1st-century BC Hebrew parchment describing the Messiah liberating captives, healing the pierced, and raising the dead
A remarkable fragmentary Hebrew text describing the glorious deeds of the Lord's Messiah: the heavens and earth will obey him, he will release the captives, open the eyes of the blind, heal the wounded, and resurrect the dead.
Rigorous 4-part empirical analysis separating ancient text from bias and consensus
Fragment 2 Column II lines 1–12: 'For the heavens and the earth shall listen to his Messiah... He will honor the pious upon the throne of an eternal kingdom, freeing prisoners, giving sight to the blind, straightening out the twisted... Then he will heal the sick, resurrect the dead, and bring good news to the poor.'
Directly matches Jesus's answer to John the Baptist in Matthew 11:4–5 and Luke 7:22 ('Go and tell John what you hear and see: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, and the dead are raised up, and the poor have good news preached to them').
Old Testament passages (Isaiah 35, 61) speak of healing the blind and good news to the poor, but *never* explicitly mention raising the dead; 4Q521 is the only other pre-Christian Jewish text combining these exact signs with the Messiah, proving Jesus was evoking a known Messianic expectation.
Eschatological visionary expectation of the direct manifestation of God's redemptive power through his anointed agent.