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Scholars now believe that an ancient tablet tells the story of Jesus’ suffering, death and three-days-hence resurrection – except it’s about a guy called Simon, and it was written in first century B.C. (which, significantly, stands for “Before Christ”).
Scholars now believe that an ancient tablet tells the story of Jesus’ suffering death and three-days-hence resurrection...According to the New York Times, the tablet was unearthed around a decade ago, but scholars of ancient Hebrew have only now determined what it has to say. The stone’s authenticity has not yet been challenged, which from one vantage point makes sense: if experts settled on the tablet’s date of origin long before they knew what it said, their first estimate is likely to be the most objective. The stone was dated by the style of the language it bore – the shape and script of the writing, and particular spellings of certain words – according to most sources.
However, Israeli newspaper Haaretz reports that the tablet came from a collector rather than an organized archaeological excavation, which means that the tablet’s specific place and time of origin is not definite. In other words, it would be nice if it was found in a sealed tomb among a thousand other artifacts of the same first-century-B.C. era, but scholars can’t be choosers.
Questions about the stone’s authenticity, the accuracy of its translation, and its impact on our understanding of Christianity will be asked (and maybe even answered) at a conference in Jerusalem commemorating the 60th anniversary of the discovery of the famous Dead Sea Scrolls.
But before the experts have their say, I’d like to preliminarily conclude that this undermines the entire foundation of Christianity!
Okay, maybe it’s all a hoax or maybe the tablet’s estimated age is wrong. Or maybe the scholars are right, only they’ve inflated the case this makes against Christianity.
So let us suppose that this tablet is entirely authentic. A couple years B.C., we have Simon, who suffers, dies for the redemption of a people, and it is prophesized that he will be resurrected three days later....except it’s about a guy called Simon, and it was written in first century B.C.
Interpretation 1: This is a common enough story of the era, one which Jesus will eventually utilize when it comes time for his big moment. Only, he takes it one step further by actually making it come true.
Interpretation 2: Jesus’ story was hardly unique, but rather a later iteration of a story already known among Jews at the time Jesus lived, so his followers would have known it, and might have told the story about him whether he was actually resurrected or not.
Interpretation 3: Stories of suffering, redemption, and rebirth are common in human mythology across cultures, even to the point of being archetypal. Osiris’ slaughtered body is pieced back together by Isis and ascends into godhood. Hercules, the son of Zeus, suffers through twelve labors which culminate in his return from the underworld (after killing Cerberus, the three-headed hound who guards the gates of Hades). Hell, in Buddhism, everyone suffers and in Hinduism, everyone is reborn.
Of course Jesus’ story isn’t unique – it would not have any relevance to the grand, human dramedy if it was entirely removed from recognized human tropes.
Of course Jesus’ story isn’t unique.Archetypes recur across cultures and times because they reveal fundamental truths about ourselves. Amid mystery and metaphor – two things human nature craves – we latch onto such stories and extract every ounce of moral and meaning we can justify. Why should Jesus’ have to be unique?
So if this tablet does demonstrate anything definitively, it is that stories are not the kind of substance that can undermine each other. Rather, if one ancient story is true, they all are. [New York Times, MSNBC, Haaretz, The Israel Museum, Jerusalem]
Jeff Dubbin is a contributing editor of TheSequitur.com editorial board.
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