Ancient Cup Has Hebrew Script for "God"

Script containing the Hebrew word for "God" on the ancient cup.

American archaeologists have found an extremely rare 2,000-year-old limestone cup inscribed with 10 lines of Aramaic or Hebrew script in the Old City of Jerusalem. According to a Los Angeles Times report:

Such ritual cups are common, especially in areas that were inhabited by priests, but usually they are unmarked or bear only a single line of text, such as a name, said archaeologist Shimon Gibson of the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, who led the dig. "To have 10 lines of text is unprecedented," he said in announcing the find last week.

The script is not eroded or degraded, but is in an informal cursive script and is apparently deliberately cryptic. Researchers know it contains the Hebrew word for God ~ YHWH or Yahweh ~ indicating priests probably used it in rituals.

Gibson said it could take two to six months to decipher its meaning.

Click here for the complete Los Angeles Times article.