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The Lawspeaker
03-31-2011, 11:33 PM
Thank you Loki for puttng up the link in a post somewhere else but I think that it deserves it's own thread:


Jordan battles to regain 'priceless' Christian relics

http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/51881000/jpg/_51881831_book_464.jpg

They could be the earliest Christian writing in existence, surviving almost 2,000 years in a Jordanian cave. They could, just possibly, change our understanding of how Jesus was crucified and resurrected, and how Christianity was born.

A group of 70 or so "books", each with between five and 15 lead leaves bound by lead rings, was apparently discovered in a remote arid valley in northern Jordan somewhere between 2005 and 2007.

A flash flood had exposed two niches inside the cave, one of them marked with a menorah or candlestick, the ancient Jewish religious symbol.

A Jordanian Bedouin opened these plugs, and what he found inside might constitute extremely rare relics of early Christianity.

That is certainly the view of the Jordanian government, which claims they were smuggled into Israel by another Bedouin.

The Israeli Bedouin who currently holds the books has denied smuggling them out of Jordan, and claims they have been in his family for 100 years.

Jordan says it will "exert all efforts at every level" to get the relics repatriated.




As soon as I saw that, I was dumbstruck”

Philip Davies
Sheffield University


Incredible claims

The director of the Jordan's Department of Antiquities, Ziad al-Saad, says the books might have been made by followers of Jesus in the few decades immediately following his crucifixion.

"They will really match, and perhaps be more significant than, the Dead Sea Scrolls," says Mr Saad.

"Maybe it will lead to further interpretation and authenticity checks of the material, but the initial information is very encouraging, and it seems that we are looking at a very important and significant discovery, maybe the most important discovery in the history of archaeology."


http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/51881000/jpg/_51881828_closeup_3_304.jpg
The texts might have been written in the decades following the crucifixion.

They seem almost incredible claims - so what is the evidence?

The books, or "codices", were apparently cast in lead, before being bound by lead rings.

Their leaves - which are mostly about the size of a credit card - contain text in Ancient Hebrew, most of which is in code.

If the relics are of early Christian origin rather than Jewish, then they are of huge significance.

One of the few people to see the collection is David Elkington, a scholar of ancient religious archaeology who is heading a British team trying to get the lead books safely into a Jordanian museum.

He says they could be "the major discovery of Christian history", adding: "It's a breathtaking thought that we have held these objects that might have been held by the early saints of the Church."

He believes the most telling evidence for an early Christian origin lies in the images decorating the covers of the books and some of the pages of those which have so far been opened.

Mr Elkington says the relics feature signs that early Christians would have interpreted as indicating Jesus, shown side-by-side with others they would have regarded as representing the presence of God.

"It's talking about the coming of the messiah," he says.

"In the upper square [of one of the book covers] we have the seven-branch menorah, which Jews were utterly forbidden to represent because it resided in the holiest place in the Temple in the presence of God.

"So we have the coming of the messiah to approach the holy of holies, in other words to get legitimacy from God."



Location clues

Philip Davies, Emeritus Professor of Old Testament Studies at Sheffield University, says the most powerful evidence for a Christian origin lies in plates cast into a picture map of the holy city of Jerusalem.

"As soon as I saw that, I was dumbstruck. That struck me as so obviously a Christian image," he says.

"There is a cross in the foreground, and behind it is what has to be the tomb [of Jesus], a small building with an opening, and behind that the walls of the city. There are walls depicted on other pages of these books too and they almost certainly refer to Jerusalem."

It is the cross that is the most telling feature, in the shape of a capital T, as the crosses used by Romans for crucifixion were.

"It is a Christian crucifixion taking place outside the city walls," says Mr Davies.

Margaret Barker, an authority on New Testament history, points to the location of the reported discovery as evidence of Christian, rather than purely Jewish, origin.

"We do know that on two occasions groups of refugees from the troubles in Jerusalem fled east, they crossed the Jordan near Jericho and then they fled east to very approximately where these books were said to have been found," she says.

"[Another] one of the things that is most likely pointing towards a Christian provenance, is that these are not scrolls but books. The Christians were particularly associated with writing in a book form rather than scroll form, and sealed books in particular as part of the secret tradition of early Christianity."

The Book of Revelation refers to such sealed texts.

Another potential link with the Bible is contained in one of the few fragments of text from the collection to have been translated.

It appears with the image of the menorah and reads "I shall walk uprightly", a sentence that also appears in the Book of Revelation.

While it could be simply a sentiment common in Judaism, it could here be designed to refer to the resurrection.

It is by no means certain that all of the artefacts in the collection are from the same period.


http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/51881000/jpg/_51881836_book_304.jpg
The books were bound by lead rings.

But tests by metallurgists on the badly corroded lead suggest that the books were not made recently.

The archaeology of early Christianity is particularly sparse.

Little is known of the movement after Jesus' crucifixion until the letters of Paul several decades later, and they illuminate the westward spread of Christianity outside the Jewish world.

Never has there been a discovery of relics on this scale from the early Christian movement, in its homeland and so early in its history.

Source: BBC News (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-12888421) (29 March 2011)

The Lawspeaker
03-31-2011, 11:37 PM
I have mixed feelings about this. Yes.. it is part of their national heritage and it was probably written on what's now their oil soil but can we trust Muslims with pre-Islamic texts or any form of pre-Islamic heritage ?

Odoacer
04-02-2011, 07:29 PM
I don't think Jordan is all that much to worry about. But who knows? I've been following this story for the past several days & I don't understand how it's only 6 years later we're now learning of this discovery. I think there's some bartering or fueding going on between the Beduoins involved that may be the ultimate source of the dispute. Of course, the story's release does coincide with Eastertide ... typical.

Anyway, I'm not nearly so optimistic about these books' value for early Christian history as some of these scholars are. Really, metal codices from the first half of the 1st C. A.D.? I find that very difficult to believe. This talk about a crucifixion scene - we don't have any evidence of the use of the cross in Christian art before the 2nd C. And then this bizarre woman Barker wants to claim that these could be the sealed books referrenced in Revelation?! (Apart from the fact that John claims this is witnessed in a vision & the Greek word biblion almost certainly refers to a scroll ...) There's a lot of speculation without hardly any solid knowledge about what these books are, & meanwhile they're in the possession of some Israeli Bedouin who claims they're a family heirloom.

I'm sure whatever the outcome, though, it is a fascinating story.

Loki
04-02-2011, 09:23 PM
Anyway, I'm not nearly so optimistic about these books' value for early Christian history as some of these scholars are.

Most Christians are wary of new archaeological discoveries about early Christian life ... because it could be "harmful" to their accepted theology, if it proves some doctrine incorrect. That is the thing about established Christianity - it is so rigid in beliefs, there is no space for new revelations.

Beorn
04-03-2011, 03:07 AM
I'd have thought the fact she had a retarded blind child and assorted halfcastes from numerous relationships, not to mention a failed relationship with a cross dressing, mentally disturbed cage fighter, would have occupied her attention as it was.

It seems Jordan is game for any kind of publicity.

SwordoftheVistula
04-03-2011, 08:18 AM
Really, metal codices from the first half of the 1st C. A.D.? I find that very difficult to believe.

And then this bizarre woman Barker wants to claim that these could be the sealed books referrenced in Revelation?! (Apart from the fact that John claims this is witnessed in a vision & the Greek word biblion almost certainly refers to a scroll

Maybe she got the Scrolls from Revelation mixed up with the Disks of Mishaka (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Dragonlance_artifacts) from Dragonlance (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragonlance). They're both pretty good books of apocalyptic fantasy, fantastic wars, and of course dragons.

Odoacer
04-05-2011, 12:37 AM
Most Christians are wary of new archaeological discoveries about early Christian life ... because it could be "harmful" to their accepted theology, if it proves some doctrine incorrect. That is the thing about established Christianity - it is so rigid in beliefs, there is no space for new revelations.

Well, that all depends on which branch of Christianity you're talking about. Pentecostalism has plenty of room for new revelation. But I think anyone would be hard-pressed to discredit accepted Christian teaching with whatever are the contents of these books.

Odoacer
04-19-2011, 02:05 AM
Seventy metal books allegedly discovered in a cave in Jordan have been hailed as the earliest Christian documents. Dating them to mere decades after Jesus' death, scholars have called the "lead codices" the most important discovery in archaeological history, and leading media outlets have added fuel to the fire surrounding the books in recent weeks.

"Never has there been a discovery of relics on this scale from the early Christian movement, in its homeland and so early in its history," reported the BBC.

Slowly, though, more and more questions have arisen about the authenticity of the codices, whose credit-card-size pages are cast in lead and bound together by lead rings. Today, an Aramaic translator has completed his analysis of the artifacts, and has found what he says is incontrovertible evidence that they are fakes.


Click here (http://news.yahoo.com/s/livescience/20110411/sc_livescience/exclusiveearlychristianleadcodicesnowcalledfakes) for the full story.

Cato
04-19-2011, 03:21 AM
Maybe she got the Scrolls from Revelation mixed up with the Disks of Mishaka (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Dragonlance_artifacts) from Dragonlance (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragonlance). They're both pretty good books of apocalyptic fantasy, fantastic wars, and of course dragons.

I read the first read the Dragonlance trilogy about 20 years ago, back when I was a freshman in high school. Even after so long these are still very, very good books.