[1] The Greek word used here is “diatagma” or “decree.”  The Nazareth Inscription is almost certainly a rump or abridged version of an imperial rescript.  It was common for imperial rescripts to be treated as legal decrees.  See Charlesworth, Documents Illustrating the Reigns of Claudius and Nero, p. 14 where the Emperor Claudius himself calls one of his rescripts on Jewish rights “touto mou to diatagma” or “this decree of mine.”

[2] Zuluet, in his article Violation of Sepulture in Palestine at the Beginning of the Christian Era, p. 184, and Brown in his article Violation of Sepulture in Palestine , p. 2 both translate the  Greek phrase “threskeian progonon” in line 3 of the Greek text as “cult of their ancestors;”  thereby suggesting that the Nazareth Inscription fits best with a Greco-Roman context, where religious rituals were performed at tombs by relatives.  However, the word “threskeian” is best translated as “religious observance.”  It is used at least five times in imperial rescripts dealing with Jewish religion. See Charlesworth, Documents, pp. 5, 14, 15.  It is also used in this same way for the Jewish religion by the Jewish historian Josephus, AJ, 17.9.3.  In addition, this same Greek word [“threskeian”] is used several times in the New Testament as related to Christianity, see Acts 26:5, James 1:26-27, and Col. 2:18.   The Greek work “threskeian” does not necessarily suggest pagan religion and can best be translated as “religious observance.”   

[3] It must be noted that the entire context of this decree assumes the existence of family tombs where only dead bodies –not the ashes of cremated humans-- were placed.  It should also be noted that there in nothing in this decree which assumes or states that the ashes of the cremated dead had been moved, lost or destroyed, or that funeral urns had been destroyed or stolen. This decree also does not mention bodies or funeral urns being dug up out of the ground, and burial in the ground was the normal gentile method of burial in the Roman Empire.  The ancient Jews did not cremate, while cremation was an even more common practice than inhumation for both Greeks and Romans.  Lesley and Roy Adkins in their Dictionary of Roman Religion write: “Cremation was the dominant rite until the first and second centuries in Italy and Rome, and by the mid-third century, in the rest of the empire, when inhumation became most common,” p. 34.  In other words, most burials in the gentile areas in the eastern half of the Roman Empire in the first century A.D. were by cremation, not inhumation.  For both cremations and inhumations, the vast majority of gentile burials was accomplished by placing dead bodies or human ashes in the ground in cemeteries, with only a few of the wealthy being buried in mausoleum-style tombs.  Even these mausoleum-style tombs were for individuals and not for family burials.  There are no known examples of family tombs, like those in second temple Israel, to be found among the other ethnic groups in the Roman Empire. In conclusion, there are six features in the Nazareth Inscription which do not fit a non-Jewish context.  First, there is no reference to bodies being dug out of the ground, only of their being “extracted” from tombs.  Second, there is no reference to the ashes or urns of cremated individuals.  Third, there is no reference made to coffins, and most Roman inhumation burials of dead bodies were in wood or lead coffins.  Fourth, there is an assumption of the existence of family tombs, and the gentiles in the Roman Empire did not have family tombs. Fifth, there is no reference to cemeteries, in which almost all gentile burials were made.  And six, “sepulcher-sealing stones” – see lines 13-14 below of the Greek text-- were not used for in-ground burials by gentiles in the Roman Empire.  In other words as was stated above, the Nazareth Inscription fits very well within a Jewish family tomb context, but it does not fit at all within a Greek or Roman context.

[4] Zeulueta’s  suggeston, in his article Violation of Sepulture in Palestine at the Beginning of the Christian Era, p. 184, that the Greek word “toutous” in line 3 of the Greek text was a scribal error should be rejected.  Toutous clearly refers back to “graves and tombs,” and there are examples of demonstrative pronouns being used in exactly the same manner in other rescripts of Claudius.  For example, see the use of “touto” in document 15 in Charlesworth, Documents, p. 14, and “tauta poiesas” in document 16, p. 15.

[5] The Greek word ametakinetous, which is here translated here as “undisturbed,” would in most other instances be translated as “unmoved.”  The basic meaning of the root word is “to move,” with an added alpha privitive negating it.   The English translation “undisturbed” is correct, but it does not give the full range of meaning found in the Greek word ametakinetous, which is prohibiting any sort disturbance made by movement or change. 

[6] The Greek doloi poneroi is almost certainly the equivalent of the Latin cuius dolo malo found in later Roman law --see Justinian’s Digest 47.12.3pr.  The Latin “cuius dolo malo”translates as: “by someone’s evil design.”  Zulueta renders the Greek phrase “doloi poneroi” by the adverb “maliciously” in his translation of the Nazareth Inscription, see his article Violation of Sepulture, p, 185.  Frank E. Brown in his translation in his Violation of Sepulture in Palestine, p. 2 renders this Greek phrase as “with malice aforethought.”  Brown’s translation is far better than Zulueta’s, but still does not give the full sense of what is being said.  This entire Greek phrase reads as “eis heterous topous doloi poneroi metatetheikota.  The placement of doloi poneroi between heterous topous and metatetheikota clearly indicates that it was the moving of dead bodies to other places that was being done “with wicked intent.”  The proper translation of doloi poneroi as “with wicked intent” gives strong support to the conclusion that the Nazareth Inscription was a rescript written in response to the story of the resurrection of Christ.

[7] The “e” [“or”] between the Greek words katoxous and lithous is almost certainly a scribal error.  The Greek words katoxoi lithoi, --without the “e” [“or”] between them-- appears in several other Greek documents and translates as “sepulcher-sealing stones.”  The period of time that sepulcher sealing stones were used for family tombs in Israel was relatively short, basically lasting less than 200 years and ending with the fall of Jerusalem in 70 A.D.  These family tombs are today called “kok/kokh” tombs by archaeologists.  There is no archaeological or documentary evidence which indicates that such “kok” tombs with their sepulcher-sealing stones were ever used by gentiles in the Roman Empire.

[8] I believe that the Greek phrase “criterion ego keleuo genesthai” [“I order that a tribunal to be established”] indicates that a trial for sacrilege was to be handled by a local religious tribunal. The punishment, however, was to be meted out by temporal Roman officials. It should be noted that both Jesus Christ and the Apostle Paul were put on trial by Jewish religious leaders for sacrilege, before being handed over to or seized by Roman officials; see Matt. 27:1-2, John 18:28-33, and Acts 20:28 and 22:30.

[9] Brown in his article Violation of Sepulture in Palestine, p. 15 argues that the presence of the word “gods” indicates that the Nazareth Inscription was written for a pagan audience, probably in the Decapolis.  Brown writes of the appearance of the word “gods” in the Nazareth Inscription: “Such an insult to Jewish feeling, an insult calculated to precipitate a general insurrection, was exactly what Roman policy did its utmost to avoid.” p.2.  This statement by Brown is pure nonsense. First, as Josephus, AJ, XIX.5.1-3 clearly states Gaius Caesar [Caligula] nearly drove the Jews to revolt because of his hubristic insistence that he be worshipped as a god.  So much for the supposed Roman policy of Roman emperors doing their “utmost to avoid” causing a “general insurrection” by the Jews!  And second, there still exists a rescript written directly to the Jews by the Emperor Claudius which calls Caesar Augustus “the god,” see Charlesworth, Documents, p. 14.  The reference to “gods” in line 15 should be viewed in conjunction with the establishment of the religious tribunal mentioned in lines 14-15.  In other words, it is simply saying that: just as a religious tribunal was to try cases of religious sacrilege, so also such a religious tribunal should handle cases dealing with the removal of bodies from tombs.  In other words, the crime of violation of sepulture was to be handled as a religious crime.   This interpretation is supported by Justinian’s Digest 47.12.4 where it is stated: “Sepulchra hostium religiosa nobis non sunt,” [“The sepultures of enemies are for us not (legally) religious]. 

[10] The Greek word used here is “metakeinesai” which translates as “to move,” i.e. dead bodies. This is not reflected in the translations of Zulueta, “disturb them” p. 159, or Brown “forcibly disturb them” p.  3. This sentence in lines 19-20 of the Greek text is simply restating for the second time that dead bodies were not to be moved from tombs.  The fact that this warning against removing the dead from tombs is repeated twice strongly indicates that this issue was the main reason for this decree, and this fits very well with the story of the resurrection of Christ.  It should also be noted that there is no accusation made in the Nazareth Inscription that tombs or bodies were being robbed, only that bodies were being moved.  This is very strange, unless one assumes that Claudius had heard the Jewish version of the resurrection of Christ.

[12] As a variety of modern scholars have noted, there is no other example in all of Roman law of the use of capital punishment to punish the crime of breaking into a tomb and removing a dead body.   Generally under Roman law, tomb breaking was treated as a matter for a civil suit by the person or family that owned the tomb, see Justinian, Digest 47.12 De sepulchro violato.   Justinian’s Digest 47.12.3.7 does impose the death penalty on anyone who “robs dead bodies” [“cadavera spoliant”] “by armed force” [“manu armata”]; but there is no reference to the death penalty being imposed for breaking into a tomb and removing a dead body.  This was true both for the period of the Roman Republic as well as for the period of the Roman Empire.

[13] The Greek word used here is “onomati” or “name.”  I believe that the word “onoma” or “name” was an early Greek translation for the Latin word “titulus.  The word titulus was used in Latin for the written accusation posted at the site where a condemned person was to be executed.  See for example the titulus of Christ, “King of the Jews,” posted over his head at His crucifixion.  The Roman practice of posting a titulus was foreign to the Hellenistic world, and there was no equivalent Greek word to translate it.  For example, in all three of the synoptic Gospels, the Greek words “aitia” [“legal charge”] and variants of the verb “grapho” [“write”] are used together to describe  the titulus of Christ, see Matt.27:27, Mark 15:26, Luke 23:38.   However, by the time that the John wrote his gospel, the Latin “titulus” had become a loan word in the Greek language as “titlos.”   John 19:19 uses the word “titlos” for the written charge placed over the head of Christ.  The fact that the Nazareth Inscription uses the word “onoma” or “name” and does not use the later Latin loan word “titlos” strongly suggests that the Nazareth Inscription was written sometime before John wrote his Gospel in the late first century A.D.

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