Blogs

I am writing from Taiwan, but I am not immune to the news about the new Stone "Dead Sea Scroll".

Go to http://cosmiclog.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2008/07/07/1184950.aspx and click on the links to the Hebrew and English texts of the new stone causing the stir about possibly referring to the concept of a resurrected Messiah before the time of Jesus.  Look at lines 78-85, which must be what Israel Knohl is referring to.  Notice what's actually in the text vs. what he has to supply.  The text itself, reads merely :

Some of you may have noticed, but out of Jerusalem there is coming news of an upcoming Dead Sea Scroll meeting, the 60th anniversary meeting. The headliner of this event is the discussion, by Israel Knohl (an adventurous sort), of a stone tablet. Knohl claims the text, as he reconstructs it, could indicate a pre-Jesus Jewish belief in a messiah's resurrection on the 3d day. The messiah is a so called Simon. Much ink will be spillt on this one; keep your eyes open.

Israel is surely one of the most diverse countries both geographically and culturally. Nothing is boring about Israel, and each day’s experience in this country stimulates thought and feeling and understanding. For example, one has difficulty understanding a Jewish view of the sabbath until witnessing the celebration and joy that are expressed at the Western Wall at the beginning of Sabbath.

The IBR Gospels group has been back in the States about a week, but the memories of our experience in Jerusalem, Galilee, and with the film crew are still very present in our minds. For me one of the most striking experiences was being on the stairs at the southern end of the temple mount. Herod the Great’s accomplishment—and those working long after his death—to expand the temple mount was a phenomenal achievement. Retaining walls with huge stones enabled the topography to be reshaped so that the temple mount was doubled in size to

For the past 10 years, members if IBR (Institute for Biblical Research) who specialize in historical Jesus research and Gospel studies have met to discuss essays written by group members. The focus has been upon 12 key events in the life of Jesus and their significance. These are the twelve we've examined, and the scholar who provided the essay are as follows:

Whatever you think of the logic of Gamaliel's argument as described in Acts 5 (leave the disciples alone and if the movement is not of God it will go away--but that sure hasn't worked for Islam!), it's interesting to apply it to first-century rabble rousers.

When I published the first edition of my Historical Reliability of the Gospels in 1987, I included a paragraph that was cautiously optimistic about the Shroud of Turin as the possible burial cloth of Jesus.  The very next year, the results of three independent laboratory tests from different parts of the world were released, agreeing that the cloth could not be dated to earlier than the 1200s or thereabouts.  I knew that if the book ever went to a second edition that paragraph would have to be replaced.