There’s a stone tablet, about three
feet tall, on which is written in Hebrew letters something that is called “Gabriel’s
Revelation.” Dated roughly around the time of Jesus, it’s difficult to read in
spots, and there are frustrating gaps in the text. However, in the midst of
apocalyptic images about the angels Gabriel and Michael, there are hints about
a Messiah, Ephraim, the son of the Old Testament Joseph, who will redeem the
people not by leading an army, but through suffering, death — and resurrection.
Scholar Israel Knohl, professor of
Bible at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, translates one crucial passage,
addressed to the Messiah, who has seemingly died: “In three days, live, I
Gabriel com[mand] yo[u].”1
Son of Joseph? Rise from the dead
after three days? A Messiah who suffered and died and returned to life after
three days? While questions of transcription and translation are still being
debated about this find, one thing has become clear. Recent studies show that
even before Jesus arrived on the scene, there were many who were looking for a
divine Messiah who would suffer and die — not lead the people to a military
victory.
It seems that the religious
landscape was complicated. There were many forms of Judaism and Christianity, and
the lines between those many versions are not always clear. Believers in Christ
were every bit as diverse then as now.
Of course, we weren’t called
Catholics and Protestants back then. There weren’t Baptists and Methodists and
Presbyterians and Episcopalians. No one used terms like “fundamentalists” or “millennialists.”
Even so, believers in Jerusalem, Philippi, Rome and Corinth were very different
from each other in the way they viewed the wor
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