The Ophel excavations at the foot of Jerusalem’s Temple Mount have yielded numerous exciting discoveries, including a new Biblical signature. Archaeologist Eilat Mazar reveals what may be a seal impression of the prophet Isaiah—unveiled here for the first time ever—in honor of Hershel Shanks’s retirement as Editor of BAR. ||||| If you asked people whom their favorite biblical prophet is, there’s a strong chance they would answer Isaiah. Sure, Moses gets all the accolades, received the tablets, and is the most important; but Isaiah is the prophetic book most quoted by authors of the New Testament. For Christians, Isaiah predicts the coming of the Messiah, the death of Jesus and the Virgin Birth. So, it is particularly auspicious that in a stunning article published today in Biblical Archaeology Review archaeologists announced that they have stumbled upon the first physical evidence for the existence of the prophet Isaiah. 
 
 The evidence itself comes in the form of a small piece of clay (an impression left by a seal), a mere 0.4 inches long, which appears to bear the inscription “Isaiah the prophet.” It was unearthed as part of excavations of a previously undisturbed pile of debris at the Ophel excavation in Jerusalem. The dig is headed by Eliat Mazar, who provides a description of the discovery, significance, and translation of the seal in an article published in this month’s issue of BAR. The debris contained figurines, pottery fragments, pieces of ivory, and some clay seal impressions, known as bullae. These impressions were created when the owners of the seals stamped their seals into the soft clay and include the mark of King Hezekiah, previously reported here at The Daily Beast. 
 
 According to Mazar, “alongside the bullae of Hezekiah… [were] 22 additional bullae… among these is the bulla of “Yesha‘yah[u] Nvy[?],” which is most straightforwardly translated as “Isaiah the Prophet.” Given the importance of Isaiah to religious history, this seal impression is of great significance to Jews and Christians alike. 
 
 According to the Book of Isaiah, Isaiah was an eighth-century BCE prophet during the reign of King Hezekiah (one of the few “good kings” who ruled Judah before the Babylonian conquest. In the book of Kings, Hezekiah is described as second only to King David). Isaiah began prophesying during the reign of King Ussiah and appears to have lived through the reigns of Kings Jotham, Ahaz, and the first 14 years of the reign of Hezekiah. He is responsible, among other things, for the earliest biblical description of heaven, which he saw in a vision (Isaiah 6). Many scholars think that Isaiah’s vision of God enthroned in the heavens laid the groundwork for subsequent descriptions of heaven. 
 
 Isaiah is influential in Christian circles for his prophecies about the birth of the messiah and the necessity of the messiah’s suffering. Christians liked him so much that they composed the Ascension of Isaiah, an account of his ascent into heaven and martyrdom (by being sawed in half by a wooden saw, which sounds dreadful). The fourth-century Christian theologian Gregory of Nyssa wrote that the prophet Isaiah knew “the mystery of the religion of the Gospel” more perfectly than any of the other prophets. The biblical translator Jerome describes him as an “evangelist,” a term that implies that he is on a par with the authors of the Gospels, and the famous Christian orator John Chrysostom wrote that “the mouth indeed was Isaiah’s, but the oracle was wafted from above.” Andrew Davies, director of the Edward Cadbury Centre at Britain’s University of Birmingham, told The Daily Beast that “without Isaiah we’d be missing some of the most sorrowful but also the most hopeful of all religious poetry and some of the greatest theological innovation of all time.” 
 
 Even in his own day, Isaiah was important. Not only did he reside in Jerusalem and have a close relationship with the kings of Judah, but subsequent generations added to his words and work. The majority of scholars believe that the Book of Isaiah should be divided into two if not three sections, with each being attributed to a separate author. The author of the second segment, Second Isaiah (Isaiah 40-55), is thought to have written during the exile and predicted the return of the Jewish people from Babylon to Jerusalem. What the incorporation of these later sections in to the book shows is that Isaiah was important enough that others wanted to use his memory to spread their message. 
 
 Now, for the first time, we have an example of what might be his signature. Not only is this proof that Isaiah existed (not something scholars truly disputed), but, arguably, evidence of his role in eighth century BCE Jerusalem society. Not everyone who had a seal was of elevated high status (as they were a means of solidifying identity), but the Bible does describe Isaiah as a counselor of the king to whom the monarch would turn for advice. The discovery of his seal impressions in close proximity to that of King Hezekiah confirms the picture of a court prophet that we get from the Bible. 
 
 There are, as Mazar acknowledges in her article, some problems with the seal impression. Some of the letters that comprise the wording of the seal appear to have broken off. Additionally, most seals identify their owner with reference to their father “X, the son of Y.” On Mazar’s reading, the Isaiah seal doesn’t follow this format and instead identifies him by profession (i.e., prophet). Mazar weighs these options in her article and begins by considering all of the alternative explanations for the seal. 
 
 Robert Cargill, a professor at the University of Iowa, self-described skeptic, and the editor of BAR, told The Daily Beast that this was a “carefully written, responsible article” and that the magazine was careful not to claim definitively to have found the seal of Isaiah. “I appreciated Dr. Mazar’s methodical, responsible approach to this discovery, suggesting critical alternatives to the inscription rather than simply sensationalizing it.” 
 
 The discovery itself, Cargill noted, appears pristine: “There is no evidence to suggest that the scientifically excavated and provenanced material from the Ophel excavation was tampered with and/or mixed while it awaited wet-sifting.” He added that while he has personally spent much of his career debunking false archaeological claims, he thinks that Mazar has indeed discovered a seal impression of the prophet Isaiah and “the first archaeological and extra-biblical reference to the prophet.” 
 
 The ramifications of the discovery remain to be seen. Excavations in Jerusalem are inevitably politically charged because of the Israel/Palestine conflict. Mazar herself has been criticized in the past both for her involvement in excavations in Silwan (East Jerusalem) by Zionist organizations. The Ophel is, as Cargill noted, especially controversial “because of its proximity to the Temple Mount, and specifically to the al-Aqsa Mosque. In the past, any discovery speaking to a Jewish presence on the Temple Mount has been immediately seized upon by Israeli politicians for political purposes, touting it in support of their claims of the sovereignty of Jerusalem vis-à-vis the Palestinians. This, in turn, often leads the Palestinians to respond by claiming that any discovery is a fake, or by protesting the very presence of Israeli or Jewish archaeologists in what they understand to be Palestinian territories. Thus, excavating in Jerusalem, especially near the Temple Mount, is not for the faint of heart; it is intrinsically political, whether the archaeologist wants it to be or not.” 
 
 As politicized as all of this might be, the seal impression establishes in concrete terms something that scholars never really doubted in the first place: that a prophet named Isaiah served as adviser to King Hezekiah. What it is does not prove is the authenticity of his prophetic vocation, the accuracy of his predictions, or the truth of the Bible’s message. ||||| A clay seal from the eighth century B.C. that was discovered in a Jerusalem excavation may bear the name of the biblical prophet Isaiah, according to a new article in Biblical Archaeology Review. 
 
 In the article, titled "Is This the Prophet Isaiah's Signature?," author and archaeologist Eilat Mazar suggests that the ancient Hebrew script impressed into the damaged half-inch oval of clay may have once read "Belonging to Isaiah the prophet." 
 
 If the interpretation of the lettering on the 2,700-year-old seal is correct, it would be the first reference to Isaiah outside of the Bible. The Hebrew prophet is described as a counselor to the Judean king Hezekiah, who ruled from the late eighth to the early seventh century B.C. 
 
 View Images A view of the Temple Mount/Haram al-Sharif in Jerusalem. The seal was discovered in the Ophel, an ancient fortified area whose ruins can be seen in the lower-right corner. Photograph by Annie Griffiths, National Geographic Creative 
 
 The clay seal, or bulla, was one of 34 found during Mazar's 2009 Ophel excavations at the base of the southern wall of Jerusalem's Temple Mount, or Haram al-Sharif. The seals, or bullae, were recovered from small Iron Age (1200-586 B.C.) garbage pits, outside the wall of what Mazar describes as a royal bakery leveled in the 586 B.C. Babylonian destruction of Jerusalem. 
 
 Isaiah the Prophet 
 
 The seal is impressed in Old Hebrew script with the name Yesha‘yah[u] (the Hebrew name of Isaiah), followed by the word nvy. 
 
 Because the seal is damaged at the end of the word nvy, Mazar suggests that our reading may be incomplete. If nvy was originally followed by the Hebrew letter aleph, the result would be the word "prophet," rendering the reading of the seal as "Belonging to Isaiah the prophet." 
 
 Reinforcing this interpretation, she writes, is the archaeological context in which the seal was found. 
 
 In 2015, the announcement that another clay bulla discovered in the Ophel excavations bore the personal seal of King Hezekiah made international headlines. According to the most recent article, the 'Isaiah' seal was found just 10 feet from the Hezekiah seal during the same 2009 excavation. 
 
 View Images This clay bulla featuring the seal of King Hezekiah was found in the same excavation area, just 10 feet from where the 'Isaiah' seal was discovered. Photograph by Ouria Tadmor/Eilat Mazar 
 
 The close relationship between the prophet and the king as described in the Bible, together with the proximity of the two seal finds "…seem to leave open the possibility that, despite the difficulties presented by the bulla’s damaged area, this may have been a seal impression of Isaiah the prophet, adviser to King Hezekiah, " Mazar writes. 
 
 "Major Obstacles" 
 
 As tempting as the interpretation may be, Mazar concedes there are "major obstacles" in the identification of the seal, most notably the word nvy. Without an aleph at the end, nvy is probably just a personal name (often the name of the person's father) or a location (where the person hails from). 
 
 Christopher Rollston, professor of Semitic languages at George Washington University, agrees that the reading of nvy is a problem. 
 
 300 Endangered Olive Ridley Sea Turtles Found Dead Mexico is investigating why mass death struck the vulnerable turtles. "Ghost nets" could be to blame. 
 
 "The critically important letter that would be needed to confirm that the second word is the title “prophet” is an aleph. But no aleph is legible on this bulla, and so that reading cannot be confirmed at all," he says. 
 
 Compounding the reading of nvy is a lack of the definite article "h", notes Rollston. In the majority of biblical references, references are to "the prophet" rather than simply "prophet." "In short, if this were the word 'prophet,' I would have liked to have seen the word 'the,' as in 'Isaiah the prophet,' he says. 
 
 While Mazar notes that the lack of definite article is also a problem in interpreting the seal, she includes a suggestion that the definite article may have originally appeared in a damaged area above the word nvy, or, citing other archaeological and textual examples, was simply left out. 
 
 View Images Researchers suggest that the damaged area of the seal may have originally contained the Hebrew characters vav and h in the middle register and aleph in the lower register (reconstructed text in blue). The complete seal impression would then read "Belonging to Isaiah the Prophet." Illustration by Ouria Tadmor/ Eilat Mazar 
 
 In addition, Rollston notes, the Hebrew root yš‘ is the basis not just for the name of Isaiah the prophet, but for almost twenty different people in the Bible. "There were lots of people walking around with the name Isaiah or names that were based on the exact same root-word," he observes. And if the word nvy is actually part of someone's father's name, it's definitely not associated with the prophet, whose father, according to the Bible, was Amoz. 
 
 The potential discovery of artifacts associated with both King Hezekiah and Isaiah, the biblical prophet who counseled the king during a tumultuous time following the Assyrian conquest of the northern Kingdom of Israel and the continued threat to the southern Kingdom of Judah, "is a rare opportunity to reveal vividly this specific time in the history of Jerusalem," Mazar concludes. ||||| Dear Reader, As you can imagine, more people are reading The Jerusalem Post than ever before. Nevertheless, traditional business models are no longer sustainable and high-quality publications, like ours, are being forced to look for new ways to keep going. Unlike many other news organizations, we have not put up a paywall. We want to keep our journalism open and accessible and be able to keep providing you with news and analyses from the frontlines of Israel, the Middle East and the Jewish World. 
 
 The Ophel excavations, located at the foot of the southern wall of the Temple Mount, may have unearthed the seal impression of the prophet Isaiah, who advised King Hezekiah in the Kingdom of Judah during the eighth century BCE. 
 
 
 
 The discovery of the oval, 1 cm. bulla was made by Dr. Eilat Mazar of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, who noted that because its upper end is missing and its lower left end is slightly damaged, a definitive determination cannot be made. 
 
 In an article titled “Is this the Prophet Isaiah’s Signature?” published in the most recent edition of The Biblical Archaeology Review, Mazar said the seal is divided into three registers.“The surviving portion of the top register shows the lower part of a grazing doe – a motif of blessing and protection found in Judah, particularly in Jerusalem – present also on another bulla from the same area,” she said.“The middle register reads l’eyesha‘yah[u] [belonging to Isaiah]; the damaged left end most likely included the [Hebrew] letter vav. The lower register reads ‘n[ah]vy,’ centered. The damaged left end of this register may have been left empty, as on the right – with no additional letters – but it also may have had an additional letter, such as an aleph, which would render the word... ‘prophet’ in Hebrew.”Mazar continued. “Whether or not the aleph was added at the end of the lower register is speculative, as meticulous examinations of that damaged part of the bulla could not identify any remnants of additional letters.”Alternately, Mazar conceded that it’s possible the seal did not belong to the prophet Isaiah, but rather to one of King Hezekiah’s officials named Isaiah, with the surname “N[ah]vy.”“Without an aleph at the end, the word ‘n[ah]vy’ is most likely just a personal name,” she said.However, noting the close relationship between Isaiah and Hezekiah, as described in the Bible, and the fact that the bulla was found next to one bearing the name of Hezekiah, Mazar said that it may indeed be authentic – despite the difficulties that have been presented by the bulla’s damaged area.“The discovery of the royal structures and finds from the time of King Hezekiah at the Ophel is a rare opportunity to reveal vividly this specific time in the history of Jerusalem,” she said. “The finds lead us to an almost personal ‘encounter’ with some of the key players who took part in the life of the Ophel’s Royal Quarter, including King Hezekiah and, perhaps, also the prophet Isaiah.” 
 
 Join Jerusalem Post Premium Plus now for just $5 and upgrade your experience with an ads-free website and exclusive content. Click here>> 
 
 
 

– A clay seal found in an ancient garbage pit in Jerusalem might have belonged to the prophet Isaiah, who's described as predicting the virgin birth and Jesus' death in the Old Testament. Or, less exciting, it might have belonged to some random guy named Isaiah. At present, it's impossible to know for sure, but there are clues that point to the famous Isaiah as the seal's owner, which, if true, would mean the first evidence of the prophet's existence outside of the Bible, per the Daily Beast. Why the uncertainty? As archaeologist Eilat Mazar explains in the Biblical Archaeology Review, the 2,700-year-old seal is damaged, so only a portion of its impression is visible. While it might have once read, "Belonging to Isaiah the prophet," it now shows the name Isaiah ("Yesha'yah[u]" in Hebrew) and "nvy," reports National Geographic. If the Hebrew letter aleph appeared with "nvy"—Mazar notes it might be obscured by damage—this second word would read "prophet." "Without an aleph at the end, the word 'nvy' is most likely just a personal name," Mazar tells the Jerusalem Post. There's other evidence that keeps her interest sparked, however. Mazar notes the half-inch seal was found just 10 feet from another seal bearing the personal mark of King Hezekiah, whom the prophet Isaiah served as an adviser, according to the Hebrew Bible. The timing is right, too, as Hezekiah reigned from the late eighth to the early seventh century BC. Yet with no aleph on the seal, the prophet's ownership of it "cannot be confirmed," expert Christopher Rollston tells National Geographic. (This find may support the biblical story of King Solomon.)