- Gabriel's Revelation
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Gabriel's Revelation (also named Hazon Gabriel the Vision of Gabriel[1]) or the Jeselsohn Stone,[2] is a three-foot-tall (one metre) stone tablet with 87 lines of Hebrew text written in ink, containing a collection of short prophecies written in the first person and dated to the late 1st century BCE.[3][4] One of the stories allegedly tells of a man who was killed by the Romans and resurrected in three days. It is a tablet described as a "Dead Sea scroll in stone".[3][5]
Contents
Origins
The unprovenanced tablet was likely found near the Dead Sea some time around the year 2000 and has been associated with the same community which created the Dead Sea scrolls. It is relatively rare in its use of ink on stone.[5] It is in the possession of Dr. David Jeselsohn, a Swiss-Israeli collector, who bought it from a Jordanian antiquities dealer. At the time he was unaware of its significance.[4]
Reception
Hillel Halkin in his blog in The New York Sun wrote that it "would seem to be in many ways a typical late-Second-Temple-period eschatological text" and expressed doubts that it provided anything "sensationally new" on Christianity's origins in Judaism.[6]
The finding has caused controversy among scholars. Israel Knohl, who is an expert in Talmudic and biblical language at Jerusalem's Hebrew University reads the inscription as a command from the angel Gabriel "to rise from the dead within three days". He takes this command to be directed at a 1st century Jewish rebel called Simon, who was killed by the Romans in 4 BC.[4] In Knohl's view the finding "calls for a complete reassessment of all previous scholarship on the subject of messianism, Jewish and Christian alike".[7] Retired professor, Stan Seidner contends that it reflects the Apocalyptic beliefs of the day, many which are found in the Dead Sea Scrolls, as antecedent and predictive writings of Christianity. He also suggested the use of infra-red technological applications, similar to what had been utilized on Dead Sea Scroll Material in the recent past. Challenging Knohl's "Two Messiahs" theory, Seidner noted that, "Knohl’s reliance upon what he calls, the 'Glorification Hymn,' in support of a first Messiah’s relationship with King Herod, failed in its carbon-14 testing. It predates Herod’s ascendency to the throne by at least twelve years and as much as one hundred and fifty six." However, he does agree with Knohl's interpretation of the inscription,"to rise from the dead within three days."[8] Ben Witherington, on the other hand – an Early Christianity expert at Asbury Theological Seminary in Wilmore Kentucky – claims that a word interpreted as "rise" could just as easily be taken to mean "show up".[4] At a conference at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem between the 6th and the 8 July in 2008, marking the 60th anniversary of the discovery of the Dead Sea scrolls, Knohl gave a paper on the tablet.[5]
Victor Sasson, a biblical scholar and specialist in Hebrew and Aramaic epigraphy, disagrees with Knohl, objecting:
- "...the whole issue of this 'h>yh' (with initial Het) suggested by Knohl is not only precarious, but also suspect. He had previously suggested a thesis regarding a resurrected Jewish mashiah (messiah), and has now found an opportunity with this letter Het (and Alef) to support his thesis. The other words that he supplies in line 80, with the exception of the existing 'I Gabriel' are in fact his own!"[9]
The stone was featured in July 2011 on Simcha Jacobovici's television program Decoding the Ancients.[10]
References and further reading
- ^ "By Three Days, Live": Messiahs, Resurrection, and Ascent to Heavon in Hazon Gabriel, Israel Knohl, Hebrew University of Jerusalem
- ^ "The First Jesus?". National Geographic. http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/series/expedition-week/4290/facts. Retrieved 2010-08-05.
- ^ a b Yardeni, Ada (Jan/Feb 2008). "A new Dead Sea Scroll in Stone?". Biblical Archaeology Review 34 (01). http://www.bib-arch.org/news/dss-in-stone-news.asp.
- ^ a b c d van Biema, David; Tim McGirk (2008-07-07). "Was Jesus' Resurrection a Sequel?". Time Magazine. http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1820685,00.html. Retrieved 2008-07-07.
- ^ a b c Ethan Bronner (2008-07-05). "Tablet ignites debate on messiah and resurrection". New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/06/world/middleeast/06stone.html?_r=1&hp=&pagewanted=all. Retrieved 2008-07-07. "The tablet, probably found near the Dead Sea in Jordan according to some scholars who have studied it, is a rare example of a stone with ink writings from that era — in essence, a Dead Sea Scroll on stone."
- ^ nysun.com, Blurry 'Vision of Gabriel'
- ^ Israel Knohl (April 19, 2007 (Iyyar 1, 5767)). "In three days, you shall live". Haaretz. http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/850657.html. Retrieved 2008-07-10.
- ^ Cited with permission from the author's paper , Seidner, Stanley S. "The Knohl Hypothesis and 'Hazon Gabriel,'" June 3, 2009.
- ^ Victor Sasson. "The Vision of Gabriel and Messiah in Mainstream Judaism and in Christianity: Textual, Philological, and Theological Comments". Blogspot. http://victorsasson.blogspot.com/2009/09/vision-of-gabriel-and-messiah-in.html. Retrieved 2010-05-22. "Knohl simply cannot hang his major thesis of a resurrected Jewish messiah or of a messianic tale on letters whose ink has faded, and on a couple of other self-concocted restorations...One does not 'restore' a focal point, fundamental to one's major thesis, on the basis of a letter or two, and then claim he has found supporting evidence. A professional epigrapher - and Knohl is not such one - would not engage in such self-deception. In other words, one cannot say there is a resurrected messiah in this text and then proceed to plant evidence in support of that conclusion."
- ^ Strachan, Alex (July 22, 2011). "Decoding the Ancients 'real-life Da Vinci Code'". The Gazette. http://www.montrealgazette.com/news/Decoding+Ancients+real+life+Vinci+Code/5141531/story.html. Retrieved 24 July 2011.
External links
Categories:- Messianism
- Non-rabbinic Jewish texts
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