Have A Merry Festive Season

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"Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, 

during the reign of King Herod" 

- Matthew 2:1

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Science Now Assisting New Testament Narrative

The story:

Geologists say Jesus, as described in the New Testament, was most likely crucified on Friday, April 3, in the year 33.  The latest investigation, reported in International Geology Review, focused on earthquake activity at the Dead Sea, located 13 miles from Jerusalem. The Gospel of Matthew, Chapter 27, mentions that an earthquake coincided with the crucifixion:

“And when Jesus had cried out again in a loud voice, he gave up his spirit. At that moment the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. The earth shook, the rocks split and the tombs broke open.”

To analyze earthquake activity in the region, geologist Jefferson Williams of Supersonic Geophysical and colleagues Markus Schwab and Achim Brauer of the German Research Center for Geosciences studied three cores from the beach of the Ein Gedi Spa adjacent to the Dead Sea.

Varves, which are annual layers of deposition in the sediments, reveal that at least two major earthquakes affected the core: a widespread earthquake in 31 B.C. and a seismic event that happened sometime between the years 26 and 36.

The latter period occurred during “the years when Pontius Pilate was procurator of Judea and when the earthquake of the Gospel of Matthew is historically constrained,” Williams said.

More:

When data about the Jewish calendar and astronomical calculations are factored in, a handful of possible dates result, with Friday, April 3, 33, being the best match, according to the researchers.

In terms of the earthquake data alone, Williams and his team acknowledge that the seismic activity associated with the crucifixion could refer to “an earthquake that occurred sometime before or after the crucifixion and was in effect ‘borrowed’ by the author of the Gospel of Matthew, and a local earthquake between 26 and 36 A.D. that was sufficiently energetic to deform the sediments of Ein Gedi but not energetic enough to produce a still extant and extra-biblical historical record.”


“If the last possibility is true, this would mean that the report of an earthquake in the Gospel of Matthew is a type of allegory,” they write.

Williams is studying yet another possible natural happening associated with the crucifixion — darkness.  Three of the four canonical gospels report darkness from noon to 3 p.m. after the crucifixion. Such darkness could have been caused by a duststorm, he believes.

Would it be inappropriate to say "Jesus rocks!"?

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Something Old in the New Testament

What could be 'old' in the New Testament?

This

Romans 9:4 -

the people of Israel. Theirs is the adoption to sonship; theirs the divine glory, the covenants, the receiving of the law, the temple worship and the promises.

Or in the King James Version:

Who are Israelites; to whom pertaineth the adoption, and the glory, and the covenants, and the giving of the law, and the service of God, and the promises;

One of those "promises" surely includes the one, repeated often to Abraham, Yitzhak, Yaakov, Moshe and all of the congregation of Israel, that the Land of Israel, which is known as Judea and Samaria (Acts 8:1), is the Jewish national home.

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New Meaning to "Scrolling on the Internet"

Remember the Dea Sea Scrolls? Well, they aren't really 'dead'.

And watch out Internet, here they come:-

In a crowded laboratory painted in gray and cooled like a cave, half a dozen specialists embarked this week on a historic undertaking: digitally photographing every one of the thousands of fragments of the Dead Sea Scrolls with the aim of making the entire file — among the most sought-after and examined documents on earth — available to all on the Internet.

Here's a photo of an infrared scan by Rina Castelnuovo of The New York Times

Equipped with high-powered cameras with resolution and clarity many times greater than those of conventional models, and with lights that emit neither heat nor ultraviolet rays, the scientists and technicians are uncovering previously illegible sections and letters of the scrolls, discoveries that could have significant scholarly impact.

The 2,000-year-old scrolls, found in the late 1940s in caves near the Dead Sea east of Jerusalem, contain the earliest known copies of every book of the Hebrew Bible (missing only the Book of Esther), as well as apocryphal texts and descriptions of rituals of a Jewish sect at the time of Jesus. The texts, most of them on parchment but some on papyrus, date from the third century B.C. to the first century A.D.

Will the Arabs and antizionists claim it's another Jewish plot to prove that Judea preceded "Palestine"? Darn that Bible. Even the New Testament refers to the country and Judea and Samaria. Check out Acts 8:1 - "...all except the apostles were scattered throughout Judea and Samaria". Or, in Greek: ιουδαιας και σαμαρειας.

And thanks to Shaykh Prof. Abdul Hadi Palazzi, we know it is in the Quran as well, "Night Journey," chapter 17:100-104:

"Pharoah sought to scare them [the Israelites] out of the land [of Israel]: but We [Allah] drowned him [Pharoah] together with all who were with him. Then We [Allah] said to the Israelites: 'Dwell in this land [the Land of Israel]. When the promise of the hereafter [End of Days] comes to be fulfilled, We [Allah] shall assemble you [the Israelites] all together [in the Land of Israel]."(*)

Read Arabic?




(*)
But to be fair, the Hizbullah has a different take:

Allah saying "We shall gather you altogether" doesn't mean it's their right or privilege. He is just saying it is going to happen. Their gathering might be nothing but a way to punish them. Anyway, the majority of them never believed in Allah's messengers(as). All they did was rejecting the truth and killing prophets and those who believed. They never did anything good to deserve any land as a gift from Allah.

And what good have the Hizbullah ever done, to anyone?