The Messiah Before Jesus? "Simon of Perena?"

[Lilly Owl]

I was watching a History channel program this morning that was talking about the record account of a man named, Simon of Perena. Seems his story that predates Christ has a great number of similarities to what later accompanied the story of Jesus.



As told on what's called the Jesselson Stone, due to the name of the man who found it. Also known as, The Gabriel Revelation Stone. Due to line 80, in a greatly faded stone where Gabriel commands a prince of princes to do something after three days. No one knows what because time has rendered the stone to be virtually unreadable.

Anyone else heard of this?

The Messiah Before Jesus? - YouTube

 

[Adaephon]

The history channel also does regular specials on how the pyramids were built by space aliens and how the government has alien bodies at Area 51.

Take comfort in the fact that all that is important is known. Long live the Praxis!

 

[Carmella Prochaska]

In 4 BCE, king Herod the Great died. Immediately, there were several revolts against the rule of his son and successor, Herod Archelaus. One of the rebels was Simon of Peraea, who claimed the kingship for himself. The fact that was a slave, is of no importance: slaves could be highly educated and civilized people. Simon of Peraea may have have 'put a diadem on his head', and his men must have created sufficient trouble to make the Romans send in the legions, but there are no indications that he was considered the Messiah.

Hillel Halkin in his blog in The New York Sun wrote that the Jesselsohn Stone "would seem to be in many ways a typical late-Second-Temple-period eschatological text" and expressed doubts that it provided anything "sensationally new" on Christianity's origins in Judaism.

Retired professor, Stan Seidner contends that it reflects the Apocalyptic beliefs of the day, many which are found in the Dead Sea Scrolls, as antecedent and predictive writings of Christianity. He also suggested the use of infra-red technological applications, similar to what had been utilized on Dead Sea Scroll Material in the recent past. Challenging Knohl's "Two Messiahs" theory, Seidner noted that, "Knohl’s reliance upon what he calls, the 'Glorification Hymn,' in support of a first Messiah’s relationship with King Herod, failed in its carbon-14 testing. It predates Herod’s ascendency to the throne by at least twelve years and as much as one hundred and fifty six." However, he does agree with Knohl's interpretation of the inscription,"to rise from the dead within three days." Ben Witherington, on the other hand – an Early Christianity expert at Asbury Theological Seminary in Wilmore Kentucky – claims that a word interpreted as "rise" could just as easily be taken to mean "show up".

Victor Sasson, a biblical scholar and specialist in Hebrew and Aramaic epigraphy, disagrees with Knohl, objecting:

"...the whole issue of this 'h>yh' suggested by Knohl is not only precarious, but also suspect. He had previously suggested a thesis regarding a resurrected Jewish mashiah, and has now found an opportunity with this letter Het to support his thesis. The other words that he supplies in line 80, with the exception of the existing 'I Gabriel' are in fact his own!"