[Boagenes]

Uh, there's a "pre-Christ" description of the Suffering Servant and dying and rising Messiah all through the Old Testament. Let me see if I can do this from memory: Isaiah 40, 47, 49, 50, 53, Psalm 22, Zechariah 9, Hosea 6. Just for starters. Jesus said he would die and rise again in three days. Luke says that Jesus talked with the two disciples on the road from Emmaus, after his resurrection (the two who did not recognize him) and opened the scriptures to them, "beginning at Moses", and taking them through the Old Testament and showing them all the prophecies that pointed to the Messiah.

So here we have a tablet that may say something about the Messiah as a suffering servant who will die and be raised on the third day. Hosea 6:2 and Isaiah 53:11-12 say the same thing. So, this affects the Christian faith how, exactly?...

[bcsco]

So, this affects the Christian faith how, exactly?...

It doesn't, of course. But it's news to those who either haven't read the Bible or don't have the Holy Spirit's understanding working through them. Such tripe will always be around. Nothing new here.

[safisoft]

So here we have a tablet that may say something about the Messiah as a suffering servant who will die and be raised on the third day. Hosea 6:2 and Isaiah 53:11-12 say the same thing. So, this affects the Christian faith how, exactly?...

The history of Christianity and Judaism is replete with reactions toward each other. The fact is, although your reading of the English of the Hebrew Scriptures says something does not definitively make it so in the eyes of others. Finding extant reference (undoctored by Christian redactors such as the LXX etc.) is important because it takes away the arguments that simply say that the texts were altered by Christians to after-the-fact prove something. Although I do not agree with that premise, there is something to that line of thinking. Both Talmudic and Christians constantly redacted their texts in response to the other. Finding certifiable text that speaks this way is as big a deal as the so-called Dead Sea Scrolls, for the very same reason.

[Old Student]

“So here we have a tablet that may say something about the Messiah as a suffering servant who will die and be raised on the third day. Hosea 6:2 and Isaiah 53:11-12 say the same thing. So, this affects the Christian faith how, exactly?...”

NO! NO! NO! You don't understand! We're all supposed to believe Michael Moorcock’s “Behold the Man” and say, as our last dying breath — “It's a lie, it's a lie!”

Counsel of despair, that's what they want us to see. I know most Christians of whatever stripe think of Mormons as not really Christian, but we've been saying for quite a while that there are plenty of scriptures that talk of his suffering, death, and resurrection, and not just in the Bible. This may be another one, but it's not a surprise to us if it is, and it is no reason to give up on Christianity. (Even if you don't practice it as we do.)