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The Bible in stone
Gallio Inscription
Greek letter cut in stone · c. AD 52 · found at Delphi, Greece
At Delphi in Greece, French excavators found pieces of a stone slab carved with a Greek letter from the emperor Claudius to the city; it was published in the early 20th century. Claudius writes about bringing new citizens of standing to Delphi, and he names Gallio as proconsul of Achaia, the Roman province of southern Greece. Claudius’s titles in the letter date it to AD 52, and so Gallio’s year in office is usually placed in AD 51–52.
Gallio was the brother of the philosopher Seneca. Born Marcus Annaeus Novatus in Córdoba, Spain, he took the name Gallio when a rhetorician of that name adopted him. Acts tells how the Jews of Corinth brought Paul before him and how he refused to judge a dispute about their own law (Acts 18:12–17). Paul stayed in Corinth a year and a half (Acts 18:11), so the inscription is one of the fixed points for dating his journeys. Scholars differ on whether Paul stood before Gallio early or late in Gallio’s term. Gallio later left Achaia because of illness, and under Nero he was forced to take his own life.
Key verses
There he found a Jew named Aquila, a native of Pontus, who had recently come from Italy with his wife Priscilla because Claudius had ordered all the Jews to leave Rome. Paul went to visit them,So Paul stayed for a year and a half, teaching the word of God among the Corinthians.While Gallio was proconsul of Achaia, the Jews coordinated an attack on Paul and brought him before the judgment seat.But just as Paul was about to speak, Gallio told the Jews, “If this matter involved a wrongdoing or vicious crime, O Jews, it would be reasonable for me to hear your complaint. But since it is a dispute about words and names and your own law, settle it yourselves. I refuse to be a judge of such things.”At this, the crowd seized Sosthenes the synagogue leader and beat him in front of the judgment seat. But none of this was of concern to Gallio.Sources
Adapted and shortened from the Tyndale Open Bible Dictionary · CC BY-SA 4.0
Tyndale Open Bible Dictionary © 2023 Tyndale House Publishers · CC BY-SA 4.0 — Gallio Inscription*; Gallio; Inscriptions: Official Announcements
Adapted from Tyndale Open Bible Dictionary: articles chosen, shortened and retold in our own words (history, nature and daily life only) and, in languages other than English, machine-translated. The original work by Tyndale House Publishers is available for free at tyndaleopenresources.com.
