Gabriel’s Vision of Revelation

This article has been out for a while and I was reluctant to put in my two cents; but there was a line which begged for comment. Foxnews ran the headline, Pre-Christian Stone Tablet Foretells Resurrection, then goes on to talk about the implications of writings which predate the life of Jesus Christ and the details of the resurrection.

“Professor Knohl contends that the tablet proves that messianic followers possessed the paradigm of their leader rising from the grave before Jesus was born.

He said that the text "could be the missing link between Judaism and Christianity in so far as it roots the Christian belief in the resurrection of the Messiah in Jewish tradition."”

I’m guessing Professor Knohl has never read the Book of Mormon; either that or he’s read it and not understood the many references to the resurrection. The so called “missing link” between Judaism and Christianity has been available since Joseph Smith translated the ancient text and made it available for anyone willing to take the time to read it.

The Book of Alma 11: 40 – 45, was recorded 82 years before the birth of Jesus Christ and gives a detailed account of the life, death and resurrection of our Savior. I have it listed as one of the “Gospel in a Nutshell” verses, of which there are many.

Maybe it’s just me; but it would seem that anyone who hasn’t been able to figure out the close relationship between Judaism and Christianity has intentionally closed their mind and heart to the information available. I got a kick out of a fellow on the radio several years ago; he’d gotten bent out of shape because Easter, a Christian holiday, was celebrated so close to the Passover; as if the Jewish faith had a lock on that important event.

I recognize that some of the scriptures are difficult to take in, that is if you only give them a cursory glance and never attempt to truly learn what is there. Isaiah might well be such a stumbling block and yet, Isaiah points his boney finger from out of the dust at each of us who claim ignorance of the most basic Gospel Doctrine. The scriptures testify that Jesus is the Christ; they always have.

“Have ye not known? have ye not heard? hath it not been told you from the beginning? have ye not understood from the foundations of the earth?”

Do you need more, like a two by four up aside the head? Read Genesis 22, the story of Abraham being asked to sacrifice his son, his only son. For those of you reluctant to grasp the meaning, read verse 8 a couple of times.

“And Abraham said, My son, God will provide himself a lamb for a burnt offering: so they went both of them together.”

These words are wasted on anyone who refuses to understand them, not unlike most of Judaism who have had the word of God before them all this time, a testimony of the divinity of God’s Only Begotten Son and will not accept Jesus Christ as the Savior of the world. The more things change the more they stay the same.