Tablet links Judaism and Christianity

Published on Monday 7 July 2008 22:15

AN ANCIENT Hebrew tablet to be highlighted at an Israeli conference of biblical scholars today could link Christianity far more intimately with Judaism than previously recognised.

According to Israel Knohl, a professor of Bible studies at the Hebrew University, the 87-line tablet, dating from the years before the birth of Jesus, shows the idea that the messiah would be resurrected after three days is not original to Christianity.

"We can see much more clearly the common roots of Judaism and Christianity," Prof Knohl said. "The finding places Jesus in the context of the messianism of this period."

The stone tablet had been in the hands of a Swiss-Israeli collector for about a decade after he bought it from a Jordanian antiquities dealer. It is believed to have been found on the Jordanian side of the Dead Sea.

Prof Knohl, an expert on the language of the Bible and Talmud, who has long argued that the idea of a suffering messiah existed before Jesus, turned his attention to the tablet after reading an analysis of its contents last year that dated it to the late first century BC.

The tablet's text concerns an apocalyptic vision transmitted by the archangel Gabriel and draws on Old Testament prophets Daniel, Hagai and Zachariah. Prof Knohl says he has filled in a crucial missing word, hayeh, meaning live, making a line of the text say: "In three days you shall live, I Gabriel command you."

According to the tablet, the command is addressed to "The Prince of Princes". Ada Yardeni, one of the scholars who wrote the original analysis of the tablet, says Prof Knoll's deciphering of the word hayeh was "100 per cent" accurate.

Prof Knohl is convinced that "Jesus acted according to the concepts in the tablet: that the messiah must die to bring redemption".