On Ben Witherington's post, The Death and Resurrection of Messiah--- written in stone, a few of us ask Dr. Witherington if the pre-Christian stone that talks about a dying and rising Messiah overthrows N.T. Wright's thesis: that Jesus' resurrection is historical because first century Judaism did not conceive of such an idea. Dr. Witherington responds that it "might cause a certain revision but nothing much." He elaborates:
"It is one thing to have an idea or a concept. Quite another for it to happen in reality. The thought cannot be the father to the event! You need to be able to make a distinction here. For example, suppose I had a conception that the moon was made of green cheese. Would my thinking this turn the moon into green cheese? Of course not. Now if I went to the moon and discovered it was made out of green cheese, then I could say-- I foresaw this, or thought this might be the case. But even if there was this correspondence between my thought and the reality, it was not my thought which made the reality what it was. Jesus' resurrection is indeed unique in all of history. And its uniqueness is in no way added to or subtracted from by whether someone thought of this in advance of it happening or not."
Good point. The early Christians did not just say that the Messiah would rise from the dead. They said that he had risen from the dead. And what could give rise to that kind of belief?