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It doesn’t look to me like there is enough definite information to generate meaningful debate or hand-wringing. The missing texts and their proposed content may represent wishful thinking, whether on theological or merely ambitious grounds. As a context for the developments of some people’s ideas in that era it may be useful, although most Jews of that day would not have credited communication from the Angel Gabriel that was not venerable and authenticated in the mainstream. Hey, just last week the Angel Gabriel and me were . . . never mind. But the scrolls of the Qumran community contained decidedly offbeat material as regards Jewish beliefs and expectations.

Comment by Ben Plonie on 7/06/08 at 3:39 pm

Christianity was a sect of Judaism from the very beginning.  This should come as no surprise to any Christian who has read the New Covenant.  Jesus said, “I did not come to abolish the law, but to fulfill it”.

Comment by Ann on 7/10/08 at 4:17 pm

As a Pastor, author and devoted Christian I find this very interesting. First those who choose not to believe that Jesus is the authentic Messianic figure of Isaiah 53, Psalms and the Prophets discount Him because there was no contemporary evidence that Jews believed that a Messiah would come and first die then resurrect. And now that there is some evidence unbelievers want to now say that early Christians just copied the idea from Jews. The “idea” of a resurrected Messiah comes from Old Testament prophesies that Jesus fulfilled, and had the nation of Israel accepted Him He would have brought both forgiveness and redemption to Israel. But because He came unto His own and His own received Him not, salvation came to many, many millions more and Israel has experienced desolationafterdesolation. But soon, Israel and the world will come to know the truth. Israel will be redeemed and in a very dramatic way.  Israel, faithful Israel anyway, is the true mother of the Church and together, Jesus the Son of God the Father and as the Groom with His bride, the true Bible believing church, will lead all of Israel to Jeshua. Come to D.C. next week and witness Jews and Christians gathering and uniting together on behalf of Israel. The discovery of this stone and these recent developments are the work of God. Repent and believe before it is too late! Time is running out for the world. I welcome the stone tablet but the Scriptures and the suffering Servant songs of Isaiah clearly teach that a suffering Messiah was of the Jews. After all, Jesus was Jewish. Read Daniel 9:24-27, for a sample, Messiah would be cut-off.

John Abent
Author of Signs In The Heavens.

Comment by John on 7/12/08 at 3:17 am

Ditto John and Ann.  This tablet only provides tangible evidence from the times directly preceding Jesus that a messiah was expected, as described by scripture.  Therefore, this discovery strengthens the historic and spiritual ties between Judaism and Christianity.  Further, the “debate” shows that no amount of evidence or proof is required to believe in Christ, only faith.  Those with faith, see the discovery of this tablet as reassuring or interesting, but not controversial.  Those witout faith in Christ, see it as an opportunity to debunk Christianity.

Comment by Janet on 7/12/08 at 10:15 am

I don’t have such faith, and I don’t see it as either interesting or controversial. I guess you had to be there.

Comment by Ben Plonie on 7/12/08 at 11:18 pm

To Ben,  Yet, until I wrote this response you were responsible for 40% of the comments on this article.  In your words, because there is nothing to generate meaningful debate, and me?, because there is nothing more meaningful.  Faith is a gift, available to all who would but ask.

Comment by Ann on 7/14/08 at 11:06 am

It is true that two out of five is forty percent, but let’s not get excited. To clarify, though I may be missing something about this finding (unverified to date but that’s not decisive), I don’t understand what aspect of the rock is controversial and to whom. Despite the professor’s remarks. Not trying to be tricky or offensive, I really don’t get what the ‘debate’ is about. I wrote the last post in slight frsustration at not getting it.

There has always been a certain chicken-and-egg quality to the Jesus story in relation to those who would like to fit or retrofit it as the case may be to the various messianic prophecies, predictions and speculations. If there is to be found yet another messianic wrinkle that the Jesus story fits, then what does that change?

My own view is formed by the Jewish mainstream grass-roots contemporary authorities of that time who remain authoritative to this day. They either knew the material on the rock, considered it an alternative view, or never heard of it either. Perhaps it changes something for Christians. Could you explain?

Comment by Ben Plonie on 7/14/08 at 7:14 pm

Hi Ben. It is slightly confusing,all the different takes on this “discovery”. I suppose the bias of each group colors the facts,but what is most exciting for me is that the writing does confirm that the Jewish world had some fore knowledge of the resurrection concept.
Perhaps this is why the Pharisees had the rock placed in front of Jesus’ tomb, on top of asking for Roman guards.
But I also know that the Messiah was predicted by Daniel, as he predicted a specific amount of time between the rebuilding of the Temple and the advent of the Messiah.Of course, we see that now,as my mom always said “Hindsight is always 20/20”.

Comment by Craig Schinzer on 7/14/08 at 11:02 pm

In medicine this is called (or used to be anyway), ‘examination by retrospectoscope’. As far as the tomb and the Pharisees go, it is a charming concept but more radical than anyone could venture to say; the stone appears to he been found across the Jordan river or Salt (Dead) Sea in Eastern Palestine, and I don;t know where the tomb was supposed to be but not there. Also, from what I gather the Pharisees did not accept Jesus as Messiah by resuerrection or any other known criteria.

Comment by Ben Plonie on 7/15/08 at 6:25 am

Concerning Jesus’ resurrection and the evidence thereof, I encourage each of you to take a close look at the paper I wrote. The website I hosted it on is http://jwmfridge.blogspot.com. Thank you and take care.

Comment by Jamaal Fridge on 7/17/08 at 2:59 am

I hope you got a good mark on the paper, and I have to commend your energy and sincerity for your work on behalf of the great commission. What you say works on many levels and for many people who accept your premises. It parallels and carries forward in many respects important points made on behalf of the Jewish Scriptures in general. It is the kind of indirect thing we need to do in the absence of personal experience.

For me as a Jew, the operative principle is the last sentence I wrote. As with someone who replied on another thread, you have faith as you are required. But faith is not spelled exactly the same in Hebrew as in English. For us it involves more of confidence and trust, which have at some point to be demonstrated and earned. Abraham for example brought himself to the point of being open to Reality, but God in turn communicated directly with him and saved him alive through many trials. Not a day goes by when we do not refer to the exodus from Egypt, in which we saw God’s fulfillment of his promises and covenants to our ancestors. God paid cash so to speak to uphold his end of every one of the covenants. He continued to communicate directly to those of us who were qualified for several centuries to come. I believe that the general requirement for public prophecy is that the majority of Jews have to be living in Israel, something that has not been true since the Babylonian exile. However we are approaching the tipping point once again, and we should keep an eye on events.

So without getting down in the weeds on every chapter and verse (which has been thoroughly done, with nothing significantly new to say about it in the last many centuries), I have to rely on the Jewish authorities of the day. Leaving aside the historicity of the events of the New Testament which I don’t have to (that is, granting you for the sake of discussion that it all happened just as written), I have to rely on the fact that the Pharisees did not accept Jesus as Lord or Messiah. Knowing all that they knew, chapter and verse to a holistic depth we cannot imagine today, legends, scrolls, rocks with writing on them, the full monty. From them and the detailed record they left behind, a three-day resurected Messiah was not high on their list. Not saying nobody said that, or even that it is untrue. If they had accepted Jesus, there would be no gentile Christians at all, ‘Jew’ and ‘Christian’ would just be synonymous. And the gentiles would have found another reason to try to kill us anyway.

The Christian explanation for this lack of acceptance has to be that the Pharisees were anywhere from clueless, to hypocritical, to duplicitous, to scheming, right on down to satanic. Along with all the love, love, love, those ideas are clearly in the New Testament, and if you don’t know where Mel will be happy to show it to you.

However, the Pharisees were the grass-roots spiritual authorities of that day and today. A spiritual meritocracy of rich and poor, beautiful and ugly, powerful and weak, with only the common goal of bearing the essential Jewish legacy, performing God’s will, and steering a course though the storms to fulfill God’s stated requirement to keep it for all of our generations. Which they have done. It is not that clear today but the Roman empire for its dictatorial and brutal ways resembled Nazi Germany more than Washington DC, at least with respect to the Jews who were the first and most persistent to rebel against them. The Sadducee kapos may have been in charge in Jerusalem and in the Temple, but the politically and militarily powerless Pharisees (meaning ‘Separatists’), the true Jewish leadership followed the iconoclastic way of Abraham, took their football and went home to build an Ark that would survive the exile. No power? God is the power. No Temple? Bring back “The offerings of our lips instead of bulls” (Hosea) from the Babyalonian days. No State? Construct a government in exile.

The Jews of all time are all Pharisees, despite the insulting definition of Pharisee in your infidel dictionary. All the rest are gone. The Hellenists. The Sadducees. The Idumeans. The Essenes. The Nazarenes. I don’t know who all but I do know that examination by retrospectoscope reveals the wisdom and correctness of their decisions. I will be making the point here again that all of the antiSemites and antiZionists (whether they know it or not), especially if they are Christian or ex-Christian) take their historic inspiration from the stories of Jesus opposing the Pharisees, chasing out the money-lenders and so on.

Comment by Ben Plonie on 7/17/08 at 10:59 am

Make that money-changers @#$%^&

Comment by Ben Plonie on 7/17/08 at 11:02 am

So, Ben, what do you make of Isaiah 53?

Comment by katrinka on 7/17/08 at 10:39 pm

Surely you jest. Didn’t you read my last post? I put a lot of work into it. I make of Isaiah 53 what God and the Pharisees made of it. Is there something you don’t understand about it? Some of Isaiah’s Hebrew is a little subtle and was not well handled in English translation, some suspicious people say on purpose. That is most often the source of confusion, in my experience.

Comment by Ben Plonie on 7/18/08 at 12:33 am

>>
The same applies to the servant of the Lord (Isaiah 52:13-53:12).

The righteous among the Jewish people, (those worthy of the title “servant of the Lord”) atone for the sins of the world through their suffering. When God judges the world as a community, these are the people that stay his anger.

These are the “ten righteous men within the city” that save it from destruction.

The missionary failure to understand these scriptural concepts, has led him not only to misinterpret the passage in Isaiah 53, but ironically contributed to the fulfillment of this passage.

Some missionaries use the traditional Christian approach to prove the “truth” of their religion.

Look - they say - look at the awesome suffering which is the lot of the Jew. Is not the only explanation possible for this measure of pain - that they committed the ultimate sin of rejecting the “messiah”? Why else would they be chosen to suffer so much? This is a direct fulfillment of the verse, “and we considered him stricken, smitten by God and afflicted” (Isaiah 53:4). When God will ultimately reveal his glory upon the Jewish people, as He so clearly promised (Isaiah 52:10, 60:1), then the nations will realize that their evaluation of Jewish suffering was wrong.

It was not because they were more sinful than the other nations that they suffered so much. But because as the true son of God (Ex. 4:22), they were chosen to suffer. Proverbs 3:12, “for he whom the Lord loves does He reprove, and as a father accepts with pleasure (the submission of his) son.” When the Jewish people will look back at their history of affliction, and see the purpose and benefit of all their troubles, they will actually thank God for their suffering (Isaiah 12:11). But the gentile nations, who saw in Israel’s suffering a reason to despise them, will shamefully admit their mistake (Isaiah 52:15 Micah 7:10).
<<<

http://www.jewsforjudaism.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=368&Itemid=228

Comment by The Web Guy on 7/18/08 at 1:51 am

BRAD GREENBERG,

Your article on the Gabriel Stone quotes biblical scholar Israel Knohl as saying: “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.”
If the Gabriel Stone shows that “the story of Jesus’ resurrection was not so unique,” does this mean a significant number of other people interpreted the scriptures to mean the Messiah would resurrect?

JOHN ABENT,
You pointed out that some people “choose not to believe that Jesus is the authentic Messianic figure of Isaiah 53, Psalms and the Prophets discount Him because there was no contemporary evidence that Jews believed that a Messiah would come and first die then resurrect.” If people in Jesus’ time or even Old Testament times interpreted the scriptures to mean the Mesiah would resurrect, does that mean it’s the correct interpretation? On the other hand, why are the sources you mentioned are about the Messiah, instead of “My Servant Israel” (Isaiah 53) or David (Psalms), and what other prophets spoke of the Messiah’s resurrection. You would be right though, that if the suffering servant passsages are about the Messiah, then he would be Jewish, since it descirbes a root from Jesse.

BEN PLONIE,
You commented that “My own view is formed by the Jewish mainstream grass-roots contemporary authorities of that time who remain authoritative to this day.” How do you know that the views of the contemporary authorities of the time was a grass-roots view? If you perceive the view that the suffering servant was Israel to be authoritative, how do you explain Midrash Konen, which says: “And in it is Messiah ben David who loves Jerusalem. Elijah of blessed memory takes hold of his head, places it in his lap and holds it, and says to him: “Endure the sufferings and the sentence of your Master who makes you suffer because of the sin of Israel.” And thus it is written: He was wounded because of our transgressions, he was crushed because of our iniquities (Isa. 53:5)... the chains which are on your neck will be broken, and you will go out into freedom.” Likewise, “What is the Name of the Messiah?” is asked in the Talmud, and the reply is: “The compassionate one, as it is written “These sins of ours He carries and feels compassion for us” (tractates (Massektoth), Talmud Babli. In another part of the Talmud it says: “The Messiah takes unto Himself all the suffering and torture for the sins of the Israelites. Had He not taken unto Himself this suffering, then not one person in the world could have stood the unavoidable execution as a consequence for breaking the law” (Jalkut Chadach, fol. 154, col 4, 29, Tit).

How do you know that “the stone appears to have been found across the Jordan river or Salt (Dead) Sea in Eastern Palestine?”

If from what you “gather the Pharisees did not accept Jesus as Messiah by resurrection or any other known criteria,” how does that show the scriptures didn’t predict the resurrection? Could the pharisees have rejected Jesus not because of a non-resurrection scriptural interpretation, but because they didn’t accept Jesus in particular as the Messiah? If the Messiah was to be rejected, does that mean the pharisees’ views, on who in particular is the Messiah, are final?

You wrote: “the Pharisees were a spiritual meritocracy… with only the common goal of… performing God’s will.” If God and the prophets in the Old Testament chastised Israel’s leaders and its religious authorities, could the pharisees have the same faults in 0 AD? Not only were there private moneychangers in the Temple, but didn’t King Herod put forbidden idols there during Jesus’ time? If the pharisees were politically powerless, how come they controlled the Sanhedrin and stoned people to death?

You said, “I make of Isaiah 53 what God and the Pharisees made of it.” How do you know what God makes of it, apart from what the pharisees say? You complain about Christians’ English translation, but your Masoretic translation in English is online and says basically the same. Two differences are that the Masoretic uses the term “tomb” instead of “death,” although the word is literally death, and that the Masoretic says the servant will be crushed “by disease.” Does Isaiah 53 literally say “by disease,” or is this just the Masoretic translators’ inference from the context?

Your website unfortunately isn’t working.

CRAIG SCHINZER,
You pointed out that if the scriptures predicted the Messiah’s resurrection, the pharisees would all the more want to roll a stone over it and put guards there. But if Jesus predicted his resurrection, would that be enough reason for the pharisees to put a stone and guards there? Does Daniel predict the Messiah’s resurrection, or just his death?

WEB GUY,
Why should the servant in Isaiah 53 refer to righteous Jewish individuals (like ten righteous men), as opposed to a single servant, or to “God’s servant Israel,” the entire Jewish nation? If it is about righteous individuals, does it speak of their resurrection, and could Jesus be one of them?

You described missionary’s criticisms of Judaism’s rejection of Jesus as one more suffering that the Jewish people endure as the suffering servant. But you also wrote that the righteous individuals “atone for the sins of the world through their suffering,” and Isaiah 53 says “by his stripes we are healed.” How do gentiles’ afflictions of Jews actually heal those same gentiles? It sounds like the opposite is true, since you wrote that the gentiles will be put to shame by their mistakes.

Regardng your discussion of a claim that Israel suffered for rejecting Jesus, I agree that gentiles who despised Jews will regret it, and that some punishments could theoretically be from God.

But I disagree with your idea that the only reason for Jews’ suffering would be that God is reproving them as a punishment, since there are plenty of people who suffer regardless of whether they are good or bad. If you are right, what wrong have the Jews done to receive this punishment? I think almost all Jews believed in God when the temple was destroyed. Maybe they didn’t attend religious services or perform rituals as often as they should, but that doesn’t seem like enough reason to destroy their whole temple and civilization! It sounds like this is leading to the conclusion that the huge crime they could’ve committed was killing the Messiah.

Comment by Hal Smith on 2/21/10 at 7:41 am

It is interesting reading your articles on the GodBlog about the scriptures and the Messiah’s resurrection, Brad. After reading them and other articles, I have come to think that the scriptures predict that the Messiah would resurrect, and wrote about it on my blog rakovskii.livejournal.com

And, depending on your view of John 10:22, I would like to wish you a Happy Feast of the Dedication and a Happy Hanukkah, brother!

All the Best!

Comment by H. Smith on 12/23/10 at 9:14 pm

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