An interesting piece in the New York Times today [originally posted July 5] declares

A three-foot-tall tablet with 87 lines of Hebrew that scholars believe dates from the decades just before the birth of Jesus is causing a quiet stir in biblical and archaeological circles, especially because it may speak of a messiah who will rise from the dead after three days.

Oddly, the stone is not really a new discovery. It was found about a decade ago and bought from a Jordanian antiquities dealer by an Israeli-Swiss collector who kept it in his Zurich home. When an Israeli scholar examined it closely a few years ago and wrote a paper on it last year, interest began to rise. There is now a spate of scholarly articles on the stone, with several due to be published in the coming months. “I couldn’t make much out of it when I got it,” said David Jeselsohn, the owner, who is himself an expert in antiquities. “I didn’t realize how significant it was until I showed it to Ada Yardeni, who specializes in Hebrew writing, a few years ago. She was overwhelmed. ‘You have got a Dead Sea Scroll on stone,’ she told me.” Ms. Yardeni, who analyzed the stone along with Binyamin Elitzur, is an expert on Hebrew script, especially of the era of King Herod, who died in 4 B.C. The two of them published a long analysis of the stone more than a year ago in Cathedra, a Hebrew-language quarterly devoted to the history and archaeology of Israel, and said that, based on the shape of the script and the language, the text dated from the late first century B.C.

I won’t copy out the whole thing- but it certainly is worth reading! And sure, it’s not new news, but it is a great report (for those who keep up with such things and who don’t have access to Cathedra, which is harder to find here in the gulag than a gunless home).

UPDATE:  Joseph Lauer has assembled nearly every relevant link and writes

I’ve received a number of e-mails and postings regarding the previously circulated New York Times article “Tablet Ignites Debate on Messiah and Resurrection”. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/06/world/middleeast/06stone.html

Hershel Shanks noted that the first English publication of the tablet appeared in an article “A New Dead Sea Scroll in Stone?” by Dr. Ada Yardeni in the January/February 2008 BAR. The Hebrew and English texts of the tablet are linked at the BAS website at http://bib-arch.org/news/dss-in-stone-news.asp .

In addition, as also circulated on Dr. Jack Sasson’s Agade list, in that article, Dr. Yardeni described the 3-foot-by 1-foot stone inscribed with a lengthy text that she would refer to as a Dead Sea Scroll had it been written on leather. A photo of the stone appears in the issue; for the transcription of the Hebrew text go to
< http://bib-arch.org/news/dssinstone_hebrew.doc >; for an English translation, go to < http://bib-arch.org/news/dssinstone_english.doc >.
Yitzhak Sapir noted that an April 4, 2007 Nfc Hebrew-language article about the Cathedra article mentioned by the Times (in which Ada Yardeni and Binyamin Elitzur analyzed the tablet), could be read at http://www.nfc.co.il/Archive/001-D-127652-00.html?tag=11-28-43 (or http://www.nfc.co.il/Archive/001-D-127652-00.html ). He also noted that through links in the Nfc article a PDF of the Yardeni/Elitzur Cathedra Hebrew article (no. 123, Nisan 5767, pp. 155-166) could be read at http://www.nfc.co.il/uploadFiles/138240993022919.pdf and a drawing and a Hebrew transcription of the tablet could be viewed at http://www.nfc.co.il/uploadFiles/848324000835419.pdf . See

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ANE-2/message/8651 and
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/biblical-studies/message/18003

As some may remember, I circulated an April 20, 2007 Ha’aretz article by Prof. Israel Knohl (”In three days, you shall live”) in which he discussed the tablet and his book and his theory, mentioned in the Times article. The article may be read at

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=850657 [English]
http://www.haaretz.co.il/hasite/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=850111 [Hebrew]

UPDATE II: Time Magazine has added a story on the topic.

UPDATE III: A Disclaimer of Sorts.  This last update (I don’t think I’ll update any more since the story already has legs and is now everywhere) is a brief observation – and may simply be taken as such:

If you’re wondering why this story is now appearing everywhere, don’t you remember what happened with the so called ‘Gospel of Judas’?  We can expect a whole spate of translations of the ‘Messiah Tablet’ followed by scholarly dissertations, a Discovery Channel special, rebuttals, a special session at the SBL, and then a return to the tablet as interest resumes at Easter when the Discovery Channel will be joined by the major networks in assembling talking heads and offering varied opinions for – I must remind you – an UNPROVENANCED artifact.  Without provenance, the thing is meaningless.  But that won’t stop a cottage industry from rising up to spew forth ridiculous nonsense onto an unsuspecting and ignorant public who lap up such things like dogs lap up their own vomit.