News

‘Dead Sea Scrolls on Stone’

Prof says first-century tablet tells of messiah who will die and rise.

A 2,000-year-old inscription, written in ink on a stone, is being called “a Dead Sea Scroll on stone.” But New Testament scholars scoff at the idea that the inscription “should shake our basic view of Christianity,” as one scholar told The New York Times.

The inscription has been dubbed “Gabriel’s Vision” since the phrase, “I, Gabriel,” appears several times in the broken text. It was apparently discovered somewhere in Jordan about a decade ago, and was more recently purchased by an Israeli-Swiss businessman from an antiquities dealer. The legible parts of the Hebrew text are stylistically similar to the Dead Sea Scrolls, and so far no scholar has raised doubts about its authenticity despite its murky provenance.

An analysis of the inscription appeared in the Hebrew journal Cathedra a year ago and in Biblical Archaeology Review earlier this year. But few people outside the scholarly world paid attention until The New York Times featured an interview with Hebrew University professor Israel Knohl, who claims additional insight into some of the hard-to-read areas of the text.

Knohl says one illegible word is the Hebrew word for “live,” which led him to translate one sentence as, “In three days you shall live, I, Gabriel, command you.” He concludes the inscription is about a leader of the Jews who will die and be resurrected after three days.

That’s in contrast to the typical Jewish image of a triumphant messiah, who is usually seen as a powerful leader like his ancestor King David. It suggests there were other perspectives on messianism in the first-century Jewish world from which Christianity sprang.

Darrell Bock, a professor of New Testament at Dallas Theological Seminary, says Knohl may be reaching too far with his translation. “The problem here is that there’s not enough text to be able to be really confident about what the passage itself is reading in order to build a theory around it,” he says.

Ben Witherington III, professor of New Testament interpretation at Asbury Theological Seminary, agrees that Knohl offers a lot of conjecture to fill the gaps and holes in the text. “But what if he’s right?” Witherington asks. “It just means that there were more persons in early Judaism, other than Jesus and his followers, who were talking about a dying and rising messiah. That’s not a problem for Christianity, as far as I can see.”

Bock doesn’t see much of interest for scholars. “The text deals with some type of angelic communication, but beyond that it’s very hard to tell what all is going on,” he says. “The connection to messiah is virtually absent.”

But Witherington calls it an interesting document, beyond the rarity of an ink inscription on stone. He thinks scholars will continue to be drawn to it.

“It’s some kind of prophetic, apocalyptic Jewish text,” he says. “I think this stone is as significant as many of the Dead Sea Scrolls. But it doesn’t seem to have any value for the discussion of Jesus except by way of general background text, like the Dead Sea Scrolls.”

Copyright © 2008 Christianity Today. Click for reprint information.

Related Elsewhere:

Several newspapers, including The New York Times and Haaretz, reported that the tablet might threaten the faith of some Christians. GetReligion’s Mollie Ziegler Hemingway points out that such concerns assume Christians’ belief in the Resurrection depends on the originality of the idea.

Time quotes Ben Witherington explaining that, if the current interpretation of the tablet holds, “it at least sets to rest the notion that the various gospel quotes attributed to Christ foreshadowing his death and Resurrection were textual retrojections put in his mouth by later believers.”

Also in this issue

The CT archives are a rich treasure of biblical wisdom and insight from our past. Some things we would say differently today, and some stances we've changed. But overall, we're amazed at how relevant so much of this content is. We trust that you'll find it a helpful resource.

Cover Story

Creating Culture

Hope for Troubled Times

When a Professor of Aramaic Meets Hollywood

The Ironic Faith of Emergents

McLaren Emerging

My Top 5 Books on Food

Bookmarks

On the Grand Canyon Bus

News

It's Primetime in Iran

News

Looking for Home

Review

Girls on Display

Missionary Myths

Theology in Aisle 7

News

The Father of Faith-Based Diplomacy

Should I Fish or Lay Low?

News

Richard Foster on Leadership

A Life Formed in the Spirit

Review

Debauchery and Crucifixes

News

Quotation Marks

News

Prayer at the Pump

News

Go Figure

News

Going to Bat for His Neighbors

Choosing Celibacy

Wire Story

Sunday Drivers

News

For the Love of Lit

News

The Other Kind of Angels

News

No More Shortcuts

News

Re-Imagining Reality

Crouch and Culture

Cultivating Where We're Planted

News

Caesar's Sectarians

News

Healing ORU

Missional Misstep

News

Translation Tiff

News

Leaving Lakeland

News

Undue Attention in Algeria

News

The Party of Faith

News

Salvation through Buddhism?

View issue

Our Latest

Testimony

I Demolished My Faith for ‘My Best Life.’ It Only Led to Despair.

Queer love, polyamory, and drugs ruined me. That’s where Jesus found me.

The Book Screwtape Feared Most

Once a bedrock Christian classic, Boethius’s “Consolation of Philosophy” has been neglected for decades. It’s time for a revival.

Being Human

Airport Anxiety and Purposeful Publishing with Joy Allmond

CT’s executive editor learned to care for people as a 9/11-era flight attendant.

The Song of Mary Still Echoes Today

How the Magnificat speaks to God’s care for the lowly.

How Insecurity Thwarts a Kingdom

Herod’s violence reveals the futility of earthly power.

Apple PodcastsDown ArrowDown ArrowDown Arrowarrow_left_altLeft ArrowLeft ArrowRight ArrowRight ArrowRight Arrowarrow_up_altUp ArrowUp ArrowAvailable at Amazoncaret-downCloseCloseEmailEmailExpandExpandExternalExternalFacebookfacebook-squareGiftGiftGooglegoogleGoogle KeephamburgerInstagraminstagram-squareLinkLinklinkedin-squareListenListenListenChristianity TodayCT Creative Studio Logologo_orgMegaphoneMenuMenupausePinterestPlayPlayPocketPodcastRSSRSSSaveSaveSaveSearchSearchsearchSpotifyStitcherTelegramTable of ContentsTable of Contentstwitter-squareWhatsAppXYouTubeYouTube