A Pre-Christian Messiah text involving being dead for 3 days, and resurrecting

[Brianroy]

The university of Chicago pdf. is read in full on this link below.   

ftp://tichonadmin:tichonadmin@80.179.136.36/site/Israel_Knohl_on_Hazon_Gabriel.pdf


The author, Israel Knohl, is Yehezkel Kaufman Professor of Biblical studies at Hebrew University in Jerusalem; and a senior research fellow at the Shalom Hartman Institute.

Israel served as a visiting professor at University of California at Berkeley, Stanford University and the University of Chicago Divinity School.

A list of his publications at his Hebrew University page is found as:

List of Publications

Ada Yardeni and Binyamin Elitzur have recently published a fascinating  text of an apocalypse transmitted by the angel Gabriel, which they suggest  calling Hazon Gabriel (the Vision of Gabriel).

 { Ada Yardeni and Binyamin Elitzur, “Document: A First-Century BCE Prophetic Text Written on a Stone; First Publication,” Cathedra 123 (2007): 155–66 (in Hebrew).  copyright 2008 by The University of Chicago. All rights reserved. 0022-4189/2008/8802-0001}


 Based on its linguistic  features, they date the text, written in Hebrew on stone, to the late first century BCE. This suggestion is corroborated by the paleographic  evidence, which points to the late first century BCE or the early first  century CE.


Hazon Gabriel is written in two partially preserved columns. In the first
column, we have a prophecy regarding the coming destruction of evil
within three days:

[By three days you shall know that, thus said the Lord of Hosts, the God of Israel, the evil has been broken by righteousness.] (lines 19–21)


This announcement is followed by a promise that God will soon appear and that his revelation will cause the universe to tremble:


[In just a little while, I will shake the heavens and the earth.]
(lines 24–26)



Reflected in Hazon Gabriel is a war that led to bloodshed in Jerusalem  and elsewhere. The text also contains a reference to the angel Michael  and other angels who use chariots, probably to fight Israel’s enemies:


[These are the seven chariots on the gate of Jerusalem and the gates of Judea . . . for . . . Michael and all the others.] (lines 26–28)


Hazon Gabriel mentions a number of messianic figures. Line 16...may be read in two possible  ways: (a) the Lord addresses his servant David, whom he asks to request  something of Ephraim, or (b) God relates that his servant David  has requested something of Ephraim. The continuation of the passage  confirms the first possibility.

...in the next line...The first word  should probably be reconstructed...giving the following coherent reading:

[My servant David, ask of Ephraim (that he) place the sign; (this) I ask of you.]

The Lord addresses David, asking him to request of Ephraim that he
place a sign. The nature of the sign is not specified.
Two biblical characters are mentioned in this text: David and Ephraim.
The expression “My servant David” also appears in the Bible as a term
for an eschatological leader (see Ezek. 34:23, 24, 37:24, 25). As for
Ephraim, the biblical Ephraim is the son of Joseph; consequently, “My
servant David” and “Ephraim” in Hazon Gabriel are apparently parallel
to the “Messiah son of David” and the “Messiah son of Joseph” mentioned
in the Talmud. As Yardeni and Elitzur observe, “Ephraim” is the
name of the Messiah in Pesikta Rabbati, who suffers in order to atone
for Israel.2 In the Bible Ephraim refers to northern Israel. I do believe
that some biblical references to Ephraim are the basis of the image of
Ephraim as a suffering “Son of God” or a suffering messianic figure.
In Jer. 31:18 we hear the words of Ephraim: “Thou hast chastend me,
and I was chastend.” God answers Ephraim and says: “Truly, Ephraim
is a dear son to Me. A child that is dandled!” { Jer. 31:20, according to the Jewish Publication Society translation.}

As was noted by M. Fishbane, Ephraim is described in these verses as both the suffering and beloved Son of God.
  {See Michael Fishbane, “Midrash and Messianism: Some Theologies of Suffering and Salvation,”  in Toward the Millennium, ed. Peter Scha¨fer and Mark R. Cohen (Leiden: Brill, 1998), 70–71.}



A similar picture of Ephraim is found in  Hosea 11:1–8.
The tradition of the “Messiah son of Joseph” and his death first appears
in the Talmud (BT Sukkah 52a) and at length in “Sefer Zerubbabel.”

{See Martha Himmelfarb, “Sefer Zerubbabel,” in Rabbinic Fantasies: Imaginative Narratives from Classical Hebrew Literature, ed. David Stern and Mark Jay Mirsky (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1990), 67–90.}


In an article I published a few years ago, I have argued that
the character of the Messiah son of Joseph and the tradition of his
killing were created in the late first century BCE or the early first century
CE.   {See Israel Knohl, “On ‘the Son of God,’ Armilus, and Messiah Son of Joseph,” Tarbiz 68  (1998): 13–38 (in Hebrew with an English abstract).}

Hazon Gabriel confirms my assumption that this messianic  character was already known at that time.

(Israel's pdf. -- to be continued)

[Brianroy]

ii.


Along with the positive characters, “My servant David” and “Ephraim,”  Hazon Gabriel also contains a negative character: as was mentioned  above, in lines 19–21 we read about the destruction of evil:


[By three days you shall know that, thus said the Lord of Hosts, the God of
Israel, the evil has been broken by righteousness.]


The phrase “the evil has been broken by righteousness” is based on  the biblical prophecy of Gabriel against the wicked king: “but, by no  human hand, he shall be broken” (Dan. 8:25). Hazon Gabriel then continues:


[Ask me, and I shall tell you what is this wicked branch tzemah.] (lines 21–22)

As Yardeni and Elitzur remark, tzemah is a clearly messianic name.  {Yardeni and Elitzur, “Document,” 157.}


Jeremiah prophesies: “Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord,
when I will raise up for David a righteous branch [tzemah], and he shall
reign as king and deal wisely, and shall execute justice and righteousness.
. . . And this is the name by which he will be called: ‘The Lord
is our righteousness’” ( Jer. 23:5). The righteous branch of Jeremiah is
a distinguished king who is given the divine name “the Lord is our
righteousness.” Thus, the “wicked branch” of Hazon Gabriel is a wickedmessianic king, the opposite of the “righteous branch.”


{Note should also be taken of the wording ... (the tree of evil) in a Qumran document that also mentions ... (anointed [Messiah] with the oil of kingship);
see E. Larson, “4Q Narrative A [4Q458],” in his Qumran Cave 4, XXVI: Cryptic Texts and  Miscellanea, Discoveries in the Judean Desert 36 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), pt. 1:355–60.}

Something  like that would be termed “Antichrist” in a later period.

{The description of this messianic figure as an evil person who claimed to be a Messiah is more than a standard reference to a false Messiah. A false Messiah is a person who wished to redeem Israel but could not achieve this goal. He is a not evil but a false redeemer.}

Characteristically, the Antichrist is duplicitous, presenting himself as Messiah and Redeemer while actually being the devil’s spawn who  comes to corrupt and lead astray. Such a character is known to us from apocalyptic works similar to Hazon Gabriel.

{See David Flusser, Judaism and the Origins of Christianity ( Jerusalem:Magnes, 1988), 207–13, 433–53; Knohl, “On ‘the Son of God.’”}


With this in the background, I wish to propose an interpretation for a difficult word in our text. The “wicked branch” is immediately followed (line 22) by a term that the editors had difficulty reading and interpreting. 

...After checking the original inscription, I am sure that...“white plaster”...
or “plastered white”   [is the correct reading].

This singular  expression aptly describes the wicked branch as a false Messiah:
he presents himself as pure and clean (whitewashed), but internally he
is wicked and a sham. The New Testament uses such terms to depict
the hypocrisy of the wicked: Paul compares the High Priest Ananias to
a whitewashed wall because he claimed to judge him according to the
Torah, yet he had ordered that Paul be beaten, contrary to the law
(Acts 23:3). Jesus likens the two-faced Pharisees, who have the appearance  of the righteous but are replete with hypocrisy, to whitewashed tombs full of uncleanness (Matt. 23:27).

...

(Israel's pdf. -- to be continued)

[Brianroy]

iii


Line 80 of the text begins with the words...(by three days),
after which the editors read the letter het followed by three undecipherable
letters and then the words...(I Gabriel). In my opinion,
the word that the editors read only partially is completely legible and can clearly be read as  [He-Alef-Yod-He...hayah, or "life" spelled with an inserted alef].

{The letter alef is completely clear; see also the shape of the alef of ... in line 77. The letter yod is written in diverse forms in the text. On the shape of the letter heh here, compare the shape of the heh in the word ...in line 11 and the shape of the heh at the beginning of the second word of line 17. The line underneath the letter yod was apparently caused by the ink dripping.}

The context implies that the angel  Gabriel addresses someone and tells him: “by three days,  ... live / be resurrected!” (cf. Ezek. 16:6: “In your blood, Live...").

This spelling is well known to us from the Dead Sea Scrolls such as 1QIsa
(30:39)....

Since the text is not preserved in its entirety, we cannot definitively
identity the person whom the angel Gabriel orders to come to life by
three days (however, see the appendix). As we saw above, the text mentions Ephraim, the Messiah son of Joseph who, according to the Jewish
tradition, was killed in battle and is resurrected by the Messiah son of
David.14 In light of this, we may suggest that the resurrected character
in Hazon Gabriel is a messianic figure as well.

There are many indications that Hazon Gabriel was composed on the
background of a bloody confrontation: lines 13–14 read: ...



(Behold, all the nations . . . against Jerusalem),

a clear  allusion to Zech. 14:2: “For I will gather all the nations against
Jerusalem to battle, and the city shall be taken.  The text in line 57:


(seal up the blood of the slaughtered of Jerusalem)

is reminiscent of Gabriel’s order to Daniel (Dan. 8:26): “but seal
up the vision.” In our text, the recipient of the vision is commanded
to “seal up” the blood of those who have been murdered in the city.

Later (line 67) the text states:


(announce to him of the blood, this is their chariot).

The recipient of the vision  is now asked to herald, and to explain, that the blood of some victims  becomes the “chariot” that will carry them to heaven. Elijah’s ascent  to heaven in a “chariot of fire and horses of fire” (2 Kings 2:11) is   obviously in the background.   


iv

In Hazon Gabriel, we find our earliest reference to “Ephraim” as a messianic
figure. In the Hebrew Bible there is no evidence of “Ephraim”
as a Messiah. However, as I have noted above, I think that the figure
of “Ephraim” in Hazon Gabriel is based on biblical verses that describe
him as the suffering Son of God. The atmosphere of Hazon Gabriel
contains elements of mourning and exile, death, and bloodshed....

It appears that “Ephraim” is a symbolic figure containing all these elements.
Unlike the messianic figure of “David,” which traditionally represents
bravery, military skill, and triumph, the figure of “Ephraim”
symbolizes a very different, new type of messianism. “Ephraim” is a
Messiah of suffering and death. It should also be noted in this context
that some books written at approximately the same time as Hazon Gabriel
also have the image of Ephraim’s father, Joseph, as a son of God
and one who atones with his suffering for the sins of others:
In the book entitled Joseph and Aseneth, Joseph is described as the
“son of God.”....

This book, probably written between 100 BC and 115
CE, also gives Joseph the title “God’s firstborn son.”  While scholars
are undecided whether these titles were originally intended to designate
Joseph as a Messiah or redeemer,... readers of the book could
obviously have gotten the impression that Joseph is a messianic figure.
In another work of the second temple period, “Testaments of the
Twelve Patriarchs,” we find a connection between Joseph and the figure
of the “Suffering Servant.” In the Testament of Benjamin (5:


{See Howard C. Kee, “Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs,” in Charlesworth, Old Testament  Pseudepigrapha, 1:826.}

Jacob says to Joseph: “In you will be fulfilled the heavenly prophecy which says that the spotless one will be defiled by lawless men and the sinless one will die for the sake of impious men.” ...

The author of the testament had clearly identified Joseph with the
suffering servant of Isaiah 52–53. He was probably led to this idea by
the fact that Joseph had himself been a suffering slave.... At the same
time, one could say of Joseph as of Isaiah’s servant: “Behold my servant
shall prosper, he shall be exalted and lifted up, and shall be very high”
(Isa. 52:13).

Thus, it seems that the designation of the suffering Messiah as the
“son of Joseph” extends back to sources from the second temple period,
including Joseph and Aseneth, the Testament of Benjamin, and now
Hazon Gabriel.... In light of these, we should also understand the tra-dition about Ephraim or the Messiah son of Joseph as the slain Messiah.


v

Thus, Hazon Gabriel attests that the character of “Ephraim” as the “Messiah
son of Joseph” was already known in the late first century BCE.
From it we also learn of the contemporaneous fashioning of a belief
in resurrection “after three days” and in the ascent to heaven of some
people who were slaughtered. These conclusions are of decisive importance
for understanding the messianic consciousness of “Jesus son
of Joseph,” who was born around the time when this text was composed.
In this context, I wish to compare the account of Ephraim in this
apocalyptic text with the depiction of Jesus in Matt. 24:29–30: “Immediately
after the suffering of those days the sun will be darkened,
and the moon will not give its light; the stars will fall from heaven, and
the powers of heaven will be shaken. Then the sign of the Son of Man
will appear in heaven, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn,
and they will see ‘the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven’
with power and great glory.”

We are acquainted with the motif of the darkening of the sun and
the eclipse of the celestial luminaries from various biblical verses.25 The
portrayal of the Son of man coming with the clouds of heaven is based
on Dan. 7:13. The first part of verse 30 in this passage from Matthew
is especially relevant for our discussion: “Then the sign of the Son of
Man will appear in heaven, and then all the tribes of the earth will
mourn.” The wording “then all the tribes of the earth will mourn” is
based on Zech. 12:12: “The land shall mourn, each family by itself,”
which the rabbis applied to the eulogy for the Messiah son of Joseph
who is killed.   {BT Sukkah 52a; PT Sukkah 5:1 (55b).}

The “sign of the Son of Man” that will appear in heaven prior to the
redemption is reminiscent of Hazon Gabriel’s depiction of “Ephraim.”...

According to our reconstruction, in lines 16–17 God addresses David
and asks him to request Ephraim to place the sign. This placing of the
sign is followed by a description of the breaking of evil and the appearance of God and the angels. Hazon Gabriel is the only work known
to us in which the Messiah son of Joseph places a sign heralding the
advent of the salvation. The tradition of the “sign of the Son of Man”
would therefore seem to be founded on the depiction of the sign of
“Ephraim” in Hazon Gabriel. What, then, is the nature of this sign?
According to Hazon Gabriel, the blood of the slain is transformed into
a chariot that ascends to heaven. I would therefore suggest that the
sign that Ephraim is to place is that of the spilled blood, which is now
revealed in heaven. The depiction of blood as a “sign” could be based
on a verse in Exodus (12:13): “The blood shall be a sign for you.” In
light of this possibility, the “sign of the Son of Man” that is seen in
heaven could well be the spilled blood of the “Son of Man.” Thus,
when the “sign of the Son of Man” is seen in heaven, all the tribes of
the earth will mourn for the slain Messiah. It is possible that Matt. 24:
29–30 is based on the tradition that is attested in Hazon Gabriel.

[Brianroy]

July 6, 2008
Ancient Tablet Ignites Debate on Messiah and Resurrection
By ETHAN BRONNER

JERUSALEM — A three-foot-tall tablet with 87 lines of Hebrew that scholars believe dates from the decades just before the birth of Jesus is causing a quiet stir in biblical and archaeological circles, especially because it may speak of a messiah who will rise from the dead after three days.

If such a messianic description really is there, it will contribute to a developing re-evaluation of both popular and scholarly views of Jesus, since it suggests that the story of his death and resurrection was not unique but part of a recognized Jewish tradition at the time.

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.

It is written, not engraved, across two neat columns, similar to columns in a Torah. But the stone is broken, and some of the text is faded, meaning that much of what it says is open to debate.

Still, its authenticity has so far faced no challenge, so its role in helping to understand the roots of Christianity in the devastating political crisis faced by the Jews of the time seems likely to increase.

Daniel Boyarin, a professor of Talmudic culture at the University of California at Berkeley, said that the stone was part of a growing body of evidence suggesting that Jesus could be best understood through a close reading of the Jewish history of his day.

“Some Christians will find it shocking — a challenge to the uniqueness of their theology — while others will be comforted by the idea of it being a traditional part of Judaism,” Mr. Boyarin said.

Given the highly charged atmosphere surrounding all Jesus-era artifacts and writings, both in the general public and in the fractured and fiercely competitive scholarly community, as well as the concern over forgery and charlatanism, it will probably be some time before the tablet’s contribution is fully assessed. It has been around 60 years since the Dead Sea Scrolls were uncovered, and they continue to generate enormous controversy regarding their authors and meaning.

The scrolls, documents found in the Qumran caves of the West Bank, contain some of the only known surviving copies of biblical writings from before the first century A.D. In addition to quoting from key books of the Bible, the scrolls describe a variety of practices and beliefs of a Jewish sect at the time of Jesus.

How representative the descriptions are and what they tell us about the era are still strongly debated. For example, a question that arises is whether the authors of the scrolls were members of a monastic sect or in fact mainstream. A conference marking 60 years since the discovery of the scrolls will begin on Sunday at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem, where the stone, and the debate over whether it speaks of a resurrected messiah, as one iconoclastic scholar believes, also will be discussed.

Oddly, the stone is not really a new discovery. It was found about a decade ago and bought from a Jordanian antiquities dealer by an Israeli-Swiss collector who kept it in his Zurich home. When an Israeli scholar examined it closely a few years ago and wrote a paper on it last year, interest began to rise. There is now a spate of scholarly articles on the stone, with several due to be published in the coming months.

“I couldn’t make much out of it when I got it,” said David Jeselsohn, the owner, who is himself an expert in antiquities. “I didn’t realize how significant it was until I showed it to Ada Yardeni, who specializes in Hebrew writing, a few years ago. She was overwhelmed. ‘You have got a Dead Sea Scroll on stone,’ she told me.”

Much of the text, a vision of the apocalypse transmitted by the angel Gabriel, draws on the Old Testament, especially the prophets Daniel, Zechariah and Haggai.

Ms. Yardeni, who analyzed the stone along with Binyamin Elitzur, is an expert on Hebrew script, especially of the era of King Herod, who died in 4 B.C. The two of them published a long analysis of the stone more than a year ago in Cathedra, a Hebrew-language quarterly devoted to the history and archaeology of Israel, and said that, based on the shape of the script and the language, the text dated from the late first century B.C.

A chemical examination by Yuval Goren, a professor of archaeology at Tel Aviv University who specializes in the verification of ancient artifacts, has been submitted to a peer-review journal. He declined to give details of his analysis until publication, but he said that he knew of no reason to doubt the stone’s authenticity.

It was in Cathedra that Israel Knohl, an iconoclastic professor of Bible studies at Hebrew University in Jerusalem, first heard of the stone, which Ms. Yardeni and Mr. Elitzur dubbed “Gabriel’s Revelation,” also the title of their article. Mr. Knohl posited in a book published in 2000 the idea of a suffering messiah before Jesus, using a variety of rabbinic and early apocalyptic literature as well as the Dead Sea Scrolls. But his theory did not shake the world of Christology as he had hoped, partly because he had no textual evidence from before Jesus.

When he read “Gabriel’s Revelation,” he said, he believed he saw what he needed to solidify his thesis, and he has published his argument in the latest issue of The Journal of Religion.

Mr. Knohl is part of a larger scholarly movement that focuses on the political atmosphere in Jesus’ day as an important explanation of that era’s messianic spirit. As he notes, after the death of Herod, Jewish rebels sought to throw off the yoke of the Rome-supported monarchy, so the rise of a major Jewish independence fighter could take on messianic overtones.

In Mr. Knohl’s interpretation, the specific messianic figure embodied on the stone could be a man named Simon who was slain by a commander in the Herodian army, according to the first-century historian Josephus. The writers of the stone’s passages were probably Simon’s followers, Mr. Knohl contends.

The slaying of Simon, or any case of the suffering messiah, is seen as a necessary step toward national salvation, he says, pointing to lines 19 through 21 of the tablet — “In three days you will know that evil will be defeated by justice” — and other lines that speak of blood and slaughter as pathways to justice.

To make his case about the importance of the stone, Mr. Knohl focuses especially on line 80, which begins clearly with the words “L’shloshet yamin,” meaning “in three days.” The next word of the line was deemed partially illegible by Ms. Yardeni and Mr. Elitzur, but Mr. Knohl, who is an expert on the language of the Bible and Talmud, says the word is “hayeh,” or “live” in the imperative. It has an unusual spelling, but it is one in keeping with the era.

Two more hard-to-read words come later, and Mr. Knohl said he believed that he had deciphered them as well, so that the line reads, “In three days you shall live, I, Gabriel, command you.”

To whom is the archangel speaking? The next line says “Sar hasarin,” or prince of princes. Since the Book of Daniel, one of the primary sources for the Gabriel text, speaks of Gabriel and of “a prince of princes,” Mr. Knohl contends that the stone’s writings are about the death of a leader of the Jews who will be resurrected in three days.

He says further that such a suffering messiah is very different from the traditional Jewish image of the messiah as a triumphal, powerful descendant of King David.

“This should shake our basic view of Christianity,” he 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.”

Ms. Yardeni said she was impressed with the reading and considered it indeed likely that the key illegible word was “hayeh,” or “live.” Whether that means Simon is the messiah under discussion, she is less sure.

Moshe Bar-Asher, president of the Israeli Academy of Hebrew Language and emeritus professor of Hebrew and Aramaic at the Hebrew University, said he spent a long time studying the text and considered it authentic, dating from no later than the first century B.C. His 25-page paper on the stone will be published in the coming months.

Regarding Mr. Knohl’s thesis, Mr. Bar-Asher is also respectful but cautious. “There is one problem,” he said. “In crucial places of the text there is lack of text. I understand Knohl’s tendency to find there keys to the pre-Christian period, but in two to three crucial lines of text there are a lot of missing words.”

Moshe Idel, a professor of Jewish thought at Hebrew University, said that given the way every tiny fragment from that era yielded scores of articles and books, “Gabriel’s Revelation” and Mr. Knohl’s analysis deserved serious attention. “Here we have a real stone with a real text,” he said. “This is truly significant.”

Mr. 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.

But there was, he said, and “Gabriel’s Revelation” shows it.

“His mission is that he has to be put to death by the Romans to suffer so his blood will be the sign for redemption to come,” Mr. Knohl said. “This is the sign of the son of Joseph. This is the conscious view of Jesus himself. 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.”

[Brianroy]

                 'In three days, you shall live'  - Haaretz - Israel News

              

'In three days, you shall live'  By Israel Knohl

The first mention of the "slain Messiah" called Mashiah ben Yosef (Messiah Son of Joseph) is in the Talmud (Sukkah 52a). In my book "The Messiah Before Jesus" (University of California Press, 2000), I argue that the story of this slain messiah is based on historical fact. I believe it is connected to the Jewish revolt in the Land of Israel following the death of King Herod in 4 B.C.E. This Jewish insurrection was brutally suppressed by the armies of Herod and the Roman emperor Augustus, and the messianic leaders of the revolt were killed. 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." Interpretations of biblical text helped to shape the belief that the death of the messiah was a necessary and indivisible component of salvation. My conclusion, based on apocalyptic writings dating to this period, was that certain groups believed the messiah would die, be resurrected in three days, and ascend to heaven (see "The Messiah Before Jesus," 27-42).

Ada Yardeni and Binyamin Elitzur recently published the text of a fascinating text they call "Hazon Gabriel" or the Gabriel Revelation (Cathedra magazine, vol. 123). This text, engraved in stone, conveys the apocalyptic vision of the Archangel Gabriel. Yardeni and Elitzur date it by its linguistic features and the shape of the letters to the end of the first century B.C.E.

In lines 16-17 of the text, God addresses David as follows: "Avdi David bakesh min lifnei Efraim" ("My servant David, ask Ephraim"). In the Bible, Ephraim is the son of Joseph. This sets up an equivalence between David and Ephraim and the Talmudic "Mashiah ben David" and "Messiah Son of Joseph," and confirms my theory that the Messiah Son of Joseph was already a known figure at the end of the first century B.C.E.

Although Yardeni and Elitzur offer a fine reading of the text, in my opinion one of the most important words has not been properly deciphered. Line 80 begins with the phrase "Leshloshet yamin" ("In three days"), followed by another word that the editors could not read. Then comes the phrase "Ani Gavriel" ("I, Gabriel"). I believe that this "illegible" word is actually legible. It is the word "hayeh" (live), and that Gabriel the Archangel is giving orders to someone: "Leshloshet yamin hayeh" ("In three days, you shall live"). In other words, in three days, you shall return to life (compare "bedamaiyikh ha'ee" - translated as "in thy blood live" - in Ezekiel 16:6). The word "haye" (live) is written here with alef. Similar orthography appears in the Dead Sea Scrolls, for example in the Isaiah scroll, where the word "yakeh" (30:31) is written with an alef after the yod.

This is followed by traces of two more words. The letters are not easy to make out, but the first word seems to begin with a gimmel and vav. The next word is not clear either. The letter lamed is quite legible, and the letter before it seems to be an ayin. I believe the sentence can be reconstructed as follows: "Leshloshet yamin hayeh, ani Gavriel, gozer alekha" ("In three days, live, I, Gabriel, command you"). The archangel is ordering someone to rise from the dead within three days. To whom is he speaking?

Who is the 'prince of princes'?

The answer appears in the following line, Line 81: "Sar hasarin" ("Prince of Princes"). The sentence reads: "Leshloshet yamin khayeh, ani Gavriel, gozer alekha, sar hasarin" (In three days, I, Gabriel, command you, prince of princes." Who is the "prince of princes"? The primary biblical source for the Gabriel Revelation is the narrative in the Book of Daniel (8:15-26), in which the Archangel Gabriel reveals himself to Daniel for the first time. Gabriel describes a "king of fierce countenance." This king "shall destroy them that are mighty and the people of the saints... he shall also stand up against the prince of princes" (Daniel 8:24-25).

The author of the Gabriel Revelation seems to be interpreting the biblical narrative as follows: An evil king arises and virtually destroys the Jewish people, the "people of the saints." He even manages to overcome and slay their leader, the "prince of princes." This is the leader who will be resurrected in three days.

Was the prince of princes a historical figure? I believe he was. The key to identifying him lies in the phrase "arubot tzurim," which comes after the reference to the prince of princes. In the Bible and Talmud, the word "aruba" means a narrow opening or slit. "Tzurim" are rocks (the word appears here in an unvocalized form, without theletter vav). "Arubot tzurim" would thus be a crevice. The death of the prince of princes is somehow associated with a rocky crevice.

The Gabriel Revelation, as we have said, has been dated, on the basis of linguistics and orthography, to the end of the first century BCE. The circumstances surrounding the discovery of the inscription are unknown. All we are told by the editors is that it may have been discovered in Transjordan. This leads us to Transjordan in the late first century BCE. Do we know of any Jewish leader or king who was killed here in antiquity and whose death has some sort of connection to a rocky gorge?

The revolt in 4 BCE was a bid for freedom. The rebels sought to throw off the yoke of the Herodian monarchy, which enjoyed the support of the Romans. The insurrection, which began in Jerusalem and spread throughout the country, had several leaders. A study of both Jewish and Roman sources shows that the most prominent of them was Simon, who operated from Transjordan. Simon declared himself king, wore a crown, and was perceived as king by his followers, who hung messianic hopes on him.

This is how the first century Jewish historian Josephus describes Simon's death in battle: "Simon himself, endeavoring to escape up a steep ravine, was intercepted by Gratus [a commander in Herod's army], who struck the fugitive from the side with a blow on the neck, which severed his head from his body." With its reference to a rocky crevice and the prince of princes, the text seems to be alluding to the death of Simon, the rebel leader who was crowned king, in a narrow gorge in Transjordan.

Chariot to heaven

But the Gabriel Revelation also mentions other deaths. In Line 57, we find the phrase "dam tvuhey yerushalayim" ("the blood of the slain of Jerusalem"). Line 67 reads: "Baser lo al dam zu hamerkava shelahen" ("Tell him about the blood. This is their merkava [heavenly chariot]"). The message being conveyed is that the blood of those who were killed will become their "chariot" to heaven.

Hovering in the background, of course, is the story of Elijah's ascent to heaven: "Behold, there appeared a chariot of fire, and horses of fire... and Elijah went up in a whirlwind into heaven" (II Kings 2:11).

Simon, the prince of princes, was the messianic leader of a group active in Transjordan. The Gabriel Revelation appears, therefore, to have been written by his followers, and reflects an attempt to cope with the failure of the revolt and the death of their leader, recalling verses from the Book of Daniel that incorporate the words of the archangel.

The "king of fierce countenance" is identified as the Roman emperor Augustus, whose army brutally suppressed the revolt. Simon, the rebel leader anointed king, is identified as the prince of princes. The slaying of Simon by the supporters of the evil king is perceived as a fulfillment of Gabriel's vision. After all, Gabriel prophesied that the king of fierce countenance would defeat the prince of princes. "But he shall be broken without hand," the verse continues. The implication is that with the death of the messianic leader, their troubles are coming to an end: The fall of the enemy and salvation are near. "Leshloshet yamin tayda ki-nishbar hara melifnay hatzedek" ("In three days you will know that evil will be defeated by justice"), we read in lines 19-21.

If the Gabriel Revelation dates to the end of the first century BCE, as we have stated, then during this period, which was close in time to the birth of Jesus, there were people who believed that the death of the messiah was an integral part of the salvation process. It became an article of faith that the slain messianic leader would be resurrected within three days, and rise to heaven in a chariot.

The Gabriel Revelation thus confirms my thesis that the belief in a slain and resurrected messiah existed prior to the messianic activity of Jesus. The publication of this text is extraordinarily important. It is a discovery that calls for a complete reassessment of all previous scholarship on the subject of messianism, Jewish and Christian alike.

[Brianroy]

The find of this tablet has not generated the amount of sensation as might have been expected 10 or 20 years ago.  If it proves to be as concorrent with the ministry of Jesus / Yeshua, it still does not deflect from His ministry or the legitimacy of the Gospel accounts. 

If it proves to be a work written following the Resurrection (post 30 A.D., and pre 68 A.D.); then "Hazon Gabriel" will prove to be a hostile witness that supports John's Gospel 11:47-53; as well as the many times Jesus must have declared the issue about  being killed and rising again after  3 days and nights. That is, perhaps "Hazon Gabriel" was one of the means used by those who were legalists either to (by deceit) thwart Christianity in its infancy...or was perhaps the reason or"excuse"  (if a genuine work) why those who were minded in the Law at the first came over to Christianity...especially following the death of James the son of Zebedee in circa 37 A.D.

  Hence, once inside Jewish Christianity through using Hazon Gabriel, the Judaizers would use Jesus death after a militant death form of a "temporary" salvation of Israel, that would be a catalyst of a national movement for independence from Rome.  Hypothetically then:  'The rulers would rule from Jerusalem, Israel would throw off the shackles of Rome's dominion, Jesus "kingdom" would still effectuate from the by-and-by, and everyone would be happy.'

  If this above summary is the circumstance of Hazon Gabriel's use in the first century, it would fit nicely with use and adaptation by the legalists or Judaizers...not with Jesus, who stayed exclusively on what was later to be canonized Scripture as His authority.

A report on the chemical analysis, etc., is still pending release...and the one issuing the report, having seen the resulting data, still is confident of its antiquity to the Herodian era.  The document on stone is nothing for Christians to fear...but for those who deny the historicity of Jesus and the New Testament to fear, should it be authenticated.  60 years after the Dead Sea Scrolls, there is even more reason to see Jesus as a genuine person in genuine history, and the New Testament as accurate, not just in the time period of its writings in 47 - 57/58 A.D., but philosophically / metaphysically (asit were) as well.  Jesus truly was and is and ever shall be, "THE Son of G-D"... now also  in Biblical Archaeology "perception", as well as in reality.   But as John 14:6 and 3:16 also shows...Christianity also tolerates all men to exercise free will to perish in their sins, rather than go to Heaven as saved through faith (Romans 10:9-10,13) peaceably and in righteousness (cf. Isa. 32:17)...contrary to the socio-political ignorance and chronic hostility and persecutions of our universal or euruchoros opposition's propaganda in every place and on all societal fronts. 

Peace.

[Brianroy]

Table of Contents | Biblical Archaeology Review

The above link is for the Biblical Archaeology Review announcement on the same topic.

How timely and in synch is that?  Right on BAR!   

Yeeeeeeeeeee-hahhhhhhh!   

[Brianroy]

{removed / self-edited:  due to the sensitivity of the material}.

Peace.


 

[Salome]

I realize I'm resurrecting a dead thread here  , but I hadn't heard about this before. Fascinating!

I wonder why more people are not aware of this stone and its message?? 

[Brianroy]

In the months since posting, I have not seen any follow-up articles, or comparative text translation articles.

I don't know why more people aren't aware, unless interest isn't there when it is shared.   It's kind of like a fad when ancient history is a popular subject, and perhaps in regard to this, maybe around Easter and Christmas is when a larger percentage than the usual very small minority, opens up its eyes and ears and looks and listens for stuff like this.   Although, with the attack on Christianity and the Bible, and on Judaism thereafter, intolerance of the Biblical is quite the rage / fad (and sometimes the "law") in current history. 

So while I still have the free speech to do so, I wish you and all here, a "Very Merry Christmas"  as well as a joyously sweet and blessed Chanukah. 

In regard to Israel Knohl:

Israel addresses the Bible as one who essentially  accepts the Bible at its word.  The outlook and moral compass will guide him in trying to look at an honest, yet supportive presentation of those texts which present a grounding in the Bible he already believes, as in the case of Hazon Gabriel.  Whomever wrote it, obviously appears grounded in the Biblical texts of at least the second half of Old Testament.

Israel addresses  the theological topic of Tikkun Olam, the “Restorative Repairing  (hence, “redemption”)  of the World / Ages“, on  a 92 minute poor quality video, temporarily available  at:

http://blip.tv/file/1103119/

The importance of listening to what he says on the video, is simply to see that  he takes a  traditionally Jewish approach  to how he views and teaches on the Bible. 

 The Hebrew word Tikkun, by a secondary definition, will  incorporate the idea of  an ascending “spark” or flame, as if part of an burnt offering that ascends up to G-D. Therefore, to be repaired or restored, one must make oneself as if a light of the menorah, or as a living allegory of the burnt offering (a living sacrifice) unto G-D.

Therefore, the basic concept of Tikkun Olam can be immediately recognized by many born-again Christians who read the priestly Gospel of John (1:1-13) where Jesus, as the light and spark of eternal life, lights the dead pilot that is within every man - woman - child of whosoever believes into and receives Him.

 In many ways, First Century Judaism and Christianity were almost as close  as some Protestant denominations are from one another in our day.

We see that many of the ideas between First Century Judaism and  First Century Christianity easily cross over as virtually synonymous but for the identification of a definitive Messiah.   In our day, the division or lack of tolerance to one another is often more popular than it was in Christianity's first 35-40 years. 

The First Century's Christians (which at first meant Syrian Diaspora Israelis converted from Sadducee to a neo-Pharisaic Judaism with other  Diaspora Israelis and Jews and their  various groves of Gentile  Noachide converts) identified a very often  peaceful Yeshua / Jesus as their Messhiach, while many in the Pharisees and the Zealot factions repeatedly misidentified their false hopes (A.D. 70, 116, 135) looking for one who came "loving violence"…contrary to the requirement of Psalm 11:5, which  Yeshua / Jesus (A.D. 30) indeed fulfilled.

If Hazon Gabriel is genuine, and it appears to be, the issue will most likely resurface again with pro/con critiques in BAR magazine by A.D. 2010.   

Glad you were blessed by the thread.  Shalom.

[Brianroy]

BAR editorial:

In the recent September/October 2008 issue of BAR, noted Biblical scholar Israel Knohl’s article “The Messiah Son of Joseph” generated a great deal of interest and responses. Among them was a letter from Ronald Hendel, whose comments and Professor Knohl’s abbreviated response appear in the January/February 2009 issue of BAR. However, the interest in this piece was so great that we’d like to take the opportunity to present Professor Knohl’s response here in its entirety, as well as some other letters that were sent to us regarding his article.

 Simply Sign

I’ve read with great interest Israel Knohl’s interpretation of the “Gabriel’s Revelation” inscription in the recent BAR (Israel Knohl, “The Messiah Son of Joseph,” BAR, September/October 2008).

 I would like to offer an alternative reading of a key word, which affects Knohl’s case for the death and resurrection of a pre-Christian messiah in this text. Knohl reads a somewhat faded word in line 80  [spelled]  as [he-yod-alef-chet]  ?, “live” (an imperative verb, with the  [alef] ? as a rare vowel marker), so that the text reads, “in three days, live!” This is the basis for his striking thesis.

After examining the Zev Radovan/Courtesy David Jeselsohn" photos in BAR and on your Web site, I think that an equally plausible reading of this word is [spelled as tav-yod-alef-he]  ?, “the sign,” so that the text reads, “in three days, the sign ...”

Several of the letters in question—  [he / chet] ?/? and  [yod / vav] ?/?—are barely distinguishable in the script of this inscription. The alternative reading echoes similar expressions in previous lines: “place the sign” (line 17) and, less legibly, “three signs” (line 79).

Notice that the last letters in “signs” in line 79—  [tav-vav] ??—look just like the last two letters in our word in line 80. I don’t know what “the sign” is here, but this is good apocalyptic language.

In sum, “the sign” is a plausible paleographical reading of the word in question, and it perhaps better suits the context. It also suits the guideline that my teacher, Frank Moore Cross, always advocated when reading difficult inscriptions: The more banal reading is to be preferred.

Ronald Hendel
Norma and Sam Dabby Professor of Hebrew Bible and Jewish Studies
University of California
Berkeley, California


Israel Knohl responds:

I have rejected the reading suggested by Prof. Hendel for the third word on line 80 for two reasons:

1) The last letter in this word cannot be tav. Nowhere in the text of the Gabriel Revelation, is the letter tav written in this form (see the table in Yardeni and Elitzur article in Cathedra 123, p. 164).

However, we can point to several cases where the letter heh is written in similar form to the shape of last letter of the third word of line 80: See the shape of the letter heh in the word “elohim” in line 11 and the form of the heh in the word “haot” in line 17.


2) The syntax of the sentence suggested by Hendel “lishloshet yamin haot” is very difficult:
We should expect to find a verb before the word “haot.”

 However, the sentence which is formed with my reading: “lishloshet yamin haye” is fluent and is very similar to the form of the sentence “lishloshet yamin teda” in line 19.

In sum, I may quote the words of Dr. Ada Yardeni, the premier expert in the script of the period, which were published on the BAR Web site: “I came to the conclusion that the reading suggested by Professor Knohl for the third word in line 80—haye, ‘live’—seems to be the only plausible reading of that word.”

[Moses]

First thanks for posting such an extensive text and commentary with sources.

So far I read number of later works ascribed t Rabbi Simeon who had works about Messiah son of Joseph and other cabalistic works tat also mention Messiah son of Joseph and his death.

What I would like to trow in to the mix is two Hebrew words one is Mashiah and the second one is Moshiah.

Mashiah is translated as anointed

Moshiah is translated as saviour or deliverer.

For example when Jesus entered Jerusalem and the people cried Hosanah is from the same work to deliver or save save us or deliver us.

There is very know passage in the OT that tells the following.

Ve yaaly moshiyim el ha har. - And the deliverers / saviors will rase on the mountain. Mentioning more than one savior its plural.

Any way based on my analysis - suffering servant is Israel, it Ephraim son of Joseph son of God as God calls Ephraim my son.
He is MOSHIAH - i.e saviour , deliverer.

The anointed Moshiach / mashiah is a king who is anounted by oil by Lords prophet.

David is the king.