Gate of Mazaeus and Mithridates in Ephesus, Turkey that serves as an entrance to Ephesus's southern agora and that contains a Latin inscription honoring the Julio-Claudian imperial family: "Mithridates (set up this portion of the monumental gate) for his patrons Marcus Agrippa, son of Lucius, thrice consul, victorious general, six times holding power of the tribune; Julia; Caesar Augustus; and their children" (IEph 3006; translation and photo by D. Clint Burnett).
The canonical Christian documents abound with references to inscriptions, which are messages engraved most often on durable materials. Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John record that an inscription advertising the reason for Jesus’s execution was placed above his head on the cross: he claimed to be “The King of the Jews” (Matt 27:37; Mark 15:26; Luke 23:38; John 19:19). The only canonical historiographical work, the Acts of the Apostles, states that the apostle Paul used an Athenian altar dedicated “to an unknown god” as an illustration for a discourse about the God of Israel’s nature and the impending day of his wrath (Acts 17:23–31). Paul himself alludes to the practice of setting up epigraphs in 2 Corinthians. There, as he attempts to convince his converts that the ministry of the new covenant has greater glory than that of the old, he refers to the latter as a covenant “engraved on stones.” Paul’s argument: if that covenant had glory, then how much more glory does the new covenant—infused with God’s life–giving Spirit—possess (2 Cor 3:7–11)? The last book in the canonical New Testament, Revelation, says that inscriptions will be a part of the new age and the new Jerusalem. Faithful Christ-confessors will receive stones with a new name engraved on them (Rev 2:17), they will become pillars inside God’s temple, and both God’s name and that of the new Jerusalem’s will be inscribed on them (Rev 3:12). The new Jerusalem will be set on foundation stones on which the names of the twelve apostles are incised (Rev 21:14), and the twelve gates through which one enters this city will have the names of the twelve tribes of Israel engraved on them (Rev 21:12).
In short, the canonical New Testament demands its readers’ familiarity with epigraphy. One consequence of this is that contemporary readers must familiarize ourselves with inscriptions if we wish to read and interpret these early Christian documents in a responsible manner. Inscriptions are contextual archaeological artifacts. They were set up for particular reasons, by particular persons, in particular places, and at particular times. Such information allows for the contextualization of specific New Testament documents in a manner that has not been heretofore realized to the extent that it should. My new book, Studying the New Testament Through Inscriptions: An Introduction, introduces Greco-Roman inscriptions to a broader audience, interprets them as archaeological artifacts, and then demonstrates the benefit of epigraphs for interpreting the New Testament through five case studies.
In the first chapter, I introduce mainly Greek and Latin, but also Hebrew and Aramaic, inscriptions to readers. I survey what inscriptions are, why they were set up, how they were made, what types of epigraphs there are, who could read them, how they are dated, where and how one accesses inscriptions, and how one should interpret them.
The second chapter showcases how inscriptions provide evidence for local customs. This equips us to reconstruct aspects of local cultures, even some beliefs of early Christ-confessors about Jesus. I examine appearances of the title “Lord” (adon in Hebrew, mr’ in Aramaic, and kyrios in Greek), one of the most important epithets for Jesus in earliest Christianity, in inscriptions from ancient Syria-Palestine. I conclude that “Lord” was a royal title unique to this region (and Egypt) during the early Roman Empire. This suggests use of the title “Lord” by the earliest Christ-confessors in Syria-Palestine referenced Jesus’s messianic royal identity rather than his divinity.
In the third chapter, I delve into how inscriptions help us reconstruct the meanings of certain Greek words in the New Testament. For example, I examine the meaning of the Greek word prolambanō in Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthians (11:21). The meaning of this word is critical for reconstructing the problem that Paul addresses in his discussion of the Lord’s Banquet. Does prolambanō mean “go ahead” here? If so, Paul addresses the problem more affluent Corinthian Christ-confessors are “going ahead” with the Lord’s Banquet before the poorer members of the nascent Christian congregation arrive. Or does prolambanō mean “devour”? In this case, more affluent Corinthian Christ-confessors may be “devouring” the Lord’s Banquet in front of the poorer Corinthian converts. Through an examination of the use of prolambanō in Greek inscriptions, I demonstrate the high probability that the former meaning is the most appropriate.
The fourth chapter looks at one common misuse of inscriptions among New Testament scholars: the conclusion that an obscure phrase in Acts of the Apostles 17:7, “Caesar’s decrees,” refers to oaths of loyalty that provincials swore to the reigning emperor and inscribed, often on stelae. I examine these oaths in detail, pointing out that they cannot be “Caesar’s decrees” because they are not from a “Caesar.” Rather, these fealty oaths result from legislative processes in cities and each of them have a particular context. They were taken either at the accession of or appointment of a new emperor or as a thanksgiving for imperial benefaction. In place of this proposal, I argue that the reference to “Caesar’s decrees” most probably means letters sent by emperors to Thessalonica granting and then reaffirming the city’s autonomy and tax-exempt status in the empire.
The fifth chapter demonstrates how inscriptions shed light on the activities of women in the Greco-Roman world, especially elite women. Focusing on the early Christian congregation at Philippi, which contained more known early Christian women than any other first century CE Christian church, I reconstruct from Philippian inscriptions the possible activities and roles of Christian women. Given that Philippian women were public benefactresses and priestesses as well as priestesses of private associations where they exercised leadership roles over men, I contend early Christian women in Philippi probably served in leadership and patronage roles in the church there.
In chapter six, I show how inscriptions help sidestep exegetical impasses in the New Testament. With a specific focus on the number/name of the beast in Revelation 13:18, 666, I point out that Greek letters doubled as numbers, which means that every letter, word, group of words, and even a sentence or sentences have a numerical value. Then, I examine twenty-three epigraphic examples which disguise a person’s name with numbers. Such name calculations (known in Hebrew as gematria) expected their audience to have enough information to decipher the name/number. Similarly, the author of Revelation provides all the information that his audiences need to figure out that the beast’s name is Nero Caesar.
In the end, my hope in writing this book is to encourage more people, both specialists and enthusiasts, to use the 500,000 to 800,000 surviving Greco-Roman inscriptions to enter into the strange, weird, and obscure world that was life in the in the early Roman Empire. Hopefully, we can use this variegated material to gain more insight into the world of Second Temple Jews, including early Christ-confessors, and the documents that they produced.
D. Clint Burnett lives in Knoxville, TN and has a research appointment as a Visiting Scholar at Boston College (Chestnut Hill, MA).