A new inscription, recently published in BAR for the first time in English,^a may hold the key to unlocking a new understanding of some of the history of Christian and Jewish messianism.

Written on a stone 3 feet tall, the new text has many of the characteristics of a fragmentary Dead Sea Scroll, including being poorly preserved. Based on the stance and form of the letters, the distinguished decipherers of the inscription (Ada Yardeni and Binyamin Elizur) date it to the late first century B.C.E. or early first century C.E.