Gabriel’s Revelation?

In Sunday’s New York Times there is an interesting story about a tablet discovered that dates to the second century BC: Tablet Ignites Debate on Messiah and Resurrection. It reports that this MAY provide evidence of the pre-Jesus idea of the Jewish messiah dying and rising again after three days. There is some vital text missing from the stone but it seems to suggest that Jesus did not invent the idea of a suffering, dying, and resurrecting Jewish Messiah.

I can’t see this changing things though. Those who accept Jesus in the Christian sense will say that he fulfilled pre-existing expectations and died for the people of God, including both Jews and Gentiles, whereas those who do not believe will say that Christians co-opted an existing tradition and presented Jesus as this suffering, dying Messiah. Either way I’m sure we will be hearing a lot more about this next Easter if not in the coming months.

Qumran Library

The University of the Holy Land has an interesting virtual reality take on the Qumran library. Click on the .mov file name to check out what it looked like 2000 years ago. I know Lawell will want to have a look! Sorry but I don’t think it will let you pull out the scrolls and unroll them.

Dead Sea Scrolls Symposium 2007

The Canadian Bible Society, the Canada Research Chair in Dead Sea Scrolls Studies, and Trinity Western University are sponsoring the Dead Seas Scrolls Symposium 2007. It will be held at TWU October 11-13. These three days are packed with lectures. The price is also packed: $180 or $75 for students. Several of the lecture topics sound quite interesting and two speakers will be talking about the Isaiah scrolls. For more information and a registration form visit the Canadian Bible Society.

Reading ancient scrolls without opening them

There was a fascinating article on BBC today about the development of a machine that can shine “light” through old scrolls and determine what the text is with needing to unroll them. ‘Super-scope’ to see hidden texts recounts that all you need to read your ancient scrolls is a £260m ($527m) synchrotron. The are currently practicing with their new toy but hope to be able to put it to use on things like some of the Dead Sea Scrolls which have been unable to be unrolled for fear of destroying them.

Modern Translations of Ancient Versions

Yesterday I mentioned the New English Translation of the Septuagint (NETS). This is hardly the first time the Septuagint has been translated into English but the most common translation in use today is by Lancelot C.L. Brenton and was published in 1851. The NETS is therefore a huge step forward for those who cannot read Greek but want to study the Greek Old Testament. There are many other ancient versions which have been translated into English. The Dead Sea Scrolls Bible was published by Harper Collins and translated by Martin G. Abegg Jr., Peter Flint, and Eugene Ulrich (0060600640). This translation contains all of the Old Testament which is found in the various Dead Sea Scrolls. Not all of the books survived in their entirety so this translation is missing some parts. Also the book of Esther was not found at Qumran so it is absent. George Lamsa translated the Syriac Bible and it was published as Holy Bible: From the Ancient Eastern Text by Harper Collins (0060649232). There are some problems with his translation however so handle with care. The Latin Vulgate has also been translated into English, most notably as the Douay-Rheims version. Available online: http://www.drbo.org. This is of interest in recognising why there are some fundamental differences between Roman Catholics and Protestants.