Jeremiah’s Scribe and Confidant Speaks from a Hoard of Clay Bullae - The BAS Library
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Home > Magazines > BAR > September/October 1987

Jeremiah’s Scribe and Confidant Speaks from a Hoard of Clay Bullae

By Hershel Shanks

Seldom does archaeology come face to face with people actually mentioned in the Bible. When that happens, the discovery takes on a unique immediacy, touched with awe. When a hoard of inscribed Hebrew bullae surfaced on the antiques market and was found to contain a bulla impressed with the name of Baruch, son of Neriah, known from the Bible as secretary and faithful companion to the prophet Jeremiah, the scholarly community was stunned. That was more than ten years ago. Even now, however, the mysteries surrounding this hoard are as great as the revelations. So much is unknown about […]

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Footnotes

1.

Yahweh is the common vocalization of the personal name of the Hebrew God represented in the Bible by four Hebrew consonants YHWH, referred to by scholars as the tetragrammaton.

2.

Professor Avigad rejects the possibility because if ’Elishamac of the seal had also been a scribe, “It is unlikely that the royal scribe would put aside his own title for another, less specific one which did not reflect his function.”

3.

See Paul W. Lapp, “Bedouin Find Papyri Three Centuries Older than Dead Sea Scrolls,” BAR 04:01, and Frank M. Cross, “The Historical Importance of the Samaria Papyri,” BAR 04:01.

4.

See Hershel Shanks, “A Radical Proposal: Archaeologists Should Sell Ancient Artifacts,” BAR 11:01.

Endnotes

1.

Nahman Avigad, Hebrew Bullae from the Time of Jeremiah (Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society, 1986), p. 32.

2.

John Bright, Jeremiah, Anchor Bible (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1965), p. 239.