Messianism before Jesus of Nazareth and Gabriel’s Revelation: Steve Cook nails it

A recent find that has come to be known as Gabriel’s Revelation seems to destined to become a very hot topic in the next few years. In a recent post, Steve Cook makes a number of points with exceptional clarity. Read the whole thing. Here is a key graph:

I have long been a fan of the bold and innovative scholar Israel Knohl who is one of those popularizing the "Gabriel's Revelation" artifact. Knohl has already written a book discussing the expectation of a suffering, atoning messiah as it appears in the Dead Sea Scrolls. I referenced this work in my Abingdon/ IBT book, The Apocalyptic Literature. I argued there that for Christianity---the religion that claims the Christ/Messiah has come---to be meaningful and valid, there must have been a longstanding hope for just the sort of Christ/ Messiah that Jesus became (i.e., a humble, suffering Messiah). This is nothing new---the point goes back to the famous Enlightenment debate between Collins and Sherlock. So, when journalists now look at "Gabriel's Revelation" and ask, "What impact would a pre-Christian reference to suffering, death and resurrection have on Christian scholarship?" (MSNBC), the answer is clear: This would be another piece of evidence showing that the idea of Christianity is a meaningful and valid idea. I.e., there were relevant messianic expectations around for Jesus to fulfill.

 

Comments

[Alan Lenzi]

Let's face it, no matter how much evidence piles up to show that Christianity, like all other sociological phenomena, was a product of its times, believers will always find a way to interpret this in a special way: as evidence for the religion's divine origins or, as Cook says in good Liberal Protestant language, its meaningfulness and validity (whatever the latter means).

[JohnFH]

Alan,

as you probably know, Cook also expresses himself, as the situation permits, in rather classical Christian terms.

I think he's right to point out that, in theistic terms, Jesus of Nazareth incarnates a hope that was alive and well in pre-existent Judaism. Christians did not make it up on the fly. This is an important historical conclusion.

In theistic terms, the realization is then understandable as an answer to prayer. I realize, of course, how important it is for atheism to deny prayer a role in the outworking of events.

I was struck, however, by studies coming out of the DDR (East Germany) that showed that even atheists tend to pray, if only to an unknown God, or to themselves perhaps. It seems to be one of the mostly deeply rooted of all human practices. Einstein also, I believe, identified a metaphysic he referred to as the noosphere, in which the confluence of human thought beyond the ordinary cause and effect nexus codetermines future events.

In some version or another, the old theistic intuitions seem to re-present themselves. Food for thought.

[Alan Lenzi]

I appreciate the historical ramifications if the stone is genuine. There's no argument there.

As for the power of prayer and its depth within human intuition, you really need to look at Stewart Guthrie's cognitive theory of religion. Just as with the Gabriel Revelation, you seem to take a typical human action (prayer: speech directed to an unseen but powerful entity) as actual evidence of something transcendent. You just made my point again (from a cognitive/psychological angle).

[JohnFH]

Thanks, Alan, for the reading suggestion.

It's possible that religion in general and Judaism and Christianity in particular are forms of psychological projection and nothing more. It's also possible that atheism is a form of psychological denial above and beyond being a debunking analysis that gets it right often enough.

We are not going to settle anything here, of course.

[John]

Another Cook, who is also worthy of note, has commented here:

Monday, July 07, 2008
The Vision of Gabriel

http://ralphriver.blogspot.com/

[Alan Lenzi]

Guthrie opposes the idea of projection, at least in his chapter called "Projection" in Guide to the Study of Religion (here). His theory is not about projection but about the way our brains take small bits of (often partial) information to posit something that is more significant but uncertain. See here for a quick look at his ideas.

[JohnFH]

That's Ed Cook, newly appointed prof at the Catholic University of America. Whatever he says is bound to be interesting. He is an excellent Aramaist and DSS scholar.

Thanks for the references, Alan.