Biblical Archaeology Review

For additional information, see Yaakov Meshorer, Ancient Jewish Coinage, volume 2 (New York, 1982), pp. 29–30.

It is interesting to note, however, that the structure on the rings is square; on all the other depictions it is round. Did the artisan who crafted the ring make it square because of the type of material he employed?

Additional examples of Byzantine artifacts with depictions of “sacred structures”:

Personal communication from Professor Mazar, to whom I wish to express my thanks for the material on this ring and for his helpful comments.

Frank Moore Cross, who also made reference to the supposed confusion in the stratigraphy at Arad, suggested that the second letter was not kaf but a Phoenician shin of the sixth century B.C. On one of the bowls, the central stroke is so long as to preclude any association with a Phoenician shin; therefore, we reject his paleographic argument out of hand. Furthermore, those bowls were buried beneath a fill of stratum IX which itself was sealed by floors of the later strata. The stratigraphy here is absolutely certain and in no way confused.

James B. Pritchard, Ancient Near Eastern Texts (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1969), p. 292.

See, e.g., Kurt Aland, Studien zur Uberlieferung des Neuen Testaments und seines Textes (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1967), p. 173ff.; and C. H. Roberts’s discussion of nomina sacra in his important book, Manuscript, Society and Belief in Early Christian Egypt (London: Oxford University Press, 1979), pp. 26–48.

See Leslie W. Barnard, “The Cross of Herculaneum Reconsidered,” in The New Testament Age: Essays in Honor of Bo Reicke, ed. W. Weinrich (Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 1984), vol. 1, p. 15ff.

Lawrence H. Schiffman, Who Was a Jew? (Hoboken: KTAV, 1985), p. 26.