Artifacts may identify biblical Sodom

 

ALBUQUERQUE, NM (KRQE) – An Albuquerque archeologist and his team have returned with artifacts from a dig site near the Dead Sea, which they believe reveals the lost city of Sodom.

Dr. Steven Collins and a team of about 70 have spent the last four years digging in Jordan. They have recovered thousands of artifacts, most of it pottery.

They have also discovered human and animal bones, jewelry and weapons.

“We have some Roman from the Iron Age, say from about 600-700 BC, going all the way back to the Bronze Age, even very early in the Bronze Age going back to about 3,000, even back as early as 4,000 BC,” Collins said.

Collins and his team have brought all the pieces back to Albuquerque for further study.

“Human beings are very prone to fads, and in pottery the pottery forms are changing constantly over time,” Collins said. “No one uses them for more than 35 years or so.

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Biblical theme park gets makeover

A 15-acre theme park that recreates Jerusalem at the time of Christ has received a facelift and a change in ownership.  

“The Holy Land Experience” was recently purchased by the Trinity Broadcasting Network. The biblical theme park and museum, located in Orlando, features a number of exhibits that depict the Holy Land during the life of Jesus.

Theme park spokesman Mike Everett says there have been many additions since TBN took over. “We’ve put in an entirely new children’s area with Noah’s Ark theater, as well as Smile of a Child theater,” explains Everett. “The venues have remained the same, but we’ve created some new looks in decorating and painting.”

Everett says TBN will be able to promote the park through its worldwide television ministry. “We have a tremendous vehicle. Trinity Broadcasting is seen in over 90 percent of households in the U.S. …we’re on 67 satellites around the world,” he continues. “So we’re reaching homes everywhere…that’s a perfect vehicle to advertise the Holy Land Experience.”

About 300,000 people visited the Holy Land Experience last year.

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Copper ruins in Jordan bolster biblical record of King Solomon

  A massive copper smelting plant in the biblical land of Edom is at least three centuries older than researchers previously believed, placing it firmly in the traditional timeline of King Solomon, considered the greatest ruler of Israel, researchers reported Monday.

The existence of Solomon 3,000 years ago has been questioned by some scholars over the last two decades because of the paucity of archaeological evidence supporting the biblical record and the belief that there were no complex societies in Israel or Edom capable of building fortresses, monuments and other sophisticated public works, such as large mines, in the 10th century BC.

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Pre-Christian Stone Tablet Foretells Resurrection

The death and resurrection of Jesus Christ has been called into question by a radical new interpretation of a tablet found on the eastern bank of the Dead Sea.

The three-foot stone tablet appears to refer to a Messiah who rises from the grave three days after his death — even though it was written decades before the birth of Jesus.

The ink is badly faded on much of the tablet, known as Gabriel’s Vision of Revelation, which was written rather than engraved in the 1st century B.C. This has led some experts to claim that the inscription has been overinterpreted.

Click HERE for full story (FoxNews).

Priestly garb created for Third Temple

The Temple Institute is a Jewish group in Jerusalem that is committed to construction a Third Temple and re-instituting animal sacrifices and other practices required by Jewish law. The group has been well known for years and have been in the news many times. In the past they have attempted to dedicate a cornerstone for a new Temple, re-created furniture and tools described in the Bible, and so forth. Recently the group has, once again, made news headlines for hosting a seminar describing their work on re-creating the garments to be worn by the priests in the future Third Temple (read a Jerusalem Post article HERE).

Many Christians believe that the the existence and work of the Temple Institute is a sign that biblical prophecies concerning the end times may soon be fulfilled. The group has been working diligently on preparations to build a Temple in Jerusalem as soon as the political climate makes such a move possible. They reportedly have all of the blueprints, and most of the furniture, implements, and so forth needed to make Third Temple a reality in very short order. They have also identified and trained a priesthood -that is reportedly historically linked to the ancient priesthood – to resume the sacrifices and other rituals as soon as conditions are favorable.

More information about the Temple Institute can be found on their web site – http://www.templeinstitute.org/

Archaeologist Discovers Oldest Christian Worship Site

Dr Abdul Qader Al-Hassan claims to have discovered what may well be the oldest Christian Church. The excavation of a cave beneath the ancient St. Georgeous Church, which dates from the 3rd Century A.D., in Rihab, Jordan, has revealed Christian artifacts dating from the period of Christ’s death.

The researchers believe that 70 early Christians who fled persecution in Jerusalem worshipped in the small cave between 33-70 A.D. The chapel is approximately 7 by 12 metres with a circular apse. An inscription in the cave reads: “70 beloved by God and the divine.”

Al-Hassan has discovered the church’s cemetery as well as lamps, potter shards, coins, and iron crosses.

Experts are approaching the claim with caution.

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Gnostic Judas is Heroic

A Coptic text dated from the 3rd or 4th century purportedly records an exchange between Jesus Christ and Judas Iscariot, the betrayer.  According to the Gnostic text, Judas willingly accepted the cursed role of traitor, fulfilling the will of God.  “You will sacrifice the man that clothes me,” says Jesus, a clear indication of the Gnostic notion of material evil; the real essence of Christ is only revealed when separated from the flesh.

Gnosticism was rejected by the early, post-Apostolic Church, and Irenaeus, Bishop of Lyon in Roman Gaul, wrote about a group of schismatics who revered Judas and produced a “Gospel of Judas.”  This text could, in fact, be a copy or iteration of that heretical account.

Rodolphe Kasser, a renowned Coptic scholar, painstakingly translated the ancient work.  While most Christians will not change their views of Judas Iscariot, the Gnostic text does provide modern readers with a rare glimpse into the fringes of early Christianity.

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Ark of the Covenant altar found in Sheba’s palace

WorldNetDaily – May 10, 2008

The queen of Sheba’s palace at Axum in Ethiopia, purported to once have been the home of the Ark of the Covenant, has been found, archaeologists from the University of Hamburg report.

The Ethiopian queen was the friend and ally of King Solomon of Israel in the 10th century before the Christian era.

According to the Bible, in 1 Kings 10, the Queen of Sheba journeyed to Jerusalem after hearing of King Solomon’s wisdom to see if what she had heard was true. So impressed was she that she gave large quantities of gold, spices and precious stones to the king of Israel.

“It was a true report which I heard in my own land about your words and your wisdom,” she said. “However I did not believe the words until I came and saw with my own eyes; and indeed the half was not told me. Your wisdom and prosperity exceed the fame of which I heard. Happy are your men and happy are these your servants, who stand continually before you and hear your wisdom! Blessed be the LORD your God, who delighted in you, setting you on the throne of Israel! Because the LORD has loved Israel forever, therefore He made you king, to do justice and righteousness.”

Ethiopian tradition claims the Ark, which contained Moses’ stone tablets on which the Ten Commandments were written, was smuggled to Ethiopia by their son Menelek and is still in that country.

Read the entire article HERE.

Researchers: We know secret of Joseph’s Biblical Pest control

The remains of a burnt beetle found in a grain of wheat about 3,500 years old provided a group of researchers from Bar-Ilan University with a key to a question the Bible left without a definite answer: How did Joseph the Dreamer, who became the viceroy to the king of Egypt, succeed in preserving the grain during the seven lean years and prevent Egypt’s population from starving?

According to the description in the book of Genesis, during the seven years of plenty in Egypt, Joseph had all the wheat collected in silos. “And he gathered up all the food of the seven years which were in the land of Egypt, and laid up the food in the cities; the food of the field, which was round about every city, laid he up in the same. And Joseph laid up grain as the sand of the sea, very much, until they left off numbering; for it was without number” (Genesis 41, 48-49).

Joseph, thanks to his talent as an interpreter of dreams and his cleverness, quickly attained the rank of viceroy to the king and was appointed to run the kingdom’s food storehouses. His success at the job was based not only on his talent for planning and his ability to see ahead, but also from the manner in which the pests spread. The lesser grain borer was just starting its career in Egypt when Joseph arrived there. Because of its phenomenal reproductive capacity, storing one batch of grain containing a small population of the grain borer was enough to bring about the destruction of the entire granary and to threaten an entire city with starvation.

Ancient Seal May Have Belonged to Queen Jezebel

According to Dr. Marjo Korpel, Old Testament scholar and researcher at Utretcht University, an ancient seal may have been the property of Jezebel, the wicked queen of Israel and arch-nemesis of Prophet Elijah.

The seal contains the Hebrew letters יזבל, YZBL.  The name was uncommon even among the Phoenicians, and Korpel believes that the elaborate seal undoubtedly belonged to a woman of great influence.  Only about 35 seals of the thousands of Hebrew examples have been identified as belonging to women.

The seal was originally part of a private collection and was donated to the Israel Department of Antiquities in the 1960s.  While the history of the piece’s archeaological discovery is unclear, Korpel believes the artifact to be completely authentic.  Her analysis of the seal’s design and symbology is consistent with her hypothesis that the owner was Phoenician and royal.

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Researchers claim that Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed by Asteroid

A clay tablet that has baffled scientists for 150 years has been identified as a witness’s account of the asteroid suspected of being behind the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. Researchers who cracked the cuneiform symbols on the Planisphere tablet believe that it recorded an asteroid thought to have been more than half a mile across.

Click here for the Fox News.com story.