They had seen
Trophimus from
Ephesus [one of the representatives who traveled with Paul, see ] out in the city with Paul and assumed that Paul had brought him into the temple.
[Inside the barrier that non-Jews were not allowed to enter.] [The Jude historian Josephus describes how the warning was written in Greek and Latin. A French archaeologist found such a stone with the entire Greek text in 1871. The stone had been used as building material for a house north of the temple. Since Jerusalem then belonged to the Ottoman Empire, the stone was taken to Istanbul, where it can still be seen today at the Istanbul Archaeological Museum. A fragment of another stone was found in 1936 and can be seen in Jerusalem at the Israel Museum. The find was interesting because analyses showed that the warning was written in red paint. The full text is: "No stranger may enter the temple enclosure! Anyone who violates this rule bears responsibility for their own death, which will be the consequence." The somewhat strange wording at the end shows how the Jews themselves could not punish anyone to death, but had to go through the Romans to carry out the death penalty – which is exactly what happened to Jesus.]
