Tue 8 Jul, 2008
Gabriel Revelation (The Stone Tablet)
6:39 pm Comments (7) Filed under: EvidencesTags: Gabriel Revelation, Jesus Christ, Stone Tablet
Like Regis Nicoll, Ben Witherington, Amy Hall, and others, I find the recent “Gabriel Revelation” discovery to be a rather interesting piece of new historical information, but certainly not upsetting to our beliefs. It is a stone tablet, dated to sometime in the 1st century BC, that tells of a Messiah killed and resurrected after three days. It will undoubtedly stoke the imaginations of those who think the Jesus story was concocted out of various dying God myths.
Does it undermine what we know of Christianity? Hardly. The followers of Christ—even those closest to him—are depicted as being completely caught off guard, first by Jesus’ predictions of his death, and then by the actual event. Their expectations were hardly molded by this stone or any related beliefs.
The resurrection is solidly attested in the Biblical documents, dated to within a short period after the events. 1 Corinthians 15 could not have been written more than about 20 years after the events, when some 500 eyewitnesses were still alive to attest to it. I urge you to read it, and see for yourself just how central it was to Paul’s message that the resurrection actually happened.
The whole dying-God-invented-Jesus theory is hard to swallow in any event. The message of Christ just hangs together too well, and contains much too deep wisdom, to have been cobbled together from various myths by the Jesus community, like so much tossed salad, in the generation or two after his death. In one of his most uniquely insightful essays, C.S. Lewis pointed out that those who think this possible simply haven’t read enough:
I have been reading poems, romances, vision-literature, legends, myths all my life. I know what they are like. I know that not one of them is like this. Of this text there are only two possible views. Either this is reportage — though it may no doubt contain errors — pretty close up to the facts; nearly as close as Boswell. Or else, some unknown writer in the second century, without known predecessors or successors, suddenly anticipated the whole technique of modern, novelistic, realistic narrative. If it is untrue, it must be narrative of that kind. The reader who doesn’t see this has simply not learned to read.
If this stone tablet is a prediction of a dying and resurrecting Messiah, it is hardly the first. Christians are quite comfortable with such predictions; in fact, we’ve been pointing them out for ages. They start (admittedly vaguely) right at the beginning in Genesis 3:15; they continue in places like Psalm 16 and Psalm 22; they reach a peak in Isaiah 53.
So “The Gabriel Revelation” is interesting, no doubt, and will prove to be more so as we learn more about it. We need not worry, though, about it undermining what we know about the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
Tom said…
“It is a stone tablet, dated to sometime in the 1st century BC, that tells of a Messiah killed and resurrected after three days. It will undoubtedly stoke the imaginations of those who think the Jesus story was concocted out of various dying God myths.”
Tom, have you read the translation on which this interpretation is based?
It takes a lot of imagination in the first place to find anything in the text about a Messiah being killed and resurrected after three days. Far too much is being made of this.
No, Ed, my information is second-hand. Do you have a link to the translation?
http://www.websitetoolbox.com/tool/post/rfforum/show_single_post?pid=27206390&postcount=21
Translation (Semitic sounds in caps and\or italics)
Column A
(Lines 1-6 are unintelligible)
7. [… ]the sons of Israel …[…]…
8. […]… […]…
9. [… ]the word of yhw[h …]…[…]
10. […]… I\you asked …
11. yhwh, you ask me. Thus said the Lord of Hosts:
12. […]… from my(?) house, Israel, and I will tell the greatness(es?) of Jerusalem.
13. [Thus] said yhwh, the Lord of Israel: Behold, all the nations are
14. … against(?)\to(?) Jerusalem and …,
15. [o]ne, two, three, fourty(?) prophets(?) and the returners(?),
16. [and] the Hasidin(?). My servant, David, asked from before Ephraim(?)
17. [to?] put the sign(?) I ask from you. Because He said, (namely,)
18. [y]hwh of Hosts, the Lord of Israel: …
19. sanctity(?)\sanctify(?) Israel! In three days you shall know, that(?)\for(?) He said,
20. (namely,) yhwh the Lord of Hosts, the Lord of Israel: The evil broke (down)
21. before justice. Ask me and I will tell you what 22this bad 21plant is,
22. lwbnsd/r/k (=? [To me? in libation?]) you are standing, the messenger\angel. He
23. … (= will ordain you?) to Torah(?). Blessed be the Glory of yhwh the Lord, from
24. his seat. “In a little while”, qyTuT (=a brawl?\ tiny?) it is, “and I will shake the
25. … of? heaven and the earth”. Here is the Glory of yhwh the Lord of
26. Hosts, the Lord of Israel. These are the chariots, seven,
27. [un]to(?) the gate(?) of Jerusalem, and the gates of Judah, and … for the
sake of
28. … His(?) angel, Michael, and to all the others(?) ask\asked
29. …. Thus He said, yhwh the Lord of Hosts, the Lord of
30. Israel: One, two, three, four, five, six,
31. [se]ven, these(?) are(?) His(?) angel …. ‘What is it’, said the blossom(?)\diadem(?)
32. …[…]… and (the?) … (= leader?/ruler?), the second,
33. … Jerusalem…. three, in\of the greatness(es?) of
34. […]…[…]…
35. […]…, who saw a man … working(?) and […]…
36. that he … […]… from(?) Jerusalem(?)
37. … on(?) … the exile(?) of …,
38. the exile(?) of …, Lord …, and I will see
39. …[…] Jerusalem, He will say, yhwh of
40. Hosts, …
41. […]… that will lift(?) …
42. […]… in all the
43. […]…
44. […]…
Column B
(Lines 45-50 are unintelligible)
51. Your people(?)\with you(?) …[…]
52. … the [me]ssengers(?)\[a]ngels(?)[ …]…
53. on\against His/My people. And …[…]…
54. [… ]three days(?). This is (that) which(?) …[… ]He(?)
55. the Lord(?)\these(?)[ …]…[…]
56. see(?) …[…]
57. closed(?). The blood of the slaughters(?)\sacrifices(?) of Jerusalem. For He said,
yhwh of Hos[ts],
58. the Lord of Israel: For He said, yhwh of Hosts, the Lord of
59. Israel: …
60. […]… me(?) the spirit?\wind of(?) …
61. …[…]…
62. in it(?) …[…]…[…]
63. …[…]…[…]
64. …[…]… loved(?)/… …[…]
65. The three saints of the world\eternity from\of …[…]
66. […]… peace he? said, to\in you we trust(?) …
67. Inform him of the blood of this chariot of them(?) …[…]
68. Many lovers He has, yhwh of Hosts, the Lord of Israel …
69. Thus He said, (namely,) yhwh of Hosts, the Lord of Israel …:
70. Prophets have I sent to my people, three. And I say
71. that I have seen …[…]…
72. the place for the sake of(?) David the servant of yhwh[ …]…[…]
73. the heaven and the earth. Blessed be …[…]
74. men(?). “Showing mercy unto thousands”, … mercy […].
75. Three shepherds went out to?/of? Israel …[…].
76. If there is a priest, if there are sons of saints …[…]
77. Who am I(?), I (am?) Gabri’el the …(=angel?)… […]
78. You(?) will save them, …[…]…
79. from before You, the three si[gn]s(?), three …[….]
80. In three days …, I, Gabri’el …[?],
81. the Prince of Princes, …, narrow holes(?) …[…]…
82. to/for … […]… and the …
83. to me(?), out of three – the small one, whom(?) I took, I, Gabri’el.
84. yhwh of Hosts, the Lord of(?)[ Israel …]…[….]
85. Then you will stand …[…]…
86. …\
87. in(?) … eternity(?)/… \
\
The filter has the address.
Charlie:
DUDE!
Thanks for providing the translation, Charlie.