A New Dead Sea Scroll in Stone?
Bible-like Prophecy Was Mounted in a Wall 2,000 Years Ago
By Ada Yardeni
IF it were written on leather (and smaller) I would say it was another Dead Sea Scroll fragment—but it isn’t. It is written on gray-colored stone! And it is 3 feet high and 1 foot wide!
Otherwise, it strongly resembles in many respects what we have come to expect from fragmentary Dead Sea Scrolls. It is clearly dated by the shape and form of the letters (paleography) to sometime between the late first century B.C.E. and early first century C.E.—around the turn of the era, the same period as the scrolls. This dating is confirmed by the Hebrew of the text (post-Biblical and pre-Mishnaic).
One would expect that an inscription on stone would be engraved, as are the inscriptions on stone ossuaries (bone boxes) like the now-famous ossuary inscribed “James son of Joseph brother of Jesus.”a But this text is not engraved. It is written in ink, just like the Dead Sea Scrolls.
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One of the most innovative museum exhibitions of which I have heard is currently touring Canada and will later move on to China and Japan. It presents the archaeologist in his role of Sherlock Holmes, using his discoveries to piece together the human stories associated with them.
Mosaic in a Garden
In the latter part of the 1800s, when the French and Italians were building their empires in north Africa, they became aware of the importance of the ruins with which they were surrounded. Unfortunately this awareness was not always intelligent and there are ample records of Roman buildings being demolished so that their stones could be used to build roads or farmhouses.
Where Did the Temples Go?
Pula, in Istria, has a splendid collection of Roman remains - the Zlatna Vrata or Golden Gate, the sixth largest amphitheatre in the world, several splendid mosaics and a hill-top crowned with a maze of ruins that include a lovely theatre and various other buildings. At the bottom of the hill, however, is the most interesting relic of Roman times.
Hiding under Cana
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Ancient Scrolls Found
This fragment of animal skin is inscribed in Hebrew with verses from Leviticus. Photo / AP
JERUSALEM - A secretive encounter with a Bedouin in a desert valley led to the discovery of two fragments from a nearly 2,000-year-old parchment scroll - the first such finding in decades, an Israeli archaeologist said today.
The finding has given rise to hope that the Judean Desert may yield more treasures, said Professor Chanan Eshel, an archaeologist from Tel Aviv’s Bar Ilan University.
The two small pieces of brown animal skin, inscribed in Hebrew with verses from the Book of Leviticus, are from “refugee” caves in Nachal Arugot, a canyon near the Dead Sea where Jews hid from the Romans in the second century, Eshel said in an interview with The Associated Press. [Read the Full Article]
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Tablet On messiah and Resurrection
Tablet ignites debate on messiah and resurrection
By Ethan Bronner, Published: July 5, 2008
JERUSALEM: A three-foot-tall tablet with 87 lines of Hebrew that scholars believe dates from the decades just before the birth of Jesus is causing a quiet stir in biblical and archaeological circles, especially because it may speak of a messiah who will rise from the dead after three days.
If such a messianic description really is there, it will contribute to a developing re-evaluation of both popular and scholarly views of Jesus, since it suggests that the story of his death and resurrection was not unique but part of a recognized Jewish tradition at the time. The tablet, probably found near the Dead Sea in Jordan according to some scholars who have studied it, is a rare example of a stone with ink writings from that era — in essence, a Dead Sea Scroll on stone. [Go To The Article]
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Hiding under Cana
Salvage excavations conducted by the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) in Kfar Kana, in northern Israel, have uncovered an ancient city that dates back to the time of the Biblical kingdom of Israel. Excavations exposed a section of the city wall and remains of buildings. The IAA has dated the site to the 10th-9th centuries BC.