Ancient text sheds light on JewishChristian links

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An ancient stone tablet discussed at a conference in Jerusalem onTuesday may shed light on the links between Judaism andChristianity, experts say.
Israeli historian Israel Knohl said a message written on thetablet, which dates from the first century BC, showed the idea of amessiah being resurrected three days after his death was rooted inJewish writings from before the time of Jesus's birth.
Knohl's analysis of the tablet, discovered more than a decade ago,is seen as supporting a theory believed by many religious scholars,that the idea of resurrection predated Christianity and can befound in Jewish writings.
"This sheds new light on the messianic activity of Jesus," Knohl, aprofessor of biblical studies at Jerusalem's Hebrew University,said of the ancient Hebrew text, much of which is missing orindecipherable.
"It proves that the concept of the messiah was already there beforeJesus," added Knohl, who published his theory in the Chicago-basedJournal of Religion in April.
The tablet, about one metre long with 87 lines of writing in ink,is known as the "Gabriel Revelation" because of the passages thatconvey a message from the Angel Gabriel.
Knohl told Reuters a key piece in his theory was based on a word inline 80 that, before he read it last August, was believed to beunintelligible.
"It was written awkwardly with two letters unclear," Knohl said.Using other examples from that period, he deciphered the word"haye", which meant "you will live". The complete sentence read:"In three days you will live, I, Gabriel, command you."
L Michael White, a professor of classics and Christian origins atthe University of Texas in Austin, said religious scholars had longknown that the idea of resurrection existed in Judaism before theGabriel Revelation.
"But what was interesting was the notion of three days," Whitesaid.
He added that the three-day time period may have been rooted in theview held in ancient medicine that the body did not begin todecompose until the end of three days.

"SUFFERING MESSIAH"
Knohl said that, together with other references in the script to a"suffering messiah", this was a clear reference to the return tolife after three days, later depicted in the New Testament withJesus's resurrection.
"This is evidence that the idea of a suffering messiah, put todeath and coming back to life after three days was known to atleast a group of Jews," Knohl told the gathering of scholars at theIsrael Museum in Jerusalem.
Other researchers insisted the exact meaning of the text remainedopen to interpretation.
Devorah Diamant, a professor at Haifa University, said the scriptwas not sufficient proof of Knohl's theory because some passages hereferred to could be connected to other figures from the Bible andnot necessarily the messiah.
"What he suggested is fanciful," Diamant said.
The conference marked 60 years since the discovery of the Dead SeaScrolls, some of the world's oldest texts which were found on thenorthwest shore of the Dead Sea.
The Swiss owner of the tablet, David Jeselsohn, said it wasbelieved to have been discovered about 15 years ago near theeastern shore of the sea.
Knohl said the tablet was not linked to the Dead Sea Scrollsbecause it was found in a different place and had unique wordusage.