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The New York Times ran a feature story on July 6th, 2008 about the discovery of a stone tablet found near the Dead Sea in Jordan that apparently contains some reference to a “Prince of Princes” (ie. The Jewish Messiah) who would be slain and rise from the dead after three days. (Tablet Ignites Debate on Messiah and Resurrection”, July 6, 2008)
The essence of the article and the opinion of the scholars quoted is that somehow, the credibility of Christianity is at stake, on the grounds that this pre-Christian inscription, also known in scholastic circles as “Gabriel’s Revelation”, robs Christianity of its “uniqueness” and novelty.
Dr. Israel Knohl, a Bible professor at Hebrew University in Jerusalem states it as thus: “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.” Another scholar commenting on the stone says that it “shakes the very core of Christianity”.
In this perspective, however, it seems that the scholars commenting on “Gabriel’s Revelation” are either completely ignorant of the claims of Christianity, or even willingly misrepresenting them for the sake of publicity.
The fact of the matter is that Jesus, and by extension Christianity, have never claimed veracity based on the idea that Jesus’ death and resurrection were novelties concocted in the first century amongst their own. On the contrary, Jesus repeatedly said that the salvific aspects of his mission, his death and resurrection, were foretold and prefigured by the Jewish Old Testament writings and prophets before the events actually happened.
Again and again, when those events are related in the gospels, we are told that they were previously “written by the prophets”. When the Apostle Paul gives his summation of the matters of “first importance” in his message he says “that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures; and that he was buried; and that he hath been raised on the third day according to the scriptures.” (1 Cor 15:3,4).
Up to this point, it has been fairly easy to point to a several texts from the Old Testament to show that the Messiah’s suffering was foretold by the prophets. However, it has not been so easy to show from any of those texts if one wanted to clearly demonstrate that there were predictions that the Messiah was going to rise after three days. (Some Christians point to Hosea 6:1-4 as a proof text, even though it does not explicitly say anything about a Messiah. Others say Jonah’s internment in the whale for three days is a foreshadowing of Jesus’ time in the tomb).
Where explicit reference to a resurrection of the Messiah is spotty in the Old Testament writings, “Gabriel’s Revelation”, the "Dead Sea Tablet", comes to the rescue. It shows that in the organic whole of Jewish tradition, it was understood through the prophetic writings that the Messiah would rise on the third day.
This is not the first time that recent discoveries from Dead Sea have provided unique and unparalleled insight into the claims of Jesus. For example, when John the Baptist sent some of his own disciples to Jesus to ask whether he was "the one" (ie. the Messiah), Jesus gave an interesting answer. He said "Go and report to John what you have seen and heard: the blind receive sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, the poor have the good news preached to them (Luke 7:22-23 and Matthew 11:4-5).
Up until the discoveries of the Dead Sea Scrolls, Bible scholars have noted that Jesus was likely referencing Isaiah 61:1 which reads as following: "The Spirit of the Lord Jehovah is upon me; because Jehovah hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek; he hath sent me to bind up the broken-hearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound". From an objective standpoint, one might challenge this view since the text from Isaiah is not explicitly speaking of the Messiah, nor are key ideas referenced, such as the "dead being raised". At face value, Jesus' answer would seem vague.
However, when the Dead Sea Scrolls were translated, a fragment, known as 4Q521, which is part of the Isaiah scroll, was found to say “The heavens and earth will listen to his Messiah . . . Over the poor his spirit will hover and will renew the faithful . . . He . . . liberates the captives, restores sight to the blind ....He will heal the wounded and revive the dead and bring good news to the poor."
Thus the Dead Sea Scrolls fill in critical elements that suddenly make Jesus' answer far more meaningful and concise. Particularly in light of the fact that John the Baptist himself was very likely associated with the Qumran community where the Dead Sea Scrolls were kept, one can now see that Jesus' answer was not arbitrary or obscure.
As more of the Dead Sea Scrolls are translated, there are very likely going to be some more insights opened into first century Judaism, and the culture that spawned Christianity. Up to this point, the DSS, and other discoveries like "Gabriel's Revelation", have only strengthened the claims of Christianity, rather than hurt it. Christianity must be properly understood in its cultural context of pre-Talmudic Judaism, rather than imagining that it suddenly popped into existence in its contemporary Gentile form, fully grown and armed, like Athena popping out of Zeus' head.
The discovery of this tablet helps connect the puzzle pieces which brings clearer focus to why early Christianity gained so much traction within Judaism in the first century. Based on the fact that Jesus and apostles repeatedly said that Jesus' resurrection on the third day was "predicted" by the prophets, this testament in stone gives substantial and unassailable evidence that the expectation and prediction existed before Jesus lived. |
