Strata: Exhibit Watch: Jeremiah Brought Back to Life

Through October 16, 2012
Armstrong Auditorium
Edmond, Oklahoma
www.armstrongauditorium.org

The relationship between archaeology and the Bible is not always an easy one, but sometimes they come together in striking agreement as witnesses to history. Seals of Jeremiah’s Captors Discovered presents two such instances. BAR readers have already been introduced to these tiny but amazing finds in recent articles by Hebrew University archaeologist Eilat Mazar about her excavations in the City of David,^a but now visitors to Edmond, Oklahoma, can see them at their world premiere at the Armstrong Auditorium.

These unassuming clay seal impressions, or bullae, bear the names of two of Jeremiah’s opponents described in the Book of Jeremiah—Yehuchal (or Jehucal) son of Shelemiah and Gedaliah son of Pashur—ministers of the king of Judah who had the prophet thrown into a cistern (or pit) because they did not like the message he was preaching to the people of Jerusalem about surrendering to the Babylonians (Jeremiah 38:1–13).

The Seals of Jeremiah’s Captors Discovered exhibit features these two seal impressions (each about the size of a dime) as well as dozens of ceramic artifacts from Jerusalem during the First Temple period—including figurines, royal seal impressions, and one of the largest ancient vessels ever found in Jerusalem.