Part 1 of this Blog discussed how The Book of Nehemiah recounts the story of the return of the Jews to Jerusalem in 445/444 BC from their exile in Babylon, including details of how Ataxerxes, the Babylonian Emperor, issued orders allowing them to reoccupy and rebuild the city and its walls.  Skeptics had long dismissed the story as later day propaganda made up by the Jewish exiles in Babylon for political reasons. This line was maintained despite the stunning fact that in 1997, Mazar using references in The Book of Samuel located David’s Palace exactly where the Bible placed it.

However in November of 2007 a team of Israeli archaeologists again led by Eilat Mazar announced that they had now discovered Nehemiah’s Wall. Predictably the initial reaction of critics was that, “the evidence did not support the claim.”  However as this research continues the critics have been silenced because of the astounding level of correspondence between the descriptions in the Bible and the materials uncovered by the archaeologists.

Part 1 of this Blog reported the confirmation of the walls existence and in the location where the Bible placed it.  The archaeology has also confirmed the Biblical dates for the reconstruction of the wall.  Even the Biblical description of the quality (or lack there of) of the reconstruction was confirmed. However the discoveries contained some additional finds of truly breath taking significance. The Mazar team has amazingly recovered seal impressions with “names” and “scenes” of “people actually mentioned in the Bible.” “Shelomit” the daughter of Zerubbabel (appointed Jerusalem’s Governor by Ataxerxes the heir to the Judean throne mentioned in 1 Chronicles 3:19) is depicted and named on one of these seals. Two other clay seal impression were found one mentioned Gedalyahu and the other Yehuchal.  These two were court officials of King Zedekiah who reigned from 597 – 587 BC.  They are mentioned in Jeremiah 38:1-2.  Tellingly the two separate seals were found in close proximity. In Mazar’s own words, “How amazing these finds are!”

Reading the below source is strongly recommended because there was much more intriguing evidence uncovered that is not discussed here.

Source: “The Wall That Nehemiah Built”, by Eilat Mazar, Biblical Archaeology Review, March/April 2009, pp 24-33.

The Book of Nehemiah recounts the story of the return of the Jews to Jerusalem in 445-444 BC from their exile in Babylon.  Nehemiah recounts in detail how Ataxerxes, the Babylonian Emperor, issued orders that allowed them to reoccupy and rebuild the city and its walls.  Skeptics have long dismissed the story as later day propaganda made up by the Jewish exiles in Babylon.

In November of 2007 a team of Israeli archaeologists led by Eilat Mazar announced that they had discovered Nehemiah’s Wall. Predictably the initial reaction of critics was that, “the evidence did not support the claim.”  However, as this research continues the critics have been silenced because the level of correspondence between the descriptions in the Bible and the materials uncovered by the archaeologists has been astounding.

There is a continuing flood of evidence coming out of this research that will produce numerous books on the subject in the near future. The highlights of this research include the discovery of the destroyed pre-exilic wall that surrounded Jerusalem, which was ruined by the Babylonians.  One of the key questions that had to be answered about the wall was its reconstruction date.  The evidence from several different lines of research clearly puts the date when the reconstruction was preformed exactly were the Bible reports it, at about 445 BC (Nehemiah 2:11-15).

Nehemiah 3:1-32 goes on to describe how the wall was rapidly rebuilt in just 52 days by having different sections assigned to different families, guilds or settlement groups.  Several lines of evidence support this Biblical description.  These include pottery studies, architectural studies and other archaeological findings.  Scripture also indicates that the work was done in extreme hast to the ridicule of the Jews enemies (Nehemiah 4:1-2).  The archaeology also supports this claim of a rushed, high-pressure reconstruction and as would be expected, it is reflected in “shoddy workmanship.”

Christians and Jews alike believe that the Bible reports God working in human history.  Many critics claim that this is not true and that the Bible is not an historically accurate document.  Their primary evidence for this claim is their opinions.  These opinions drive their insistence on scientific evidence that provides corroboration of Biblical events independent of reports in Scripture.  This was not an unreasonable position 100 years ago or even 30 years ago. However as archaeological research progresses, it is becoming increasingly difficult, to the point of “willful blindness”, to maintain that the Bible is not a historically reliable document.

Source: “The Wall That Nehemiah Built”, by Eilat Mazar, Biblical Archaeology Review, March/April 2009, pp 24-33.

According to the “objective” media “religion in Europe is dead.” This “fact” has been gleefully touted, widely and frequently and occasionally is backed up by carefully selected statistics. This is also claimed to be a relatively new phenomena and is supposed to be heralding the eventual triumph of the “new atheism.” The general line of argument is that - Enlightenment Rationality, driven by secular education is finally displacing Christianity as the dominant philosophical view in Europe. European history is generally painted in the popular imagination as one where, the church dominated Medieval life, during the “Age of Faith” when church attendance was almost universal, even if it was involuntary.

Many Christians believe that Europe is now a spiritual desert and find its future prospect quite sad and depressing. Many also fear, and the media asserts that European secularism and atheism is a harbinger of things to come in the United States. For those who feel this way, I highly recommend “Discovering God” by Rodney Stark. Stark’s research holds many surprises. He shows that most prominent scholars of European religious history are in agreement that church attendance in Europe, especially in Northern Europe has always been very low and in many areas much lower than it is today. Many will find this surprising given the large number of churches and monasteries built all over Europe. As it turns out these beautiful cathedrals and churches went largely unused. The eminent English historian Keith Thomas, for example, states that during the Medieval period of British history, “It is problematical as to whether certain segments of the population at this time had any religion at all.” Alexander Murray reported the same situation existed in Italy stating that, “Substantial sections of Thirteenth-Century society hardly attended church at all.” Among those few who did attend it was often because “they were ordered to do so by their lord.”

This pattern changed little even after the Protestant Reformation. The Oxford Diocesan Visitations for 1738 reports that in its 30 parishes “fewer then 5% of the total population had taken communion” in that year. This situation around Oxford, the home of several great churches, was not unusual.

So what is the situation today? Has it gotten worse? Are there any Christians left in Europe? Those who are discouraged should view the University of Michigan research, funded in part by the National Science Foundation’s “Study of World Wide Rates of Religiosity, Church Attendance” - “Table of Adult Weekly Church Attendance” by country. It is true that in Northwestern Europe weekly church attendance is low, especially in Scandinavia but the picture in the rest of Europe is not nearly so bleak. For example:

Sweden 4%

Czech Republic 14%

Germany 14%

France 21%

Britain 27%

Austria 30%

Holland 35%

Belgium 44%

Italy 44%

Poland 55%

Ireland 84%

So the media’s version of religion in Europe is much the same as its reports of Mark Twain’s death - “greatly exaggerated.” Christians should take heart from these reports. The world is not being secularized. Europe is in fact not being deChristianized. Christian Faith in Europe is actually growing and is probably healthier then it has been in the past.

Sources:

“Discovering God: The origins of the Great Religions and the Evolution of Belief,’” by Rodney Stark, Harper-Collins, New York, 2007.

“Study of World Wide Rates of Religiosity, Church Attendance”, University of Michigan New Service: Current Archives, Dec 10, 1997 (17).

Biblical critics often claim that the New Testament has been changed over its 2000 year history. Some argue that these changes have been dramatic. Numerous popular books allege that these modifications have been done to perpetrate a variety hoaxes on a gullible humanity, ranging from the claim that Jesus never existed to claims that he was married and had children. No one has yet claimed that this material also conceals the fact that Jesus couldn’t get a date and surfed badly; however, my study of these claims is not exhaustive.

Over the years the assertion that the Bible has been altered over time has become increasingly difficult to maintain as researchers have located and authenticated older and older manuscripts and Biblical fragments. The oldest Biblical manuscript fragments now date to at least 125 AD and possibly as early as 65 AD. So the window of opportunity for Scriptural alteration has shrunken steadily. In reality even this truncated period of time when Scripture could have been altered is no longer tenable because copies of the Bible are not the only source of Scripture. As it turns out there are approximately 100,000 surviving letters and manuscripts from the first and second centuries which quote Scriptural passages and many of these surviving documents contain lengthy quotations.

A survey of these extra Biblical sources reveals that a staggering 98% of the passages in the New Testament can be found repeated in these documents by the second century AD. A good part of these sections of Scripture come to us from the first century. For example, Ignatius, the Bishop of Antioch and Clement, the Bishop of Rome (whom Paul probably mentioned in Philippians 4:3), quoted passages in their writings. Some of these letters can be dated as early as the 70’s AD.

Given this mountain of evidence, the claim that the Scripture we have today is different from the original is not credible. Persons making such claims simply are not aware of the mountain of evidence supporting the continuity of the Bible.

Sources:

“The Signature of God”, by Grant Jeffery, Frontier Research, Ontario, Canada, 2002.

“Introduction to New Testament Textual Criticism”, by J. Harold Greenlee, Ehrdmans, Grand Rapids, Michigan, 1964.

Isaiah 22:15-17 Castigates an official of King Hezekiah’s named Shebna ,who was in charge of the royal palace, for coveting a tomb worthy of a king. Isaiah tells us that Shebna carved out a fine tomb for himself on a high cliff in Jerusalem. This is a seemingly unimportant passage and never expected to be verified.

Now Shebna’s tomb has been found and just as the Bible tells us, the tomb is cut high on a cliff in Jerusalem’s Kidron Valley complete with his inscribed name. Additionally an inscribed seal indicating that Shebna was indeed a servant of the king has been found.

Critics often question the inerrancy of the Bible. Many claim that the books of the Old Testament were fiction, written in Babylon hundreds of years later then the time reported in the Bible and for political motives. However finding Shebna’s tomb provides one more piece in a growing multitude of concrete evidence of Biblical accuracy and reliability. If the Bible is faithful in the lesser details, surely we can trust it to be faithful in the greater truths.

Source: Biblical Archaeological Review May/June 2009, Vol 35, No. 3, pp 45-49

1. Biblical Reliability (Archeology)

Israel Finkelstein is the medias favorite archaeologist. He has earned this position through his tireless efforts to discredit the Bible. He is widely regarded as the world’s leading Biblical Minimalist. Minimalists can generally be described as “scholars” who assert that the Bible is nothing more than a collection of myths and political propaganda written centuries after the time period they claim to report. Despite the fact that dozens of Finkelstein’s claims have been shown by subsequent archaeological work to be wrong, the media still maintains him as their leading Biblical archaeological expert.

Among Finkelstein’s many assertions is the claim that the Edomite nation was a latter day creation of the Bible. The Bible records that Edomites were the descendants of Esau, Jacob’s twin brother, and that Edom was a dedicated enemy of early Israel. In all, Edom is mentioned 99 times in the Bible. However Finkelstein in his book “The Bible Unearthed” states that, “Edom did not exist as a distinct political entity until a relatively late period….there were no real kings and no state of Edom before the late Eighth Century BCE.” According to him the Bible’s record of Edom existing during and before the time of David in the Tenth Century BC is pure fiction.

Unfortunately for Finkelstein he has once again been shown to be wrong. The March- April edition of “Archeology” reports the discovery of an Edomite copper processing center in operation in the Tenth Century BC. The “industrial” level of production of copper in Edom at this early date carries with it large implications. “This means that there was a complex society in the area, known then as Edom, when scholars thought it was unoccupied.” Once again the Bible has proven reliable and a critic is left with egg on his face. One can only hope that at some point Finkelstein and the Minimalists will begin to lose credibility with the media.

2. Materialism’s Failure (Cognitive Studies)

Some Materialists have argued that people are born a blank slate upon which environment writes the personality, ergo, no free will. Therefore we are not responsible for our behavior because we have all been shaped by the environments we were raised in. Other Materialists argue that we are completely programmed genetically; therefore we have no free will and once again are not responsible for our actions. So the media treats the public to a stream of scientific claims which demonstrate one or the other, never bothering to note that these two causal agents are mutually exclusive.

In this vein the February issue of the “New Scientist” carried a major article entitled “Natural Born Believers”. The article notes that religious beliefs, as with language and music are a human universal, occurring in every culture on Earth. Studies are cited that demonstrate that children are born with an ability to conceive of God and are strongly pron to attribute design and purpose to the objects that constitute the world. They refer to this behavior as the brain’s inherent “Default to God”.

This finding should be no surprise to Christians. The Bible for example, tells us in Romans 2:15 “since they show that the requirements of the law are written on their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness…” A knowledge of God and morality being part of our natural born programing is no surprise. It seems to me that it is arguable that this discovery is strong evidence that humans are indeed the creation of a benevolent God.

However the authors of this article do not see God’s hand in this, they instead argue that this natural inborn belief in God must have originated through a random evolutionary process as a biological adaptation. They postulate an adaptive advantage for this natural tendency to believe in God.

Of course critics have pointed out that the appearance of any biological trait can be claimed to have had an adaptive advantage for some hypothetical ancient band of ancestors. Conveniently, such speculative claims are beyond scientific investigation. On a personal note I’d be curious to know how genetics could explain the fact that I personally was a strident, committed, orthodox, Marxist atheist until I was in my mid 30’s. Then with in the span of a couple of years became a committed Christian? What myriad of genetic adaptive advantages explains this phenomenon?

1. Setting the Record Straight - Islam Did not Save Western Science (Revisionist History)

Revisionist historians are working diligently at their task of creating an alternative history: one which suits their ideological and emotional fancies but does not always comport well with the record. For example, in recent years it has become a common place for revisionist historians and especially journalists to state that “Western science is deeply in debt to Islam.” They usually go on to claim that if it were not for the medieval Islamic scholars, the works of Aristotle, Plato and other great Greek Philosophers would have been lost to the modern world. Anthony Pagden’s new book “Worlds At War” is a good example of such claims.

The actual truth of the matter was much better explored by Nineteenth Century Historians such as the great Ernest Renan. Renan clearly showed that with the exception of Averrois all of the major “Islamic scholarly contributions” came from Last Remnant of Christian Persians who were either “converts” from Christianity or scholars raised in areas where there was a strong recent Christian history and a Christian ethos still persisted. (Who knows what a convert to Islam may actually be? It has often proved to simply be people at sword point who wanted to live.) And even in the case of Averrois working in Spain in the 1100’s, his works were later declared heretical by Islamists and ordered destroyed. They only survived because they had been translated into Latin and Hebrew by Jewish and Christian Scholars, actually reversing the direction of salvaging scholarly thought as claimed by modern revisionists.
Also the assertion that the works of the ancient Greeks only survived because of Arabic translations is an enormous distortion. It is true that some of the major works of Aristotle, such as the Organon had been translated into Latin but were lost in Western Roman lands during the “Dark Ages.” However, they were never lost in Greek translations in the Eastern Roman Empire (Byzantium). It was from these sources that the Arabs learned about Aristotle and Plato not the other way around. It is true that Western Scholars in some instances were first reintroduced to Plato and Aristotle by reading Arab translations of the Greek but the claim of revisionists that these works were “saved” by Islamic Scholars is simply not an accurate portrayal of what happened.

2. Shocking Contradictions Go Unrecognized by Darwinists (Darwinism Failure)

“Darwin Was Wrong: Cutting down the tree of life” read the cover of the January 24, 2009 issue of “The New Scientist.” Just one week later the cover of “National Geographic” read “What Darwin Didn’t Know.” While neither story is a repudiation of Darwinism they instead reveal the level of confusion and contradiction that Darwinists have learned to live with and pretend or some how manage not to notice.

For example the main thrust of the story in the “New Scientist” is that modern genetics has destroyed the Darwinist contention that all of the life forms on Earth are descended from one single original organism. “…the tree of life which Darwin used as an organizing principle and which has been a central tenant of biology ever since. Most biologists now accept that the tree is not a fact of nature - it is something we impose on nature…” However the “National Geographic” story is still pushing Darwin’s Tree of Life. It reports that, “When Darwin proposed his tree of life he was frankly guessing.” They however claim that modern genetic studies have proven Darwin’s descent from one common ancestor. “-modern Darwin’s don’t have to guess. They consult genetic scripture.”

The author of this article is correct about modern Biologists consulting genetics but unfortunately for this author that consultation of “genetic scripture” has shown that Darwin was wrong, not right. Perhaps what this author should have titled this “National Geographic” article “What I Don’t Know.”

3. The “Father” of anthropogenic Global Warming “Embarrassed NASA” (Misuse of Science)

James Hansen is widely regarded as the man who first sounded the “alarm on global warming.” Hansen is the Chief Climate Scientist at the NASA Goddard Institute of Space Studies. Hansen has made some of the most outlandish claims about the consequences of his alleged “man caused global warming.” Besides being Al Gores main science consultant on this issue he has also led the fight to silence critics and stifle discussion of alternative interpretations of the data. Over time Hansen has also been found to have fudge data, use the wrong data, misuse climate models and generally ignore or actively tried to suppress counter data. However none of this has tarnished is reputation with the “objective”,”main stream” media.

Now in a January 27, 2009 post on the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works website, Hansen’s former boss at NASA, Dr. John Theon, has openly broken with him, stating that Hansen had “Embarrassed NASA” with his claims about global warming. Theon was Chief of several NASA Headquarters Programs including Hansen’s and was responsible for all NASA weather and climate research. Theon now says that the claims of man caused global warming are not supported by the data and that the models being used to project climate catastrophe are flawed. “Thus there is no rational justification for using climate model forecasts to determine public policy.”

Hansen also claimed that the “Bush Administration was trying to muzzle him.” Theon points out that this is absolutely not true. First of all NASA has a policy against making forecasts of mans effect on climate change because the science for it is not yet good enough to do this. However despite this policy and despite the fact that the current science is not up to the task Hansen still gave over 1400 interviews on the topic while he worked for NASA and was never sanctioned for this massive violation of agency policy.

1. Reliability of Scripture - (Archeology)

Source - “Newly Discovered: A Fortified City From King David’s Time,” Biblical Archeology Review, Jan/Feb 2009 Vol. 35 No. 1 pp 38-43.

One of the most hotly contested issues of Biblical archeology is the transition between the periods known as Iron Age I and Iron Age IIa. In Biblical chronology this is the transition between the time of the Judges and the Monarchy and is dated to approximately 1000 BC. The Bible’s description of the early Israelite Monarchy under Kings David and Solomon is one of a prosperous, strong, medium sized, centralized state with a sophisticated government and sizable cities and towns.

However Biblical Minimalists have argued that contrary to what the Bible reports: Israel was really just a group of tribes living in the Judean highlands and David and Solomon (if they actually ever existed) were nothing more then a couple of local Tribal Chiefs. While recent archaeological discoveries have forced the Minimalists to abandon questioning the reality of David and Solomon’s existence, many additional discoveries are also forcing them to continue to retrench other assertions.

For example, recent excavations on a hill top site known as Khirbet Qeiyafa which overlooks the Elah Valley of David and Goliath fame (1 Samuel 17) have revealed a city dated to Iron Age IIa. Among other distinctives of an advanced urban culture, the site revealed a well-planned, fortified city whose center was surrounded by a 2200 foot long 13 foot wide wall, made of stone blocks weighing up to 5 tons each. It is believed that this is the city of Gov (mentioned to in 1 Samuel 17:52). Referring to the Minimalist argument, Biblical Archeology reports that, “Qeiyafa upsets this theory in spades” further Yossi Garfinkel the lead Archaeologist stated “The new excavations clearly indicate that already in the time of King David, urban cities were constructed in Judah.”

2. Materialism’s Failure (Consciousness Research - Mind Over Matter On A Grand Scale)

“The GCP Event Experiment: Design, Analytical Methods, Results,” Journal of Science Exploration, 22: 309, 2008.

If Materialism explains consciousness, then phenomena such as psychokinesis should not exist. If mind is nothing more then a set of physio-chemical reactions, then it should not be able to effect matter. Consequently mind over matter is a concept scoffed at by true Materialists. But are they correct? It appears not.

In a recent experiment conducted by the Princeton based Global Consciousness Project (GCP) a result was produced that should startle Materialists. The GCP attempted to see if “Periods of collective emotional or attentive behavior in a widely distributed population will correlate with deviations from expectations in a global network of Random Number Generators?” So, to test this hypothesis the GCP set up a global network of Random Number Generators (RNG) to see if their output was altered during times of emotional stress in large segments of the world population. The stressors included assassinations, bombings, natural disasters and other events which typically attract a lot of attention.

The experiment was run and to the surprise of some the results showed that when one of these stress events occurred, the random number generators were effected. The numbers they generated tended to deviate from the normal expectation of randomness. The GCP actually found a positive correlation between these large scale emotional stressors and the output of the RNGs.

This result should give Materialists pause for their narrow reductionist view of reality.

3. Beyond Darwinism - (Biology, Evolution)

“Charles Darwin’s Tree of Life is ‘Wrong and Misleading’, Claim Scientists” Telegraph.co.uk 1/23/09

Darwin’s Theory of Evolution rests upon two main mechanisms: unguided natural selection and unguided descent with modification. Christian theologians’ main problem with both of these concepts is the inclusion of the word “unguided”. Biological evolution with Natural Selection as the driver is coming under increasing criticism but that will not be dealt with here.

Darwin depicted “Descent With Modification” as a “Tree Of Life.” On this tree simple one- celled organisms gradually give rise to more complex organisms over time, eventually leading to fish, amphibians, reptiles, mammals and humans. The morphological record based on fossils seemed to roughly correspond to this chain of descent. However modern genetics, despite loud claims to the contrary, has not supported this model of evolution very well at all. In recent times some Evolutionary Biologists have even begun referring to the “Bush of Life” of the “Lawn of Life” instead of the “Tree of Life.”

Dissenting from Darwinism has been a risky business and few Biologists have been willing to gamble their careers and openly dare to criticize the Darwinian Tree of Life. However the evidence against it has become so unequivocal that some mainline, well-placed Biologists are beginning to state the obvious. This article in the Telegraph recounts some of this new honesty, quoting among others Dr. Eric Bapteste of Curie University in Paris, “Far a long time the Holy Grail was to build a tree of Life. We have no evidence that the tree is a reality.”

Thanks to National Geographic, it has now become common knowledge that “Judas wrote a Gospel” and that “Jesus asked Judas to betray him.” Just as the “Da Vinci Code” has made it common knowledge that “Jesus was married to Mary Magdalene and that they had children together.” If you doubt that these “facts” are now common knowledge, just ask a few teenagers about the subject and you will quickly learn some of the absolute nonsense they believe and are even being taught in school.

It is shocking but true. National Geographic allowed itself to become the vehicle for this type of scholarly abuse. The Biblical Archaeological Review among others have now blown the whistle on this fraud of which the National Geographic has made itself a part. In May of 2006 the Geographic ran a large article headlined on its cover as “The Judas Gospel.” The Judas Gospel is a document that surfaced in Egypt in the 1970’s. The facts around its discovery are somewhat murky but radiocarbon dating of the manuscript puts its origin between 220 and 340 AD. It is written in Coptic but is alleged to be a copy of a currently nonexistent earlier Greek Gnostic text. In the early days of Christianity one of the more popular heretical groups were the Gnostics. This group claimed to have “secret knowledge” about God and Jesus. The Nag Hammadi Codices, which also contained the apocryphal Gospel of Thomas, represent the largest collection of surviving writings of this sect. This Gospel of Judas is also a product of the Gnostics. These writings were known to be frauds since the second century and have been recognized as such by scholars, secular and Christian alike. This information was no secret to the staff of the National Geographic.

Despite knowing exactly what these documents were the Biblical Archeology Review points out that the Geographic staff went ahead and, not only misrepresented what these documents were, but shockingly went even further and reported clear mistranslations of these the documents to further cloud the issue. So the Geographic took a fraud and made it more fraudulent. Even Dan Rather and CBS would not have gone this far; at least CBS correctly reported what the fraudulent documents they used actually said.

According to the Biblical Archeology Review (BAR) the Geographic, “In the first instance, it pitches its enormous publicity machine to imply that the newly released Gospel of Judas contains what may be a historically reliable portrait of Judas Iscariot, not as he is portrayed in the New Testament as Jesus’ betrayer, but as a hero, the thirteenth disciple who is closer to Jesus than the other twelve.” Then in the National Geographic version, “Jesus asks Judas to betray him.” So they treat this known counterfeit as though it is a reliable historical source. As the BAR points out, “In fact , no scholar would treat it this way, including the National Geographic scholars themselves.” ‘”The idea that this new gospel might be an accurate historical report of the reason for Judas’s betrayal of Jesus is arrogant nonsense.”‘

As if this was not bad enough the Geographic goes further and mistranslates the documents in key areas. For example the Judas Gospel does not actually portray Judas as a hero. This is an invention of the Geographic. In their attempt to turn Judas from a villain into a hero they make key misrepresentations. A glaring case is seen in Judas 46:25-47:1. The Geographic has Jesus saying to Judas, “You will ascend to the holy generation.” In the document it says exactly the opposite, it actually says “You will not ascend to the holy generation.” There are numerous other examples that could be cited for those who are interested. You may want to begin with the source article listed below.

Why Is This Important

A big question that comes to mind is, why would the National Geographic lend itself to this abuse? Why would they engage in such fraud? The only purpose that seems apparent is an attempt to advance the materialist agenda by undermining Christian faith. Do any readers have another suggestion?

Source: “Judas Iscariot Among the Gnostics: What the Gospel of Judas Really Says”, Biblical Archeology Review, by Birger Pearson, May/June 2008, Vol 34, No. 3, pp 52-57.

By: Lawrence Vescera Ph.D.

Imagine the headlines if some group started tearing down the Great Pyramids at Giza or the Colusseum in Rome or the Great Wall of China! The world would be outraged. It would rightly be called a crime against humanity and a desecration of the world’s heritage. Indeed his type of reaction followed the Talibans destruction in 2001 of the 1700 year old Buddhas of Bamyan in Afghanistan. These monumental statues were dynamited by Islamic fundamentalists for violating Sharia law. The Taliban was condemned around the world for this outrage against an archaeological monument that belonged to the world not just to Afghanistan.

Yet a far worse archaeological outrage against the world’s heritage has been taking place and the world media has been predictably silent on this one. Since 1999 the Islamic authorities in charge of the Temple Mount in Jerusalem under the claim of “construction” has been destroying the archaeological remains on the Temple Mount. The Temple Mount currently has the Al-Aqsa Mosque sitting at its summit. This mosque previously was a Christian Church and before that the Roman Temple of Jupiter. However it originally was the site of the First and Second Temples of Solomon, the home of the Ark of the Covenant, Boaz Thrashing Floor and the place were Abraham took Isaac to make his sacrifice. The archaeological remains here go back to at least 2500 BC. This was where King Solomon and all of the following Kings of Judea worshipped. It is the Temple where Jesus and Paul and the other Apostles stood. It was the site of more history then can be imagined.

All construction on the site is supposed to be supervised by the Israeli Antiquities Authority (IAA), however in 1999 the Islamic religious trust known as the Waqf, which oversees the Al-Aqsa Mosque, began a construction project underneath the mosque. This has turned out to be a huge excavation covering 1600 square meters to a depth of 15 meters. The Waqf had over 200 dump truck loads of earth and archaeological remains removed and summarily dumped in a landfill. This was all done with no archaeological supervision. Later examination of this priceless material in the dump turned up a number of valuable finds. This massive excavation is also being carried out quite carelessly and consequently the eastern wall of the Temple mount is now bulging and in danger of collapse.

The thought of the information that has been lost to the world is staggering and saddening. Modern archaeological research on sites like the Temple Mount is performed with dental picks, half-inch fine haired brushes and microscopes. However once the dirt is moved, the data loss is almost complete. Also stories have been floating around for several years of major finds being made during this digging which were deliberately destroyed so that they would not fall into the hands of the Israelis. Such stories may or may not be true but sadly probably cannot be known for sure now.

The Israeli authorities permitted this atrocity to go on according to the Biblical Archaeological Review and other sources because they wanted to avoid the political consequences of intervening. If the IAA had attempted to stop the destruction there likely would have been riots accompanied by claims of religious persecution from the Muslims. The world’s media of course would have repeated this mantra thereby creating an international crisis for the Israelis at a particularly sensitive time. It was easier to just turn a blind eye to this because, “…the top priority of the State of Israel is quiet, not riots, even if the antiquities pay the price.”

Why This Is Important

This is a crime against science and against the world because it destroyed a unique archaeological resource, which would have added to knowledge of world prehistory and history. Christians and Jews are especially affected by this crime because it eliminated opportunities to find materials, which may have, provide independent verification for Biblical accounts or expanded the understanding on materials referenced in the Bible and other ancient texts. It also would undoubtedly have contributed to an understanding of this historical period.

Sadly, it is also a shining example of the continued failure of the “objective” medias’ coverage of world events. If you want to be informed, do not depend on the major news sources.

Source:

“Israeli Authorities Acquiescence in Destruction of Temple Mount Antiquities”, Biblical Archaeological Review, May/June, Vol 34, No. 3, p.22.

By Lawrence Vescera, Ph. D.