Ancient Tablet Shakes Christianity?

A Hebrew inscription on a tablet dated from the first century B.C. is causing quite a stir. The interpretation is shaky because some of the words are difficult to determine, but some scholars claim it speaks of a messiah who will die and rise again after three days.

"This should shake our basic view of Christianity," [Mr. Knohl] said as he sat in his office of the Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem where he is a senior fellow in addition to being the Yehezkel Kaufman Professor of Biblical Studies at Hebrew University. "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."

Leaving aside the fact that the existence of similar stories cannot automatically disprove later historical facts (as this coincidence clearly demonstrates), I'm not sure why motifs present before the time of Jesus would prove the disciples made up the story of Jesus to match the motif...unless you go into this assuming a priori that the Gospels are untrue. It seems to me that if Jesus' story is true, then we should expect that some truths about Him would be foreshadowed in Scripture. It's not surprising, then, that certain Jesus-related motifs gleaned from the Old Testament could be adopted by individuals in all sorts of ways and be present among the Jewish people before the time of Jesus.

For example, Jesus says that "the sign of Jonah" will be given to the people, clearly referencing a "three days" motif that was around long before His time. Considering the Book of Jonah, why should the presence of a "three days" motif among the Jews discredit Christianity any more than the presence of a "sacrificial lamb taking on the sins of Israel so that God's wrath passes over the people under its blood" motif or the existence of Isaiah 53 would discredit it?

Maybe this is a clue to Knohl's reasoning:

Knohl said that it was less important whether Simon was the messiah of the stone than the fact that it strongly suggested that a savior who died and rose after three days was an established concept at the time of Jesus. He notes that in the Gospels, Jesus makes numerous predictions of his suffering and New Testament scholars say such predictions must have been written in by later followers because there was no such idea present in his day.

So if there was no idea of a suffering messiah present in Jesus' day, then Jesus didn't die and rise from the dead--his followers must have made it up later. If there was an idea of a suffering messiah (see the first quote), then Jesus didn't die and rise from the dead--his followers copied earlier stories.

Starting to get the feeling this game is rigged?  In fact, for Knohl, the "basic view of Christianity" that's being shaken is not the truth of the resurrection (no, that's assumed to be false), it's the understanding of when it was fabricated.

Comments

[Shaun]

I listened to a lecture by N.T. Wright on the Veritas forum called the Jesus of Myth and History.

In the lecture Wright mentioned Jesus telling people to, "Repent and believe in me!" Or something to that affect. Today we think that is a radical and original saying. Jesus must think highly of Himself to command people to turn from their wrong doing and trust in Him.

But then Wright quoted a passage from Josephus (a Jew from Jesus' period). Josephus believed he had been wronged by someone so he told the person to, "Repent and believe in me!" In other words, the idea that a 1st century Jew would say this to others wasn't so radical or original after all.

That shook me a little. But then I realized it doesn’t matter. Jesus mentions the Golden Rule, but it didn't originate with Him. He was just passing on good common sense. The Times story says, "Jesus could be best understood through a close reading of the Jewish history of his day." I think that's a good idea.

If this tablet is authenticated apologists may have to alter some of their arguments a little. It would be technically incorrect to say a dying and rising messiah was unheard of before Jesus. But, so what? It doesn’t alter the truth of the story or the evidence for the resurrection at all.

The center of Christianity isn't the IDEA of dying and rising, it's DOING it! Jesus wasn't completely original, but He had the power to turn prophetic concepts into reality.

[Nathan Rose]

Amy, Thanks for this post, and I enjoyed your analysis. With all the Old Testament prophecies concerning Jesus it hardly seems surprising that a Jewish group could have come to an understanding of a suffering and rising Messiah. In fact, in Luke 24:25-27 Jesus scolds some disciples for not understanding this.

[SocietyVs]

What's funny to me - is how this doesn't support the credibility of the gospel writers? If it can be proven this idea was a theological idea amongst Judaism prior to Jesus - it blosters the writings of each and every one of them in my opinion...they were not inventing an idea - they were merely re-ittirating the idea had happened (in accordance with the theology prior to them).

[Jon]

Let's suppose you arrived in my house and saw towels labeled "Holiday Inn," "Hilton," and "Ritz-Carleton." You might conclude that representatives from each hotel snuck into my house and placed these towels there. It's possible. But do you think that is likely? What would you normally conclude?

[Amy Hall]

That depends...is there also a sewing machine sitting next to the towels with evidence that you made the labels yourself? Or are the towels the ONLY bit of evidence?

[Adam]

Usually the argument I hear is that Jesus's life didn't really line up with Jewish prophecy of the Messiah, and that the Gospel writers read too much into Old Testament passages. It seems like this tablet would help quiet that objection down pretty quickly.

[Amy Hall]

Or Jon, did your neighbors see a string of hotel representatives breaking into your apartment? Are those neighbors trustworthy? Have they been urgently telling other neighbors about this unlikely situation? Are they adamantly persisting in their story, even though their friends are telling them that CAN'T be the case because it's so unlikely? If so, what should someone conclude in that situation?

[Agilius]

>> If it can be proven this idea was a theological idea amongst Judaism prior to Jesus - it blosters the writings of each and every one of them in my opinion...they were not inventing an idea - they were merely re-ittirating the idea had happened

All "prophecies" claim to be a theological ideas prior to the supposed fulfillment. But because no one is going to witness to, and die for, a cause they know to be a lie, the apostles couldn't have been merely reitterating known concepts.

[Seth]

I think Jon stole the towels.

[Sam]

I've been arguing with a Jewish girl lately about Jesus, and she insists that in Judaism, the messiah must fulfill all the messianic prophecies before he dies, and that's one of her reasons for saying Jesus isn't the messiah. The debate is over, but I wonder what she would say about this. I had read about it elsewhere but decided not to bring it up since it's so new, I didn't know that much about it, and sometimes these novelties that pop up turn out to be inauthentic or something after the stir dies down a little.

[Jon]

Why not push the analogy a little further, right Amy?

Let's suppose one guy claims to have seen hotel reps breaking into the house, but only in a vision, not physically. Three other anonymous guys (not Mark) decades later likewise tell a story of these reps breaking into the house, but they seem to be elaborating on a previous tale that may have been intended as fiction. Now what do we think?

[Amy Hall]

I think that now we're talking about evidence, not just an isolated "likeliness," and that's all I ask. ;)

[Jon]

I agree that evidence can overturn what a person would ordinarily think. The evidence could lead a person to conclude that Holiday Inn is secretly placing towels in my home. I'm just saying though that prima facie this does weigh against the Christian claim.

[kumikata]

"Why not push the analogy a little further, right Amy?

Let's suppose one guy claims to have seen hotel reps breaking into the house, but only in a vision, not physically. Three other anonymous guys (not Mark) decades later likewise tell a story of these reps breaking into the house, but they seem to be elaborating on a previous tale that may have been intended as fiction. Now what do we think?"

Now let’s suppose that this guy (“Paul”) who had the "visions" also passed down an early creed that is almost universally acknowledged to have originated within 3-5 years of the alleged break-in of the hotel reps. And let’s suppose that in this creed, “Paul” states that numerous family members in the house saw the hotel-reps break in. Let’s say this creed contains eyewitness testimony of the homeowners' brother, sister, aunt, uncle, all twelve family members, and 500 cousins and other relatives all at once. And let’s suppose that “Paul” also says that he checked out this message with some of these eyewitnesses such as the aunt, the uncle, and the brother. And let’s suppose that all three of them gave “Paul” the "right hand of fellowship" and said this is the same story that they were telling. Let’s say that “Paul” said that the aunt, uncle, and brother added nothing to his message that the house was broken into by hotel reps. And let’s suppose that the two words that “Paul” uses to describe the break-in were almost always used to describe a physical break-in, not a visionary break-in. And we added this evidence to the three “anonymous guys” who also stated that the hotel reps broke in. What would we say then?

[Heath Griner]

Isn't it interesting that every alleged new archaeological find is supposed to "shake our basic view of Christianity"?
You get the impression after a while that what some scholars and archaeologists WANT is to destroy the foundation of our faith. If that's true, how can they say that they are just following the evidence and acting from purely academic and truthful objectives? Where is the research going on to dismantle tenets of other religious faith?
The target that some supposedly bright people paint on Christianity is so painfully visible that it should embarrass them for their petty motives and ambitions. Christianity must stand every day against an onslaught of rival faiths, liars and atheist opportunists -- and yet, 2,000 years after Christ's death and resurrection, people like me still find themselves believing and knowing Christ.

[Jon]

Well, Kumikata, we are drifting a little from my original point. Yes, evidence can overturn what you would ordinarily think, but what I'm saying is prima facie this is (if valid) a piece of history that tends to weigh against Christian apologetics.

But I want to say a couple of things about the creed of 1 Cor 15. First of all with regards to dating. How do we know this is within 3-5 years of the resurrection? How do we even know when Jesus died? Epiphanius has that James was 96 years old when he died, and Josephus has that James died in 62. This means that if we assume Jesus was older than James, he died prior to 5 BC.

Irenaeus has that Jesus didn't die until he was older than 50 and he died under Claudius. He says he got this info from those that knew the apostles. Other sources put it at various times. The gospels don't agree on whether he died before or after Passover. It's almost as if this info is not a matter of historical reflection, but more of a guess about where he must have been given certain assumptions. Or, in the case of the Gospel of John, he just wants to have Jesus die at the same moment the Passover lambs are slaughtered to make a theological point.

So if we don't know when he died, how can we know that this creed dates within 5 years? Am I to just assume the gospel dating scheme? I can't do that since the gospels are shown to be unreliable on many other points, including the date of Jesus birth, anachronistic sayings placed in the mouth of Jesus, etc.

Second, there are reasons to doubt that Paul actually wrote this creed. His claim that he got the gospel directly from the Jerusalem apostles directly contradicts his claim in Galatians 1 that he got the gospel by revelation and NOT by human agency. This talk of creeds and traditions seems like an anachronism. Why is this pioneer maverick missionary of a brand new religion talking about creedal formula? Doesn't that sound like later Catholicizing? Doesn't this talk of an appearance to 500 seem odd in light of the omission of this impressive appearance in the gospels? Why is it that none of the gospels have that he first appeared to Peter, or that he appeared to James at all? In fact the gospels never portray James as ever anything but a doubter (is this like the Sunni and Shia Muslims, one group following familial lines and the other claiming that fidelity to the teachings is more important than blood?)

Treatment of James is very odd indeed throughout Scripture. Extra biblical sources would indicate that James is an extremely powerful and respected individual, some even suggested that he was appointed by Christ himself as his successor. The Gospel of Thomas says that heaven and earth came into existence for James. Yet the canonical writings, though they sometimes imply his importance, introduce him in Acts without fanfare as if we are supposed to know who he is, and virtually ignore him in the gospels almost as if they are attempting to paper over him. Even clone him to obfuscate who he was. How many James's are there in the gospels?

I'm not actually saying your wrong, only that it's a little more complex than you may know. Fascinating though in my view, but ancient history is just not something that can sustain the weight of dogmatism in my view.

[Sam]

Jon,

That’s a lot to respond to, and I imagine a book could be written in response to it. I didn’t want to leave you hanging, though, since nobody else had responded yet.

First I want to address your doubts about whether Paul wrote the creed in 1 Cor 15. You gave a few reasons to doubt it.

*It’s anachronistic.

The tradition quoted in 1 Cor isn’t anything like later creeds (e.g. the apostle’s creed, the Athanasius creed, etc.). It’s just a short little confession about Jesus. Besides, Paul’s letters are full of short hymns, creeds, etc. Plenty of time since Jesus’ death had passed for these to develop.

*Paul contradicts himself about where he got the formula.

Paul didn’t say in Corinthians that he got the formula from the apostles. He merely says that he received it. So no, he doesn’t contradict Galatians. But let’s suppose he DID say in Corinthians that he got it from the apostles. Still, it isn’t a contradiction unless you can show that in both cases, he’s talking specifically about the formula. Paul claimed in Galatians that he got the gospel from a revelation. He does not say he got the particular wording we have in the formula. If Paul had learned about the gospel from a revelation, and then got that particular wording found in 1 Cor 15 from the apostles, there would be no contradiction even if he said in 1 Cor 15 that he got the formula from the apostles. But besides all that, even if Paul did contradict himself about where he got the formula, that doesn’t do anything to cast doubt on whether Paul actually wrote this part of 1 Corinthians.

*The 500 witnesses seems out of place.

I’ll grant that it does, but most people don’t think the appearance traditions belonged with the “gospel formula.” Paul just tacks the appearance traditions onto it, but they existed as separate traditions prior to that. This is especially evident in the appearance to the 500 since Paul adds the parenthetical comment that most were still living, but some had fallen asleep. It’s unlikely that was part of the tradition being passed around.

*Appearance to Peter first contradicts gospels.

I don’t see how this is at all relevant to whether Paul wrote this or not. From what I have read, the reason you have two appearances that are similar except for the leader is because one came from Peter and one came from James. You have one from “Cephas, then to the twelve,” and then you have one from “James, then to all the apostles.” I suspect “the twelves” and “the apostles” are the same group of people, and the reason for these two traditions is because one came from Peter or his disciples, and the other came from James or his disciples. The order of the appearances may have been something Paul added when he put them all together, but no order was intended when these traditions were started.

*James portrayed as a doubter in the gospels.

Again, I fail to see the relevance, but lest you think there is some contradiction going on, keep in mind that the author of Luke is the same as the author of Acts, and in Acts, James is clearly portrayed as being a believer. If the gospels indicate that James was a doubter, it’s probably because he WAS during that time. If anything, an appearance to James would explain his conversion.

There are a couple of reasons to think that Paul DID write this part of 1 Cor 15. First, because it is supported by all of our manuscript evidence. There isn’t a shred of manuscript evidence that these verses were ever missing from 1 Corinthians.

Second, there was a debate between William Lane Craig and Robert Price where Price brought up some of these same points you brought up, and Craig answered by showing that removing the passage from 1 Corinthians leaves some grammatical and logical incoherencies in the passage. You can check out the debate at www.bringyou.to/CraigPriceDebate.mp3.

The theory that Paul didn’t write the first few verses of 1 Corinthians 15 seems far-fetched to me. It ranks right up there with people who doubt Jesus existed. Robert Price is the only scholar I know of who seriously advocates both theories, though at least in the case of Jesus’ existence he only offers it as a possibility. I have a hard time taking Price seriously because he advocates these hair-brained theories and he seems obviously to have an ax to grind with Christianity. It seems like when it comes to Christianity, any ole argument will do as long as the conclusion casts some dispersion on Christianity.

That’s all for now. Maybe I’ll respond to more of your post later.

[Sam]

“Epiphanius has that James was 96 years old when he died, and Josephus has that James died in 62. This means that if we assume Jesus was older than James, he died prior to 5 BC.”

“Irenaeus has that Jesus didn't die until he was older than 50 and he died under Claudius.”

Something about your argument here doesn’t add up. If James was 96 when he died, and he died in 62, then James was born around 33 BCE. That means Jesus had to have been born earlier than that. If Jesus was born in 34 BCE, and Claudius reigned from 41 to 54, then Jesus would’ve been well over 50 when he died, just as Irenaeus said.

But where do you get the idea that Jesus had to have died prior to 5 BC given the information about James? The only way I can figure is if you’re assuming Jesus died around the age of 30. But where did you get that information? The gospels that you consider unreliable?

If Iranaeus was correct about when Jesus died, then at the earliest, Jesus died in 41 because Claudius was emperor from 41 to 54. Galatians is always dated between 48 and 55, which are the upper and lower extremes of all the dates I’ve seen. In Galatians, Paul said he visited Jerusalem 3 years after his conversion, and then again 14 years later. That means Galatians was written a minimum of 17 years after Paul’s conversion. 17 years before 55 is 38! Claudius wasn’t even emperor yet!

My point is that the date of Jesus’ death is not as ambiguous as you seem to think. Some of these theories can be ruled out by the evidence. But the popular theory that Jesus died during the reign of Pontius Pilate is supported by all of our earliest evidence—all four gospels, the chronology of Acts and Paul’s letters, and Tacitus. Pontius Pilate was procurator from 26 to 36, and his death is always dated between those years, usually in 30. You can see a discussion of these arguments in almost any book on the historical Jesus. Nobody, as far as I can tell, thinks Jesus was born before 5 BCE or during the reign of Claudius.

[Jon]

Thank you for your reply Sam. You're right that this is a lot of material. I won't address everything you said.

First, you characterize my position as follows:

"Paul contradicts himself about where he got the formula."

But this is not what I said. I said that Paul contradicts himself about where he got the gospel. You are reading into the text a distinction that isn't mentioned, i.e. Paul claims to have gotten the gospel by revelation, but got a cool way of spinning it (the formula) from the apostles. But that's nowhere stated in the text. In Galatians his whole point is to show that he is not beholden to any man. He got the gospel directly from the horses mouth. I Cor says "Let me pass on what I received from men" and then goes on to exactly describe the gospel, the very thing he says he did not get via a man. Now, I understand bible harmonizers can read into the text things that are not stated to shoehorn the two texts into a consistent paradigm, but nothing in the actual texts suggests such a distinction. You say that even if Paul contradicted himself, this doesn't mean he didn't write it. But we're dealing here with probabilities, not necessities. People can say opposite things. For instance Josephus in one context says that Emperor Vesapasian is the Messiah. But some Christians want to beleive that he also wrote that Jesus was the Messiah. Could be he did write both. But we also know that Christians do have a tendency to modify existing texts to suit their own agenda. So we have to recognize that there is a good likelihood that Josephus didn't really write that. Maybe. But the fact that he explicitly states the opposite elsewhere is relevant to the reliability we have of this text.

You say that Luke shows James to be a believer. True. But he never tells us that Jesus has a brother named James, whereas for Paul there is only one James, and he's the brother of the Lord in Galatians. So my point is correct. The James that is the brother of the Lord (the one Paul identifies as Jesus' brother) is never portrayed as a believer in the gospels, or in Acts.

You say the manuscript evidence supports authenticity. But the Chester-Beatty papyri is too late to settle the question.

I've heard the Price/Craig debate. Price also replies to the further points he was unable to cover during the debate at the Secular Web.

Regarding the date of Jesus death, I'm not claiming that Epiphanius is reliable or Irenaeus is reliable. I'm not saying I think he died under Claudius. I am relying on the gospels to get to the age of 30 point, but this isn't because I trust them. I'm just showing how there are a variety of sources on this which can lead to a variety of conclusions. I'm saying we don't know when he died, so how can we claim that the creed of I Cor 15 dates to within 3 years of the crucifixion?

[Sam]

Jon,

I misunderstood your point about Paul contradicting himself. Yes, I agree that if Paul contradicts himself, it does raise the possibility the he didn't write one of the things attributed to him.

I'm not inventing a distinction to get around a contradiction. The distinction exists. There is the gospel, and then there is a particular articulation of the gospel. If you are going to claim that there's a contradiction between 1 Corinthians 15 and Galatians, then it's up to YOU to demonstrate that Paul is talking about the same thing in the same sense in both cases. We know that in 1 Corinthians 15 he is talking about a particular formulation. He's talking about a fixed creed. We don't know that about Galatians. In Galatians, we know he claims to receive the gospel from a revelation. We don't know that about 1 Corinthians 15, and 1 Corinthians 15 does not say he received it from a man, only that he received it. So I don't think you've shown any contradiction between 1 Corinthians 15 and Galatians.

The mere fact that you have a variety of sources giving (or implying) different dates for Jesus' death does not throw the date into doubt if, as I argued, you can rule out some of these dates as inaccurate. There are good reasons for why almost all scholars think Jesus died during the reign of Pontius Pilate. The dating is not arbitrary.

[BJ]

Jon-
I'm having some trouble following your point regarding where Paul got the gospel. You wrote that 1 Cor says "Let me pass on what I received from men" - I've checked a couple of translations and an interlinear, but can't find the terms "from men" in the text. Could you tell me the translation or Greek text you're using? Thanks.

[Jon]

Sam, I don't agree with the mentality that says if there is some possible explanation around an apparent contradiction that this entitles you to conclude that in fact there is no contradiction. Paul says in Galatians he didn't get the gospel from any man. He says in I Cor, let me pass on what I received, and what he passes on is the heart and soul of the gospel. Now, for BJ, he does pass it on in the form of a creed, which is why this is recognized as something he got from other men. I don't think this is disputed. Sure Sam, we can distinguish between a creed and a different kind of statement of the gospel. But Paul doesn't make a distinction. He doesn't say "Let me pass on a cool formulation I got." He's not emphasizing the form. He's emphasizing the gospel.

Now, this doesn't necessarily prove a contradiction. But my point is not that this is definitely a contradiction. My point is we can't have a high degree of confidence that it is authentic. So when you put it forward as evidence in favor of the resurrection these question marks need to be kept in mind.

And as far as the date of Jesus' death, I need reasons, not a vague assertion about how scholars believe it occurred under Pilate. I do not agree, so you have to do better than that for justification.

[BJ]

Jon-
Something divinely revealed to Paul, expressed in a particular way linguistically by others that Paul thought captures the essence of what he learned through that experience is a perfectly reasonable explanation for the apparent contradition you've pointed out. Paul received the gospel through special revelation (Gal.1) which is nicely summarized in the form of a creedal statement (1 Cor. 15)that was being passed along by the early community of the faithful. If you require a higher degree of certainty to resolve this particular issue, I'm afraid I can't be much help.

[Jon]

Why would I require certainty? It doesn't bother me that we can't have high confidence in claims about ancient history. That's just the way it goes with ancient history.