It appears that they may have found the seal of one of the most infamous women of the Bible.

An ancient seal that surfaced in Israel more than four decades ago belonged to the biblical Queen Jezebel, according to a new study released on Tuesday by a Dutch university.

The seal, which some scholars date to the ninth century BCE, was first discovered in 1964 by the Israeli archeologist Nahman Avigad, with the name "Yzbl" inscribed in ancient Hebrew, Utrecht University said.

Although it was initially assumed that the seal belonged to Jezebel, the powerful and reviled Phoenician wife of the Jewish King Ahab, there was uncertainty regarding the original owner both because the spelling of the name was erroneous, and because the personal seal could easily have belonged to another woman of the same name.

Moreover, the unknown origin of the seal, which was not found in an official excavation but purchased on the antiquities market in Israel, has left Israeli archeologists uncertain of its ownership for the last 40 years.

But the study by Utrecht University Old Testament scholar and Protestant minister Dr. Marjo Korpel, 48, concludes that the seal must have belonged to Jezebel, based on the symbols that appear on it.

Will it ever be possible to authenticate the seal with 100% certainty? No, it won’t – but once again, we have archaeological evidence that seems to corroborate the existence of biblical figures. And while that doesn’t “prove” that the Bible is 100% accurate, it does show that it contains at least some elements of historical truth not available elsewhere.

Posted by: Greg at 10:26 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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