A warning notice from the Temple in Jerusalem
Archaeology can throw new light on the Bible story, even when it does not directly 'prove' it to be true.
For example, non-Jews were forbidden to enter anything other than the outermost parts of Herod's temple (the temple in Jerusalem at the time of the New Testament). A marble dividing wall, about 1.5 metres high marked off the inner areas they were not allowed to enter. On the wall, there were notices warning them not to go any further.
Josephus records the existence of these notices warning non-Jews not to go any further into the temple, on pain of death.
In 1871, archaeologists excavating the temple site found an example of such a warning notice, carved in limestone, and dating from about 31 AD. This notice is now in a museum in Istanbul, Turkey.
Photo: Jerusalem Christian Review
The notice says:
A fragment of another such notice was found in 1936, and is now in Jerusalem.
Interestingly, the warning notices were only written in Greek, not Hebrew or Aramaic. This confirms that Greek was a common language, widely understood by virtually all Jews during New Testament times.
In Acts chapter 21 verses 27-28, the Jews of Jerusalem rioted because they believed (mistakenly, as it happens) that Paul had brought the non-Jewish Trophimus into the temple. In Ephesians chapter 2 verses 13-14, Paul writes that only through Jesus Christ is the 'wall of hostility' - the barrier separating Jews and non-Jews - broken down. This was not just a metaphor - it was a real physical wall, symbolic of a deeper reality. The discovery of the warning notices sheds fresh light on these parts of the Bible.
For more about these warning notices, see page 243 of 'Discoveries from Bible Times', by Professor Alan Millard