The temple warning stone
The barrier Acts turns on existed, with the death penalty attached, in exactly the words the crowd's accusation assumes.
Confirmed by the groundInscription1st century BC – 1st century AD
A block from the barrier around the temple courts, warning that no foreigner may pass beyond it, on pain of death. Acts has Paul seized in the temple by a crowd shouting that he has brought Greeks past that point and defiled the place.
No foreigner is to enter within the balustrade and enclosure around the temple area. Whoever is caught will have himself to blame for his death which follows.
- Found
- Near the Temple Mount, Jerusalem, 1871 — Charles Clermont-Ganneau (a second fragment in 1936)
- Now held at
- Istanbul Archaeological Museums (fragment in the Israel Museum, Jerusalem)
- Language
- Greek
- How it reached us
- Dug up, or still standing where it was built.
What it shows
The stone confirms the rule and its penalty. It says nothing about Paul.
How historians use it
A standard source on Herodian temple architecture and on Roman concessions to Jewish law.
In Scripture
Connects to
Sources
These summaries are written in English for now. Translations follow.