Heritage Auctions announced on November 17, 2016 AD that they have sold one stone tablet dating from the 4th century AD upon which is written the Decalogue, the Ten Commandments.
It is said to be the “earliest-known” of such inscriptions, it is a two-foot-square slab of white marble, weighing in at circa 115 lbs., inscribed with 20 lines of a Samaritan script “derived jointly from Hebrew and Aramaic.”
Yet, it is not only the known commandments but includes a “introductory dedication and invocation” as well as omits “Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain” but includes a statement “commonly employed by the Samaritan sect exhorting worshippers to ‘raise up a temple’ on Mount Gerizim.”
They note that it “likely adorned the entrance of a synagogue destroyed by the Romans between A.D. 400 and 600, or by the Crusaders in the 11th century.” Some wonder if “adorned the entrance” meant on the floor which may seem odd but there is quite a bit of ware to the stone so that perhaps it was routinely stepped on or wore from people touching it as it was embedded into a wall.
Also, “scholars suspect the stone was probably carved in the late Roman or Byzantine era, circa A.D. 300-500…in or around the modern city of Yavneh.” The synagogue may have been destroyed “when the Samaritan sect was heavily suppressed by the Romans in the mid-400s, by the Byzantines in the 500s, or by the Muslims or Crusaders up to the 12th century.”
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