Recent Archaeological Finds

[Soldier4Christ]

Death certificate is imprinted on the Shroud of Turin, says Vatican scholar

A Vatican scholar claims to have deciphered the "death certificate" imprinted on the Shroud of Turin, or Holy Shroud, a linen cloth revered by Christians and held by many to bear the image of the crucified Jesus.

Dr Barbara Frale, a researcher in the Vatican secret archives, said "I think I have managed to read the burial certificate of Jesus the Nazarene, or Jesus of Nazareth." She said that she had reconstructed it from fragments of Greek, Hebrew and Latin writing imprinted on the cloth together with the image of the crucified man.

The shroud, which is kept in the royal chapel of Turin Cathedral and is to be put in display next Spring, is regarded by many scholars as a medieval forgery. A 1988 carbon dating of a fragment of the cloth dated it to the Middle Ages.

However Dr Frale, who is to publish her findings in a new book, La Sindone di Gesu Nazareno (The Shroud of Jesus of Nazareth) said that the inscription provided "historical date consistent with the Gospels account". The letters, barely visible to the naked eye, were first spotted during an examination of the shroud in 1978, and others have since come to light.

Some scholars have suggested that the writing is from a reliquary attached to the cloth in medieval times. But Dr Frale said that the text could not have been written by a medieval Christian because it did not refer to Jesus as Christ but as "the Nazarene". This would have been "heretical" in the Middle Ages since it defined Jesus as "only a man" rather than the Son of God.

Like the image of the man himself the letters are in reverse and only make sense in negative photographs. Dr Frale told La Repubblica that under Jewish burial practices current at the time of Christ in a Roman colony such as Palestine, a body buried after a death sentence could only be returned to the family after a year in a common grave.

A death certificate was therefore glued to the burial shroud to identify it for later retrieval, and was usually stuck to the cloth around the face. This had apparently been done in the case of Jesus even though he was buried not in a common grave but in the tomb offered by Joseph of Arimathea.

Dr Frale said that many of the letters were missing, with Jesus for example referred to as "(I)esou(s) Nnazarennos" and only the "iber" of "Tiberiou" surviving. Her reconstruction, however, suggested that the certificate read: "In the year 16 of the reign of the Emperor Tiberius Jesus the Nazarene, taken down in the early evening after having been condemned to death by a Roman judge because he was found guilty by a Hebrew authority, is hereby sent for burial with the obligation of being consigned to his family only after one full year". It ends "signed by" but the signature has not survived.

Dr Frale said that the use of three languages was consistent with the polyglot nature of a community of Greek-speaking Jews in a Roman colony. Best known for her studies of the Knights Templar, who she claims at one stage preserved the shroud, she said what she had deciphered was "the death sentence on a man called Jesus the Nazarene. If that man was also Christ the Son of God it is beyond my job to establish. I did not set out to demonstrate the truth of faith. I am a Catholic, but all my teachers have been atheists or agnostics, and the only believer among them was a Jew. I forced myself to work on this as I would have done on any other archaeological find."

The Catholic Church has never either endorsed the Turin Shroud or rejected it as inauthentic. Pope John Paul II arranged for public showings in 1998 and 2000, saying: "The Shroud is an image of God's love as well as of human sin. The imprint left by the tortured body of the Crucified One, which attests to the tremendous human capacity for causing pain and death to one's fellow man, stands as an icon of the suffering of the innocent in every age." Pope Benedict XVI is to pray before the Shroud when it is put on show again next Spring in Turin.

[Soldier4Christ]

New mysteries of the Shroud unveiled
Body inside ancient linen 'levitated' while leaving image

A new video documentary about the Shroud of Turin makes a startling new claim about what some believe to be the burial cloth of Jesus – the body was weightless or levitating when it left the remarkable image.

In the DVD video "The Fabric of Time," scientific experts using the latest technology are able to produce a three-dimensional holographic image from photographs of the shroud. What they reveal is nothing short of spectacular.

They show the image on the shroud is one produced not from a body lying on a stone slab, but rather an image of a weightless body, perhaps levitating above its resting place.

The documentary also calls into question earlier findings about carbon dating tests that claimed the shroud dated back only to the Middle Ages.

In addition, forensics experts testify bloodstains on the Sudarium of Oviedo, reputed to be the piece of linen that covered Jesus' face, perfectly match those on the shroud.

The history of the Sudarium dates back to the 7th century in Spain. The blood types on both cloths were found to be AB. The pollen grains found on the Sudarium also match those found on the shroud.

Last June, Pope Benedict XVI announced that the next public exhibition of the Shroud of Turin will take place April 19, 2010, through May 23, 2010.

The Vatican announced on October 27, 2009, the pope will visit the Shroud May 2.

Visitors to Turin, where the Shroud has permanently resided since 1578, will view the cloth in the Cathedral of St. John the Baptist. To conserve and protect the Shroud, it is permanently stored in a custom built, temperature and humidity controlled, lightweight case, which can be moved, raised and opened to display the cloth for public exhibitions.

[nChrist]

The public can access the West Bank and East Jerusalem Archaeology Database at http://digitallibrary.usc.edu/wbarc. Users must have Google Earth to get full use of the information.

I hadn't planned on installing Google Earth, but I think that I will just for this. Thanks for the link and the information. I'm fascinated by discoveries that add more proof for the Holy Bible. I'd love to see more media attention for this, just so that the whole world can see that God's Word is real and the absolute Truth.

[Soldier4Christ]

Most ancient Hebrew biblical inscription deciphered
'It indicates that the kingdom of Israel already existed in the 10th century BCE, and that at least some of the biblical texts were written hundreds of years before the dates presented in current research.'

Prof. Gershon Galil of the University of Haifa who deciphered the inscription: "It indicates that the Kingdom of Israel already existed in the 10th century BCE and that at least some of the biblical texts were written hundreds of years before the dates presented in current research."

A breakthrough in the research of the Hebrew scriptures has shed new light on the period in which the Bible was written. Prof. Gershon Galil of the Department of Biblical Studies at the University of Haifa has deciphered an inscription dating from the 10th century BCE (the period of King David's reign), and has shown that this is a Hebrew inscription. The discovery makes this the earliest known Hebrew writing. The significance of this breakthrough relates to the fact that at least some of the biblical scriptures were composed hundreds of years before the dates presented today in research and that the Kingdom of Israel already existed at that time.

The inscription itself, which was written in ink on a 15 cm X 16.5 cm trapezoid pottery shard, was discovered a year and a half ago at excavations that were carried out by Prof. Yosef Garfinkel at Khirbet Qeiyafa near the Elah valley. The inscription was dated back to the 10th century BCE, which was the period of King David's reign, but the question of the language used in this inscription remained unanswered, making it impossible to prove whether it was in fact Hebrew or another local language.

Prof. Galil's deciphering of the ancient writing testifies to its being Hebrew, based on the use of verbs particular to the Hebrew language, and content specific to Hebrew culture and not adopted by any other cultures in the region. "This text is a social statement, relating to slaves, widows and orphans. It uses verbs that were characteristic of Hebrew, such as asah ("did") and avad ("worked"), which were rarely used in other regional languages. Particular words that appear in the text, such as almanah ("widow") are specific to Hebrew and are written differently in other local languages. The content itself was also unfamiliar to all the cultures in the region besides the Hebrew society: The present inscription provides social elements similar to those found in the biblical prophecies and very different from prophecies written by other cultures postulating glorification of the gods and taking care of their physical needs," Prof. Galil explains.

He adds that once this deciphering is received, the inscription will become the earliest Hebrew inscription to be found, testifying to Hebrew writing abilities as early as the 10th century BCE. This stands opposed to the dating of the composition of the Bible in current research, which would not have recognized the possibility that the Bible or parts of it could have been written during this ancient period.

Prof. Galil also notes that the inscription was discovered in a provincial town in Judea. He explains that if there were scribes in the periphery, it can be assumed that those inhabiting the central region and Jerusalem were even more proficient writers. "It can now be maintained that it was highly reasonable that during the 10th century BCE, during the reign of King David, there were scribes in Israel who were able to write literary texts and complex historiographies such as the books of Judges and Samuel." He adds that the complexity of the text discovered in Khirbet Qeiyafa, along with the impressive fortifications revealed at the site, refute the claims denying the existence of the Kingdom of Israel at that time.

The contents of the text express social sensitivity to the fragile position of weaker members of society. The inscription testifies to the presence of strangers within the Israeli society as far back as this ancient period, and calls to provide support for these strangers. It appeals to care for the widows and orphans and that the king – who at that time had the responsibility of curbing social inequality - be involved. This inscription is similar in its content to biblical scriptures (Isaiah 1:17, Psalms 72:3, Exodus 23:3, and others), but it is clear that it is not copied from any biblical text.


English translaton of the deciphered text:

1' you shall not do [it], but worship the [Lord].
2' Judge the sla[ve] and the wid[ow] / Judge the orph[an]
3' [and] the stranger. [Pl]ead for the infant / plead for the po[or and]
4' the widow. Rehabilitate [the poor] at the hands of the king.
5' Protect the po[or and] the slave / [supp]ort the stranger.

[nChrist]

Thanks Brother Roger!

The discoveries become more and more amazing. I don't think it's a coincidence that so many breath-taking discoveries are being made in such a short period of time. God's Word is real, and it's the absolute truth.

Love In Christ,
Tom

[Soldier4Christ]

Artifact suggests Bible written centuries earlier
Writing indicates Kingdom of Israel already existed in the 10th century

Scientists have discovered the earliest known Hebrew writing — an inscription dating from the 10th century B.C., during the period of King David's reign.

The breakthrough could mean that portions of the Bible were written centuries earlier than previously thought. (The Bible's Old Testament is thought to have been first written down in an ancient form of Hebrew.)

Until now, many scholars have held that the Hebrew Bible originated in the 6th century B.C., because Hebrew writing was thought to stretch back no further. But the newly deciphered Hebrew text is about four centuries older, scientists announced this month.
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"It indicates that the Kingdom of Israel already existed in the 10th century BCE and that at least some of the biblical texts were written hundreds of years before the dates presented in current research," said Gershon Galil, a professor of Biblical Studies at the University of Haifa in Israel, who deciphered the ancient text.

BCE stands for "before common era," and is equivalent to B.C., or before Christ.

The writing was discovered more than a year ago on a pottery shard dug up during excavations at Khirbet Qeiyafa, near Israel's Elah valley. The excavations were carried out by archaeologist Yosef Garfinkel of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. At first, scientists could not tell if the writing was Hebrew or some other local language.

Finally, Galil was able to decipher the text. He identified words particular to the Hebrew language and content specific to Hebrew culture to prove that the writing was, in fact, Hebrew.

"It uses verbs that were characteristic of Hebrew, such as asah ('did') and avad ('worked'), which were rarely used in other regional languages," Galil said. "Particular words that appear in the text, such as almanah ('widow') are specific to Hebrew and are written differently in other local languages."

The ancient text is written in ink on a trapezoid-shaped piece of pottery about 6 inches by 6.5 inches (15 cm by 16.5 cm). It appears to be a social statement about how people should treat slaves, widows and orphans. In English, it reads (by numbered line):

1' you shall not do [it], but worship the [Lord].
2' Judge the sla[ve] and the wid[ow] / Judge the orph[an]
3' [and] the stranger. [Pl]ead for the infant / plead for the po[or and]
4' the widow. Rehabilitate [the poor] at the hands of the king.
5' Protect the po[or and] the slave / [supp]ort the stranger.

The content, which has some missing letters, is similar to some Biblical scriptures, such as Isaiah 1:17, Psalms 72:3, and Exodus 23:3, but does not appear to be copied from any Biblical text.

[nChrist]

"It indicates that the Kingdom of Israel already existed in the 10th century BCE and that at least some of the biblical texts were written hundreds of years before the dates presented in current research," said Gershon Galil, a professor of Biblical Studies at the University of Haifa in Israel, who deciphered the ancient text.

Fascinating! Thanks!

[Shammu]

I'll agree, fascinating Pastor Roger!!

[Soldier4Christ]

Ancient wall found in Jerusalem 'probably from Solomon era'

section of city wall that enclosed ancient Jerusalem and was probably built by King Solomon in the 10th century BC was found during recent digs, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem said on Monday.

The unearthed wall is six metres high (20 feet) and 70 metres (230 feet) long, a statement said.

"We can estimate, with a high degree of certainty, that this was built by King Solomon toward the end of the 10th century BC," archaeologist Eilat Mazar, who excavated for three months, said in the statement.

According to the Bible, Solomon built the first Jewish temple of Jerusalem, which was destroyed by the Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar in 586 BC.

The latest discovery "could corroborate written descriptions which recount construction projects carried out by King Solomon in Jerusalem," the statement said.

The section of wall was discovered in the Ophel area, between the City of David and the southern part of another wall that surrounds the Temple Mount.

Also found were structures built at the same time as the section of wall, including a gatehouse accessing the royal district and a tower overlooking the Kidron Valley at the foot of the Mount of Olives, the statement said.

Pottery shards and the remains of two earthenware jars measuring 1.15 metres (3.8 feet) tall were also found, the statement said. One jar handle bore the inscription "For the King."

All that remains of the Temple Mount, Judaism's most sacred site, is the temple's Western or Wailing Wall, the principal Jewish place of pilgrimage.

The holy site in east Jerusalem, which Israel annexed unilaterally after capturing the Arab sector of the city in 1967, houses the Al-Aqsa Mosque and Dome of the Rock, and is the third holiest site in the Islamic world.

[nChrist]

Another TIMELY and significant discovery!

[Soldier4Christ]

Dig Supports Biblical Account of King Solomon's Construction

Even as Muslim spokesmen try to deny Jewish claims to the Holy Land, archaeological discoveries have recently been coming in fast and furious proving the veracity of the Biblical account of history.

Hebrew University archaeologists have revealed an ancient path in Jerusalem believed to date back to the time of King Solomon, along with structures including a gateway and the foundation of a building. Dr. Eilat Mazar, the leader of the archaeological dig, said the findings match finds from the time of the First Temple.

Arutz Sheva TV's Yoni Kempinski visited the archaeological dig where the ancient wall was revealed and heard from Dr. Mazar about the importance of the find and its connection to the Biblical description about the time of King Solomon.

The latest find includes a 70-meter long and six-meter-high stone wall, a small house adjacent to a gateway leading to what was once the royal courtyard, a building that served city officials, and a tower that overlooked the Kidron river.

According to Mazar, the wall is likely to be the wall built by King Solomon. “This is the first time a building has been found that matches descriptions of the building carried out by King Solomon in Jerusalem,” she said.

The third chapter of the Biblical book of Kings describes King Solomon building “his own house, and the house of the L-rd, and the wall of Jerusalem round about.” The wall testifies to relatively advanced engineering capabilities, archaeologists said. It runs through historic Jerusalem, between the City of David and the Temple Mount.

The remnants of a public building discovered along the wall contained shards of pottery that allowed researchers to estimate the date at which the building was in use – the 10th century BCE. One of the shards was engraved with Hebrew writing saying “For the chief...” Mazar believes the shard, part of a jug, belonged to the royal baker.

Other jugs bore a seal saying “For the king” in Hebrew. Dozens of seals were discovered using a water sifting technique. The building was ravaged by fire, researchers said, but the jugs that were found at the site were the largest discovered in Jerusalem to date.

The discoveries were made during a months-long dig run by Hebrew University in cooperation with the Israel Antiquities Authority, East Jerusalem Development Ltd, and the Israel Nature and Parks Authority. The dig is sponsored by Daniel Mintz and Meredith Berkman of New York.

[Soldier4Christ]

1,300-year-old fragments of Hebrew Bible reunited after centuries

Two parts of an ancient biblical manuscript separated across centuries and continents were reunited for the first time in a joint display yesterday, thanks to an accidental discovery that is helping to illuminate a dark period in the history of the Hebrew Bible.

The 1,300-year-old fragments, which are among a handful of Hebrew biblical manuscripts known to have survived the era in which they were written, existed separately and with their relationship unknown, until a news photograph of one in 2007 caught the attention of the scholars who would eventually link them.

Together they make up the text of the Song of the Sea, sung by jubilant Israelites after fleeing slavery in Egypt and witnessing the destruction of the pharaoh’s armies in the Red Sea.

“The enemy said: ‘I will pursue, I will overtake, I will divide the spoil. My lust shall be satisfied upon them, I will draw my sword, my hand shall destroy them’,” reads the song, which appears in the Book of Exodus. “Thou didst blow thy wind, the sea covered them. They sank like lead in the mighty waters.”

An exhibit at Israel’s national museum dedicated to the Song of the Sea is now bringing together the two pieces.

One page of the song, known as the Ashkar manuscript, was previously housed in a rare books library at Duke University in North Carolina and was first displayed at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem in 2007.

That is when a photograph of the manuscript in a local newspaper caught the eye of two Israeli paleographers, Mordechay Mishor and Edna Engel, who noticed that it resembled a different page of Hebrew writing known as the London manuscript, presently part of the private collection of Stephan Loewentheil of New York.

“The uniformity of the letters, the structure of the text, and the techniques used by the scribe . . . it made it very clear to me,” Ms Engel said.

The relationship would not be so clear to a casual observer. The Ashkar manuscript has been so blackened by exposure to the elements that the text is all but invisible, while the London manuscript is legible and far better preserved. After close study of ultraviolet images, the experts were able to confirm that the texts were not only written by the same scribe, but were also part of the same scroll.

Scholars believe that the scroll was written around the 7th century somewhere in the Middle East, possibly in Egypt. It is not known how the two parts were separated or what happened to the rest of the manuscript.

The museum arranged to have the London manuscript brought to Jerusalem. The new exhibit chronicles how the Song of the Sea was written through various ancient manuscripts, from the 2,000-year-old Dead Sea Scrolls to the manuscript known as the Aleppo Codex, written nearly a millennium later.

The reunification of the two pieces adds an important link in the chain, showing how the writing of the Hebrew Bible evolved through the so-called “silent period — between the 3rd and 10th centuries — from which nearly no biblical texts survived. While in the Dead Sea Scrolls the song is arranged like prose, for example, in the newly reunited manuscript it is written like a poem, the same way it appears in the Hebrew Bible today.

The manuscripts are “filling the gap”, said the Israel Museum curator, Adolfo Roitman. “We can see we are dealing with a tradition that is still alive.”

The exhibit displays the manuscripts along with other depictions of the Song of the Sea from the museum’s permanent collection, including artistic renderings of the biblical passages in frescoes and Renaissance paintings and recordings of the song as it is chanted by Jews in different communities worldwide.

[nChrist]

Fascinating! - Thanks! - The big discoveries just keep coming!

Speaking of "BIG", I'm also thinking today about the news of massive earthquakes and tsunamis. Are these signs of Bible Prophecy yet to be fulfilled? Probably - but only God knows. "BIG" events appear to be more common by the day now. NO - I don't think that anything is just a coincidence. There appears to be a "BIG PICTURE" possibly coming into view.

[Shammu]

Lost segment of Jerusalem Talmud unearthed in Geneva

Researchers find whole missing Talmud sentence in collection of Cairo Genizah manuscripts which renders part of Tractate Bikkurim intelligible

Tzofia Hirshfeld
Published:    03.23.10

Manuscripts from the Cairo Genizah, a collection of ancient Jewish writings stored in an Egyptian synagogue, which were recently examined reveal new segments of the Talmud, Mishnah (oral Jewish laws) and rabbinic literature.

Among the scriptures was a whole sentence off the Jerusalem Talmud's Tractate Bikkurim which had been missing until now. The incorporation of the phrase in the Gemara renders the tractate chapter intelligible.

The manuscripts, which include 350 pages from the Cairo Genizah were stored for some 100 years in a tin can in the Geneva University, that no one knew existed. Greek papyrus experts recently discovered the tin can and employed the services of Hebrew Univesity's Prof. David Rosenthal of the Talmud Department.

Rosenthal recently published a book containing some of the newly discovered segments together with accompanying analyses.

"The Cairo Genizah included any tattered Jewish book, which means it contains a variety of literature. There were texts we didn't know existed and each one is important," Rosenthal explained.

"The Jerusalem Talmud we know is based on a single manuscript and therefore any ancient Genizah segment we find it extremely important. What we found in the Geneva collection is a sentence which didn't appear in the versions we know of."

Apart from the Talmud, the manuscripts found also contained other sources such as a piece from Rabbi Saadia Gaon's Sefer ha-Galui, as well as poetry and liturgy.

"The 20th century has given us two great discoveries. One is the Dead Sea Scrolls and the other is the unearthing of parts of the Cairo Genizah," Prof. Rosenthal said.

"The segments in the Genizah exposed us to many new writings we had no knowledge of, and equally as important – introduced us to different versions of known text. Therein lays the importance of the pages found in Geneva."

Lost segment of Jerusalem Talmud unearthed in Geneva

[nChrist]

Thanks for sharing Brother Bob!

The number and scope of the discoveries in just the last year is mind-boggling. You know that I don't believe it's a coincidence.