Israel Knohl, a professor at Hebrew University and Senior Fellow at the Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem, discusses the importance, to both Judaism and the followers of Christ, of the recent discovery of a stone since known as Gabriel's Revelation.

The idea of a suffering Messiah has long been held by Christian scholarship to be an after-the-event concept added by the apostles to justify the death of Jesus Christ.  Knohl shows how this concept predated the birth of Jesus and explores the way this is shown in Gabriel's Revelation.

"Common Judaism" was a term coined by E.P. Sanders to describe the religious sensibilities among people who lived during the period known as the Second Temple. This period coincided with the life of Jesus Christ, who, like the majority of the populace, did not follow the strictures of the major religious groups such as Sadducees, Pharisees or Essenes. Obviously some of the population had no religious interest at all, but the majority were considered to follow a form of "common" Judaism. 

A book published late last year examines the concept of a common Judaism in greater detail, building on the work of Sanders, who, in fact, contributed an essay to the book.

This appears to be a useful work for reevaluating the social environment of Judea and Galilee during the period when Jesus and the apostles taught in the first century C.E., making disciples of "the way." These were the First Followers.

E.P. Sanders, who will be remembered as a force in New Testament studies in the last half of the 20th century, is interviewed by Duke University about his early studies. The impact of his study motivated much of the new perspective on Paul as well as studies of the historical Jesus.

The video is worth viewing as it challenges the basic assumptions that most bring to the study of the New Testament.

H/T Chris Tilling