| Sanballat and The Elephantine Papyri |
| Nehemiah 2:10
Sanballat the Horonite |
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| The
Elephantine Papyri contains the name Sanballat.
Egyptian Museum of Berlin. |
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Sanballat is found
in the book of Nehemiah 10 times.
The Elephantine Papyri
The Elephantine Papyri is a collection of ancient
Jewish manuscripts dating from the fifth
century BC. They come from a Jewish community
at Elephantine, the island in the Nile at
the border of Nubia. The ‘Passover
letter’ of 419 BCE (discovered in 1907),
which gives detailed instructions for properly
keeping Passover is in the Egyptian Museum
of Berlin. Further Elephantine papyri are
at the Brooklyn Museum. The discovery of
the Brooklyn papyri is a remarkable story
itself. The documents were first acquired
in 1893 by New York journalist Charles Edwin
Wilbour. After lying in a warehouse for more
than 50 years, the papyri were shipped to
the Egyptian Department of the Brooklyn Museum.
It was at this time that scholars finally
realized that “Wilbour had acquired
the first Elephantine papyri”. The
papyri are reported to confirm the account
found in the biblical books of Ezra and Nehemiah,
specifically mentioning two people in mentioned
in the book of Nehemiah, Sanballat the Horonite
and Johanan, Neh. 2:19, 12:23 (Merrill Unger,
Unger’s Bible Handbook, p.260).
Translation:
“
We have also set forth the whole matter in
a letter in our name to Delaiah and Shelemiah,
the sons of Sanballat, the
governor of Samaria.
Furthermore, Arsames (the Persian satrap) knew
nothing of all that was perpetrated on us.
On the twentieth of Marheshwan, the seventeenth
year of Darius the King. “
The
full translation of the letter that contains
Sanballat’s name
Scriptures
Nehemiah 4:1 But it came to pass, that
when Sanballat heard that we builded
the
wall, he was wroth, and took great
indignation, and mocked the Jews.
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