Archæology and the Bible

This papyrus, dated in the year 175 A. D., is very important as it proves that the census came every fourteen years. The enrolment mentioned at the end of it was made in connection with the census of 174-175 A. D., since the document is dated in August of the year 175. The enrolment mentioned about the middle of the document was the enrolment of 160-161 A. D. That was dated in the summer of 161. The one mentioned near the beginning of the quotation as having been made in the 9th year must refer to the census of the year 146-147, and the 9th year of Antoninus Pius, which was the year 147. The proof that the census was taken every fourteen years[608] is of the greatest importance to our subject, as will appear below.

This enrolment was made by one Mysthes Ninnos on behalf of his son, who was also called Mysthes Ninnos, the wife of the son who was a freed-woman, called Zozime, and their children, who were the grandchildren of the man making the enrolment. Mysthes Ninnos, the grandfather, had been married twice. His first wife was named Aphrodite; after her death he married Herais, the mother of the son, Mysthes Ninnos.

2. Translation Referring to an Enrolment in the Reign of Nero.[609]

The date of this document, which is only a copy, is not given, but as it refers to two transactions in real estate, which were dated respectively in the 5th and 6th years of Nero, and as that monarch’s reign began in October of the year 54 A. D., it is probable that this is a copy of an enrolment made in connection with the census of 62-63 A. D. This proves that the system of taking the census once in fourteen years was in operation as early as the reign of Nero.

3. Fragment from the Reign of Tiberius.[610]

The papyrus at this point becomes too mutilated for further translation.

The importance of this document is revealed by an examination of the names of the officers, Eutychides and Theon. Another papyrus from the same place, which contains a notice of a removal, is dated in the 6th year of the Emperor Tiberius.[611] As these officers were still in office when this census was taken, this must be the census of the year 20-21 A. D.

4. Enrolments Probably Inaugurated by Augustus.

Another papyrus contains a list of people who were exempt from poll-tax in the 41st year of the reign of Augustus.[612] As the poll-tax was intimately connected with the census, it is altogether probable that the census was inaugurated by Augustus. As he became emperor in 27 B. C. and at once proceeded to organize his empire, the census may have begun early in his reign. If there was one in 20 A. D. there would be one in 6 A. D., 9-8 B. C., and possibly in 23-22 B. C. If there was not one in 23-22, that in 9-8 B. C. would be the first. This is the one to which reference is made in Luke 2:2. If the birth of Jesus occurred at the time of this census, it must have been earlier than we usually suppose. Ramsay thinks that the taking of the census in Judah may have been delayed till 7 or 6 B. C., on account of Jewish prejudices.

5. Document Showing that People Went to Their Own Towns for Enrolment.

In connection with the census of Quirinius it is stated in Luke 2:3: “All went to enroll themselves, every one to his own city.” This has been felt by many scholars to be an improbable statement, and has been cited as an evidence of the unhistorical character of the whole story of the census in Luke. In this connection part of a papyrus discovered in Egypt, which is dated in the 7th year of the Emperor Trajan, 103-104 A. D., is of great interest. This document contains three letters. The third of the letters is the one which relates to our subject. It is as follows:[613]

It is perfectly clear that in Egypt the enrolment was done on the basis of kinship. The word rendered “family” above [συνήθη] means “kindred” in the larger sense. The phrase rendered “belonging to” [them, i. e., the tilled lands] also means “kindred.” It appears, then, that in Egypt the enrolment of each district was intended to include all the kinsmen belonging to that district, and that, lest those residing elsewhere should forget to return home for the census, proclamations were issued directing them to do so. It is well known that in many respects the customs of administration in Syria and Egypt were similar. Luke’s statement, that Joseph went up from Nazareth to Bethlehem, because he was of the house and lineage of David, to enroll himself with Mary (Luke 2:4, 5), turns out to be in exact accord with the governmental regulations as we now know them from the papyri.

6. Inscription Supposed to Refer to Quirinius.

A fragmentary inscription found at Rome in 1828 is thought by Mommsen and others to prove that Quirinius was governor of Syria twice, and that the governorship to which Josephus refers (Antiquities, XVII, i, 1), which was coincident with the deposition of Archelaus in 6 A. D., was his second appointment. The inscription as filled out by Mommsen and others reads:[614]

If this inscription were intact its evidence would be decisive, but unfortunately it is only a fragment, and the name of Quirinius is just that which has to be supplied from other inscriptions. That so eminent a scholar as Mommsen thought that this name was the one which once began the inscription is of weight, but it does not compensate for the loss of the name.

7. Inscription from Asia Minor Referring to Quirinius.[615]

The following inscription, discovered by Prof. Ramsay and Mr. J. G. C. Anderson, of Oxford, is believed by Ramsay to prove that Quirinius was governor of Syria between 10 and 7 B. C.

To Gaius Caristanius
(son of Gaius of the Sergian tribe) Fronto
Caesianus Juli[us],
Chief of engineers, pontifex,
priest, prefect of P. Sulpicius Quirinius duumvir,
prefect of M. Servilius.
To him first of all men
at public expense by decree of the decuriones,
a statue was erected.

This inscription was found at Antioch, a fortified colony in southeastern Phrygia or southern Galatia, in the year 1912. The name Caristanius connects its erection with the time of the Hamonadian war, 10-7 B. C. That Quirinius received the honor of an election to the office of honorary duumvir of the colony at this time, is held by Ramsay to prove that he had been sent to Syria as governor, and had been military commander in the war against the Hamonades. It was the benefits which accrued to the little colony of Antioch from his victories in this war, which led to the election and the erection of this statue. Ramsay, accordingly, holds that this inscription proves Quirinius to have been governor of Syria about 11-7 B. C., and this confirms the statement of Luke 2:2, that the census at the time when Jesus was born was the first enrolment, when Quirinius was governor of Syria.

One objection to this theory is that from other sources (Josephus, Antiquities, XVI, x, 8; xi, 3), it appears that Sentius Saturninus was governor of Syria at this time, i. e., from 9-7 B. C., just at the time when, according to the papyri, the census should occur. This is supported by a statement of Tertullian, that Jesus was born when Saturninus was governor of Syria. To meet this objection, Ramsay supposes either that the authority of Quirinius and of Saturninus overlapped, the former being military commander and the latter civil governor, or that Quirinius ruled until about July 1st of the year 8, the census year, and Saturninus then took office. These are, however, mere possibilities. We have not yet clear information concerning these points.

Later, in 6 A. D., Quirinius was sent out to Syria again (see Tacitus, Annales, III, 48), and took over as governor of Syria the kingdom of Judah on the deposition of Archelaus, and conducted the census there of 6-7 A. D. (See Josephus, Antiquities, XVIII, i.) Many scholars have held that Luke confused this governorship with earlier events and was accordingly in error as to his chronology by at least ten years, but the archæological facts here collected tend to corroborate Luke’s accuracy on this point. It should be added that Luke knew that Quirinius had charge of the census in Palestine in 6 A. D., as Josephus states, for he says: “This was the first enrolment made when Quirinius was governor of Syria.”

8. Conclusions.

It should in all candor be noted just what archæology has proved concerning this matter, and what points are still, from the archæological side, outstanding. It has proved that the census was a periodic occurrence once in fourteen years, that this system was in operation as early as 20 A. D., and that it was customary for people to go to their ancestral abodes for enrolment. It has made it probable that the census system was established by Augustus, and that Quirinius was governor of Syria twice, though these last two points are not yet fully established by archæological evidence. So far as the new material goes, however, it confirms the narrative of Luke.

CHAPTER XXVII

In Acts 17:6 the rulers of Thessalonica are called in the Greek “politarchs.” It is a unique term, and its accuracy had been called in question by some scholars. Within the past hundred years no less than nineteen inscriptions have come to light which prove its accuracy, by referring to the rulers of Thessalonica as “politarchs.” One of the most important of these is from an arch in Thessalonica. It runs in part as follows, the beginning being illegible:[616]

Another fragmentary inscription shows that the rulers of the city bore this title as early as the time of Augustus. It is in part:[617]

It is not clear from the inscriptions whether the number of politarchs was five or six.

2. An Altar to Unknown Gods.

In Acts 17:23 it is stated that Paul saw in Athens an altar with this inscription: TO AN UNKNOWN GOD. In the year 1909 an altar was discovered in the sacred precinct and temple of Demeter at Pergamos in Asia Minor, the home of one of the seven churches of the book of Revelation (Rev. 2:12, f.), which bore a mutilated inscription; (see Fig. 299). This inscription in the judgment of several impartial epigraphists should be restored as follows:[618]

To unknown gods,
Capito,
torch-bearer.

This is not only a confirmation of the statement of Acts 17:23, but of Pausanias[619] (second century A. D.) and Philostratus[620] (third century A. D.) that altars to unknown gods existed.

3. The Date of Paul’s Contact with Gallio.

The chronology of the life of Paul cannot be fully determined from the Bible itself. Such chronological data as the New Testament affords help us only to a relative chronology. Could the year of one of the dates given by the New Testament be determined by a date of the Roman empire, it would enable scholars to fix with approximate certainty the other dates. Hitherto the endeavor to do this has centered about the recall of Felix from Palestine and the coming of Festus (Acts 24:27), but there has been so much uncertainty about the date of this recall, that systems of chronology, differing from one another by from four to five years, have been constructed. A fragmentary inscription has come to light from Delphi, which seems to give us the desired aid for our Pauline chronology in that it fixes the date of the coming of Gallio to Corinth (Acts 18:12). This inscription, as its lacunæ are supplied by Deissmann, is as follows:

At this point the inscription is too broken for translation, although the beginnings of several lines can be made out. The importance of the inscription lies (1) in the fact that it mentions Gallio as proconsul of Achaia, and (2) in the reference to the 12th tribunican year and the 26th imperatorship of Claudius. It can be deduced from these, in comparison with other inscriptions of his, that this letter was written between January and August of the year 52 A. D.[622] If Gallio was then in office, and had been in office long enough to give information to Claudius of material importance to the purpose of the emperor’s letter to the Delphians, Gallio must have arrived in Corinth not later than the year 51. According to Dio Cassius, Claudius had decreed that new officials should start for their provinces not later than the new moon of the month of June.[623] Gallio must, therefore, have arrived in Corinth not later than July.

Paul’s stay in Corinth extended over eighteen months (Acts 18:11), and the narrative in Acts implies that a large part of it had passed before Gallio went there. Paul must, then, have arrived in Corinth not later than the end of the summer of the year 50. As the journey described in Acts 16 must have occupied some months, the council at Jerusalem, described in Acts 15, cannot have taken place later than the year 49 A. D. In Gal. 2:1 Paul says that this visit occurred fourteen years after the visit which followed his return from Damascus. As the Jews in counting time usually reckoned the two extremes as a part of the number, even if a part of them only should really have been included, the visit of Paul to Jerusalem, mentioned in Gal. 1:18 must have occurred not later than 36 A. D., nor earlier than 35 A. D. As this visit occurred “three” years after his conversion, we find, if we make similar allowance for the possibilities of Jewish reckoning, that his conversion occurred not later than 34 A. D., and possibly as early as 31 A. D.[624]

4. The Epistles.

The Epistles of the New Testament, especially those of Paul, are cast in the form of ancient letter-writing. This form in its more stately aspects has long been known through the letters of Aristotle, Epicurus, Cicero, Seneca, Pliny, etc., but the papyri discovered in Egypt afford us many examples of the more familiar and affectionate style of informal letter-writing, and frequently, at the beginning, afford parallels to expressions which are found in the introductions of Paul’s Epistles. The following examples will illustrate this:

This letter was written in the year 172 B. C. “Brother” in it probably means husband. The husband had gone on a religious mission and has left the wife without support. He at last sent her a letter, and this is her reply. She wishes to persuade him to return, and writes with great tact. What she says about remembering her husband in her prayers, and her thanks to the gods for his health, reminds one of the language of Paul in 1 Thess. 1:2; 3:9; 2 Thess. 1:3, 11; 2:13; 1 Cor. 1:4; 2 Cor. 1:4-6; Phil. 1:3, 9; Col. 1:3; Philemon 4.

Another letter which illustrates the same points is this:

The sentence of this letter which follows the greeting is couched in almost the same language as 3 John 2, and the number of people saluted in it and the manner of their salutation reminds one strongly of Rom. 16:3-16.

Clearly the New Testament Epistles conform in their affectionate expressions to the forms that were often employed by other letter-writers of that period of history.

5. Paul and Aretas, King of Arabia.

Paul says: “In Damascus the governor under Aretas the king guarded the city of the Damascenes in order to take me.”[627] Aretas is called by Josephus king of Arabia. He was Haretat IV, King of the Nabathæan Arabs. These Nabathæans were found in Arabia by the Assyrian King Ashurbanipal (668-626 B. C.); they conquered Edom about 400 B. C., driving the Edomites over into southern Judah; they helped one of the successors of Alexander the Great at the battle of Gaza in 312 B. C., and founded a dynasty of kings that lasted until overthrown by the Roman Emperor Trajan in 106 A. D. Haretat IV belonged to this line. The following Aramaic inscription, dated in his reign, affords monumental confirmation of his existence:

As Haretat ruled from 9 B. C. to 40 A. D., this inscription was written in 31 A. D., just a few years before Paul escaped from the officers of Haretat at Damascus. There are many other inscriptions dated in the reign of this king.

Another reads as follows:

The forty-sixth year of Haretat was the year 37 A. D. The monument here translated was found at Medeba east of the Jordan (see Num. 21:30; Josh. 13:9), and the two places mentioned in it are believed to be Nabathæan names for Medeba and Rabbah Ammon (2 Sam. 11:1, etc.). It is evidence that Haretat had held this territory for a long time. Paul’s escape from Damascus (2 Cor. 11:32) occurred between the date of the preceding inscription and this one.

APPENDIX

(Appearing first in Second Edition.)

I

Addition to Part I, Chapter III, §2, (3), p. 70.

The discoveries at Carchemish included Hittite inscriptions, one of which is said to be longer than any Hittite writing yet discovered. A number of stone deities were also found, one of which is a bearded god of the eighth century B. C. seated on a heavy base supported by two lions. Three large gateways were found. On the inside of the court of one of these were dadoes from five to six feet high, “with sculptured slabs of alternating black diorite and white limestone adorned with carved figures of bulls, horses, and chariots.” The acropolis was surmounted by the ruins of a palace of King Sargon of Assyria, who conquered Carchemish, and by the ruins of a Roman palace. An avenue of broad steps, more than a hundred feet long, led up to these.

II

Addition to Part I, Chapter III, §3, to be read after (7) on p. 74.

(8) Hrozny, a Hungarian scholar, published in the Mitteilungen der deutschen Orient-Gesellschaft zu Berlin, No. 56 (December, 1915), a new study of the problem of Hittite decipherment. Owing to the war the publication has not reached the writer. An excellent résumé of it has, however, been published by Professor J. H. Moulton in the Expository Times, xxviii, 106 ff. (December, 1916).

It appears that in April, 1914, Professor Hrozny and Doctor Figulla went to Constantinople and copied cuneiform inscriptions from Boghaz Koi until the war recalled them. Hrozny’s study is based on this cuneiform material. He reaches the conclusion that Hittite is not only an Indo-European language, but that it also belongs to the western half of the Indo-European family. In other words, he finds it more closely related to Greek, Latin, Keltic, and the Teutonic tongues than to the Slavonic, Lithuanian, Armenian, and Persian languages, or to Sanscrit and its daughters. According to Hrozny, then, the Hittites came from western Europe, or the center from which the western European peoples radiated. He thinks they crossed into Asia by way of the Bosphorus. He supports his contention by some most interesting philological analogies. The Mitanni, on the other hand, belonged, he thinks, to the eastern half of the Indo-European family. They were closely related to the Slavs, Lithuanians, Armenians, Persians, etc. The indications seem to be that they entered Asia by way of the Caucasus. We await further evidence with great interest.

III

Addition to Part I, Chapter III, §9, p. 102.

Professor George L. Robinson, who was in Jerusalem in the spring of 1914 as Director of the American School, has published in the American Journal of Archæology, Vol. XXI, p. 84 (January-March, 1917), a brief statement of the discoveries on Ophel and at Balata. He mentions the finding on Ophel of a tower with rock-cut foundations, certain cave-tombs with oval roofs, a cistern with Roman baths, an inn, a Greek inscription (which tells of a synagogue), and an underground, rock-cut aqueduct, running parallel to and probably older than that of Hezekiah, which conducts the water of Gihon to the Pool of Siloam.

At Balata the foundations of old Hebrew houses were discovered, together with a portion of the Amorite city-wall, which was thick and oblique. The ruins of a palace were also found and a great triple gateway, the longest yet excavated in Palestine. This gate was on the west of the city. Near the tell an Egyptian sarcophagus was found, which some have thought might be the coffin of Joseph.

IV

A NEW BABYLONIAN ACCOUNT OF THE CREATION OF MAN

To supplement Part II, Chapter II, p. 257.

Since the first edition of this book went to press, the writer has had the good fortune to discover among the tablets from Nippur in the University Museum in Philadelphia a new Babylonian account of the creation of man. The text is written in the Sumerian language, and the script is of the mixed cursive variety that was employed during the time of the first dynasty of Babylon and the Kassite dynasty. The text is accordingly older than 1200 B. C., and may have been written before 2000 B. C. It reads as follows:

Reverse

A colophon states that the tablet contained sixty lines. Only five lines are entirely broken away.

Ashnan was a god of vegetation. Tikku, who had not created the land, was a personified river-bank. The story begins, therefore, before the beginning of vegetation and before the creation of dykes in Babylonia. As in the text translated in Chapter VIII, Part II, considerable space is occupied with the things that were non-existent when the process of creation began. The last sentence of this section asserts that the lord and Nintu had not brought forth men. Nintu is the goddess who in the creation story translated in Chapter VII, Part II, appears as the mother of mankind (see p. 279). The new tablet then states that Ug, the lion god, identified by a later text with Shamash, the sun god, first came forth to plan. “Mankind he planned; many men were brought forth.” The word rendered “planned” has also the meaning “know,” as in Gen. 4:1, where Adam is said to have known Eve. It seems probable, therefore, that the text indicates that men were born from a natural union of Ug and Nintu, just as it is said on p. 284, in another text from Nippur, that irrigation resulted from a similar union of the sun-god and Nintu. This shows that among the Sumerians there were different conceptions of the way mankind was made. A Babylonian story of the making of a man which is much more like the narrative of Gen. 2 than that contained in this new tablet is given on p. 256.

After telling how men were brought forth, and how they were left to provide houses and clothing for themselves, the new tablet tells how reed huts, similar to those still seen in the Babylonian marshes, were made. Clans were formed and irrigation begun. Here the obverse becomes too broken for connected translation.

At the beginning of the reverse several lines are fragmentary. From what can be made out, some god seems to be addressing Enlil. Reference is made to Duazagga, the heavenly abyss, which is described as “the way of the gods,” probably an allusion to the Milky Way. It is implied that the gods live along this way. It seems that all was not going well with men on the earth, so this deity proposed to make a dwelling for Ashnan, the god of agriculture, outside of Duazagga, presumably on the earth. Two-thirds of the fold perished; Ashnan accordingly created plants as food for men. This reminds us of how plants and fruits were given to man as food in Gen. 1:29. Ashnan also caused it to rain in order to promote the growth of vegetation. This, however, created a new evil. The reed huts were washed away, together with a third of the fold. Some god, probably Enlil, accordingly came down from heaven, and built a city. This gave to human society the required stability. In this stable society the god gave the scepter of command into man’s hand just as in Gen. 1:28 man is given dominion over all the lower orders of life. In this connection we find the statement:

“The lord caused them to be and they came into existence,” the form of which reminds one of the statement in Gen. 1:3, “God said, Let there be light: and there was light.”

The next line: “Companions calling them, a man with his wife he made them dwell,” recalls Gen. 2:18 and 24. The last line of the text is the Babylonian equivalent of the last clause of Gen. 2:24.

This text as a whole describes the creation of man, sketches the vicissitudes of pastoral life, and ends with a statement of the greater security and prosperity of urban life. It attributes the origin of everything to the gods.

Addition to Part II, Chapter XI, p. 309.

The entrance of Abraham and later of Jacob and his sons into Egypt in time of famine (Gen. 12:10 and 47:5-12) is strikingly illuminated by the following reports of officials stationed at fortresses on the Egyptian border.

The first of these texts was inscribed in the tomb of Harmhab, the founder of the nineteenth dynasty, though there is reason to believe that it was written during the reign of Amenophis IV of the eighteenth dynasty (1375-1357 B. C.). Some of the lines are broken. It reads as follows: