The rolled-up silver amulet scroll is inscribed with the Tetragrammaton, or the sacred name of God (YHWH), and is the oldest historical artifact, outside of the Bible, that confirms Yahweh as God's name. The Scripture passage inscribed on the amulet, which dates to the end of the seventh or early eighth century B.C., comes from Numbers 6:24–25.

Timeless Truth

Aristotle's famous dictum is highly applicable to the study of the history of the Bible: “He who asserts must also prove.” So much of the Bible and its history are up for interpretation. Thus, in a discussion of fallacy versus fact, an honorable scholar must do her best to prove, as Aristotle says, what she asserts to be the truth.

The scroll was found in a trove of approximately 700 burial gifts, including pottery and alabaster vessels, silver jewelry and beads, arrowheads, bone and ivory artifacts, and a rare coin. Students from the Institute of Holy Land Studies, now Jerusalem University College, discovered this exciting find with their professor, Israeli archaeologist Gabriel Barkay, in 1979. The tombs are in Jerusalem near the Scottish Presbyterian Church of St. Andrew, on what is known as the Shoulder of Hinnom, the southwestern slope of the Hinnom Valley.