You’ve probably already heard the biggest archaeological news from the last few days: Eilat Mazar’s ongoing excavations in the City of David have unearthed a(nother) bulla bearing the name of Gedaliah son of [P]ashḥur, or as it appears on the bulla, גדליהו בן פשחור (Gedalyahu ben Pašḥur). The find was publicized in the Trumpet and the Jerusalem Post yesterday, July 31. A decent photo of the seal accompanies the Trumpet article.

Ah, but a discovery like this cannot escape some degree of mystery, can it? The bulla did suffer some damage over the centuries; in particular, the first letter of the patronymic lacks some of its upper strokes. To delve deeper into this mystery, with a little lot of help from frequent Higgaion commentator G. M. Grena, please follow the “continue reading” link below.

G. M. has made the following line drawing—based on the Trumpet photograph—of the indisputable strokes on the “new” Gedaliah bulla:

The yod in the upper register lacks its lowest stroke, but as far as I know, nobody doubts that it’s a yod. In the lower register, though, the third character (from the right, of course) lacks something at the top. With that long downward stroke, the missing letter must be a peh, mem, nun, or at a stretch, a kaph. I haven’t actually read of anyone seriously doubting that the damaged letter is a peh, and that the full name is therefore “Gedalyahu ben Pashhur” (the second h is a ח) which would appear in your English Bible as “Gedaliah son of Pashhur.” However, based on a few things I have read, I get the impression that such objections may be floating around.

Now as a general rule, I like to be cautious and even overly scrupulous when talking about and assessing newly-discovered artifacts. In my opinion, it’s not helpful when the press—or archaeologists themselves (though this is rarer)—rush to judgment or overstate the importance of some new bit of evidence. We all saw this in action with Eilat Mazar’s misreading of the Shelomit seal as a Temech seal, and the ramifications of the misreading that were publicized in the press. In this case, the only real motive I can imagine for doubting that the damage letter in the second register is a peh is to weaken the connection between this seal’s owner and the historical person reflected in the biblical character Gedaliah son of Pashhur. But let’s be careful, and consider the matter soberly.

To help us work through the alternatives, G. M. has also produced speculative drawings showing the damaged letter from the lower register as a peh, a mem, and a nun:

In G. M.’s opinion, mem is clearly impossible and nun is very unlikely, given the encroachment of either letter on the following shin. I’m an amateur at best paleographically, and I’m generally reticent to suggest firm judgments based on speculative line drawings made from an online photograph, but G. M.’s work is carefully done and I think he’s probably right about the letter spacing.

Along another line of reasoning, we can query our known database of Hebrew names to see whether “Pashhur,” “Mashhur,” “Nashhur,” or even “Kashhur” is most likely based on actual attested names. In short, of these four, only “Pashhur” is actually attested as a personal name in the Hebrew Bible, in any of the inscriptions I can search using the “Inscriptions” Accordance module, or in the English resource The Context of Scripture. Arad ostracon 54 bears the name “Pashhur” (spelled without a mater, as פשחר) as does an ostracon from Aroer. Neither gives any additional information about the individual or individuals in question. A “Pashhur son of Immer” appears as a prominent character in Jeremiah 20, and a “Pashhur son of Malkiyah” is mentioned alongside of “Gedalyahu son of Pashhur” and “Yukal son of Shelemyahu” in Jeremiah 38:1. Whether we can or should connect the Pashhur of either ostracon with either of those Pashhurs, I don’t know. Nehemiah 10:3 lists yet a different Pashhur; the Pashhur son of Malkiyah in 1 Chron 9:12 may be the same as Nehemiah’s Pashhur. In any event, the name “Pashhur” is attested in the Hebrew onomasticon for at least three different people, while “Mashhur,” “Nashhur,” and “Kashhur” aren’t there (in the sources I could consult today on my hard disk and the internet, while waiting for car repairs that I thought had been taken care of earlier this week).

Combining the initial paleographic impressions with the onomasticon, the conclusion that the patronymic on the second register is “Pashhur” seems pretty solid at present.

But does that mean that the “Gedalyahu son of Pashhur” whose seal made this bulla is the same as the “Gedalyahu son of Pashhur” mentioned in the book of Jeremiah? Well, it’s not a slam-dunk, but I don’t think the case warrants much skepticism. Jim West mentions some possible skeptical angles:

As always, Mazar draws a connection where none may exist- with the Bible in one hand and any and every sherd dug from Jerusalem in the other. The Gedaliah of the seal may, or may not, be the same chap who the Bible reports served Zedekiah. And unless it says so directly, there’s no reason to suspect that the fellow mentioned in the Bible was the only chap who ever bore that name. Or, it’s equally possible, isn’t it, that the biblical account is based on historical factlets without itself being ‘historical’.

Jim says two different things that are worth considering separately. First, is it reasonable to suppose a connection between the Bible’s “Gedalyahu son of Pashhur” and the bulla’s “Gedalyahu son of Pashhur”? At first glance, one might think it obvious that they’re the same person, but Jim opines, “unless it says so directly, there’s no reason to suspect that the fellow mentioned in the Bible was the only chap who ever bore that name.” Now at one level, that’s just a silly standard; it’s impossible that a bulla contemporary with the gentleman could read “Gedalyahu son of Pashhur, you know, the Gedalyahu mentioned in the biblical book of Jeremiah.” On the other hand, can we rule out the possibility of more than one “Gedalyahu son of Pashhur” in ancient Judah? Not definitively, I think. We do know that the name Gedalyahu was borne by at least two biblical characters, Gedalyahu son of Ahiqam, Gedalyahu son of Pashhur. Arad ostracon 21 mentions a Gedalyahu son of Elyair, and another list mentions one Gedalyahu son of Uriyahu. “Gedalyahu” may have been a reasonably common name. But once you start putting name plus patronymic together, your odds decrease considerably. We know of a “Gedalyahu son of Pashhur” whom the Bible places in Jerusalem during the Babylonian invasion, and we have a bulla, apparently dating from late 7th- or early 6th-century Jerusalem, bearing the name “Gedalyahu son of Pashhur.” The natural inference is that these are the same guy; this inference is not necessarily accurate, but it sure is sensible. It sure makes more sense than assigning the bulla to a heretofore otherwise unknown other person with the same name, living in the same time and place.

Jim also says, “Or, it’s equally possible, isn’t it, that the biblical account is based on historical factlets without itself being ‘historical’.” Well, sure. Just because Gedalyahu son of Pashhur was a real person doesn’t mean that everything the Bible says about him is 100% true. The bulla only tells us that some document or something marked with his seal was in Jerusalem during the relevant time horizon. Whether the storyline of Jeremiah is historically credible (it is) must be decided almost entirely on other grounds.

While I was writing this, the following posts on the same topic appeared:

Also, see Lawrence Mykytiuk’s lengthy comment on Jim’s post. He reaches tentative conclusions similar to mine, but he’s better qualified to make such judgments, having done incredible work on identifying biblical persons in inscriptions.