The Jesus Cup

Professor Craig Evans
New Testament Studies,
Acadia Divinity College, Nova Scotia

On Discovery Channel in the fall of 2008 French marine archaeologist Franck Goddio, co-founder of the Oxford Centre of Maritime Archaeology, announced the discovery of a ceramic cup during underwater exploration of the ancient city of Alexandria, Egypt. Goddio and his team found a cup on which are inscribed the words dia crhstou o goistais, which may mean “the magician by Christ,” perhaps in the sense that “the magician (possesses his power) by (or through) Christ.” (goistais would be understood as a variant of gohth/j or go/hj [“enchanter”].) Goddio and Egyptologist David Fabre date the cup sometime between late second century BC and early first century AD. If the reference is to Jesus Christ, then it would indeed be the earliest inscriptional reference to the founder of Christianity.

However, there are several problems with this suggestion. Although the spelling Xrhsto/j (instead of Xristo/j) is attested in reference to Jesus Christ (e.g., see no. 10 below), the early date of the cup is problematic. Of course, the inscription itself may not be as old as the cup. Another problem has to do with the odd spelling o goistais. Is this really a variant for o9 goh/thj, or some other form of magician? Klaus Hallof, of the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy, and Bert Smith, professor of classical archaeology and art at Oxford, have suggested that the inscription should be read ogoistais, in reference to the god Ogoa, mentioned by Pausanias (c. 160 AD), whose followers may have been called Ogoistai. Ogoa, or Osogoa, is another name for Zeus. For references, see Pausanias, Description of Greece 8.10.3 (“the sanctuary of the god [i.e., Zeus], called in the native tongue Osogoa; Strabo, Geography 14.

Although the possibility that the inscription may have referred to Jesus, whose power was invoked by a magician, cannot be ruled out, in my view it is more likely that the reference is to someone named Chrestus (a common enough name), who was either a magician and/or was among the Ogoistai.