Tablet Ignites Debate on Messiah and Resurrection
by New York Times


http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/06/world/middleeast/06stone.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

Tablet Ignites Debate on Messiah and Resurrection
By ETHAN BRONNER

A three-foot-tall tablet with 87 lines of Hebrew that scholars believe dates from the decades just before the birth of Jesus is causing a quiet stir in biblical and archaeological circles, especially because it may speak of a messiah who will rise from the dead after three days.

If such a messianic description really is there, it will contribute to a developing re-evaluation of both popular and scholarly views of Jesus, since it suggests that the story of his death and resurrection was not unique but part of a recognized Jewish tradition at the time.

The tablet, probably found near the Dead Sea in Jordan according to some scholars who have studied it, is a rare example of a stone with ink writings from that era — in essence, a Dead Sea Scroll on stone.

It is written, not engraved, across two neat columns, similar to columns in a Torah. But the stone is broken, and some of the text is faded, meaning that much of what it says is open to debate.

Still, its authenticity has so far faced no challenge, so its role in helping to understand the roots of Christianity in the devastating political crisis faced by the Jews of the time seems likely to increase.

Daniel Boyarin, a professor of Talmudic culture at the University of California at Berkeley, said that the stone was part of a growing body of evidence suggesting that Jesus could be best understood through a close reading of the Jewish history of his day.

"Some Christians will find it shocking — a challenge to the uniqueness of their theology — while others will be comforted by the idea of it being a traditional part of Judaism," Mr. Boyarin said.

Given the highly charged atmosphere surrounding all Jesus-era artifacts and writings, both in the general public and in the fractured and fiercely competitive scholarly community, as well as the concern over forgery and charlatanism, it will probably be some time before the tablet's contribution is fully assessed. It has been around 60 years since the Dead Sea Scrolls were uncovered, and they continue to generate enormous controversy regarding their authors and meaning.

The scrolls, documents found in the Qumran caves of the West Bank, contain some of the only known surviving copies of biblical writings from before the first century A.D. In addition to quoting from key books of the Bible, the scrolls describe a variety of practices and beliefs of a Jewish sect at the time of Jesus.

How representative the descriptions are and what they tell us about the era are still strongly debated. For example, a question that arises is whether the authors of the scrolls were members of a monastic sect or in fact mainstream. A conference marking 60 years since the discovery of the scrolls will begin on Sunday at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem, where the stone, and the debate over whether it speaks of a resurrected messiah, as one iconoclastic scholar believes, also will be discussed.

Oddly, the stone is not really a new discovery. It was found about a decade ago and bought from a Jordanian antiquities dealer by an Israeli-Swiss collector who kept it in his Zurich home. When an Israeli scholar examined it closely a few years ago and wrote a paper on it last year, interest began to rise. There is now a spate of scholarly articles on the stone, with several due to be published in the coming months.

"I couldn't make much out of it when I got it," said David Jeselsohn, the owner, who is himself an expert in antiquities. "I didn't realize how significant it was until I showed it to Ada Yardeni, who specializes in Hebrew writing, a few years ago. She was overwhelmed. 'You have got a Dead Sea Scroll on stone,' she told me."

Much of the text, a vision of the apocalypse transmitted by the angel Gabriel, draws on the Old Testament, especially the prophets Daniel, Zechariah and Haggai.

Ms. Yardeni, who analyzed the stone along with Binyamin Elitzur, is an expert on Hebrew script, especially of the era of King Herod, who died in 4 B.C. The two of them published a long analysis of the stone more than a year ago in Cathedra, a Hebrew-language quarterly devoted to the history and archaeology of Israel, and said that, based on the shape of the script and the language, the text dated from the late first century B.C.

A chemical examination by Yuval Goren, a professor of archaeology at Tel Aviv University who specializes in the verification of ancient artifacts, has been submitted to a peer-review journal. He declined to give details of his analysis until publication, but he said that he knew of no reason to doubt the stone's authenticity.

It was in Cathedra that Israel Knohl, an iconoclastic professor of Bible studies at Hebrew University in Jerusalem, first heard of the stone, which Ms. Yardeni and Mr. Elitzur dubbed "Gabriel's Revelation," also the title of their article. Mr. Knohl posited in a book published in 2000 the idea of a suffering messiah before Jesus, using a variety of rabbinic and early apocalyptic literature as well as the Dead Sea Scrolls. But his theory did not shake the world of Christology as he had hoped, partly because he had no textual evidence from before Jesus.

When he read "Gabriel's Revelation," he said, he believed he saw what he needed to solidify his thesis, and he has published his argument in the latest issue of The Journal of Religion.

Mr. Knohl is part of a larger scholarly movement that focuses on the political atmosphere in Jesus' day as an important explanation of that era's messianic spirit. As he notes, after the death of Herod, Jewish rebels sought to throw off the yoke of the Rome-supported monarchy, so the rise of a major Jewish independence fighter could take on messianic overtones.

In Mr. Knohl's interpretation, the specific messianic figure embodied on the stone could be a man named Simon who was slain by a commander in the Herodian army, according to the first-century historian Josephus. The writers of the stone's passages were probably Simon's followers, Mr. Knohl contends.

The slaying of Simon, or any case of the suffering messiah, is seen as a necessary step toward national salvation, he says, pointing to lines 19 through 21 of the tablet — "In three days you will know that evil will be defeated by justice" — and other lines that speak of blood and slaughter as pathways to justice.

To make his case about the importance of the stone, Mr. Knohl focuses especially on line 80, which begins clearly with the words "L'shloshet yamin," meaning "in three days." The next word of the line was deemed partially illegible by Ms. Yardeni and Mr. Elitzur, but Mr. Knohl, who is an expert on the language of the Bible and Talmud, says the word is "hayeh," or "live" in the imperative. It has an unusual spelling, but it is one in keeping with the era.

Two more hard-to-read words come later, and Mr. Knohl said he believed that he had deciphered them as well, so that the line reads, "In three days you shall live, I, Gabriel, command you."

To whom is the archangel speaking? The next line says "Sar hasarin," or prince of princes. Since the Book of Daniel, one of the primary sources for the Gabriel text, speaks of Gabriel and of "a prince of princes," Mr. Knohl contends that the stone's writings are about the death of a leader of the Jews who will be resurrected in three days.

He says further that such a suffering messiah is very different from the traditional Jewish image of the messiah as a triumphal, powerful descendant of King David.

"This should shake our basic view of Christianity," he said as he sat in his office of the Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem where he is a senior fellow in addition to being the Yehezkel Kaufman Professor of Biblical Studies at Hebrew University. "Resurrection after three days becomes a motif developed before Jesus, which runs contrary to nearly all scholarship. What happens in the New Testament was adopted by Jesus and his followers based on an earlier messiah story."

Ms. Yardeni said she was impressed with the reading and considered it indeed likely that the key illegible word was "hayeh," or "live." Whether that means Simon is the messiah under discussion, she is less sure.

Moshe Bar-Asher, president of the Israeli Academy of Hebrew Language and emeritus professor of Hebrew and Aramaic at the Hebrew University, said he spent a long time studying the text and considered it authentic, dating from no later than the first century B.C. His 25-page paper on the stone will be published in the coming months.

Regarding Mr. Knohl's thesis, Mr. Bar-Asher is also respectful but cautious. "There is one problem," he said. "In crucial places of the text there is lack of text. I understand Knohl's tendency to find there keys to the pre-Christian period, but in two to three crucial lines of text there are a lot of missing words."

Moshe Idel, a professor of Jewish thought at Hebrew University, said that given the way every tiny fragment from that era yielded scores of articles and books, "Gabriel's Revelation" and Mr. Knohl's analysis deserved serious attention. "Here we have a real stone with a real text," he said. "This is truly significant."

Mr. Knohl said that it was less important whether Simon was the messiah of the stone than the fact that it strongly suggested that a savior who died and rose after three days was an established concept at the time of Jesus. He notes that in the Gospels, Jesus makes numerous predictions of his suffering and New Testament scholars say such predictions must have been written in by later followers because there was no such idea present in his day.

But there was, he said, and "Gabriel's Revelation" shows it.

"His mission is that he has to be put to death by the Romans to suffer so his blood will be the sign for redemption to come," Mr. Knohl said. "This is the sign of the son of Joseph. This is the conscious view of Jesus himself. This gives the Last Supper an absolutely different meaning. To shed blood is not for the sins of people but to bring redemption to Israel."

Outstanding! I would like to check out more.

[Quote]Two more hard-to-read words come later, and Mr. Knohl said he believed that he had deciphered them as well, so that the line reads, "In three days you shall live, I, Gabriel, command you."[/Quote]This above, specifically the bold is what I will like an explanation of. Definitely, Gabriel could not say this to his Lord, regardless what form He is, human with all the human trimmings of weaknesses, etc or ghostly. God will not be so low that His creation now is His commander!


Aletheia, Almuhandis, the jews are even exposing your latent for lying.

i meant talent.

Very interesting.

can some notice the meaning of that last sentence of the articles huh you you will know where they are coming and where they are going , failures

^^^^^: You just have to get involved. Even your statement is meaningless. Yet you must talk. Talking to the Jews who are the holder of salvation?

quite a surprise i'm just seeing this. Actually the conclusions made in the NYtimes article verge on the absurd. Rather than the predictions on the death and resurrection of a Messiah being a shock to christians, it is a positive affirmation that the bible is RIGHT and TRUE. It is common knowledge that prophecies concerning the Messiah was well known in old testament times . . . David, Isaiah being a few of those who prophecied of his coming, death and resurrection.

When the wise men came to visit Herod, his own scribes KNEW about the prophecies which was why they were able to give the wise men some directions.

nopuqeater:

^^^^^: You just have to get involved. Even your statement is meaningless. Yet you must talk. Talking to the Jews who are the holder of salvation?

YOU ARE NOT A GOOD MUSLIMS , YOU KNOW WHAT YOU SUPPOSE TO DO , JUST TAKE A LOADS OF DYNAMITES SO THAT YOU CAN BOMB YOURSELF OF THAN WASTING YOUR TIME ON HERE SO THAT THE 72 VIRGINS WILL BE NO PASS YOU BY. FASSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSST

^^^^there are still virgins on earth that i can manage yet. When my time comes, it will be easy. different from you who is never ready to meet jesus, because he will say he aint your Lord.

nopuqeater:

^^^^there are still virgins on earth that i can manage yet. When my time comes, it will be easy. different from you who is never ready to meet jesus, because he will say he aint your Lord.

see this guy oooooooooooooo , YOU ARE NOT   A GOOD MUSLIM KILL commit crimes like your founder did , okay AGOOD EXAMPLE IS YERIMA ABDUL MUTALAB AND SOO MANY OTHERS

nopuqeater:

^^^^there are still virgins on earth that i can manage yet. When my time comes, it will be easy. different from you who is never ready to meet jesus, because he will say he aint your Lord.

what are u waiting for? Take heed to the advice of jcross kill somebody thats not a muslim or go to the embassy with a bomb to carryout a suicide mission. Afterall mohammad said warfare is ordained for u. Dnt miss out on the virgins

@Toba and crisscross gangsta Jcross19: Alhamdulillah. Muhammad (AS) was not like the other guy who said kill, but in a subtle way in his parables. Assuredness is better than hypocrisy. While you deny and distance yourselves from what Moses at the behest of Yahweh (And you claim that Jesus is Yahweh. Remember?), Jesus himself is not true blue as he says kill, but not so clear about it. Hence you deny he ever said it.

I wonder therefore what the Sword meant for? If i wanna stood just as low as you, I will ask you to take a leaf from Jesus and gently instigate people to kill (heck they do it al the time), command people to sell their properties, except what they are wearing on them that moment (many christina women will be wearing bikinis, or TShirts, or showing the crack of their butts (no wonder Toba will not mind the line stretching beyond a street block to get to his fiancee, while he is the most conservative, yet in lewd relationship that demands that he cuts of his weapon, pluck out his eyes and reap his heart out from his chest), and buy the lasted weapon (That will be the machine gun, stealth bombers and the unmanned drones).

Afterall, those Christians that obeyed this from Jesus engaged in Crusades, Inquisitions, Slave trades and slavery of other humans, colonizations of nations of brown skin people, at least 2 World wars (And we never but notice Hitler and mossollini).

Hypocrites. I am certain, I will not be looking for your fiancee as one of the virgins. You already wore her out. And you said anyone can do the same. Now; no where did I talk about your parents. Ever. Toba, you need to apologize for lying.

And you boys did not say anything about the tablet. It Nopuqeater you are concern about. Lol. Hypocrites. Your masters; the jews (my neighbors with their yamakka or Capi) are saying in essence that your religion's foundation is a hoax, using Simon issue and putting it on jesus, the exaggerating some to include the whole world, instead of Jewish redemption.

Jesus said; I am sent only to the lost ship of the house of israel.

Not all people.


Christians are really the Myth makers.

@Davidylan; #7 on: September 24, 2010, 02:58 AM »
[Quote]quite a surprise i'm just seeing this.[/Quote]The shock should reach the core of your soul, if there is a soul for you. Difficult to tell of cold blooded like you.



[Quote]Actually the conclusions made in the NYtimes article verge on the absurd.[/Quote]And below you reached a different conclusion of what the jews say about their own. Are you from the jewish blood?



[Quote]Rather than the predictions on the death and resurrection of a Messiah being a shock to christians, it is a positive affirmation that the bible is RIGHT and TRUE.[/Quote]Who would know the state and condition of whether Jesus was alive or dead than those people who unhooked him from the tree, carried him and put him in the cave, and later decided to prepare Oil to pour on his body, robbing it down? No one. Let me ask you, davidylan, and you must think hard this time, taking yourself away from being a Bble Thumper, but just a human being with some intelligence:

If a person dies, is there a need to rob his body with oil, except wash him and shroud him and put him in the grave, and not some cave?
Was the robbing down the body with oil ever practiced on the dead body of the Jews, ever; before, during and after the taking down of the body of jesus fron the cross?
Unlike the Nigerians living in Nigeria, you must have seen a few Jews this month. Ask them what their practice of preparing of dead body for burial is. They will tell you and I bet you the amount of your monthly or annual salary that nothing from it will say that you keep the body for days and in the maintime apply oil on decaying body. Some jews must have died just about the same time that Jesus was assumed dead. How do they attend to the dead who dies just about the beginning and during sabbath, amere sundown to the following sundown? Is there a need for applying oil to preserve the body from decaying, or what is the oil supposed to do?
I know what oil does on the body when its aching. It is the same as Alabukun, or Omorela, or some vapor rob, eg Vicks.





[Quote]It is common knowledge that prophecies concerning the Messiah was well known in old testament times . . . David, Isaiah being a few of those who prophecied of his coming, death and resurrection.[/Quote]Show me a verse where the name of jesus was written. Just one and nothing more. Toba and Jcross19; watch your brother davidylan run for his spiritual life that is already, for sure deficient. He, you and all of you backing one another and calling all your pastors and ministers, you name them, the homosexuals and the bisexuals and the fornicators and the adulterers and adulteress and straight like an arrow among them, all of you together will never be able to provide one. never.




[Quote]When the wise men came to visit Herod, his own scribes KNEW about the prophecies which was why they were able to give the wise men some directions[/Quote]Just imagine if this above was the case and not a make up? You would have had the same condition as that of Firawn killing new borns, at first all of them, until they decided to alternate the year of killing to follow the year of leaving the future crop of slaves. Can you imagine 2 kings existing in the same dynasty, each claiming not shared authority, but full authority? One of them will have to die. And te new baby would have been it, because when he was a teenager, his parents ran to the same Egypt to preserve his life. Why didnt the same condition happen if this was known by the Scribes of Herod? I say with full conviction that this was a later addition to make jesus what he aint.