beaconchurches

I don't know if any of you have seen this in the news yet. My wife told me about it. There is a tablet which has been dubbed, "Gabriel's Revelation" that, according to one scholar, may talk about a messiah who is to be killed and then raised from the dead on the third day. Of the scholars who have examined it, there seems to be no doubt that it dates from the time of Herod the Great, more than thirty years before Jesus' crucifixion and resurrection. One of the scholars seems almost gleeful at the prospect of this shaking the Christian world view. Maybe it's the reporter, but that scholar seems to have as his life's goal proving Christianity to be nothing more than a weird Jewish sect. It's funny, because according to my understanding of early church history, that's exactly how the church wanted to be viewed--completely Jewish.

After I read the article I told my wife, "This changes nothing." I pointed out that Jesus not only said He would rise on the third day, He also taught that the Old Testament said He would. On his blog Glenn Layne makes that point, and then adds that the early church taught the resurrection as fulfillment of prophecy. He suggests that, rather than saying that Jesus got His ideas from the tablet, we should realize that both Jesus and the stone are rooted in the Old Testament.

You can find the article about it here.

Jon,

I enjoyed this piece; not sure what to make of it. I think you and Glenn are correct. The tablet and the motif of death and resurrection have its roots in promises from the Old Testament. They came first. Whether this was prophetic or not, who's to say? Everything that was mentioned in the article didn’t stretch my understanding of Judaism and Messiah. The article mentioned many of the important words are not legible.

Not all prophets were writing prophets. Though Malachi was the last of the OT prophets around 400 BC, God was not silent nor were his witnesses through those 4 centuries. Who knows who else witnessed to the coming Savior? Even dear elder Simeon was told from the Lord he would not die before he would see the consolation of Israel--that was before Christ's birth.

If these are indeed the last days, I wonder how many archeological finds will pop up for good or bad. I wonder too how many messiahs will pop up too. Didn't Jesus say that even the elect would be deceived (if that were possible)? I think when he returns there will be no question it is he--absolutely no wondering "if". I by no means pooh-pooh at these finds, I have just determined I will stake my faith and life on the 66 books presented. I do love archeology. Today I preached on Nahum. Alexander the Great stood on the great city of Nineveh wondering where this "great" city/empire had gone. It wasn't until the 1800's until this ancient, terrorist city was excavated.

If you find any related stories, please post them.
Thanks,
chip.

Friends -

Ben Witherington has a post on this. Bottom line -

Long story short-- this stone certainly does not demonstrate that the Gospel passion stories are created on the basis of this stone text, which appears to be a Dead Sea text. For one thing the text is hard to read at crucial junctures, and it is not absolutely clear it is talking about a risen messiah. BUT what it does do is make plausible that Jesus could have said some of the things credited to him in Mk. 8.31, 9,31, and 10.33-34.

<>< Ron Troup

And for those who think this discredits Jesus, are there any others who fulfilled the stones prophecy?
There actually is a huge amount of prophetic material that points to Jesus outside of the canon. Much of the sybaline material is very affirming of the coming messiah.

Art