Today, the term Rosetta Stone is used in other contexts as the name for the clue or key to a new field of knowledge. Many theologians regard Daniel 9:20-27 as the Rosetta Stone of prophecy because it is the key to understanding Jesus’ teaching on the second coming, as well as the book of Revelation.
Full Answer
What is the significance of the Rosetta Stone?
The Rosetta stone was basically the same text written in Ancient Greek, Demotic (Egyptian, not demotic Greek) and Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics. Scholars could already read ancient Greek (of course) and were working on Demotic, so the significance of the stone was that it gave them the "key" to understanding hieroglyphics and helped with th
How many languages does the Rosetta Stone contain?
The Rosetta Stone contains Egyptian Hieroglyphs at the top, Demotic in the middle and Greek at the Bottom. Have other similar stones been found and why does the stone have three languages?
What are the similarities between the Rosetta Stone and the pyramid?
The figure of Cleopatra , hieroglyphic writing and deciphering, and the pyramid as maze and The Rosetta Stone contains Egyptian Hieroglyphs at the top, Demotic in the middle and Greek at the Bottom. Have other similar stones been found and why does the stone have three languages?
Is the Behistun Inscription the Rosetta Stone?
The Behistun inscription has also been compared to the Rosetta stone, as it links the translations of three ancient Middle-Eastern languages: Old Persian, Elamite, and Babylonian.
See more
What did the Rosetta Stone say about Christianity?
The Rosetta stone was written before Jesus' time, so it couldn't say anything about Christianity. I don't know that it said much that's relevant to our understanding of the Tanakh.
What does the Rosetta Stone say?
The Rosetta stone was a proclamation, announcing the kingship of Ptolemy V, and saying that the temple accepted his family as divine. The hieroglyphic version would not say, “Just kidding, this does not apply to you.”
What is the name of the stone with Egyptian hieroglyphs?
The Rosetta Stone contains Egyptian Hieroglyphs at the top, Demotic in the middle and Greek at the Bottom. Have other similar stones been found and why does the stone have three languages?
When was the Rosetta Stone created?
The Rosetta Stone is believed to have been created around 196 BCE and contains the same message in 3 languages: Ancient Greek, Demotic Egyptian, and Ancient Egyptian Hieroglyphs. It provided a way to understand Egyptian hieroglyphs which were not well known at the time of discovery by allowing comparison with the Ancient Greek translation which was a known language.
When was the Bible written?
The Bible was written from 1500BC to 100AD. It was 1st translated into Koine Greek 132 BC, this version was called the Septuagint. Then translated into Latin by Saint Jerome by in 383 AD, known as the Latin Vulgate. The 1st printed version was translated into German by Martin Luther in 1533 AD and mass distribution. The first English printed surviving copy is the King James printed in 1611.
Did the Rosetta Stone help with the Bible translation?
Therefore the Rosetta Stone Discovery, although amazing and extremely helpful historically, had absolutely nothing to help with the translation of the Bible.
Did the Rosetta Stone work?
They didn’t; It was a heuristic. One of the assumptions one could make is that the two texts meant the same thing, and then proceed to test this hypothesis. And it worked, because identifications made with the Rosetta Stone worked in other inscriptions. A similar assumption worked in the case of the inscriptions at Behistun, opening the way to deciphering cuneiform writing, and in the case of Linear B in Crete. In both cases, the scholar made an assumption that the inscription was in X language and went on to test values of letters with this in mind. And both worked beautifully. If the assumption hadn’t worked, then another hypothesis would have to have been tried. There are plenty of cases of this also, e.g. the Phaistos Disk, which remains undeciphered. ln the case of Etruscan, inscriptions in tombs which are clearly Etruscan (defined by location and artifacts) are assumed to be in the Etruscan language, but since these are the only records of written Etruscan, and without a translation into a known language, they can not be read. for the most part. (Some words can be read, e.g. names, but reading the script is not an issue: it is in a known alphabet. The missing component is the meaning of the inscriptions. The chances are good that an Etruscan ‘Rosetta Stone’ will turn up eventually and provide the kick start needed to read Etruscan texts, or at least more than can be done at present.)
The Bible in the British Museum
Room 4 in the British Museum (Egyptian Sculpture) has several things of note to those interested in Biblical history. One of the most famous items in the museum is the Rosetta Stone.
Why the Rosetta Stone Matters to Bible Students
The text of the Rosetta Stone is not of particular interest (if you feel bored: Rosetta Stone translation ). It is a decree from 196 B.C. on behalf of Ptolemy V.
About Jon Gleason
This entry was posted in Bible in British Museum and tagged Biblical archaeology, hieroglyphics, Napoleon, Rosetta Stone. Bookmark the permalink .
How many languages are there in Rosetta Project?
Most comprehensively, the Rosetta Project brings language specialists and native speakers together to develop a meaningful survey and near-permanent archive of 1,500 languages, in physical and digital form, with the intent of it remaining useful from AD 2000 to 12,000.
What is the Rosetta Stone?
The Rosetta Stone is listed as "a stone of black granodiorite, bearing three inscriptions ... found at Rosetta" in a contemporary catalogue of the artefacts discovered by the French expedition and surrendered to British troops in 1801. At some period after its arrival in London, the inscriptions were coloured in white chalk to make them more legible, and the remaining surface was covered with a layer of carnauba wax designed to protect it from visitors' fingers. This gave a dark colour to the stone that led to its mistaken identification as black basalt. These additions were removed when the stone was cleaned in 1999, revealing the original dark grey tint of the rock, the sparkle of its crystalline structure, and a pink vein running across the top left corner. Comparisons with the Klemm collection of Egyptian rock samples showed a close resemblance to rock from a small granodiorite quarry at Gebel Tingar on the west bank of the Nile, west of Elephantine in the region of Aswan; the pink vein is typical of granodiorite from this region.
What did Young discover about Greek mythology?
In the hieroglyphic text, he discovered the phonetic characters " p t o l m e s " (in today's transliteration " p t w l m y s ") that were used to write the Greek name " Ptolemaios ". He also noticed that these characters resembled the equivalent ones in the demotic script, and went on to note as many as 80 similarities between the hieroglyphic and demotic texts on the stone, an important discovery because the two scripts were previously thought to be entirely different from one another. This led him to deduce correctly that the demotic script was only partly phonetic, also consisting of ideographic characters derived from hieroglyphs. Young's new insights were prominent in the long article "Egypt" that he contributed to the Encyclopædia Britannica in 1819. He could make no further progress, however.
Where was the Rosetta Stone transported?
Bouchard, meanwhile, transported the stone to Cairo for examination by scholars. Napoleon himself inspected what had already begun to be called la Pierre de Rosette, the Rosetta Stone, shortly before his return to France in August 1799.
What did Hutchinson claim about the Library of Alexandria?
Hutchinson claimed that all materials were property of the British Crown, but French scholar Étienne Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire told Clarke and Hamilton that the French would rather burn all their discoveries than turn them over, referring ominously to the destruction of the Library of Alexandria. Clarke and Hamilton pleaded the French scholars' case to Hutchinson, who finally agreed that items such as natural history specimens would be considered the scholars' private property. Menou quickly claimed the stone, too, as his private property. Hutchinson was equally aware of the stone's unique value and rejected Menou's claim. Eventually an agreement was reached, and the transfer of the objects was incorporated into the Capitulation of Alexandria signed by representatives of the British, French, and Ottoman forces.
When was the Rosetta Stone returned to Egypt?
Calls for the Rosetta Stone to be returned to Egypt were made in July 2003 by Zahi Hawass, then Secretary-General of Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities. These calls, expressed in the Egyptian and international media, asked that the stele be repatriated to Egypt, commenting that it was the "icon of our Egyptian identity". He repeated the proposal two years later in Paris, listing the stone as one of several key items belonging to Egypt's cultural heritage, a list which also included: the iconic bust of Nefertiti in the Egyptian Museum of Berlin; a statue of the Great Pyramid architect Hemiunu in the Roemer-und-Pelizaeus-Museum in Hildesheim, Germany; the Dendera Temple Zodiac in the Louvre in Paris; and the bust of Ankhhaf in the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston.
When did the Rosetta Stone leave the British Museum?
Other than during wartime, the Rosetta Stone has left the British Museum only once: for one month in October 1972, to be displayed alongside Champollion's Lettre at the Louvre in Paris on the 150th anniversary of the letter's publication.
The day I touched the Rosetta Stone: The miracle of Scripture and the urgency of biblical obedience
I need to begin this article with a personal confession: I once touched the Rosetta Stone.
What did you think of this article?
If what you’ve just read inspired, challenged, or encouraged you today, or if you have further questions or general feedback, please share your thoughts with us.
