"Gabriel's Revelation"
GradeDisputed
Christians have long asked whether any Jews before Jesus expected a leader who would die and be raised, in the words of Hosea, "in the third day he will raise us up" (). "Gabriel's Revelation" is a limestone tablet with 87 lines of Hebrew prophecies written in ink, in the first person, dated to the late 1st century BCE or early 1st century CE, and first published by Ada Yardeni and Binyamin Elizur in 2007. In 2008 Israel Knohl read its line 80 as "In three days, live, I Gabriel com[mand] yo[u]", suggesting a pre-Christian expectation of a slain leader raised after three days. If that reading held, it would bear directly on whether Jews before Christianity read Isaiah 53 of a deliverer who suffers and is vindicated.
Disputed. Most scholars tentatively accept the tablet as authentic, but its key line is read four different ways, and the resurrection reading rests on a damaged word. The tablet is therefore not counted as evidence for a pre-Christian reading of Isaiah 53 or of a dying and rising Messiah.
Explore the counterarguments
The tablet is of unknown origin, bought on the antiquities market, and Justnes has argued that it is not authentic, while Atkinson and Klawans have expressed doubts. The other editors read no "live" in line 80: "In three days the sign will be [given]" (Qimron and Yuditsky 2009); "In three days ..., I, Gabriel ..." (Yardeni and Elizur 2011). Knohl himself later read "By three days, the sign" (2011).