Biblical Archaeology Review just published this new, tiny find from the excavations at the Temple Mount in Jerusalem: a clay seal (or bulla) that seems to contain the name Isaiah with (a little more doubtfully) the word “prophet” written underneath. The top register of the seal seems to depict an animal, perhaps a doe. The article, “Isaiah’s Signature Uncovered in Jerusalem: Evidence of the Prophet Isaiah” can be accessed here and has been picked up quickly by a number of news sites. Paleojudaica also has a nice write-up about this. How significant is the find? Popular media tends to keep rewriting the same story for finds of this sort: they prove the veracity of the Bible. In this case, however, nobody seriously doubts the existence of Isaiah, who is also attested outside of his own book in the Bible in some of the more historical writings (2 Kings 18). Finding the a seal of the biblical prophet Isaiah would indeed be interesting but the fact that it would then attest to his actual existence is perhaps the least interesting thing about it. (The headline, incidentally, is slightly misleading. It is the seal that is the “signature,” not the writing on […]
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