Herodian Greek limestone slab warning Gentiles against entering the inner sacred courts on pain of death
A complete limestone warning slab that was affixed to the balustrade (Soreg) separating the Court of the Gentiles from the sanctified inner courts of Herod's Temple Mount.
Rigorous 4-part empirical analysis separating ancient text from bias and consensus
The seven-line Greek inscription in monumental block letters reads: 'No foreigner may enter within the barricade and enclosure around the sanctuary. Whoever is caught will have himself to blame for his ensuing death.'
Corroborates Acts 21:28–30 (where an angry mob seizes Paul on false charges of bringing Greeks past the Soreg into the Temple) and Ephesians 2:14 ('broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility').
Matches Josephus (*Jewish War* 5.193–194, 6.124–126) and Philo, confirming that Roman authorities granted the Jewish Sanhedrin the extraordinary right to execute even Roman citizens who violated this sacred boundary.
Sacred legal boundary decree enforcing the strict purity regulations of the Jerusalem Temple Mount.
