Sunday, July 6, 2008

Gabriel's Revelation

Today's New York Times contains an article by Ethan Bronner, Ancient Tablet Ignites Debate on Messiah and Resurrection :
"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."
According to a translation of the tablet by Israel Knohl, the text relates a vision of the archangel Gabriel who speaks of the resurrection of a messiah after three days, a motif previously not attested prior to Jesus.
See Knohl's article: Israel Knohl, "'By Three Days, Live': Messiahs, Resurrection, and Ascent to Heaven in Hazon Gabriel," Journal of Religion 88, no. 2 (April 2008):147-158.

Here's a summary of some of the discussion and links to articles, posted by Jim Lauer:
Hershel Shanks noted that the first English publication of the tablet appeared in an article “A New Dead Sea Scroll in Stone?” by Dr. Ada Yardeni in the January/February 2008 BAR. The Hebrew and English texts of the tablet are linked at the BAS website at http://bib-arch.org/news/dss-in-stone-news.asp .
In addition, as also circulated on Dr. Jack Sasson’s Agade list, in that article, Dr. Yardeni described the 3-foot-by 1-foot stone inscribed with a lengthy text that she would refer to as a Dead Sea Scroll had it been written on leather. A photo of the stone appears in the issue; for the transcription of the Hebrew text go to
< http://bib-arch.org/news/dssinstone_hebrew.doc >; for an English translation, go to < http://bib-arch.org/news/dssinstone_english.doc >.
Yitzhak Sapir noted that an April 4, 2007 Nfc Hebrew-language article about the Cathedra article mentioned by the Times (in which Ada Yardeni and Binyamin Elitzur analyzed the tablet), could be read at http://www.nfc.co.il/Archive/001-D-127652-00.html?tag=11-28-43 (or http://www.nfc.co.il/Archive/001-D-127652-00.html ). He also noted that through links in the Nfc article a PDF of the Yardeni/Elitzur Cathedra Hebrew article (no. 123, Nisan 5767, pp. 155-166) could be read at http://www.nfc.co.il/uploadFiles/138240993022919.pdf and a drawing and a Hebrew transcription of the tablet could be viewed at http://www.nfc.co.il/uploadFiles/848324000835419.pdf . See
As some may remember, I circulated an April 20, 2007 Ha’aretz article by Prof. Israel Knohl (”In three days, you shall live”) in which he discussed the tablet and his book and his theory, mentioned in the Times article. The article may be read at





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