Gabriel's Vision and the resurrection of the Messiah

Submitted by andrew on Wed, 09/07/2008 - 15:20.

A recent article in The New York Times (’Ancient Tablet Ignites Debate on Messiah and Resurrection’) has drawn attention to a stone tablet on which are inscribed 87 lines of Hebrew that ’may speak of a messiah who will rise from the dead after three days’. The stone came to light ten years ago, but its significance only became apparent after two Israeli scholars, Ada Yardeni and Binyamin Elitzur, published an analysis of what they called ’Gabriel’s Vision’ in the Hebrew language journal Cathedra.

The article caught the attention of professor Israel Knohl from the Hebrew University, who had published a book in 2000 called The Messiah Before Jesus in which he argued that belief in a suffering messiah pre-existed the Jesus movement. He believes that ’Gabriel’s Vision’ has now provided dramatic evidence for his thesis.

Knohl argues in an article at haaretz.com that the text, which is based largely on Daniel 8:15-26, describes a Messiah who is killed by an evil king who makes war against the Jewish people. The angel Gabriel then speaks to the murdered ’Prince of Princes’: ’In three days, live, I, Gabriel, command you’. This echoes an earlier statement in lines 19-21 expressing the hope of victory over the enemy: ’In three days you will know that evil will be defeated by justice’ (Knohl’s translation). Others slain in Jerusalem will be carried to heaven by the chariot of their blood (lines 57, 67).

The suggestion is then made that this text, which is quite confidently dated by scholars to the end of the first century BCE, refers to a Jewish revolt following the death of Herod in 4 BCE. Knohl identifies the ’Princes of Princes’ mentioned in the text with Simon, who declared himself king and was regarded by his followers as a messianic figure. According to Josephus (Ant. 17.273-276), Simon was hunted down and killed by the Romans in a ’ravine’ across the Jordan, which Knohl believes is denoted by the phrase ’rocky crevice’ (Yardeni has ’narrow holes’) in line 81. His conclusion is that ’these events set the slain Messiah Son of Joseph tradition into motion and paved the way for the emergence of the concept of "catastrophic messianism."’ So belief in a ’slain and resurrected messiah’ existed before the death and resurrection of Jesus.

The text is badly corrupted and the transliteration and English translation indicate the numerous lacunae. Knohl’s translation of line 80 is conjectural. The text as it was published and translated by Ada Yardeni reads: ’In three days …, I, Gabri’el …[?]’. Yardeni is apparently impressed by Knohl’s reading, though less convinced by the association with Simon. The reconstruction is in any case intriguing, and it is at least worth asking what the implications would be if it were correct.

A statement by Knohl quoted in the New York Times article suggests that in his view this discovery ’should shake our basic view of Christianity’: ’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.’

There is no apparent evidence for a direct dependence of the New Testament on prior beliefs of this sort. But there is no reason, either, to suppose that belief in a messiah who died and was raised from the dead could not have been anticipated by other movements. Daniel already foresaw resurrection as part of the culmination of the war between righteous Israel and the pagan oppressor. Hosea 6:1-2 speaks of the restoration of Israel following judgment as a ’resurrection’ on the third day, which would be the obvious source for any reference to a raising to life after three days in ’Gabriel’s Vision’. The Maccabean writings speak both of the redemptive value of the suffering of the martyrs and of their hope of resurrection (e.g. 2 Macc. 7:14, 37-38; 4 Macc. 13:16; 16:25; 17:12, 20-22). Under conditions of brutal oppression it would not be so surprising that Jews made sense of defeat and suffering by drawing on traditions such as these.

This sort of historical contextualization of Jesus’ death and resurrection may come as something of a blow to the traditional view of Jesus as universal saviour figure. Knohl suggests that Jesus saw his mission in specifically Jewish apocalyptic terms: ’This gives the Last Supper an absolutely different meaning. To shed blood is not for the sins of people but to bring redemption to Israel.’ But the new perspective on Jesus has already gone a long way towards situating Jesus in the narrative of Israel’s condemnation and restoration, and it is not such a great step to imagine that his redemptive death and resurrection to life on the third day were prefigured in earlier messianic or revolutionary movements. It seems to me entirely appropriate (pace percyflage) that the Lord’s Supper should be interpreted against this background, as a remembrance of Jesus’ death for the sins of Israel. The difference, of course, is that the Lord’s Supper was celebrated by a messianic community that was convinced that Jesus had indeed been raised from the dead for the sake of Israel’s restoration.

One final tentative observation. Among those who led the revolt Josephus names not only Simon, a former slave from Herod’s household, but also Judas the son of Ezekias, who had an ’ambitious desire of the royal dignity’ (Ant. 17.271-272), and also Athronges, who was no better than a shepherd but ’was so bold as to set up himself for king’ (17.278). Were these the ’three shepherds’ of line 75 of ’Gabriel’s Vision’ who ’went out to?/of? Israel’?