comment #1

Edward says ...

Thanks for the link to the article. The last paragraph is especially interesting: “His mission is that he has to be put to death by the Romans to suffer so his blood will be the sign for redemption to come,” Mr. Knohl said. “This is the sign of the son of Joseph. This is the conscious view of Jesus himself. This gives the Last Supper an absolutely different meaning. To shed blood is not for the sins of people but to bring redemption to Israel.”

comment #2

mutinyco says ...

I understand that the tablet was kept safe inside a refrigerator for 2000 years.

comment #3

lazespud says ...

"anything that undermines any religious myth is cause for popping open the champagne"

Amen to that brother. I can't wait for this movie to come out... let's hope it's just damn funny and not sanctimonious. If anyone can do it, Bill Maher can.

comment #4

Chris Willman says ...

Before all the Chris Hitchens worshippers pop too many corks, let's point out that the idea that this discovery somehow undermines Christianity is goofy on the face of it, however much sober glee the NYT writer seems to take in inferring as much. The New Testament writers didn't take pride in their "originality"--far from it, they went out of their way to connect the story of Christ's death and resurrection to dozens or hundreds of pieces of prophecy. So, if you think the whole thing was made up, here's one more piece of plagiarism. If you think it's true, here is just one more prophecy fulfilled, albeit one that's a lot closer to 33-ish AD than the ones in the Book of Daniel. Either way, it changes nothing. But don't let this stop the bubbly from flowing...

comment #5

Aladdin Sane says ...

From a Biblical perspective, the life of Jesus was in fact to be a redemption of Israel from their past - when He was not the Messiah they dreamed of - ie liberator from the Romans - His death came not as an atonement for just the sin of His people, but the sin of all men - which is why the great commission was (and I paraphrase): "Go unto the ends of the earth and make disciples of all people."

To beat a dead horse and quote the most widely recognized scripture, John 3:16 - "For God so loved the world, that he sent his one and only son, that whomever should believe in him should not perish but attain eternal life."

As a Christian there isn't anything there to cause doubt - there were hundreds of prophecies pertaining to the Messiah during the Old Testament. I sincerely doubt all of them made it into the Bible.

comment #6

CinemaPhreek says ...

There's a point where pointing out the fallacies of religious myths and constructing plausible histories for how those myths came into being (Robert Ballard - the Titanic guy - has helped with the Black Sea deluge theory that explains the Flood and Noah myth) becomes bashing people's faiths and religions. The tone of this post walks past that point.

comment #7

Mr. Blood Vessel says ...

Posted by CinemaPhreek at July 6, 2008 01:43 PM
There's a point where pointing out the fallacies of religious myths and constructing plausible histories for how those myths came into being (Robert Ballard - the Titanic guy - has helped with the Black Sea deluge theory that explains the Flood and Noah myth) becomes bashing people's faiths and religions. The tone of this post walks past that point.

yep.
the problem is that traditionalists make people want to bash Christianity.

comment #8

Edward says ...

There's a lot of wobbly ground to cover when you start to bring historical or lack of historical fact in trying to discover the "real" Jesus. I'm not sure the New Testament or a even a good part of the Old Testament can be counted on for historical accuracy. The rediscovered tablet only adds another piece to the puzzel and in no way undermines Christianity. It's just something else to make us unbelievers go hmmmm.

comment #9

BurmaShave says ...

Christians, why'd it have to be Christians?

comment #10

Mr. Blood Vessel says ...

Edward [TypeKey Profile Page] says ...

There's a lot of wobbly ground to cover when you start to bring historical or lack of historical fact in trying to discover the "real" Jesus. I'm not sure the New Testament or a even a good part of the Old Testament can be counted on for historical accuracy. The rediscovered tablet only adds another piece to the puzzel and in no way undermines Christianity. It's just something else to make us unbelievers go hmmmm.

I remember my world religions teacher saying that the stroies were written 200 years after he died.

comment #11

Edward says ...

Mr. Blood: Exactly. Even an unbeliever like me won't deny there's some valuable spiritual truths to be found in the Bible, but there's also value in Islamic, Buddhist and Hindu texts.

To clarify some things for my HE friends: I have studied the Bible and was a seminary student for a year.

comment #12

BNick says ...

The debate shouldn't be a "gotcha" game with one side trying to prove that the other side believes in a bunch of nonsense.

It should be about whether the values espoused in the Bible, or in whatever other religious text you want to follow, are being properly adhered to by today's religious faithful. Living one's life according to the lessons of the New Testament strikes me as a damn fine thing to do, and no one should be ridiculing people who are striving to do so.

However, the religious community must also respect the nonbelievers and stop trying to construct and impose a belief system onto everyone else based on their readings of a few texts and passages, most of which were likely not meant to be taken 100% literally by their authors.

The problem is one of respect. Neither side feels respected by the other. And pointing fingers and cackling at those who derive strength from believing that Jesus died to help absolve mankind of its sins aren't helping.

comment #13

Mr. Blood Vessel says ...

Edward [TypeKey Profile Page] says ...

Mr. Blood: Exactly. Even an unbeliever like me won't deny there's some valuable spiritual truths to be found in the Bible, but there's also value in Islamic, Buddhist and Hindu texts.

that's the appeal of christianity.
it's the greatest hits of religion.

comment #14

redmond says ...

Interesting read, Jeff, not sure if this brings much to the table to warrant "champagne popping." Unless of course it reads "Hey, that Jesus stuff. Yeah, we made it up."

That said, as an athiest, let me say there's only one thing will bring down Bill Maher's "Religulous." And that's Bill Maher.

I'm all for pointing out the ridiculousness and intellectual bankruptcy of religion, but Bill Maher does it in such a smarmy fashion that you almost think about picking up the Good Book. It's basically him using religious rubes to show off how awesome he is at one-liners. Which he's not and should realize the yucks are also the worst part of his show. Which I religiously (Hi-Oh!) watch for the panel (along with Matt Taibbi and P.J. O'Rourke) but cringe when Bill talks.

End Bill Maher rant.

comment #15

Ray says ...

Here's the thing that these people are missing in their interpretation of the stone as evidence that the idea of resurrection was a pre-Jesus notion based on someone else entirely:

PROPHECY.

Anyone familiar with Biblical teaching and prophecy will tell you that this stone merely states what the Old Testament books prophesized hundreds of years earlier. In fact, that is why the Jewish people of Jesus' day were looking for a Messiah when he appeared ... the prophecies told them about his appearance, even marking the year that he would appear. Included in these prophecies were descriptions of rising again after three days (in the book of Daniel, for instance).

So to the religious, this is not a repudiation of the Jesus story, but rather, a reaffirmation of it.

comment #16

LFF says ...

People who look into a rorschach blot and see jesus are not going to be swayed by any logic.

comment #17

Overstreet says ...

What would Wells' sister have said, I wonder?

comment #18

frankbooth says ...

Do you really want to strip these people of their myths? Fear of eternal damnation is the only thing keeping many of them in line.

Millions of disillusioned, former fundamentalist Christians with guns. That's just what we need.

comment #19

messiahcomplexio says ...

anybody else have the same reaction I did at the end of Crystal Skull when the aliens popped out.

My God! It's Zenu!!! The Scientologists were right!

When Jones was forced to stare into that skull, it wasn't a brainwashing tool, it was one of those personality tests.

Its all coming into focus.

comment #20

DarthCorleone says ...

Yeah, echoing what a few say above, I don't really think this accomplishes anything when you're dealing with a religion that attributes so much of its mythos to prophecy. It only further reinforces each side of the debate.

In response to what BNick says above, I agree that neither side respects the other sufficiently. The bigger problem is that both sides believe that the greater good would be served if everyone believes as they do. As a staunch nonbeliever, I am loath to admit that I think the human race would be much better off in the long view if it let go of its religiosity and fostered a cultural philosophy devoid of it.

Nevertheless, I don't go out of my way to try to convert or convince anyone that Christianity is bollocks, because neither side is going to sway the other overnight. This sort of change is glacial, and if trends of the last 100 years are any indication, human civilization is gradually shifting toward a more secular worldview. That's encouraging to some degree, but given that nothing interesting along these lines will happen in my lifetime, I'm rather indifferent to the sound and fury of the debate.

And I also must admit - as someone else cites above - the hypothetical instantaneous loss of religious faith the world over would probably be nightmarish in the short run. There are some scary folks out there, and you don't want to deprive them of their opiates.

comment #21

Mark B says ...

"The problem is one of respect. Neither side feels respected by the other. And pointing fingers and cackling at those who derive strength from believing that Jesus died to help absolve mankind of its sins aren't helping."

Very well said, Edward.

comment #22

Bob Violence says ...

I can't wait for this movie to come out... let's hope it's just damn funny and not sanctimonious.

Aaaaaahahahahahaahahahahahahahahahahahaha

Sorry, don't know what came over me there.

comment #23

Count Thread says ...

My atheism aside, Jeff is wrong.

If you believe in Christ, you believe he is the son of God, and thus, this affirms that-- a prophecy existed (as noted above, *many* prophecies existed), and to those who believe in the divine Christ, a prophecy was fulfilled.

Now, unbelievers can point and laugh and say that the people of Jesus's time were just looking for something to fit the prophecy-- "confirmation bias", it's called-- but it's only laughable if it *wasn't true*.

If anything, this sort of thing should hurt *the Jews*-- after all, devout Christians can point to it and say, "Hey, see! We fulfilled your prophecy!" Of course, they can turn around and say that Christians *exploited* the prophecy.

How you see it all depends upon your faith, and who you believe.

No surprise that Jeff uses it to ridicule those with the courage of their convictions. I may not share their convictions, but I can't help but scoff at the nihilists who bash them in order to feel better about their own selves.

comment #24

bb says ...

What Redmond said.

As an agnostic originally from the deep south, I used to lament what i perceived as the oppression of the fundamentalist religions in my hometown. Then I moved to LA where bashing religion is the thing to do for the hip and well informed.

What I learned is that while those baptists could be tiresome, they were generally nice but uninhibited atheists tend to be obnoxious assholes. I may share a lot of their lack of belief, but damn they are a pain in the ass to be around.

And while everybody keeps taking cheap shots at Christians, where is the laugh-a=minute comedy taking down Islam? What are these comedians, a bunch of pussies?

comment #25

ochesnut says ...

As an archaeologist this discovery doesn't prove a thing when it comes to the historical Jesus or if the resurrection really happened. The main problem is this: "In crucial places of the text there is lack of text. I understand Knohl's tendency to find there keys to the pre-Christian period, but in two to three crucial lines of text there are a lot of missing words" (Moshe Bar-Asher, president of the Israeli Academy of Hebrew Language and emeritus professor of Hebrew and Aramaic at the Hebrew University).
Knohl who is also from HU makes out several of the words that are unreadable, so his reading is very precarious and not the one that is currently accepted by Israeli scholars let alone Christian ones.

comment #26

MrLinear says ...

Before getting to exciting about how this table would rock the foundations of Christianity, one may want to check out:

http://www.getreligion.org/?p=3682

If the current reading holds up and the tablet is authenticated, this document could truly be a tremendous boon to Christianity, providing yet further proof to the Jews that Jesus was the messiah they were waiting for and need wait for no longer.

comment #27

twilightgal says ...

Maybe I am misreading Jeff's argument, but it doesn't follow that because people in this era and culture were already familiar with a resurrection myth, the resurrection story of Jesus of Nazareth is made up.

comment #28

Richardson says ...

twilight - I believe the point only makes sense to disprove the idea that the Bible is the literal truth. But if the proven fact that numerous chunks of the Bible were clearly lifted from other mythology and folklore doesn't dissuade people from believing the Literal Truth, I doubt one thing more or less would either.

comment #29

tbbaxter says ...

"There is no God." (Jeffrey Wells) "You wish." (God)

comment #30

Filthy Rich says ...

The misconception here is that people keep saying the story in the tablet is a PROPHECY. It is not, nor was intended to be taken as a prophecy. It is telling the story of a 'messiah' as proclaimed by that person's followers.

The undermining of Christianity comes from the fact that the story of Jesus was simply another variation on a theme already used in an earlier myth.

Unfortunately Christians are too stubborn in their belief in something they already know to be untrue - many aspects of the Christ tale had already been 'borrowed' from previous religions including Christ's side being supposedly pierced by a spear after his death.

It doesn't matter how much proof they are shown that Christ likely did not even walk the earth or that every aspect of the telling of his myth had been taken, borrowed, stolen or influenced by previous religious myths. They will believe what they want to believe because the fear to face the truth is too great for their weak minds.

comment #31

ochesnut says ...

The Messianic interpretation depends upon some pretty creative reading of an unclear section of the text. I'm not sure if the term "Messiah" is actually used in this section and in close connection with the resurrection announcement -that may be inferred from the fact that it
refers to Simon, who was defeated and killed as a Messianic pretender.

The hypothesis of a connection to early Christianity seems to presuppose crassly literal reading of "three days" (assuming the phrase is actually there), which had already appeared in Hosea 6:2, where it clearly means "in a little while" (as the early Christians would have known).

Moreover, the resurrection of Simon is clearly announced in an apocalyptic scenario which fits in with the Jewish expectation of a general resurrection at the end of history, whereas the distinctive feature of the Christian announcement is precisely the odd affirmation
that this general resurrection has been anticipated for one individual, while the history of Israel and the world continues.

comment #32

Overstreet says ...

Thanks for that link, MrLinear.

So many Christian-haters are swift to wield their ignorance of what Christians actually believe... and then they congratulate themselves for it.

This discovery is not any kind of "news flash" for Christians, and it isn't going to "rock the foundations" of the church. That piece at GetReligion is just the answer such over-hyped stories need. Of course, many of those who celebrate at any perceived jab at Christians probably won't even bother to read what Christians actually think about it. It's so much easier to mock a straw man than to deal with people of faith *and* intellect.

Even J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis spoke openly and often about the common Christian belief that myths and legends are drawn to recurring themes because they were premonitions of something that would become true... and that those same myths and legends still resonate with us precisely because they echo the truth. It was this idea that drew C.S. Lewis to convert to Christianity. It's a widely documented dialogue they shared. And that understanding of myth strengthened their own myth-spinning (even though the movies have lost buried a lot of those echoes).

If anybody happens to be curious about that, read C.S. Lewis "On Stories," or Humphrey Carpenter's "The Inklings" ... or even the letters of J.R.R. Tolkien.