Does Stone Tablet Question the Resurrection?

Transcript Does Stone Tablet Question the Resurrection?

Kevin Harris: It’s a three foot tall tablet with eighty seven lines of Hebrew that scholars think date from the decades just before the birth of Jesus. It is causing quite a stir, Dr. Craig, in biblical archeological circles especially because some claim that it speaks of a Messiah who will rise from the dead after three days. Now, some could say it’s a prophecy of Jesus but the more skeptical interpretation is that motif of a Messiah rising after three days was actually before Jesus and so that casts doubt on the authenticity of the resurrection. Are you pretty familiar with this stone found about ten years ago?

Dr. Craig: I read about it recently in the newspapers as you have and have followed it with some interest. The claim here by one maverick professor, Israel Knohl, is that the stone’s inscription – it’s not an inscription, it’s in ink – but the stone’s text is evidence of the idea of a Messiah who would be killed and would then rise again from the dead after three days and that this was in Jewish thinking prior to the time of Christ. So this isn’t something that was original with Christianity. This was something that was already within Judaism in its Messianic expectations. That is his claim.

Kevin Harris: This would, if true, dispel one of your evidences for the resurrection and that is that there was no expectation of a resurrection prior to the end of the world, prior to the eschaton. So this would say, if this guy is right, “Oh yes there was.” There was this expectation of a Messiah. And the writers around Jesus just copied it.

Dr. Craig: Yes, or that perhaps Jesus himself was aware of this prophetic strain within Judaism and applied it to himself. We must not exclude that possibility either. So the discovery, if it were valid, would have both pluses and minuses as far as apologetics is concerned.

On the minus column, it would, as you say, undercut one of the supports for the historicity of the resurrection, namely, that the disciples came to believe sincerely and suddenly that God had raised Jesus from the dead despite every predisposition to the contrary. This argument is the centerpiece, for example, of N. T. Wright’s case for the resurrection of Jesus in his massive book The Resurrection of the Son of God. What Wright shows in that book is that there is absolutely no expectation anywhere in antecedent Judaism of the idea of a Messiah who, instead of conquering the enemies of Israel and restoring David’s throne in Jerusalem, would be humiliatingly executed by them as a criminal much less than that Messiah would somehow rise from the dead as an isolated event within history apart from the resurrection at the end of the world. Wright’s case is completely documented. There is no trace anywhere in antecedent Judaism of that sort of an understanding of Messiah. Everything we know about Messiah is that Messiah would conquer Israel’s enemies and restore the Kingdom of God, restore the Kingdom of David, to Israel. So this argument, if this stone were correct, would undercut that by showing that this wasn’t unprecedented within Judaism, that in fact there was a Messianic strain of belief that thought Messiah would be killed and raised from the dead after three days. That would be the negative side.

The plus side would be that the prophecies that Jesus gave of his own death and resurrection have often been dismissed by critical scholars as written in after the event. [1] After the crucifixion and after the early church came to believe Jesus was risen from the dead, they put back on his lips these prophesies of his own death and resurrection to make it look as though Jesus had anticipated and prophesied that he would be killed and raised from the dead. Well, if Professor Knohl is correct and this was a feature within antecedent Judaism, then there is no reason Jesus couldn’t have given such prophecies. He might well have been aware of this Jewish Messianic expectation and picked it up and applied it to himself and made these prophecies.

So what the discovery would take away with the right hand, it would give back with the left. It would have both positive and negative consequences if in fact this inscription were to read as Professor Knohl thinks and were to have the significance that he thinks it has.

Kevin Harris: The big fly in the ointment here is that we just got a lot of pieces missing of this tablet and the script is incomplete in some areas. It is very, very old.

Dr. Craig: Oh, when you read it, Kevin, it is nothing but a series of sentence fragments. Some of the lines are just one or two or three words long. It is just an utterly unintelligible series of sentence fragments. So that is part of the problem. The lines that Professor Knohl thinks have this deep significance are themselves disputed in their reading. Scholars haven’t come to agree that his reading of them is correct. Even if you were to grant that his reading of them were correct, it is far from clear that it would have the significance that Professor Knohl thinks that it would. You see, Professor Knohl wrote a book some years ago that moved no scholarly dirt whatsoever in the sense it made no impact in which he claimed that prior to the time of Christ there was this strain of Messianic expectation in Judaism. No one paid any attention to it because, as people like N. T. Wright have shown, this is just completely un-Jewish. There isn’t such a thing. So when he saw this inscription he has a very vested interest in reading this into the text because he wants to validate his theory that he already arrived at previously. So I think he is very eager to find his theory confirmed by this text and is anxious to read into it something that most people don’t see.

Kevin Harris: It seems like he just really latched on to and jumped on a line in there that mentions “three days.”

Dr. Craig: Yes, line 80 of the text says “in three days” and then there is a fragment missing (the words are obscured), “I, Gabriel” and then the rest is fragmentary and you can’t tell what it reads. “In three days . . . blank . . . I, Gabriel . . . blank.” Now that hardly seems to be a Messianic prophecy that the Messiah would be killed and after three days rise. Professor Knohl says that he thinks that the reading should be “In three days I, Gabriel, command you to live.” And he thinks that Gabriel is speaking this to the Messiah and therefore that is the way he interprets it.

Kevin Harris: It is highly speculative that that is even what it is saying.

Dr. Craig: I think so, and especially when you realize that this text reflects other Old Testament prophets like Daniel. It reflects the prophecies that are already in the Old Testament that are colored here. You find throughout this whole text the three day motif repeated over and over again. In line 19 it mentions “in three days.” In line 54 it says “three days.” In line 65 it speaks of “three saints of the world.” In line 70, “I have sent three prophets to my people.” Line 75 speaks of three shepherds. In line 79 it says “three signs.” Then line 80 says “in three days.”

Kevin Harris: Sounds like more of a proof text for the Trinity.

Dr. Craig: [laughter] Well, you could almost read it that way. The three day motif was very common in Judaism where numbers had symbolic value. [2]

Kevin Harris: In the Old Testament, too, there seems to be plenty of verses that mention three days.

Dr. Craig: Right, exactly. In fact, I think that line 80 here in his reading is strikingly reminiscent of Hosea 6:2 which says “In two days he will heal us; on the third day he will raise us up, and we will live in his presence.” Now that sounds very much like what line 80 here in this text is reflecting on – Hosea 6:2.

Kevin Harris: The author of this text would be someone familiar with Hosea.

Dr. Craig: Just as he was familiar with Daniel and the other prophets. What needs to be emphasized is that text in Hosea “on the third day he will raise us up, and we will live in his presence” has nothing to do with Messiah and has nothing to do with resurrection from the dead. What it is talking about is that God will restore the national fortunes of Israel – that Israel will be healed and restored as a nation. The three day motif is very common in Judaism as meaning a short period of time. So I think that it is far more plausible in light of the evidence that what line 80 is talking about is a reflection on Hosea 6:2, assuming Professor’s Knohl’s reading of the text is correct, and has no connection whatsoever with resurrection from the dead or with Messiah.

Kevin Harris: I am glad we are doing this podcast, Bill, because already the internet and all the blogosphere lit up immediately with “Oh, this could be what the atheists have been hoping for.”

Dr. Craig: Sensationalism just loves this stuff. I might want to comment, too, on line 81 where it refers to the Prince of Princes. Again, Knohl says, “Ah, this is a reference to the Messiah.” This is where he gets the idea of the Messiah – the Prince of Princes. The problem with that is this expression “the Prince of Princes” is again lifted out of the book of Daniel. That is where this expression is found. What does it refer to there? Well, in Daniel, the Princes are angels. They are angelic beings. So when Michael comes to Daniel, he says, “I have to do battle with the Prince of Persia and the Prince of Greece has detained me.” They are talking about angels and angelic beings that are associated with these different countries. These are the Princes. And who is the Prince of Princes in Daniel? Well, it is God. God himself is the Prince of the angelic Princes that guide the destiny of nations. So it is not a reference to Messiah at all. It is a title for God, for Yahweh, the LORD. So, again, I think Knohl is just completely off base in reading this in terms of Messiah or in terms of resurrection from the dead. I think, to be quite honest, that his reading here is fanciful. This text is of no relevance whatsoever to Jewish Messianic expectations or to the belief in resurrection from the dead.

Kevin Harris: He certainly is being pretty straightforward or assertive about that saying, “This should shake our basic view of Christianity.” He said, “Resurrection after three days becomes a motif developed before Jesus which runs contrary to nearly all scholarship.”

Dr. Craig: Well, at least he admits it. That needs to be taken soberly. Why does it run contrary to all scholarship? Because, as people like N. T. Wright have demonstrated, without exception Jewish Messianic expectations were that Messiah would be triumphant and there is absolutely no idea that Messiah is going to be defeated by his enemies and conquered much less then rise from the dead. So Knohl is at least being honest there in representing his view as a lonely voice contrary to scholarship.

Kevin Harris: Here’s the bottom line, Bill, as we conclude today. Do we need to cancel Easter services this year or not?

Dr. Craig: I don’t think so. I think we can celebrate Easter with confidence again this year. [3]