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.
Read the whole article here and see what you think. I don't think necessarily that just because others might have had thoughts like this means that Jesus's death and resurrection are somehow suspect. I mean, the article itself references the Book of Daniel's images of the Son of Man, a title Jesus uses explicitly in the Gospels. So there are all kinds of imagery already running through the culture. I'm not sure how a three-days-dead-and-then-rising motif that's already present in some sense (and the article implies the artifact isn't exactly clear on that) is any different from a Son-of-Man-appearing-before-the-throne-of-God motif that is suggested by Daniel and is also already present in the milieu.
Am I missing something here?
RFSJ
