, we need to, we can't develop this we can't expand the prism we need to conserve this and so changes plan plans change dramatically and now this is going to be an archaeological site the mosaic by the way these mosaics will be moved back there uh after they tour for a little little while throughout the world first at the museum of the bible and then they're going to be put back there in situ that is to say in place and then people who travel there will be able to see them in situ but at least for the time being for a brief period they're going to be visible here okay so they're able to remove this without damaging it

and then put it back in a way that it's not damaged as well and maybe you almost couldn't even tell it was gone? Yeah, that's exactly right. So yeah, the conservation, the ways in which conservators of excavated materials are so meticulous, so careful, and they know their field so well that they can actually do this is absolutely fascinating,

but they do it all the time. It's what they do. I mean, I'll sometimes go through a conservation lab and I'll see what's done with pottery, for example. And there's a smashed pot with pieces missing, which has been excavated or a bunch of pots smashed. And those are reassembled and the pieces that are missing, those are recreated, they're signaled as such

because they, in the modern period, when let's say a pot is reconstructed and they have two thirds or three quarters of the ancient pieces,-thirds or three-quarters of the ancient pieces but one quarter one-third of the ancient pieces are missing they actually use clay that's a different color so even when someone who's not an archaeologist looks at it they can immediately see what the restoration portion with the restored portions are vis-a-vis the portions that are actually the ancient pieces but they're masterful at their craft and in broader I mean, even a mosaic like this can be disassembled, you know, chunk by chunk, piece by piece at times.

It's all labeled. It's all put back together. It's like the story of Humpty Dumpty, only it's a success at the end. It's amazing. Because it's taken apart with such care. So humor me, like how do they, do they ship this? Does somebody put it in like a bag and carry it? Do they charter a flight? Like Museum of Bible's paying for this

and obviously wants it done well. How do they get this thing to the States from the Holy Land? Yeah, I suppose it probably is coming by plane rather than by ship. But yeah, it's sort of taken apart piece by piece, put on flat surfaces and basically reassembled and then brought here and stabilized before it shipped.

Everything is done super carefully and then it's brought here. And then there are people from the Israel antiquities authority who actually are the point people on the ground at the Museum of the Bible for making sure that everything is done perfectly. So this isn't Museum of the Bible doesn't supply the personnel for the sits the IA, who actually they have their own people, you know, who are responsible for all of those. The Museum of the Bible has, as of a few years ago, they had on the fifth floor of the museum, they had some 800 artifacts from the Israel Antiquities Authority on display at the Museum of the Bible, excavated artifacts.

So, you know, the Museum of the Bible, before the museum actually opened, there were some mistakes made. And even the founder of the museum, who I consider to be a good guy, he conceded the point that there were some mistakes made before the museum opened. And when the museum opened, they really, and even prior to that, I went through the Museum of the Bible before it opened, and I made some suggestions to them, walked through it, and I was like, that display, probably it should be rephrased a little bit. And other people did the same thing. Other scholars did the same thing. To their credit, they basically were like, okay, you want that changed? What you've suggested is reasonable reasonable and they made the changes and so the Museum of the Bible has really tried to write the ship since it opened before it

opened there were some problems and things were, you know, things were done that shouldn't have been done. And, you know, the museum has come clean and, you know, stated that the mistakes were made and they've righted the ship from my perspective quite nicely. And in this case, everything's done really well with this mosaic and also with those 800 objects from the IA that display was done very well the IA's people that is to say the Israel antiquities of the authority people were responsible for basically having those materials in the fifth floor of the museum set up same thing here IA people are actually responsible for this so it's done very professionally and it it is a it's a minor miracle that they can do such things it it is sort of like

any craft any artists and whenever I watch for example you know any any artisan or any craftsman engage in his or her craft I'm often you know so impressed by the high quality of work and it's the same with this restoration and conservation work as well I love to hear that not surprised but love to hear it now you referenced earlier that is this there's some debate about the exact location this mosaic was found in some called an early church a worship Hall or prayer hall, five by 10 meters, so about 15 by 30 feet, almost like a small house with this beautiful mosaic in it. So maybe tell us a little bit more why you label it as you do and kind of what happened in this small place.

Right. Yeah. Yeah. So the excavator called it a Christian prayer hall, and I think that's fine. You know, that works. I suggested that perhaps we could call it a Christian worship hall, because for me, at least, prayer can be defined. I'm sure that Yotam Tepper would say, look, if I call it a prayer hall, it doesn't mean that praying is the only thing that's occurring. Okay, fine. I totally agree. Totally understand. For me, as I look at the New Testament and I look at early Christian worship, and I look, for example, at Acts 2.42,

and they devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching, to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread, and to the prayers. The Greek text says the prayers. That, I think, is what the heart of early Christian worship was. And when it says the breaking of the bread, I take that as a reference to the Lord's Supper, to communion, to Eucharist, to Mass. And this hall, especially because it mentions Memorial in one of the inscriptions, or in this inscription. I think basically this was a place where Christian worship occurred.

I think this was a center of worship for Roman soldiers, probably others from the surrounding community to worship in. And could you call it a church? And I think absolutely. And so if someone wants to say, look, we think this is a church, I would say terrific. That term actually is a functional term. And someone else might say, but wait, you know, there's no steeple.

There's no big nave. There's none of that. And I would say, look, the way that I have to do things is look at what the biblical text terminology is. And when you look at the term church, ecclesia within the New Testament, so the Greek word ecclesia, it can actually be used of people, no building, right? Or it can be used of the Christian community. It could be used of house churches. And so the term ecclesia in the New Testament is broad, and that term can be used of something that is a house church, so some sort of architecture. But it can be used of just a community of Christians with no particular architecture mentioned. In this case, we do

have architecture. We have residential architecture. And you could probably call this a house church if you wanted to. But you could certainly refer to it as a church. And that would be a biblical usage. That is to say, we usually, because of the passage of time, think of churches as being these large edifices. And that wasn't the case in the New Testament. That reminds me to say one other thing, which is important. Some people have said, look, you can't have a worship center because of persecution of Christians prior to the Edict of Milan in 312.

The fact of the matter is that the persecutions, there was an ebb and flow to them before 312 the fact of the matter is that the persecutions there was an ebb and flow to them before 312 there were periods of persecution of Christians there were also periods when there wasn't persecution and you could even think of the New Testament and you can think of Cornelius in Acts chapter 10 converting to Christianity and he's a he's a Roman soldier so you know the Romans didn't always persecute Christians. At times that did occur, at times it didn't occur.

This Christian worship hall or church, or, you know, we could go with Tepper's term, prayer hall. It probably, and this is what is contended in the Odysseo Princeps by Tepper and Leah de Cygne and Guy Stiebel was there as well he was part of that publication you know they they suggest that basically this this residential architecture this worship hall probably dates to a time period when there was a cessation of

persecution it was during one of those periods when persecution wasn't severe or wasn't present at all. So, you know, people often say, well, there can't be any sort of a designated building where Christians worship before 312. And the fact of the matter is, you know, that's not entirely accurate. And the, you know, Lea de Signy and Jotun Tepper make that clear as well, using historical sources to say, look, there was an ebb and a flow to the persecutions. Probably this building dates to a time when there weren't persecutions. And it makes perfect sense. That does make sense.

I did my dissertation and doctoral work on the death of the apostles. So often localized there was ebb and flow there's enough precedent it would take place but it would make sense to me i'm not super shocked that we would be able to find something like this at that time uh given the nature of what you described now let's come back to kind of the question that we asked at the beginning like why haven't more people been talking about this and what surprised me is we have a mutual friend from the museum of the bible who sent me an article and it was a peer-reviewed journal in fact i could i could pull it up and tell you exactly what it was from it was from uh let me get this right it was from 2006 and it's called The Christian Prayer Hall of the Third Century, Excavations at Megiddo, and it's from the Israel Antiquities Authority. So this is 2006, and it had a lot of the discoveries that you and I are talking about today.

So why are we talking about it now? Why do you think more people have not paid attention to this find? Because I think it's absolutely fascinating for so many reasons. Yeah. Actually, I think this may be the article that- Oh, that's it. Yeah, same article. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. So there it is. And I think that sometimes archeology gets a lot of attention and sometimes it doesn't. And the fascinating thing is sometimes rogue ROGUE scholarship gets a lot of attention and the hardcore, really fascinating stuff just doesn't. So it's precisely the reverse of the way that it should be. This really is a fascinating find. And you're right.

I normally am the person who tamps down sensationalism or at least attempts to do so. It is pretty fascinating that this does strike me as being pretty fascinating because of the content and the date of these three inscriptions. This one that we talked about, then women's inscription yeah from the same site as well and then the giannis inscription the roman centurion inscription you know three greek uh inscriptions from early christians uh and then this one the keptus inscription all of these are fascinating they deserve more attention and I think they'll receive it. But I think what it's going to take is for this, right? Your interview, the things that you say

to sort of get some traction. And I think interest will develop from it. I think the fact that it's about to be on display in the US is good. I'm certain that the Museum of the Bible will publicize this. I think people will see it. So I think that the attention that it rightly deserves will come. But I think we probably should have been discussing this before. And I say that to myself as well. I should have been discussing it before as well and so you know and so i'm discussing it now fair enough so your hope is that people will take your article that you've written maybe this interview and other youtubers apologists

pastors will just talk about it share about it get it talked about like the mace of steely and the tell dan inscription like this needs to filter its way through. Like when we do an update on evidence that demands verdict, definitely gonna include this in the archeological section. I think it's that significant. So if you're watching this, just share this with somebody, get the conversation going. It's a very significant find. Can you think of any ways,

I know you're trying to do this in your writing, but obviously the scholars don't really believe that the divinity of Jesus was invented at Nicaea. I mean, it's just from Romans to early church writers to the New Testament itself. I don't know how anybody could plausibly hold that. I mean, you can't say that after Nicaea, all of these writings were somehow doctored with and adapted when there's so many different lines in and that would be physically impossible to do right like that's not that's not possible so scholars aren't being you know scholars believe this ahead of time it's really non-scholars that probably are most looking at this you know we have to. Maybe the Da Vinci Code put forward some

of these ideas years ago that on a popular level people just buy into, but on a scholar level, not so much. Where do you expect on a scholarly level this conversation to go? Is there going to be further archaeological discoveries? Is there going to be further archaeological discoveries? Is there going to be maybe some pushback and challenges to this? Or is the archaeological work done and it's a matter of just now the popular people trying to talk about it and get the word out?

Right. I think the, you know, the Edicio Princeps, that article that we've been talking about from the, you know, the IA, you know, that's been out there, as you noted, for circa 20 years now. I think they did a really nice job with that. They refer to it,

Yotan Tepper and Leah DeSigne and Guy Steibel refer to this as a preliminary publication, but it really is a very fine discussion. So there will be nuances to the discussion. Even in my blog post, I tried to augment certain things that they said, but they did a superb job with it. Scholars will discuss this. They're going to certainly, and I wouldn't mind submitting my blog post to a journal that publishes things from this period in this region and discussing it. So they're going to be peer reviewed,

additional peer reviewed journal articles here to come out about this. That's definitely going to occur. And hopefully in semi-popular circles, it will get some shrift as well. Even people who are just interested in history or early history history of the the Roman period people who are interested in early Christian history I think it deserves a lot of attention and I think among Christians this also deserves a lot of attention because the

contents really are striking and fascinating and so my hope is that it really gets some attention and it certainly deserves it and for early Christianity this this is really one of the most beautiful, just physically beautiful inscriptions. And, you know, the fish that are on here are just fascinating as well. And one thinks about the fish in early Christianity, the Icthus acronym and all that sort of thing. All of this is just absolutely fascinating. This is a piece that deserves to really get a lot of thing. All of this is just absolutely fascinating. This is a piece that deserves to really get a lot of attention.

I'm working on a book now for Bloomsbury on writing and literacy in the world of Second Temple Judaism and early Christianity. This is going to be in there. I'm going to devote an entire chapter to this piece. Great, a whole chapter. Yeah, I think it'll get some attention and I think it really deserves it.

So I'd love to see it discussed really widely. Let me take a step back. You've done archaeology and epigraphy work for a long time. I am a generalist, so obviously this is not my lane. I've been to Megiddo, but certainly have not excavated there. I wouldn't even know where to start. But as an evangelical, I look at archaeology, and I think there's some issues we need to do more work at. Like, there's a few going, I'm not sure how the archaeology lines up. We just need to do some more work. But those tend to be outliers. It seems to be the more we discover archaeologically, the more it confirms the scriptures whether again it's the telldan inscription the masha steely is that your kind of professional academic experience as

well or is it a little bit different right what i often uh what i often find is that there's some people uh who think the Bible has nothing historical in it whether we're talking about the Old Testament Hebrew Bible or the New Testament and that it doesn't connect in some fashion with history and that there are no places where archaeology and the Bible dovetail and connect and that's not the case. And those are, I'll often find students who come into my classes with that sort of assumption.

And what I find is that some things connect, some things don't connect in terms of, maybe there's something in the biblical text that doesn't connect in some fashion with any archeological data. and you know the bible's a you know maybe seems like a large document but in the grand scheme of things it's a small document it can't connect with everything right but uh one of the things that i try to do is to discuss connections uh and this is one of those texts and the mission steal in the

tall Dan inscription or inscriptions as well that connect and I always like it when those connections are present I don't seek those out I don't sort of pursue only those things but when they're present, I like to mention them because it'll often serve sort of a gentle corrective to the notion that the Bible doesn't contain historical data points. And so, yeah, so and in fact, it does, right? There's a guy that, that I like a lot of good friend, Larry McKee to who's discussed figures in

inscriptions that connect with figures from the Old Testament in the New Testament, and Larry's good friend, and, and he discusses that sort of thing. And I like it. I like to see. I like it when my field, you know, inscriptions or a figure of food, and another field of mine, Bible, I like it when there are connections. And I got into this field because I started out reading Greek, and I took Spanish in high school, and I did really poorly at it wasn't interested I did Greek and I was like well I actually like this and it seemed to have some capabilities in

it so then I did some German and Latin after that and then I did Hebrew and Aramaic after that and I just kept on going but I like the culture of the biblical world. I like the connections between the Bible and the ancient Near East. I like connections between archaeological and epigraphic finds in the Bible. And so that's sort of what what I enjoy most. So these sorts of finds, they connect with the New Testament so so nicely, and really enjoy uh discussing them seeing them well i can tell you enjoy you bring great enthusiasm here and i have one last question

for you i've been thinking about this like one inscription like this means to me i don't want to ask what it means to you but to me i i never thought the divinity of jesus was invented at the council of nicaea the evidence is too strong but this just puts the nail in the coffin to that definitively it's also part of a cumulative case for early belief in the divinity of jesus that adds to it but i just start thinking about these christians in the early third century who cared enough to make a beautiful mosaic with the technology that they had were willing to take a risk of some kind of persecution potentially breaking out and physically etching this in the ground certainly more than me putting something on my wall there's zero risk that it cost me

anything it's just an encouragement to like state what we believe live it, and be faithful in that third century in a wider pagan culture, they found ways to live out their faith, it looks like, with a level of boldness. That's encouraging, plus historically fascinating. What does this find mean to you? For me, I always like tangible things, archaeological artifacts that connect with the biblical world and the biblical text. And you're certainly correct that, you know, I think the Greek word I think is parousia, or something along those lines with regard to boldness.

And yeah, the early Christians were bold, and they were a very small segment to the ancient population and some of them did suffer martyrdom for their beliefs and during this period it seems that that wasn't going to be the case although you know you're done temper and Leah to signify suggest this thing was sort of covered over rather nicely because maybe times had changed and there was a need to protect it. And it seems that a period of persecution followed this early third century period when there was a cessation of persecution or reduction of persecution. Yeah, these early Christians, you know, they were firm in their beliefs, and they declared them, it seems, many of them unabashedly. And, yeah, I love along these lines Everett Ferguson's book, Early Christians Speak.

He collected a lot of the statements from early Christianity, published it in two or three editions of that volume. But there's a lot of that in there, including like early Christian soldiers, but I love I love all of those sorts of connections. And I just find them to be absolutely fascinating. Find the same thing for the Hebrew Bible and you know, inscriptions in Aramaic and Hebrew and Phoenician and Akkadian and the way that they connect with the biblical text and I find the way this connects this inscription these Greek

inscriptions connect with the New Testament to be absolutely fascinating and yeah definitely well I love it you heard it folks from dr. Chris Rolston that we need to talk about this more. So if you know a Bible teacher, somebody with a podcast, YouTube channel, skeptic, share this with them. Ask them to blog about it and just kind of spread the word so people can be made aware of what is legitimately a stunning biblical inscription that was discovered, clearly stating that Jesus Christ is God in the early third century near Armageddon. Before you click away, make sure you hit subscribe. We're going to keep covering archaeological discoveries and topics, especially as they relate to the Bible and its

reliability, plus a range of other topics. If you thought about studying apologetics, we would love to have you, and our program is fully distanced, and we have a PhD in archaeology, John Bloom, who teaches a class on this. Maybe someday we could have you come out and teach a class. That's a conversation we could have, Chris. But think about joining us in the apologetics program. Or if you're like, I'm not ready for a master's and you just want to study, we have a certificate program. We'd love to walk you through some formal training. Dr. Rolston, please keep me posted on fascinating finds like this. If you get excited about it and not enough people are talking about it, let me know and we'll have a conversation. Thanks for coming on. Well, will do. And thanks so much for talking about know talking about it and uh bringing it to the

attention of people i'm very grateful it's great to be with you again thank you thank you