This tablet reads almost like a stone version of 2 Kings 12 — a royal notice describing how King Jehoash gathered silver and spent it repairing the “House of Yahweh.” If real, it would be the only monumental building inscription from an Israelite king's temple. But it appeared from nowhere, through the same circles as the disputed James ossuary, and a scientific panel found signs of modern manufacture, including a surface crust that could be produced artificially. It is widely regarded as a forgery. We list it, plainly, as the kind of too-good-to-be-true object this field has learned to distrust.
- What it is
- A dark stone tablet inscribed in paleo-Hebrew, purporting to record repairs to the Jerusalem temple by King Jehoash
- Date of artifact
- inscription claimed 9th century BC (widely judged a modern forgery)
- Discovered
- unknown — surfaced on the antiquities market, linked to the same collector as the James ossuary, 2003
- Where it is now
- Held under Israeli authority amid an ownership dispute
- Related to
- King Jehoash's fund to repair the “House of the LORD”
- Scripture
- 2 Kings 12:4–16
What this find showsNothing that can be relied upon — the object is unprovenanced and most experts judge the inscription modern.
What it does not proveIt offers no support for the biblical account; a forgery that echoes 2 Kings 12 shows only that its maker had read 2 Kings 12.
Contested: A committee of Israel's Antiquities Authority declared it a forgery; a few specialists disagree, and a long court case ended without a definitive ruling on authenticity. Treat it as almost certainly not genuine.
Sources & further reading