Much virtual ink is being spilled about a recently discovered Jewish stone monument dating from the first century A.D. that might refer to a messiah who will die and rise on the third day. In the popular press, the claim is being made that this monument challenges the uniqueness of the Christian story concerning the death and resurrection of Jesus. Here is a place where some evidentiary apologetics can be useful.
The truth seems to be much less dramatic: the stone’s inscription is hard to decipher and probably doesn’t refer to a dying and rising messiah at all. There is a good analysis here and an even more skeptical one here.
Biblical Archeology Review published a transcription of the tablet back in January. Some folks on the “biblical-studies” listserv pointed me to the following lines as the ones possibly referring to a messiah who dies and rises in three days (lines 19-21 and 80 — context for line 80 given here):
19. sanctity(?)sanctify(?) Israel! In three days you shall know, that(?)for(?) He said,
20. (namely,) yhwh the Lord of Hosts, the Lord of Israel: The evil broke (down)
21. before justice. Ask me and I will tell you what 22this bad 21plant is,
and
75. Three shepherds went out to?/of? Israel …[…].
76. If there is a priest, if there are sons of saints …[…]
77. Who am I(?), I (am?) Gabri’el the …(=angel?)… […]
78. You(?) will save them, …[…]…
79. from before You, the three si[gn]s(?), three …[….]
80. In three days …, I, Gabri’el …[?],
81. the Prince of Princes, …, narrow holes(?) …[…]…
82. to/for … […]… and the …
In recent days, one expert claims to have deciphered the missing lines in line 80, so that it reads as follows: “In three days you shall live, I, Gabriel, command you.” Well, I claim no expertise in this field at all, but as some of the experts I linked above observe, this reading of the obscured words apparently is highly contestable, and even then it isn’t clear in context that the reference is to the resurrection of the messiah on the third day (among other things, tying even this text to the messiah requires some supposition about what Old Testament passages the inscription is alluding to). At the very least, there doesn’t seem to be any reason for a sensational claim that there was a well established tradition of a messiah who dies and is raised on the third day from which the early Christians borrowed.
Let’s assume for a moment, though, that this tablet does refer to a messiah who will be raised on the third day. Would that necessarily detract from the Christian claim that Jesus really was that messiah? I don’t see why that would necessarily be the case. The Jewish community that wrote these apocalypses was highly devout. If the “rising messiah” interpretation of this tablet is correct, could it be that at least in some sense the people in this community were able through studying the scriptures and by the spirit of God to gain an inkling of what the coming of the messiah actually would be like? Would the Gospels only be borrowing from this tradition, or reflecting its fulfillment? It seems to me that much more would be required to show that the early Christians appopriated a rising messiah tradition about Jesus while knowing that Jesus was not really raised.
There is, however, one place in which this tablet could weaken one argument about the resurrection: NT Wright’s assertion in “The Resurrection of the Son of God” that the notion of an individual resurrection would have been foreign to the first Christians, such that they wouldn’t have invented what would have been viewed as a ludicrous story by the surrounding Jewish and pagan cultures. But even here, it seems to me we’d have to be much more careful about defining the relevant cultures. According to this article in Biblical Archeology Review, no one knows the provenance of this stone. Did it reflect views that would have been known and held by a wide swathe of the culture in which Christianity was born, or the views of a counter-cultural minority such as the Essenes, or the views of an even smaller and more obscure sect? Wright provides substantial evidence that the prevailing belief in first century Jewish and pagan culture rejected the possibility of an individual resurrection. This could still be good evidence even if there were pockets of sub-cultures in which such a belief existed.