The ancient scripts that predate - and might rewrite - the Bible



A fresh interpretation of a stone tablet dated to the decades before Jesus's birth could undermine some fundamentals of the Christian faith, experts claim.

The tablet, which is similar in style to the Dead Sea Scrolls, is said to predict that a messiah would rise from the dead within three days.

The partially-deciphered Ancient Hebrew text had seemed to contain a vision of the apocalypse as told by the Angel Gabriel.

A fragment of the Dead Sea Scrolls which set the word talking when they were discovered 60 years ago. The new text seems to imply the life and death of Jesus was predicted before his birth

But a leading scholar says it confirms his theory that some Jewish sects before Christ believed a messiah would save them - but not before he was killed and brought back to life after three days.

Israel Knohl, Professor of Biblical Studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, says one line of the text tells the 'prince of princes' slain by the evil government, 'in three days you shall live'.

He suggests the story refers to the death of a Jewish prince called Simon who led a revolt against King Herod.

Daniel Boyarin, of the University of California at Berkeley, said that there was growing evidence suggesting that Jesus could be best understood through a close reading of the Jewish history of his day.

'Some Christians will find it shocking - a challenge to the uniqueness of their theology, while others will be comforted by the idea of it being a traditional part of Judaism,' he said.

But Christian scholars dispute any contention that the tablet, which is in a private collection, could dilute the significance of Jesus's resurrection.

Ben Witherington, of Asbury Theological Seminary in Wilmore, Kentucky, said: 'This stone certainly does not demonstrate that the Gospel passion stories are created on the basis of this stone text.'