Bible Synapse
Bulla of Gemariah son of Shaphan
Object · late 7th–early 6th century BC · Assyria and Babylon · also called Gemaryahu son of Shaphan bulla, Gemariah bulla
See it on the map and timeline- Date
- late 7th–early 6th century BC (the bulla (dated by its find layer))
- Found
- City of David, Jerusalem, 1982. Found in 1982 by Yigal Shiloh’s City of David excavations, with some 50 other bullae, in a building burnt in the Babylonian destruction of 586 BC.
- Now
- Location not published
- Passages
- Jeremiah 36:10–12, Jeremiah 36:25
What it is
A small lump of clay that once sealed a document, stamped with a personal seal in the old Hebrew script reading “belonging to Gemaryahu son of Shaphan”. It is one of about 50 bullae found together in a building destroyed when the Babylonians took Jerusalem in 586 BC.
How it connects to the Bible
Jeremiah 36 tells how Baruch read Jeremiah’s scroll in the Temple “in the chamber of Gemariah the son of Shaphan the scribe”, and how Gemariah later urged King Jehoiakim not to burn it (Jeremiah 36:10, 25). Many scholars identify the owner of this seal with that official, since the bulla comes from the right city and the right decades.
What scholars debate
The excavation report points out that these names were common, so the identification cannot be certain.