…. Lessons from Queen Esther and the Queen of Heaven
Pilgrims to the Manger: If we feel the attacks of the Devil, let us turn to Mary and remember that we have a queen who is just like us, advocating for us in the presence of the King.
Queen Esther is an Old Testament figure who reminds us of Our Lady. And in symbolizing the Virgin Mary, she also symbolizes the Church (cf Lumen Gentium part 3).
The king delights in Esther above all the others, and chooses her to be queen. But he doesn’t know that he’s choosing a woman from among the Chosen People.
We can think of Esther as one of us — the best and most beautiful among us, sure, but still one of us. That’s what Mary is, too. A “mere” human, like us. Close and understanding.
Shutterstock
Thanks to Esther being so close to the king, she is able to save her people from Haman, starting with her uncle Mordecai.
“Perhaps you have come to royal dignity for just such a time as this,” Mordecai tells Esther.
If Esther shows us the role of Mary and the Church, Haman shows us the role of Satan.
When Haman saw that Mordecai did not bow down or do obeisance to him, Haman was infuriated.
But he thought it beneath him to kill only Mordecai. So, having been told who Mordecai’s people were, Haman plotted to destroy all the Jews, the people of Mordecai, throughout the whole kingdom of Ahasuerus.
Pope Francis likes to remind us that Satan glories in persecuting God’s people: “The Devil is behind every persecution, both of Christians and all human beings,” the Pope says. And when we feel his attack, we should go to our Mother Mary, he recommends.
Esther and Mordecai are supported by the prayer of the whole people, and defeat Haman and his conspiracies.
As we enter into the last days of this short Advent, let us draw two lessons from Queen Esther.
First, let us be united with our queen in prayer for all our people, all the little ones of every place who need the King’s mercy and protection. Let us be united with the universal Church in prayer for all the needs of the world.
And secondly, let us trust that our queen will obtain for us all that we need. If we feel the attacks of the Devil, let us turn to Mary and remember that we have a queen who is just like us, advocating for us in the presence of the King. And like the king promised Esther, we can hear God say to Mary, “What is your petition, Queen Esther? It shall be granted you.”
Moreover, St. Justin Martyr had, even earlier than the
above-mentioned Church Fathers, espoused the view of the
Greek philosophers borrowing from the biblical Hebrews.
In previous articles I have supported
St. Clement of Alexandria’s view that Plato’s writings took their inspiration from the Hebrew Moses, and
St. Ambrose’s belief that Plato had learned from the prophet Jeremiah in Egypt; a belief that was initially taken up by St. Augustine, who added that
Greek philosophy generally derived from the Jewish Scriptures.
And, though St. Augustine later retracted his acceptance of St. Ambrose’s view, realising that it was chronologically impossible for Jeremiah (c. 600 BC) to have met Plato anywhere, considering the c. 400 BC date customarily assigned to Plato, I have, on the other hand, looked to turn this around by challenging the conventional dates.
From the Book of Jeremiah we learn that Jeremiah and Baruch went together to Egypt. So this Baruch, whom tradition also identifies as Zoroaster, would be a possible candidate to consider for St. Ambrose’s ‘Plato who was contemporaneous with Jeremiah in Egypt’.
Again, much of Plato’s most famous work, TheRepublic,with its themes of justice and righteousness, could have arisen, I suggest, from the intense dialogues of the books of Jeremiah and Job of identical themes.
Saint Justin Martyr
Moreover, St. Justin Martyr had, even earlier than the above-mentioned Church Fathers, espoused the view of the Greek philosophers borrowing from the biblical Hebrews. And Justin Martyr too, had, like Plato, written an Apology,in Justin’s case also apparently (like Plato) in regard to a martyrdom. So we read:
Plato Stole his ideas from Moses: True or False ….
The belief that the philosophers of Greece, including Plato and Aristotle, plagiarized certain of their teaching from Moses and the Hebrew prophets is an argument used by Christian Apologists of Gentile background who lived in the first four centuries of Christians.
My comment: I would like to take this a stage further.
that the supposed Athenian statesman and lawgiver, Solon, was in fact a Greek appropriation of Israel’s wise lawgiver, Solomon, so do I believe that the primary ‘Ionian’ and ‘Greek’ philosophers of antiquity were actually Greek appropriations of Hebrew sages and prophets.
Regarding the supposed “Father of Philosophy”, Thales, for instance, see my article:
Re-Orienting to Zion the History of Ancient Philosophy
Three key figures who presented this thesis are Justin Martyr “The most important second century apologist” {50. Grant 1973}, Titus Flavius Clemens known as Clement of Alexandria “the illustrious head of the Catechetical School at Alexandria at the close of the second century, was originally a pagan philosopher” (11, Robert 1857) and is renowned as being possibly the teacher of Origen. He was born either in Alexandria or Athens {Epiphs Haer, xxii.6}. Our final giant who supports this thesis is Eusebius of Caesarea known as the father of Church history. Each of these in their defense of the Christian faith presented some form of the thesis that the philosophers of Greece learned from the prophets of Israel. Our interest in this paper is on the arguments of the earliest of these writers, Justin Martyr. He represents the position of Christian apology in the middle of the second century, as opposed to the later Clement of Alexandria and the even later Eusebius of Caesarea.
In light of the stature and the credibility of these three Church Fathers even if the idea that Plato learned from Moses seems far fetched we would do well to take a closer look at the argument and the evidence presented by such men of stature. Justin was a philosopher who came from a pagan background. He issued from Shechem in Palestine. He was a marvelous scholar in his own right well read and well qualified to make informed judgments in the arena of philosophy.
Our purpose is to briefly look at the theses presented by Justin Martyr and to try to discern the plausibility of the thesis.
Justin Martyr and the line Plato took from Moses.
My comment on this section: If the great Plato is to be restored as a (perhaps composite) biblical sage, along the lines of characters e.g. my article:
as I think eventually he must be, then this would be not so much a case of Greeks plagiarising the Scriptures as of a biblical wise man (the original Plato) keeping alive the Mosaïc Law and Tradition.
The article continues with a biography of Justin Martyr:
Justin Martyr was a prolific second century Apologist. He was born in Flavia Neapolis (Shechem) in Samaria. Well known for the local Samaritan temple on Mount Gerizim and a temple built by Hadrian to Zeus Hypsistos. He later passed through Stoicism and the way of Aristotle’s disciples the Peripatetics and was rejected as unqualified to study Pythagoreanism and finally he met a Platonist with whom he advanced in his studies. To him the goal of Platonism was “the vision of God”. One day he met a Christian on the beach and was converted to the faith. He did not become a priest or bishop but took to teaching and defending the faith.
Text
He wrote many works and many more bear his name. However modern scholarship has judged that of the many works that bear his name only three are considered genuine. These are 2 Apologies and the Dialogue with the Jew Trypho.
They are preserved in one manuscript of the year 1364 (Cod Par, gr. 450).
Language
Justin wrote in Greek, and right in the middle of the period of philosophy called Middle Platonism.
The book in which he outlines his thesis that Moses and the prophets were a source for the Greek Philosophers is his first Apology. It is dated to 155-157 BC and was addressed to “The Emperor Titus Aelius Hadrianus Antonius Pius Caesar Augustus, and the sons Verissimus, philosopher, philosopher, and Lucius” Grant (52, 1973).
My comment: I would seriously contest these conventional dates for Imperial Rome, given my view that the so-called ‘Second’ Jewish revolt against Rome was (at least in part) the actual Maccabean revolt against the Seleucid Greeks.
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It is here that Justin makes a most interesting and intriguing statement
rallying Plato to the side of Moses and Isaiah, in the eyes of the son of the
Emperor whom he calls philosophers.
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The article continues with the writings of Justin Martyr:
Context
Grant (1973) believes the reason which triggered the Apology was the martyrdom of Polycarp in 156 AD and the injustice of it during the bishopric of Anicetus. Even as this martyrdom and its report may have spurred Justin on to write so it had been that it was on seeing the fortitude of the Christian martyrs which had disposed him favorably towards the faith (Ap 2.12.1). ….
In the Apology 1 Justin gives the reason for his writing
“I, Justin, the son of Priscus and grandson of Bacchius, natives of Flavia Neapolis in Palestine, present this address and petition on behalf of those of all nations who are unjustly hated and wantonly abused; my self being one of them” (Apology 1 chap).
The Apology 1 is divided into 60 chapters. The translation we are using is that of the Ante Nicene Fathers and can be seen at www.ccel.org
The topics covered are many. He starts in chapter 2 by demanding justice, he requires that before the Christians are condemned they should be given a fair trial to see if they have committed any crimes or not. They should not be condemned merely for being Christian. He covers many subjects including: the accusation Christians were Atheists, faith in God; the Kingdom of Christ; God’s service; demonic teachings; Christ’s teachings and heathen analogies to it; non Christian worship; magic; exposing children, the Hebrew prophets and their prophecies about Christ, types of prophetic words from the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. This brings us to about chapter 38.
At this point Justin begins to cover the issue of determinism and free will. He argues that although the future was prophesied it does not mean everything is determined according to fate and man has no responsibility for he has no choice. Rather he points to Moses revealing God’s choice to Adam “Behold before thy face are good and evil: choose the good”. (Apol 1 44) And he quotes lsaiah’s appeal to Israel to wash and be clean and the consequences of doing so or not doing so. The consequences of disobedience are that the sword would devour Israel. Justin picks up on the statement regarding the sword and argues that it is not a literal sword which is referred to but “the sword of God is a fire, of which those who choose to do wickedly will become the fuel” (Apol 1 44). Justin having appealed to Moses and Isaiah as a warning to the Roman rulers now appeals to one with whom they are more familiar, Plato the philosopher, to support his case that man is free to choose good or evil.
It is here that Justin makes a most interesting and intriguing statement rallying Plato to the side of Moses and Isaiah, in the eyes of the son of the Emperor whom he calls philosophers.
And so, too, Plato, when he says, “The blame is his who chooses, and God is blameless” took this from the prophet Moses and uttered it.
For Moses is more ancient than all the Greek writers. And whatever both philosophers and poets have said concerning the immortality of the soul, or punishments after death, or contemplation of things heavenly, or doctrines of the like kind, they have received such suggestions from the prophets as have enabled them to understand and interpret these things. And hence there seem to be seeds of truth among all men; but they are charged with not accurately understanding [the truth] when they assert contradictories.
…. He appears to be making the claim that Plato who has “exerted a greater influence over human thought than any other individual with the possible exception of Aristotle” (Demos, 1927.vi) was dependent for his understanding of freewill and responsibility on Moses. The saying “the blame is his who chooses, and God is blameless (Aitia helomenou Theos d’ anaios) {Joann. Mdcccxlii, 224}” was taken from Moses by Plato and uttered it {eipe}”.
[End of quote]
Plato and Job
The combined story of Job and his alter ego, Tobias, son of Tobit
And, as already implied, I believe that this biblical story has also had a huge influence upon ancient (supposedly Greco-Roman) philosophy, which, however, significantly alters the original version. For, whilst there can be a similarity in thought between Plato and, for example, the Book of Job, the tone may be quite different. Plato’s Republic, and his other dialogues such as Protagoras and Meno, brilliant though they may be in places, when compared with the intense atmosphere of the drama of the Book of Job, come across sometimes as a bit like a gentlemen’s discussion over a glass of port.
W. Guthrie may have captured something of this general tone in his Introduction toPlato.Protagorasand Meno (Penguin, 1968), when he wrote (p. 20, emphasis added):
… a feature of the conversation which cannot fail to strike a reader is its unbroken urbanity and good temper.The keynote is courtesy and forbearance, though these are not always forthcoming without a struggle. Socrates is constantly on the alert for the signs of displeasure on the part of Protagoras, and when he detects them, is careful not to press his point, and the dialogue ends with mutual expressions of esteem. ….
[End of quote]
Now compare this gentlemanly tone with Job’s ‘How long will you torment me, and break me in pieces with words? These ten times you have cast reproach upon me; are you not ashamed to wrong me?’ (19:1-3), and Eliphaz’s accusations of the holy man: ‘Is not your wickedness great? There is no end to your iniquities[which supposed types of injustice on the part of Job Eliphaz then proceeds to itemise]’ (22:5).
In Plato’s dialogues, by way of complete contrast, we get pages and pages of the following sort of amicable discussion as taken from The Republic (Bk. 2, 368-369):
[Socrates] ‘Justice can be a characteristic of an individual or of a community, can it not?’
[Adeimantus] ‘Yes’.
[Socrates] ‘And a community is larger than an individual?’
[Adeimantus] ‘It is”.
[Socrates] ‘We may therefore find that the amount of justice in the larger entity is greater, and so easier to recognize. I accordingly propose that we start our enquiry …’.
“When a reporter asked [Gandhi] what he thought of Western civilisation,
he famously replied: ‘I think it would be a good idea’.”
Western civilisation. What is it? Where is it? And do we really need it?
Various politicians, journalists and teachers in Australia today are desperately trying to defend so-called ‘Western Civilisation’. Right at the forefront of these is senior research fellow at the Australian Catholic University, Dr. Kevin Donnelly: “Students are taught about the dark side of Western civilisation … [but] indigenous culture and history are always positive”.
Some of these have been calling for – in the face of Islamic terrorism and left-wing subversion – a return to rationalism, to what they consider to be ‘the values of the Enlightenment’.
The former Prime Minister of Australia, Tony Abbott, has been one of these:
“All of those things that Islam has never had — a Reformation, an Enlightenment, a well-developed concept of the separation of church and state — that needs to happen,” he told Sky News. ….
“All cultures are not equal and, frankly, a culture that believes in decency and tolerance is much to be preferred to one which thinks that you can kill in the name of God, and we’ve got to be prepared to say that”.
No one is permitted to “kill in the name of God”, that is for sure.
However, militant Islam is not the only culture that can perpetrate mass killings.
What about the terrorism of the millions of abortions being performed in the West?
“New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo is under fire from faith leaders after he signed a bill into law that legalizes abortion up until birth in many cases. The Democratic governor directed the One World Trade Center and other landmarks to be lit in pink … to celebrate the passage of “Reproductive Health Act“.” “Our governor and legislative leaders hail this new abortion law as progress. This is not progress”, the bishops wrote. “Progress will be achieved when our laws and our culture once again value and respect each unrepeatable gift of human life, from the first moment of creation to natural death”.
Ours is not always “a culture that believes in decency and tolerance”?
Pope Francis has also denounced gossip as ‘form of terrorism’: ‘The tongue kills like a knife,’ the pontiff told Catholic faithful at an audience in the Vatican. Gossip, too, can waste people, though it is obviously a more subtle form of killing than when one shouting “Allahu Akbar” (Arabic: الله أكبر), and wielding a serrated knife and the Koran, beheads an ‘infidel’ in our very streets.
But even that is too subtle for the left-wing media that cannot detect any sort of motive in this.
Another Enlightenment favouring, Western civilisation defender is Mark Latham, a former leader of the Australian Labor Party.
Latham regards the Enlightenment as a deliverance from the “primitive superstitions” of previous centuries and the arrival at such knowledge as “could give mankind a comprehensive mastery over nature”:
THE RADICAL LEFT-WING ATTACK ON WESTERN CIVILISATION
…. I worry that Australia is sleep walking its way to disaster. Political correctness, identity politics and cultural Marxism have run through our institutions at an astonishing rate. There’s not enough public awareness of where these changes have come from and what they mean for the future. Media headlines focus on each controversy in isolation. But we need to understand the overall pattern.
The Left has launched a cultural invasion of Australia based on the concept of ‘fluidity’. Everything we thought was fixed in our understanding of the world – such as recorded history, science, national allegiance, gender, sexuality and even the words of everyday language – is now said to be open for reinterpretation and revision.
Under the influence of post-modernism, the Left claims these basic forms of knowledge are actually ‘capitalist constructs’, the equivalent of brainwashing to make us support the existing social and political order. In pushing this line through our institutions, traditional Australian values are being lost. We are no longer a nation of free speech and meritocracy, the land of the fair go.
Yes, our politics has changed, our culture is under siege and many Australians are thoroughly confused by what’s happening around them.
But it’s even worse than that. The Leftist drive for ‘fluidity’ is actually an attack on our civilisation. It’s an attempt to wind back many of the gains of the 17th and 18th century Enlightenment.
If you take one thing away from reading this article, hopefully this is it. My research and writing aims to alert as many Australians as possible to the political challenges facing Western civilisation: to see the overall, to understand the seriousness of the situation. A clear and present danger has emerged. We can no longer afford to take the advantages of our civilisation for granted.
Coming out of the Middle Ages, a new era of reason and scientific progress propelled Western nations to unprecedented levels of economic development, consumer comfort and advanced health care and education. The primitive superstitions of earlier centuries were left behind, replaced by a conviction that knowledge drawn from experience and evidence could give mankind a comprehensive mastery over nature.
These advances made important social goals possible. It was hoped that democratic government would sweep away feudal hierarchies and entrench the universal freedoms of political expression, association and participation. So too, the welfare state was designed to give people freedom from want, illness and ignorance. A new age of technology and creativity had the potential to uplift the quality of work, community and intellectual life – a genuine enlightenment.
Everywhere we look in Australia today, these values and gains are under attack. Reason and rationality are being lost, replaced by the march of ‘fluidity’. ….
[End of quote]
Both Western Civilisation and the Enlightenment might prove somewhat hard to define, or to pinpoint.
For example, when, precisely, did the Era of the Enlightenment begin?
There is little consensus on the precise beginning of the Age of Enlightenment.
And, again, is Australia a Western civilisation?
Certainly not geographically speaking, at least, as we live in an Asian part of the world.
Almost every time that we read the newspaper or listen to the news on TV or radio we see or hear the West mentioned. Until a few years ago its mention was apt to be in connection with some military initiative in opposition to the Soviet Union and her allies. Currently it is more likely to be about some economic problem or program. And although the news media seldom take the trouble to define the word West, it is not difficult to figure out what they mean by it. Unfortunately, for them the term signifies no more than a political or economic bloc, the United States, the European Community, some other European countries, such as Scandinavia or Austria, and a few countries in Asia or the Pacific such as Australia and New Zealand. And because the media’s notion of the West is repeated so often, many of us begin to see the West chiefly in their terms: the West is nothing but a political or economic bloc committed to certain things, chiefly democracy and freedom, conceived principally as freedom for moneymaking and pleasure seeking, and, till recently, organized to defend itself against another bloc of nations that wished to destroy or inhibit that freedom. Of course there is occasionally some mention of “historical values” or such, that are seen to be at the bottom of the unity of the West, but in our media’s conception these are so ethereal as to mean little besides an adherence to representative democracy and a minimum of restraints on conduct. With abortion legal in nearly every one of these countries, they surely do not include a respect for human dignity! Because the public and civic life of Western nations shows no deeper unity than a superficial political and economic likeness, most publicists and commentators assume that that is all there is to the West, at least today. It is merely a group of nations with some sort of common historical background, but sharing nothing important now but a commitment to preserving its freedom for materialistic and hedonistic pursuits. But is this all there is to the West? Is it only a grouping of nations seeking to preserve the material goods and worldly pleasures they possess? Although I think that many Catholics in the West know that our civilization is much more than this, yet we too are affected by the media’s conceptions and for that reason are apt to forget just what Western culture really is and what gives it its unity. For example, many of us follow the common practice of classifying Latin America and such eastern European nations as Poland and Hungary as non-Western, clearly an historical absurdity. In this essay, then, I intend to set forth some of the basis for the West’s historic unity, a unity that is still important for us today. How do we discover the ultimate basis of the unity of the West? Jacques Maritain captured the essence of the West in one sentence, when he wrote that the Greek people “may be truly termed the organ of the reason and word of man as the Jewish people was the organ of the revelation and word of God.” [An Introduction to Philosophy, London: Sheed and Ward, 1947, p. 33]. The West then is nothing but a rich fusion of the word of God and the word of man, all that our culture has received from God by way of revelation and all that we have received by way of the exercise of reason. The former, the theological content of Western culture, comes from the revelation God made to the Chosen People—to Abraham, Moses and others under the Old Law, culminating in the coming of God himself as man. And though the final form of this theological content is in Catholic doctrine, its origins lie in the Old Testament covenant of God with the Hebrew people. …. [End of quote]
Thomas Storck’s concise definition of “the theological content of Western culture”, originating in the Old Testament and reaching its fulfilment in the New Testament, makes a clear statement. Not so Dr. Kevin Donnelly’s uncharacteristic lapse when he, on one occasion, completely by-passes the Old Testament.
His summation of the origins of Western democracy – after having noted that all cultures have their own religion – is this: “In Western liberal democracy, such as Australia, it is Christianity and the New Testament”.
Yet how many Catholics would not bat an eyelid when reading or hearing such a statement? Might some of these be perfectly content with just a New Testament, not appreciating that the ‘Jesus Christ’ they purport to follow was utterly steeped in Old Testament culture?
I intend to give examples of this Old Testament cultural influence in the course of this article.
The Rich Young Man
Pope John Paul II dedicated a whole chapter to this famous Gospel encounter (CHAPTER I – “TEACHER, WHAT GOOD MUST I DO…?” (Mt 19:16) – Christ and the answer to the question about morality) in his rousing encyclical (6th August, 1993), Veritatis Splendor (“The Splendour of Truth”), a chapter essentially metaphysical, about “the absolute Good”, and also “moral theology”:
7. “Then someone came to him…“. In the young man, whom Matthew’s Gospel does not name, we can recognize every person who, consciously or not, approaches Christ the Redeemer of man and questions him about morality. For the young man, the question is not so much about rules to be followed, but about the full meaning of life. This is in fact the aspiration at the heart of every human decision and action, the quiet searching and interior prompting which sets freedom in motion. This question is ultimately an appeal to the absolute Good which attracts us and beckons us; it is the echo of a call from God who is the origin and goal of man’s life. Precisely in this perspective the Second Vatican Council called for a renewal of moral theology, so that its teaching would display the lofty vocation which the faithful have received in Christ,14 the only response fully capable of satisfying the desire of the human heart.
The suggestion will be proposed here that the response by Jesus to the young man is only properly intelligible when considered in the context of the Old Testament and Mosaïc Law – Moses invariably being Jesus’s very starting-point for explaining “himself” (Luke 24:27): “And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself”.
This is not necessarily the typically Catholic approach.
Quite recently a very good Dominican priest – one who often manages to explain in simple fashion the meaning of somewhat obscure Gospel passages – preached a sermon on this text in which he greatly lamented the young man’s turning away from Jesus as a sadly missed opportunity in the young man’s life journey with the virtual implication that this was when he stepped right away from the path of salvation.
What that explanation misses, just to begin with, is that the young man was habitually a fervent keeper of God’s commandments (Matthew 19:20).
The following more biblically-based article, from Cristadelphianbooks, which even goes so far as to suggest an identification for the rich young man, seems to be a far more preferable interpretation of the encounter:
When Jesus spoke of the difficulty for the rich to find a place in the kingdom of God, his disciples, utterly astonished, asked: “Who then can be saved?”
As they saw it, if a man with all the advantages of ease and comfort could not prove himself worthy of everlasting life, what hope was there for those beset with all the cares of a life of toil and anxiety? And was not material prosperity the outward sign of God’s blessing? So surely the scales were loaded in favour of the rich.
Jesus answered: “With men it is impossible (that the rich should be saved), but not with God: for with God all things are possible”- which surely means that God has the power to save even the rich whose wealth is actually such a big spiritual handicap.
Honesty
But this rich man had chosen to go away from Jesus, and so this saying that God has the power to save even the rich was left hanging in mid-air, so to speak-unless He proceeded to do just that with this earnest young man who said: ‘No, you are asking too much, Jesus. I cannot do what you require of me.’ In this fact, then, there is surely good presumptive evidence that ultimately God did save this rich man, in vindication of Christ’s assertion that God can save even a rich man in love with his riches.
The ominous saying with which this incident concluded is also worth pondering here: “many that are first shall be last; and the last first.” The first phrase was a palpable warning to the privileged twelve, the one of whom (Mk.14:10 RVm.) was to become last of all. But who was the last one who was to be given a place among the first?
It is to be noted that, whatever else, this would-be disciple did not lack honesty. Unlike so many of Christ’s more recent disciples, he did not somehow manage to persuade himself that “Sell all that thou hast and distribute to the poor” really meant something else less exacting and a great deal easier of achievement. When a man is frank and honest regarding the demands of Christ there is hope for him, even though his response be inadequate. But when he succeeds in throwing dust in his own eyes so as to persuade himself that he is fulfilling the Lord’s commands, when really he is doing nothing of the sort, he is in dire spiritual danger.
A Levite
It makes an intriguing study in circumstantial evidence to bring together the various lines of argument which support, without completely proving the conclusion that this young man was Barnabas, who later became Paul’s companion in travel.
First, it is possible to go a long way towards establishing that this rich ruler was a Levite (as, of course, Barnabas was; Acts 4:36).
Many readers of the gospels have mused over the fact that Jesus quoted to his enquirer the second half of the Decalogue-those commandments which have to do with duty to one’s neighbour. Why did he not quote the others (more important, surely) which concern a man’s duty to God? But if indeed this enquirer were a Levite, then by virtue of his calling, the first half of the Decalogue would find fulfilment almost as a matter of course.
It is also worth noting perhaps – though not too much stress should be put on this – that apparently it was when Jesus was near to Jericho that the rich young ruler came to him; and at that time, as the parable of the Good Samaritan shows, Jericho was a Levitical city.
Much more emphatic is the fact that apparently Jesus did not require of other disciples that they “sell all, and give to the poor, and come and follow him.” Once again, if the man were a Levite, all is clear, for “Levi hath no portion nor inheritance with his brethren; the Lord is his inheritance ” (Dt.10:9).
Thus a Levite with a large estate was a contradiction in terms, and when Jesus bade him be rid of this wealth, he was merely calling him back to loyalty to other precepts in the Law of Moses. Barnabas, it is interesting to observe, was a Levite of Cyprus. So apparently the letter of the Law was observed by his owning no property in Israel. The “inheritance” Moses wrote about was, of course, in the land of Promise. So that estate in Cyprus was a neat circumvention of the spirit of the Mosaic covenant, and now Jesus bade him recognize it as such.
Jesus went on to quote also from Moses’ great prophecy concerning the tribe of Levi: “There is no man that hath left house, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands, for my sake and the gospel’s, but he shall receive an hundredfold now in this time …” In spirit, and also in detail, this is very much like Deuteronomy 33:8,9: “And of Levi he said, Let thy Thummim (‘ If thou wouldst be perfect. . .’) and thy Urim be with thy holy one . . . who said unto his father and to his mother, I have not seen him; neither did he acknowledge his brethren, nor knew his own children .. .”
Even more impressive is the Lord’s demand that this earnest seeker sell all and come and follow him, for this is exactly what the Law prescribed when a Levite wished to give himself to full-time service of the sanctuary (Dt. 18 :6-8). There must be first “the sale of his patrimony,” and the devotion of the proceeds to the sanctuary. Instead of the temple Jesus substituted his own poor disciples, the new temple of God. But this was to be done only if the Levite came “with all the desire of his mind.”
Perhaps also there is special significance in the fact that when Jesus quoted the Commandments he put one of them in the form: “Defraud not” (Mk.10:19), as though with reference to the commandment forbidding the withholding of the wages due to a poor employee (Dt.24:14,15). But it could refer to the dutiful devotion of one’s resources to the honour of God, a responsibility specially incumbent on a Levite who rejoiced in excessive wealth. ….
[End of quote]
This explanation really serves to make full biblical sense of the famous encounter.
None of it, though, is likely to impress the sort of Catholics, as mentioned above, who are disdainful of the Old Testament. Or those who eschew Vatican II with its timely call for us to study all of the Scriptures (Dei Verbum), and to seek a closer relationship with the Jewish people (Nostra Aetate), who are much closer than we to the teachings of Moses.
“Dei Verbum quotes one of the greatest Bible Scholars of the Early Church, St. Jerome to emphasize the need of all Christians to become intimately familiar with Scripture: “Ignorance of Scripture is Ignorance of Christ”.”
“There is of course a tremendous amount of history, doctrine, and moral instruction in Scripture. But the deepest truth about Scripture is this – it is a privileged place where we encounter God and where He speaks a living, personal, life-changing word to us. “For in the sacred books, the Father who is in heaven meets His children with great love and speaks with them.” (DV 21)”.
Fr. Nadim Nassar describes it as “shocking”, when “the culture of God” comes into contact with the “culture of the people”.
He, the Church of England’s only Syrian priest, urges a theme in his recent book, The Culture of God – the Syrian Jesus (Hodder and Stoughton, 2018), that has been a central theme in various article of mine. Nassar is “an outspoken advocate for Western Christians to recognise the Middle-Eastern roots of their faith”.
Actually, this is nothing new. Eighty years before Fr. Nassar wrote his book, pope Pius XI, addressing a group of Belgian pilgrims (1938), asserted that: “Anti-Semitism is unacceptable. Spiritually, we are all Semites”.
Again, this is right in line with Thomas Storck’s conclusion (refer back again to p. 5), based on the French philosopher Jacques Maritain, that “the theological content of Western culture” originates in the Old Testament and reaches its fulfilment in the New Testament.
Judaeo-Christian thus sums up much of the early basis of our Western Civilisation.
Maritain’s other side of the equation for the essence of the West, the supposed Greek influence: “the Greek people “may be truly termed the organ of the reason and word of man as the Jewish people was the organ of the revelation and word of God”, may need to be seriously reconsidered, we think, in light of various Patristic statements that the Greeks owed their wisdom to the Hebrews.
“What is Plato but Moses in Attic Greek?” St. Clement (Stromateis, I, 22)
St. Clement believed that Sirach (c. 200 BC, conventional dating) had influenced the Greek philosopher Heraclitus (c. 500 BC, conventional dating).
Justin Martyr insisted that not only Moses but all the prophets are older than any poets, wise men, or philosophers the Greeks can put forward.
“Moses is more ancient than all Greek writers; and anything that philosophers and poets said … they took as suggestions from the prophets and so were able to understand and expound them …” (Apol. I.44).
St. Ambrose claimed that Plato (c. 400 BC, conventional dating) had learned from Jeremiah (c. 600 BC, conventional dating) in Egypt; a belief that was initially taken up by Augustine.
We submit that the statement by Plato in The Republic (II.362a): “… our just man will be scourged, racked, fettered … and at last, after all manner of suffering, will be crucified”, could only have been written during the Christian era.
“When the culture of God reaches us, the inevitable result is that it shakes our world; sometimes it is like a hurricane or an earthquake”. (Nassar, p. 180)
Jesus Christ, who had come to set all things right, was wont to say (e.g. Matthew 5:21, 22): ‘You have heard that it was said to the people long ago …. But I tell you …’.
The first part of this statement refers to the received cultural view of long-standing.
Fr. Nassar describes this as follows (p. 180): “For all of us, we organise our world around ourselves according to what we have been taught, with ‘in’ and ‘out’, friends and enemies, right and wrong, values and vices and so on”. He then goes on to describe the second part of Jesus’s statement: “What a shock when God breaks into our lives and sweeps our ordering of the world aside like a house of cards, and says to us, ‘This is not what I want from you’.”
Whilst there is a meek and mild side to Jesus, he can also be, according to Fr. Nassar’s description, “a volcanic Jesus” (p. 10):
In Matthew 23 Jesus launches a series of fierce attacks on [the Pharisees and scribes]: ‘But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you lock people out of the kingdom of heaven. For you do not go in yourselves, and when others are going in, you stop them.’ (23:13)
Along with “volcanic” fury, Fr. Nassar also discerns a humour (“funny”) and irony (“ironic”) in this statement of Jesus that he thinks Levantine people at least would pick up. He continues (pp. 10-11):
This saying of Jesus belongs to the essence of the culture of God; here, Jesus is being both ironic and funny, and his audience would have laughed when they heard this. Jesus wanted to speak the truth that touches the people’s hearts on the one hand, and on the other, to really strike the leaders. This is how Jesus handled his earthly culture and the culture of God. Nobody now listens to this sentence and smiles – but in the Levant, you would immediately laugh at Jesus’ irony.
Jesus then attacks the religious leaders for their flawed understanding of what is sacred: ‘Woe, to you, blind guides, who say, “Whoever swears by the sanctuary is bound by nothing, but whoever swears by the gold of the sanctuary is bound by the oath.”
You blind fools! For which is greater, the gold or the sanctuary that has made the gold sacred?’ (23:16-17). Here, Jesus is not only using harsh words – this is also an exceptional way of speaking that Jesus used exclusively when he spoke to or about the religious leaders. He did it on purpose, to show without any doubt that the leadership they modelled does not belong in any way to the culture of God.
Jesus is furious with the religious leaders because they place great weight on minor matters while ignoring what really counts; he calls them hypocrites, ‘For you tithe mint, dill and cummin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faith’ (23:23). Hypocrisy is especially loathed in the Levant, and an accusation of hypocrisy would stain someone’s character. ….
[End of quote]
On pp. 179-180, Fr. Nassar tells of the profound impact of the culture of God on his own life.
“I feel that my experiences resonate strongly with Peter’s experience in Joppa”:
From birth I was indoctrinated by the state to follow a certain ideology, with a view on who were friends and who were enemies ingrained in my heart. I could not see beyond what had been planted in me. When I went through the Civil War in Lebanon, I was forced to challenge my preconceptions and prejudices …. It took a fresh life in a new world to melt the barriers like snow inside me under the light of God. Seeking the culture of God helped me to liberate my soul from the bondage of the past and to shake off the chains.
I feel that my experiences resonate strongly with Peter’s experience in Joppa. Peter was proud of his upbringing and his religion, and how he practised it, to the extent that he did not hesitate to boast about it even to God.
Here Fr. Nassar is referring to Acts 10:9-16. He continues:
We must remember that all the disciples had been raised as Jews, hating the Samaritans and looking down on all ‘outsiders’, and they found it hard to grasp the consequences of the work of the Spirit when this conflicted with a lifelong obedience to rules of ritual cleanliness.
Despite all his experiences of the universality of the gospel, here is the old Peter, slow to respond to the full implications of Pentecost. In place of the culture of God, he is still proudly stuck in the old Law – dividing the world into those who are ‘in’ and those who are ‘out’. The response of the Lord in the visions reveals the full implications of his culture: ‘What God has made clean, you must not call profane’. This encounter is a window into the culture of God, which challenges Peter when he was boasting about his observation of the Law and confronts him with the true nature of the culture of God, which is all-inclusive, celebrating diversity and excluding no one. We know the will of God only through a relationship with him, not through a set of written rules.
[End of quotes]
As in the Joppa incident with St. Peter, the culture of God has again impacted the Church “like a hurricane or an earthquake” in the era of Vatican II. To recall Fr. Nassar again: “What a shock when God breaks into our lives and sweeps our ordering of the world aside like a house of cards, and says to us, ‘This is not what I want from you’.”
Pope Francis said in his trip to the Baltic states:
“What needs to be done today is to accompany the church in a deep spiritual renewal. I believe the Lord wants a change in the church. I have said many times that a perversion of the church today is clericalism. But fifty years ago, the Second Vatican Council said this clearly: the church is the People of God. Read number 12 of Lumen gentium. I know that the Lord wants the council to make headway in the church. Historians tell us that it takes a hundred years for a council to be applied. We are halfway there. So, if you want to help me, do whatever it takes to move the council forward in the church. And help me with your prayer. I need so many prayers.”
There are many Catholics who, like St. Peter at Joppa, resistant of change – “Peter was proud of his upbringing and his religion, and how he practised it, to the extent that he did not hesitate to boast about it even to God” – have not wholeheartedly (or not all) embraced Vatican II, finding “it hard to grasp the consequences of the work of the Spirit …”.
The culture of man, when motivated by any poisonous agenda, can also be “shocking”.
Fr. Nassar, fully grasping the significance of Simon the Pharisee’s treatment of Our Lord (that might be underestimated by someone from a Western culture without sufficient sensitivity towards Middle Eastern behaviour) writes on p. 123:
The shocking thing about this story is that Simon invited Jesus to his home in order to show him that he thought he was Jesus’ superior; he meant to degrade and offend him. If we know anything about Levantine culture, we know that it could never be an accident for an invited guest to be treated so offensively with such a clear and ostentatious display of a lack of hospitality.
On p. 183, Fr. Nassar even makes a statement about the West and the Enlightenment:
The dilemma of the early Church is still in the Levant today. In the West, the secular world has also permeated Christian beliefs, especially the Enlightenment and its focus on reason, which pushed Christianity into becoming an intellectual exercise, losing the warmth of the heart. Spirituality is now left to those on the verges of faith. ….
(Whittaker Chambers, in ‘COLD FRIDAY’, 1964, pp. 225, 226).
“I am baffled by the way people still speak of the West as if it were at least a cultural unity against communism. But the West is divided, not only politically, but by an invisible cleavage. On one side are the voiceless masses with their own subdivisions and fractures. On the other side is the enlightened, articulate elite which to one degree or other has rejected the religious roots of the civilization ‑ the roots without which it is no longer Western civilization, but a new order of beliefs, attitudes and mandates. In short, this is the order of which communism is one logical expression. Not originating in Russia, but in the cultural capitals of the West, reaching Russia by clandestine delivery via the old underground centres in Cracow, Vienna, Berne, Zurich and Geneva. It is a Western body of beliefs that now threatens the West from-Russia. As a body of Western beliefs: secular, materialistic, and rationalistic, the intelligentsia of the West share it, and are therefore always committed to a secret, emotional complicity with communism, of which they dislike, not the communism, but only what, by chance of history, Russia has specially added to it: slave-labour camps, purges, MVD et alia. And that, not because the Western intellectuals find them unjustifiable, but because they are afraid of being caught in them. If they could have communism without the brutalities of overlording that the Russian experience bred, they have only marginal objections. Why should they object? What else is Socialism but Communism with the claws retracted? (Note retracted, not removed).”
A Plato (Cave) – Aristotle (Light) Divide?
American popular historian, Arthur Herman, a writer of boundless knowledge, has written an intriguing book, The Cave and the Light.Plato Versus Aristotle and the Struggle for the Soul of Western Civilization (Random House, 2014), according to which the last 2000 or more years are to be divided between the supremacy of the thought of Plato, or that of Aristotle. It is truly amazing how Herman is able to show how the thinking of Plato was uppermost in one era, whilst that of Aristotle prevailed in another.
The trouble is, who was Plato? Who was Aristotle?
If, as according to St. Ambrose, Plato really was in Egypt with the prophet Jeremiah – which, chronologically, the classical Plato could not possibly have been – then the likeliest candidate for ‘Plato’ so-called would have to be Jeremiah’s disciple in Egypt, the Jewish scribe, Baruch, a true proficient of wisdom (Baruch 3:9-4:4).
What may strengthen this somewhat is that, according to tradition, Baruch was the religious (philosophical) founder, Zoroaster.
Anyway, ‘not to let truth get in the way of a good story’, let us read a bit of what Arthur Herman has written, through a reviewer, Bill Frezza:
Like many an engineer who got nary a whiff of a liberal education, I’ve spent the last 35 years trying to make up for it through my own reading. Charting a course through history, economics, and literature has been relatively easy. But making sense of the conflicting schools of philosophy without a roadmap has been vexing—until the right book came along to finally help put all the pieces in place.
For the first of these 900 years, the Schools of Athens laid the foundation of Western thinking, with Plato’s Academy becoming the model for every monastery, university, and totalitarian regime.
Meanwhile, Aristotle’s legacy bequeathed to us capitalism, the scientific method, and the American Revolution.
As history has ebbed and flowed, we’ve seen the influence of each school wax and wane. Plato’s theory of decline and yearning for a vanished utopia informed the inward turning of European societies following the collapse of the Roman Empire —“the Cave”—while Aristotle’s faith in human potential and vision for continual progress fueled the Renaissance and Enlightenment—“the Light”. Along the way, Herman lays out the contributions of subsequent philosophers, who echoed one or the other of these themes, both through their teachings and through the deeds of the societies that embraced them.
One of the book’s most important threads is the impact these two schools had on the evolution of Christianity, including the Catholic Church’s efforts to harmonize faith and reason and the relative importance of good works in this life vs. entry into the next. The balance tips back and forth from Augustine to Aquinas, culminating in the rupture of the Protestant Reformation, before we are carried through to Max Weber and the Protestant work ethic.
But this is no dry pedantic tome! Herman makes the journey fun, as he weaves a captivating narrative of thought and action and puts the ethos of the key players in historical context.
His treatment of Aristotle’ greatest student, the scientist-warrior Archimedes, comes to life in his account of the epic defense of Syracuse, complete with monstrous war machines plucking Roman ships into the air and tossing them about like toys. Might there be a Hollywood blockbuster waiting to be made here?
But the heart and soul of the book, providing enough food for thought to last a lifetime, is the contrast of Platonic excess and Aristotelian hubris. The former gave us not just sublime art, but also tyrants from Robespierre to Adolf Hitler. The latter gave us not only Adam Smith and the industrial revolution, but also the atom bomb.
Herman’s delineation of the difference between a subjective reality crafted by elites, vs. an objective reality informed by direct observation is punctuated by a brilliant quote from Benito Mussolini: “It is not necessary that men move mountains, only that other men believe they moved them.” Thus, Plato’s “noble lie” through which rulers control producers leads to Josef Goebbels’s “big lie.”
While it’s clear that the author is a champion of Aristotle’s reason, liberty, and Athenian democracy against Plato’s call to faith, Spartan obedience, and rule by philosopher-kings, he sounds an important warning about the “fatal conceit,” to which Aristotle’s heirs often succumb, citing the work of F. A. Hayek, an important thinker though not normally included in the pantheon of philosophers. “The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design.”
And then at the end of the book, rather than indulge in a bout of Aristotelian triumphalism, Herman leaves the door open for Plato’s leavening influence. Perhaps Herman believes there really is something ineffable out there—or he has taken to heart the advice of Voltaire, who did not believe in God but hoped his valet did “so he won’t steal my spoons.”
is professor Emmanuel Anati’s identification of Har Karkom, near the Paran desert.
The Review continues:
[Cornuke] is also president of the Bible Archaeology Search and Exploration Institute, and has been featured on major television networks including ABC, FOX, CNN, National Geographic, and the History Channel; he received his PhD from Louisiana Baptist University.
What I especially appreciate about the author is that he begins with complete confidence in the Scripture. If accepted tradition contradicts Scripture, Cornuke’s game is afoot.
Dr. Cornuke, in a few pages, argues convincingly that the Temple was built in the old City of David—as he documents the Bible avows—rather than atop what has been wrongly dubbed the “Temple Mount.”
Cornuke quotes a number of passages that equate Zion with both the Temple and the City of David. Since the “Temple Mount” sits outside the old City of David, Zion and the Temple Mount cannot be one and the same.
What we call the Temple Mount, he argues, is actually the plateau built by the Romans for the Fortress Antonia. The Romans built their fortresses at the highest elevation possible, building a plateau akin to the “Temple Mount.”
Damien F. Mackey’s comment: On this, see e.g. my article:
[Cornuke] argues a convincing case, offering a variety of evidences from the biblical texts, formally recorded history (especially Josephus—whom those who accept the Temple Mount as the true location—believe erred), ancient eyewitness accounts, and both older and very recent archaeological findings (2013).
The Review continues:
Herod’s Temple was so thoroughly destroyed that all traces of it have vanished.
Damien F. Mackey’s comment: What Herod’s Temple?
The Review continues:
Ancient pilgrims postulated that the Temple had been built on the highest part of the city, and thus dubbed that location the “Temple Mount.”
Cornuke garners convincing evidence that the Temple was actually located to the southwest of the Temple Mount on a smaller piece of real estate, within the Old City of David and with access to the Gihon Spring.
Although Herod’s Temple was destroyed without a trace—as Jesus predicted in Matthew 24:2—
Damien F. Mackey’s comment: What Herod’s Temple?
It was Zerubbabel’s Temple.
— apparent remnants of Solomon’s Temple are evident underneath the suggested City of David location. The book actually contains a few photos of this subterranean archaeology.
This is not just an attempt at sensationalism, but a generally logical, thoroughly argued case that will appeal to readers open to consider this possibility. The evidence leads me, personally, to embrace Cornice’s conclusion.
…
Getting back to the book itself, part one is both the real meat and bulk of the book: “The Temple.” Although not all arguments in this section are equally compelling, a number of them are quite so. Parts 2 and 3 (the future Temples and the Ark of the Covenant) make a few logical leaps, although I agree with his basic outline.
….
Make no mistake about it: this book is monumental. Its tight and compelling case for locating the Temple in the City of David (not the Temple Mount) is persuasive and positioned to become a popular viewpoint.
The author does repeat himself quite a bit, but this reinforces his points and will help readers who might otherwise find the subject confusing. The average layperson can readily understand this book. It is fascinating and the type of book that could become a “game changer.”
Hidden away a few meters above the Gihon Spring in Jerusalem is perhaps the greatest discovery ever found in Israel. Strangely, not many people know about it. It is older and more spectacular than anything I have seen in Jerusalem. And very crucial for both the Old and New Testament.
“Whatever is covered up will be uncovered, and every secret will be made known.” (Luke 12:2 GNT)
A few years ago archaeologist Eli Shukron uncovered the remains of an ancient sacred site just above the spring in the City of David dating from the time of Melchizedek up to the time of the kingdom of Judah (MB-Iron Age). The area includes four small rooms aligned next to each other. To the far right is a small room with an olive press in front of it, for making oil.
Immediately to its right is another room with at the back a small square altar or “table” with along the side a long drainage channel, possible used to drain off blood. On the other end of the building is another room with strange V- shaped markings in the floor which the excavator interprets as used for placing a wooden installation to hold animals that were being prepared for sacrifice. In the walls are even cut holes to tie the cords to hold the animals. But the most incredible find is in the back of the middle room where one upright stone stands straight amidst a foundation of smaller stones: A Biblical “Stele”.
According to the excavator the site was definitely used for religious purposes, probably for sacrifice and anointing with oil. Its location above the only spring of Jerusalem and the massive spring tower also seem to be of central importance. Strangely it dates from the Middle Bronze Age into the Iron age and was still in use during Solomon’s Temple. Nothing was found in the area to indicate it was used to serve foreign gods (no figurines, drawings, etc).
< Reconstruction drawing of the sacred place by the spring in Jerusalem
This was a real sacred place above the spring used during the Bible. The question one immediately asks is: What was such a sacrificial place doing in Jerusalem south of the Temple Mount? Wasn’t all sacrifice only done in the Temple? And what was it doing there so early with continued use into the Israelite period?
It makes one wonder. And we don’t have all the answers. What we do know, is that this place was used in Biblical times to sacrifice and probably anoint people and that it was used for ONE God.
Visiting this place was the highlight of my trip to Israel. A dream fulfilled. Long ago I heard that Eli Shukron had made a major discovery. I had been to the City of David many times before but did not have the chance in the last few years to see what he found. I did however, travel there in my imagination when I was writing three of my children’s books (all in Dutch). In my first book The Treasure of Zion, the children discover a flat stone in a room above the spring (I did not know about the discovery then!). In my second book, The Secret of the Golden star, the children witness the anointing of King Solomon by the spring. In the third book, The Mystery of the Lion Throne, the children go in search of the Ark of the Covenant and the climax takes place in an underground temple near the spring. I had never been there when I wrote these books but imagined it and used it as the basis for a great adventure. It is perhaps strange but shortly after I wrote the Lion Throne many of the spiritual things which happened to me took place. As if I had uncovered a secret which someone didn’t want exposed. In my books the children are looking for the secret hiding place of the Ark of the Covenant that Solomon had built under the Temple. The Ark represented the very throne of God and His presence dwelled above it. But instead of finding the physical Ark my search for the truth ultimately led me to the greatest treasure of all: The real lions throne, the throne of the Messiah Yeshua (Jesus) and He showed me that His presence now lives in people (and no longer above an ark). After I experienced the spiritual world and was confronted with witchcraft, I had to admit that the invisible realm was very real and in it there are two kingdoms, light and dark. I also learned that Jesus is truly alive and had all authority over the darkness and there was a reason that darkness listened to His name. He rescued me from kabbala and witchcraft and brought me into His kingdom of light. It is a long story, but in the end God cornered the archaeologist.
After I gave my life to Jesus I also gave up the dream of ever going to the place that had inspired me for so long. But the Lord knows our dreams and hearts desires. He remembered, and blessed me by letting me go there with my mom and two sisters on Good Friday, the day we remember the greatest sacrifice ever made. The day that all other animal sacrifices were no longer necessary. The day His blood flowed for us and paid the price to set us completely free.
The Lord had blessed me even more by letting Eli Shukron guide us through his discovery. It was early Friday morning 2016. The sun was shining and we were filled with anticipation as we followed Eli through the streets of the Old City. Along the way we talked about the real location of the Via Dolorosa, the road Jesus walked with the cross. Archaeologically it is a contested route and he showed us some of the places where archaeologists think it took place. Then we turned south towards the City of David. Tears filled my eyes when we descended along the steep hill. I felt like I was visiting there for the first time, but I wasn’t. I was not the same person I was before. It felt like everything was different. But it wasn’t. It was me that had changed, and these old stones had stayed the same.
We followed Eli into a well secured area, behind a fence and he took out a key. Then we entered into a dark cave, with wooden beams holding up the ceiling.
Built into the bedrock, along the side of the hill, we saw four small rooms. I was amazed how well the walls were preserved. It’s funny how things often look different than we imagined. But this was more beautiful than I could have dreamed of. Then Eli took out another set of keys and opened a steel box at the back of one of the rooms. The doors swung open.
Behind it was an upright stone set in smaller stones. I gasped in awe.
A stone of covenant You might think… It’s just a stone! What is so special about a stone? In the Bible there are many stories about stones marking a covenant between God and the people.
For example the story of Jacob at Bethel:
“Early the next morning Jacob took the stone he had placed under his head and set it up as a pillar and poured oil on top of it.” (Genesis 28:18).
Another example is found in Genesis 35:44-46.
“So now come, let us make a covenant, you and I, and let it be a witness between you and me.” Then Jacob took a stone and set it up as a pillar. Jacob said to his kinsmen, “Gather stones.” So they took stones and made a heap, and they ate there by the heap.…”
And here is another:
“So Joshua made a covenant with the people that day, and made for them a statute and an ordinance in Shechem. And Joshua wrote these words in the book of the law of God; and he took a large stone and set it up there under the oak that was by the sanctuary of the LORD. Joshua said to all the people, “Behold, this stone shall be for a witness against us, for it has heard all the words of the LORD which He spoke to us; thus it shall be for a witness against you, so that you do not deny your God” (Josh. 24:26)
Upright stones were symbols of a covenant between God and man. They are also called “stele” and are well known in Israel. Archaeologists have found them throughout the country, usually in combination with other stones. But never in Jerusalem. And never only ONE. This stone represented a relationship between ONE God and the people. The stone was also set up to make a vow, a reminder of a covenant. In the Bible when such a covenant was made there was often a meal right after with wine and bread, partaking of the feast upon the sacrifice.
Even King Josiah when he called the people to renew their vow to the Lord made them stand by a pillar in Jerusalem and renewed there their covenant with the Lord.
“And the king stood by a pillar, and made a covenant before the LORD, to walk after the LORD, and to keep his commandments and his testimonies and his statutes with all their heart and all their soul, to perform the words of this covenant that were written in this book. And all the people stood to the covenant” 2 kings 23:3
Now, I was staring at a real upright stone in Jerusalem placed purposely above the spring, next to a sacrifice area, and an olive press for anointing oil. I was in awe of being in such a place and was reminded that this was also Good Friday and it was almost 12:00 , the hour that the Romans erected the cross that Jesus hung on.
I gazed at the small altar of sacrifice with the channel for blood next to it. In today’s society it sounds awful and one wonders why sacrifices were necessary. It is strange concept. That blood has to flow. However, in the Bible God is very clear about it. “For the life of a creature is in the blood, and I have given it to you to make atonement for yourselves on the altar; it is the blood that makes atonement for one’s life.” (Leviticus 17:11). Blood had to flow to pay for the atonement of sin. In Genesis God said very clearly: “but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.” (Genesis 2:17). When man sinned, they were excommunicated from God and the punishment for sin was death. In the Old Testament animals died in our place. A lamb was slaughtered to atone for our sins. One died for the other.
I looked at the small square altar and wondered how many poor animals were sacrificed here for us. They did nothing wrong. They were perfect without blemish.
Some archaeologists and rabbi’s think the idea of atonement is purely pagan, because it is also found in many other religions, including ancient Assyria.
But it is not pagan! It is very biblical, Jewish, and it is just how the spiritual world works. Therefore it can be seen in religions all over the world. Because in the spirit world there is a price to be paid. When Jesus died on the cross He paid the price once and for all and thankfully places like this were no longer necessary to sacrifice animals. It is through this concept that we can understand what John said when he said to Jesus: “Behold the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world” (John 1:29).
In the order of Melchizedek Already several weeks ago the Lord had put it in my heart to bring bread and wine to the underground sacred area above the spring and to renew my covenant here with him and remember what He had done for us on this day. We were four women coming back to a place that probably had a very important meaning for the people in the Bible. It was the first time in 2500 years that this place was used again. We came and dedicated this sacrificial place of Jerusalem to the Messiah, the lamb of God, who gave himself as the greatest sacrifice of all. What I didn’t know was that Melchizedek, the high priest of Jerusalem had also brought forth bread and wine when he met Abraham. And the Messiah Yeshua/Jesus was priest in the order of Melchizedek.
“YOU ARE A PRIEST FOREVER ACCORDING TO THE ORDER OF MELCHIZEDEK.” Hebrews 5:6
“Then Melchizedek king of Salem brought out bread and wine. He was priest of God Most High, and he blessed Abram”, Genesis 14:18-19
The Bible says Melchizedek was the priest of Salem (Jerusalem) long before the Temple existed. And he was priest of the Most High. The story of Melchizedek shows that long before David conquered Jerusalem this was a place dedicated to the MOST HIGH. Here we were, standing by a stone that had been purposely placed here to remember a covenant made between God and people, most likely dating from the time of Melchizedek (The Middle Bronze age). It was still in use during the time of David and Solomon and probably all the kings of Judah. The Bible describes that Melchizedek, the original high priest of Jerusalem brought forth bread and wine to Abraham, probably making a covenant with him and transferring his power to Abraham.
< V-shaped groves probably used for a wooden installation to hold the animals for sacrifice.
On this day 2000 years ago, the Messiah, the priest in the order of Melchizedek, gave an ultimate sacrifice: His life. By doing so he paid with his own blood the sins of the world, so that man could be restored and have a relationship with God again.
He also destroyed the powers of the darkness completely, bringing light and hope back into the world. A few hours after His death, the Jews celebrated Passover, a great meal of covenant with four cups of wine. The night before, during the last supper, Jesus had shown his disciples how to celebrate Passover from now in commemoration of him. He did not drink the fourth cup and said He would drink it when his kingdom would come. Three days after his death Jesus rose from the dead and His kingdom is now in us. Therefore he longs to drink this cup with us.
As I opened the bottle of wine and filled a cup, I remembered how Jesus had literally set me free from the bondage of witchcraft. How he liberated us and defeated the darkness. I remembered how exactly one year earlier we had celebrated His victory with 400 people during the biggest Passover Holland had ever seen. In that year (2015) Good Friday and Passover were on the same day, as they were many years ago, before time had distorted our conceptions. It was a great meal of covenant and also a call back to God.
Now we were here on this location breaking bread and drinking wine in the place where an original covenant had been made between God and the people, repeating our own vow. We said the blessing over the wine and repeated the Lords words: “Do this in remembrance of me.” And we passed the cup around as if he himself invited us to His table in his kingdom. The wine is the symbol of the blood which flowed at Calvary.
The blood of the lamb of Passover that was placed on the doors of the houses of the Israelites, as the darkness passed them by. The blood on the door of our hearts which forever makes sure that darkness passes us by.
Then we broke the bread and said again: “Do this in remembrance of Him.” And shared it one with another. Just as Melchizedek had done to Abraham, Jesus hands us His cup and was also transferring His power to us, and gave us all authority over the darkness.
The stone of remembrance is still locked away in Jerusalem in the secret hiding place. It has been rededicated to the high priest in the order of Melchizedek, Yeshua, the Messiah of Israel. Hopefully, it’s message of covenant and redemption will now go back into the world and to Jerusalem. If you are visiting Israel and would like to see it you can contact Eli Shukron: www.elishukron.com
“Next Abimelek went to Thebez and besieged it and captured it.Inside the city, however, was a strong tower, to which all the men and women—all the people of the city—had fled. They had locked themselves in and climbed up on the tower roof.Abimelek went to the tower and attacked it. But as he approached the entrance to the tower to set it on fire,a woman dropped an upper millstone on his head and cracked his skull”.
Judges 9:50-53
Account of Abimelech
Gideon’s illegitimate son, Abimelech (Abimelek), in killing the seventy sons of Gideon as his potential rivals to the rulership (see text below), was setting a precedent that the bloody Jehu of Israel would later follow, when he arranged for king Ahab’s seventy sons to be beheaded (2 Kings 10:1-11).
Judges 9:1-57
Abimelek son of Jerub-Baal went to his mother’s brothers in Shechem and said to them and to all his mother’s clan, “Ask all the citizens of Shechem, ‘Which is better for you: to have all seventy of Jerub-Baal’s sons rule over you, or just one man?’ Remember, I am your flesh and blood’.”
When the brothers repeated all this to the citizens of Shechem, they were inclined to follow Abimelek, for they said, ‘He is related to us’.They gave him seventy shekels of silver from the temple of Baal-Berith, and Abimelek used it to hire reckless scoundrels, who became his followers.He went to his father’s home in Ophrah and on one stone murdered his seventy brothers, the sons of Jerub-Baal. But Jotham, the youngest son of Jerub-Baal, escaped by hiding.Then all the citizens of Shechem and Beth Millo gathered beside the great tree at the pillar in Shechem to crown Abimelek king.
When Jotham was told about this, he climbed up on the top of Mount Gerizim and shouted to them, “Listen to me, citizens of Shechem, so that God may listen to you.One day the trees went out to anoint a king for themselves. They said to the olive tree, ‘Be our king’. But the olive tree answered, ‘Should I give up my oil, by which both gods and humans are honored, to hold sway over the trees?’
“Next, the trees said to the fig tree, ‘Come and be our king.’
“But the fig tree replied, ‘Should I give up my fruit, so good and sweet, to hold sway over the trees?’
“Then the trees said to the vine, ‘Come and be our king.’
“But the vine answered, ‘Should I give up my wine, which cheers both gods and humans, to hold sway over the trees?’
“Finally all the trees said to the thornbush, ‘Come and be our king.’
“The thornbush said to the trees, ‘If you really want to anoint me king over you, come and take refuge in my shade; but if not, then let fire come out of the thornbush and consume the cedars of Lebanon!’
“Have you acted honorably and in good faith by making Abimelek king? Have you been fair to Jerub-Baal and his family? Have you treated him as he deserves?Remember that my father fought for you and risked his life to rescue you from the hand of Midian.But today you have revolted against my father’s family. You have murdered his seventy sons on a single stone and have made Abimelek, the son of his female slave, king over the citizens of Shechem because he is related to you.So have you acted honorably and in good faith toward Jerub-Baal and his family today? If you have, may Abimelek be your joy, and may you be his, too!But if you have not, let fire come out from Abimelek and consume you, the citizens of Shechem and Beth Millo, and let fire come out from you, the citizens of Shechem and Beth Millo, and consume Abimelek!”
Then Jotham fled, escaping to Beer, and he lived there because he was afraid of his brother Abimelek.
After Abimelek had governed Israel three years,God stirred up animosity between Abimelek and the citizens of Shechem so that they acted treacherously against Abimelek.God did this in order that the crime against Jerub-Baal’s seventy sons, the shedding of their blood, might be avenged on their brother Abimelek and on the citizens of Shechem, who had helped him murder his brothers.In opposition to him these citizens of Shechem set men on the hilltops to ambush and rob everyone who passed by, and this was reported to Abimelek.
Now Gaal son of Ebed moved with his clan into Shechem, and its citizens put their confidence in him.After they had gone out into the fields and gathered the grapes and trodden them, they held a festival in the temple of their god. While they were eating and drinking, they cursed Abimelek.Then Gaal son of Ebed said, ‘Who is Abimelek, and why should we Shechemites be subject to him? Isn’t he Jerub-Baal’s son, and isn’t Zebul his deputy? Serve the family of Hamor, Shechem’s father! Why should we serve Abimelek?If only this people were under my command! Then I would get rid of him. I would say to Abimelek, ‘Call out your whole army!’”
When Zebul the governor of the city heard what Gaal son of Ebed said, he was very angry.Under cover he sent messengers to Abimelek, saying, ‘Gaal son of Ebed and his clan have come to Shechem and are stirring up the city against you.Now then, during the night you and your men should come and lie in wait in the fields.In the morning at sunrise, advance against the city. When Gaal and his men come out against you, seize the opportunity to attack them’.
So Abimelek and all his troops set out by night and took up concealed positions near Shechem in four companies.Now Gaal son of Ebed had gone out and was standing at the entrance of the city gate just as Abimelek and his troops came out from their hiding place.
When Gaal saw them, he said to Zebul, ‘Look, people are coming down from the tops of the mountains!’
Zebul replied, ‘You mistake the shadows of the mountains for men’.
But Gaal spoke up again: ‘Look, people are coming down from the central hill, and a company is coming from the direction of the diviners’ tree’.
Then Zebul said to him, “Where is your big talk now, you who said, ‘Who is Abimelek that we should be subject to him?’ Aren’t these the men you ridiculed? Go out and fight them!”
So Gaal led out the citizens of Shechem and fought Abimelek.Abimelek chased him all the way to the entrance of the gate, and many were killed as they fled.Then Abimelek stayed in Arumah, and Zebul drove Gaal and his clan out of Shechem.
The next day the people of Shechem went out to the fields, and this was reported to Abimelek.So he took his men, divided them into three companies and set an ambush in the fields. When he saw the people coming out of the city, he rose to attack them.Abimelek and the companies with him rushed forward to a position at the entrance of the city gate. Then two companies attacked those in the fields and struck them down.All that day Abimelek pressed his attack against the city until he had captured it and killed its people. Then he destroyed the city and scattered salt over it.
On hearing this, the citizens in the tower of Shechem went into the stronghold of the temple of El-Berith.When Abimelek heard that they had assembled there,he and all his men went up Mount Zalmon. He took an ax and cut off some branches, which he lifted to his shoulders. He ordered the men with him, ‘Quick! Do what you have seen me do!’So all the men cut branches and followed Abimelek.
They piled them against the stronghold and set it on fire with the people still inside. So all the people in the tower of Shechem, about a thousand men and women, also died.
Next Abimelek went to Thebez and besieged it and captured it.Inside the city, however, was a strong tower, to which all the men and women—all the people of the city—had fled.
They had locked themselves in and climbed up on the tower roof.Abimelek went to the tower and attacked it. But as he approached the entrance to the tower to set it on fire,a woman dropped an upper millstone on his head and cracked his skull.
Hurriedly he called to his armor-bearer, “Draw your sword and kill me, so that they can’t say, ‘A woman killed him.’” So his servant ran him through, and he died.When the Israelites saw that Abimelek was dead, they went home.
Thus God repaid the wickedness that Abimelek had done to his father by murdering his seventy brothers.God also made the people of Shechem pay for all their wickedness. The curse of Jotham son of Jerub-Baal came on them.
After the death of Gideon his son Abimelech asserted authority in the land and ruled from Shechem, reigning for 3 years until his death.
“MB IIC at Shechem was a major destruction,
so almost certainly it was the city of Abimelech”.
Dr. John Osgood
SHECHEM OF ABIMELECH
Back in 1980’s, I, then following a pattern of biblical archaeology different from the one that I would embrace today, had raised with Dr. John Osgood this query about the city of Shechem in its relation to the Joshuan Conquest:
“Techlets”, EN Tech. J., vol. 3, 1988, pp. 125-126:
…. I think too that Shechem might be a problem in your scheme of things. From the Bible it would seem that Shechem was a small settlement at the time of Abraham, but a city at the time of Jacob. It seems to me that according to your scheme Shechem would be the same size in Jacob’s time as in Abraham’s.
Correct me if I am wrong. Also Prof. Stiebing, who has criticised at various times the schemes of all revisionists (see Biblical Archaeological Review, July/August 1985, pp. 58-69), raises the problem of the absence of LBA remains at Samaria as regards theEBA Conquest Reconstruction.
Looking back now on Dr. Osgood’s reply to this, his view on Shechem, at least, makes perfect sense to me. He seems to have arrived at a proper overview of the archaeology of Shechem, from Abraham to Jeroboam I (and beyond).
Here, again, is what Dr. Osgood wrote about it:
Shechem: This is no problem to the revised chronology presented here, since the passage concerning Abraham and Shechem, viz. Genesis 12:6, does not indicate that a city of any consequence was then present there.
On the other hand, Jacob’s contact makes it clear that there was a significant city present later (Genesis 33 and 34), but only one which was able to be overwhelmed by a small party of Jacob’s sons who took it by surprise.
I would date any evidence of civilisation at these times to the late Chalcolithic in Abraham’s case, and to EB I in Jacob’s case, the latter being the most significant.
The Bible is silent about Shechem until the Israelite conquest, after which it is apparent that it developed a significant population until the destruction of the city in the days of Abimelech. If the scriptural silence is significant, then no evidence of occupation would be present after EB I until MB I and no significant building would occur until the MB IIC.
Shechem was rebuilt by Jeroboam I, and continued thereafter until the Assyrian captivity.
Moreover, Shechem was almost certainly the Bethel of Jeroboam, during the divided kingdom. So I would expect heavy activity during the majority of LB and all of Iron I.
This is precisely the findings at Shechem, with the exception that the earliest periods have not had sufficient area excavated to give precise details about the Chalcolithic and EB I. No buildings have yet been brought to light from these periods, but these periods are clearly represented at Shechem.
MB IIC at Shechem was a major destruction, so almost certainly it was the city of Abimelech. The population’s allegiance to Hamor and Shechem could easily be explained by a return of descendants of the Shechem captives taken by Jacob’s son, now returned after the Exodus nostalgically to Shechem, rather than by a continuation of the population through intervening periods (see Judges 9:28, Genesis 34).
For Jeroboam’s city and after, the numerous LB and Iron I strata are a sufficient testimony (see Biblical Archaeology, XX, XXVI and XXXII). ….
[End of quote]
The city of Shechem, which has already figured prominently in this book, will become of most vital significance when, in the era of king Hezekiah of Judah (c. C8th BC, conventional dating), I proceed to discuss the opposing kings, Hezekiah and Sennacherib, and Israel’s famous defeat of the 185,000-strong Assyrian army.
A combination of Dr. Osgood’s identification of Shechem with the northern Bethel, and Charles C. Torrey’s early identification of Shechem as the strategic town of “Bethulia”, which was Judith’s city, has enabled me to bring a full biblico-historical perspective to both the Book of Judith and the Assyrian incident.
[Jan] Simons thinks that the reference in the Vulgate to the Assyrians coming
at this stage to “the Idumæans into the land of Gabaa” (Judith 3:14) should more appropriately be rendered “the Judæans … Gabaa”. Gabaa would then correspond to the Geba of the Septuagint in the Esdraelon (Jezreel) plain.
Let us follow the march of the Assyrian commander-in chief through the eyes of Charles C. Torrey, in his article “The Site of Bethulia” (JSTOR, Vol. 20, 1899), beginning on p. 161:
When the army of Holofernes reached the Great Plain of Jezreel, in its march southward, it halted there for a month (iii. 9 f.) at the entrance to the hill country of the Jews. According to iii. 10, “Holofernes pitched between Geba and Scythopolis.” This statement is not without its difficulties. We should perhaps have expected the name Genin, where the road from the Great Plain enters the hills, instead of Geba. The latter name is very well attested, however, having the support of most Greek manuscripts and of all the versions. The only place of this name known to us, in this region, is the village Geba (Gěba‘) … a few miles north of Samaria, directly in the line of march taken by Holophernes [Holofernes] and his army, at the point where the road to Shechem branches. It is situated just above a broad and fertile valley where there is a fine large spring of water. There would seem to be every reason, therefore, for regarding this as the Geba of Judith iii. 10; as is done, for example, by Conder in the Survey of Western Palestine, Memoirs, ii, p. 156, and by G. A. Smith, Historical Geography of the Holy Land, p. 356. There is nothing in the sequel of the story to disagree with this conclusion. According to the narrator, the vast ‘Assyrian’ army, at the time of this ominous halt, extended all the way from Scythopolis through the Great Plain to Genin, and along the broad caravan track … southward as far as Geba.
Torrey will proceed to make excellent sense of the geography of this impressive (but ill-fated) Assyrian campaign.
Jan Simons (The Geographical and Topographical Texts of the Old Testament, E. J. Brill, Leiden, 1959) will later do a reasonable job of accounting for the earlier part of the Assyrian campaign, from its leaving from the city of Nineveh until its arrival at the plain of Esdraelon – the phase of the campaign that Torrey will dismiss as “mere literary adornment” (on p. 160):
With regard to a part of these details, especially those having to do with countries or places outside of Palestine, it can be said at once that they are mere literary adornment, and are not to be taken seriously. Such for example are the particulars regarding Nebuchadnezzar’s … journey westward ….
I quoted Simons, for instance, in Volume Two, pp. 49-51 of my university thesis:
A Revised History of the Era of King Hezekiah of Judah
Commentators have not found it easy to unravel geographically, in its various stages, the [Book of Judith] narrative of the Assyrian army’s march westwards (2:19-3:9). A difficulty is that the account of its route, from Nineveh to its eventual arrival in northern Israel, varies from version to version. …. Nevertheless, Simons has made quite a good attempt to unravel [Book of Judith’s] geography here. He begins with the Assyrian army’s departure, from Nineveh: ….
a) v. 21: after mentioning NINEVE [Nineveh] as Holofernes’ starting-point this verse deals with the first stage of the expedition, i.e. a “three days march” which brings the army to the border of the enemy country, viz. to “the plain of Bectileth”, which was apparently the site of a base-camp close to the general area of military operations (similar to the camp on the plain (of) Esdrelon [Esdraelon] … before the final stage of these operations: iii 10);
b) v. 22 relates the opening proper of the military operations, viz. by saying that the army leaves the base-camp on the plain and moves up the mountain-land εἰςεἰς τὴν ὀρεινήν
ὀρεινήν
c) V. 27: (from this mountain-land) the army “descends into the plain of DAMASCUS”, the territory first to suffer;
d) V. 28: the chastisement of the land of DAMASCUS causes a panic in the “coastland” (παραλία) from where several cities mentioned by name send ambassadors to offer submission (iii 1 ff.).
As regards the cartographic interpretation of this part of the expedition preceding that attack on Judaea … itself we submit the following remarks:
Independently of every hypothesis or reconstruction of Holofernes’ expedition it appears that the transmitted text does not mention Cilicia … (v. 21) as its objective or partial goal.
Moreover, “Upper Cilicia” as an indication of the location of “the plain Bectileth” (“Bectileth near the mountain which lies to the left – north – of Upper Cilicia” or Cilicia above the Taurus Mountains) is completely out of the way which starts at NINEVE and is directed towards Syria-Palestine.
We suspect, therefore, that τῆς ἄνω Κιλικίαςhas been inserted (perhaps in replacement of some another original reading) in order to adjust the account of the campaign to the terms of I 7 and I 12.
Secondly, “the plain of Bectileth” mentioned as the terminus of the first stage of Holofernes’ advance seems to us simply the Syrian beqã‘ … between Libanos and Antilibanos … mentioned in I 7.
Holofernes’ base-camp was not in the centre of the plain (“ἀπὸ Βεκτιλὲθ” must have developed from or be the remaining part of a statement to this effect) but “near the mountains on the left (north) side”, in other words: at the foot of the Antilibanos … (cp. Its modern name “gebel esh-sherqi”: …).
It is this mountain-ridge (ὀρεινή) which the army has to climb (v.22) before “sweeping down (κατέβη) on the plain of DAMASCUS” (V. 27).
In the third place the text names (v. 28) the coastal towns, where the fate of DAMASCUS raises a panic. Most of these names create no problems:
SIDON = saidã
TYRUS = sûr
JEMNAA = Jamnia ….
AZOTUS = isdûd ….
ASCALON = ‘asqalãn ….
Some mss. add: GAZA = ghazzeh.
Though Simons does not specify here to which particular ‘mss.’ he is referring, Moore tells us that “LXXs, OL, and Syr add “and Gaza”.” …. Simons continues:
The remaining two are obscure. OCINA seems to have been somewhere between TYRUS and JEMNAA and is for this reason usually identified with ‘ACCO = ‘akkã …. which neither because of the name itself nor on the ground of its location … can be reasonably considered to render Hebrew “DOR” … is probably but a duplicate of TYRUS (cp. Hebr: SOR). It is possible that the distinction between the island-city and the settlement on the mainland (Palaetyrus) accounts for the duplication.
[End of quotes]
Further down p. 51, and continuing on to p. 52, I wrote – again making reference to Simons:
The next crucial stopping point of the Assyrian army after its raids on the region of Damascus will effectively be its last: “Then [Holofernes] came toward Esdraelon, near Dothan, facing the great ridge of Judea; he camped between Geba and Scythopolis, and remained for a whole month in order to collect all the supplies for his army” (v. 9).
Simons thinks that the reference in the Vulgate to the Assyrians coming at this stage to “the Idumæans into the land of Gabaa” (3:14) should more appropriately be rendered “the Judæans … Gabaa”. …. Gabaa would then correspond to the Geba of the Septuagint in the Esdraelon (Jezreel) plain. (It has of course no connection at all with the ‘Geba’ discussed on p. 6 of the previous chapter, which was just to the north of Jerusalem). Judah’s reabsorbing of this northern region (Esdraelon) into its kingdom would have greatly annoyed Sennacherib, who had previously spoken of “the wide province of Judah” (rapshu nagû (matu) Ya-û-di). …. Naturally the Israelites would have been anticipating (from what Joel called the “northern army”) a first assault in the north. And that this was so is clear from the fact that the leaders in Jerusalem had ordered the people to seize the mountain defiles in Samaria as well as those in Judah ([Book of Judith] 4:1-2; 4-5):
When theIsraelitesliving inJudeaheard howHolofernes,general-in-chiefof Nebuchadnezzar king of the Assyrians, had treated the various nations, first plundering their temples and then destroying them, they were thoroughly alarmed at his approach and trembled for Jerusalem and the Temple of the Lord their God. … They thereforealerted thewholeof Samaria,Kona,Beth-horon,Belmain, Jericho, Choba, Aesora and the Salem valley.
They occupied the summits of the highest mountains and fortified the villages on them; they laid in supplies for the coming war, as the fields had just been harvested.
Here we encounter that “Salem valley” region that I believe was, rather than Jerusalem, the location of the great Melchizedek.
I continue now with Charles Torrey’s article, where he has just noted the crucial strategic importance of Bethulia (p. 162):
This city could ‘hold the pass‘ through which it was necessary that Holofernes, having once chosen this southward route, should lead his army in order to invade Judea and attack Jerusalem. This is plainly stated in iv. 7: …. “And Joachim wrote, charging them to hold the pass of the hill-country; for through it was the entrance into Judea, and it would be easy to stop them as they came up, because the approach was narrow”.When the people of Betylūa comply with the request of the high priest and the elders of Jerusalem, and hold the pass. (iv. 8), they do so simply by remaining in their own city, prepared to resist the approach of Holofernes. So long as they continue stubborn, and refuse to surrender or to let the enemy pass, so long their purpose is accomplished, and Jerusalem and the sanctuary are safe. This is made as plain as possible in all the latter part of the book; see especially viii, 21 ff., where Judith is indignantly opposing the counsel of the chief men of the city to surrender: “For if we be taken, all Judea will be taken … and our sanctuary will be spoiled; and of our blood will he require its profanation. And the slaughter of our brethren, and the captivity of the land, and the desolation of our inheritance, will he turn upon our heads among the nations wheresoever we shall be in bondage. And we shall be an offence and a reproach in the eyes of those who have taken us captive …. Let us show an example to our brethren, because their lives hang upon us, and upon us rest the sanctuary and the house and the altar.”
That is, the city which the writer of this story had in mind lay directly in the path of Holofernes, at the head of the most important pass in the region, through which he must necessarily lead his army. There is no escape from this conclusion.
After making this emphatic statement, Torrey will refer to two other sites “which have been most frequently thought of as possible sites of the city, Sanur and Mithiliyeh” (see below).
The latter of these, Mithiliyeh, or Mithilia, was my own choice for Judith’s Bethulia – following Claude Reignier Conder – when writing my thesis, but it was based more on a romantic view of things rather than on any solid military strategy – though the name fit had seemed to be quite solid. Thus I wrote (pp. 70-71):
Conder identified this Misilya – he calls it Mithilia (or Meselieh) – as Bethulia itself:[1]
… Meselieh …A small village, with a detached portion to the north, and placed on a slope, with a hill to the south, and surrounded by good olive-groves, with an open valley called Wâdy el Melek (“the King’s Valley’) on the north. The water-supply is from wells, some of which have an ancient appearance. They are mainly supplied with rain-water.
In 1876 I proposed to identify the village of Meselieh, or Mithilia, south of Jenin, with the Bethulia of the Book of Judith, supposing the substitution of M for B, of which there are occasional instances in Syrian nomenclature. The indications of the site given in the Apocrypha are tolerably distinct. Bethulia stood on a hill, but not apparently on the top, which is mentioned separately (Judith vi. 12).
There were springs or wells beneath the town (verse 11), and the houses were above these (verse 13).
The city stood in the hill-country not far from the plain (verse 11), and apparently near Dothan (Judith iv. 6). The army of Holofernes was visible when encamped near Dothan (Judith vii. 3, 4), by the spring in the valley near Bethulia (verses 3-7). ‘The site usually supposed to represent Bethulia – namely, the strong village of Sanûr – does not fulfil these various requisites; but the topography of the Book of Judith, as a whole, is so consistent and easily understood, that it seems that Bethulia was an actual site’.
Visiting Mithilia on our way to Shechem … we found a small ruinous village on the slope of the hill. Beneath it are ancient wells, and above it a rounded hill-top, commanding a tolerably extensive view. The north-east part of the great plain, Gilboa, Tabor, and Nazareth, are clearly seen. West of these are neighbouring hillsides Jenin and Wâdy Bel’ameh (the Belmaim, probably of the narrative); but further west Carmel appears behind the ridge of Sheikh Iskander, and part of the plain of ‘Arrabeh, close to Dothan, is seen. A broad corn-vale, called “The King’s Valley”, extends north-west from Meselieh toward Dothan, a distance of only 3 miles.
There is a low shed formed by rising ground between two hills, separating this valley from the Dothain [Dothan] plain; and at the latter site is the spring beside which, probably, the Assyrian army is supposed by the old Jewish novelist to have encamped. In imagination one might see the stately Judith walking through the down-trodden corn-fields and shady olive-groves, while on the rugged hillside above the men of the city “looked after her until she was gone down the mountain, and till she had passed the valley, and could see her no more”. (Judith x 10) – C. R. C., ‘Quarterly Statement’, July, 1881.
[End of quotes]
But Torrey tells us why neither Mithilia, nor Sanur, would even have figured in the march of Holofernes (p. 163):
This absolutely excludes the two places which have been most frequently thought of as possible sites of the city, Sanur and Mithiliyeh, both midway between Geba and Genin. Sanur, though a natural fortress, is perched on a hill west of the road, and “guards no pass whatever” (Robinson, Biblical Researches, iii. 152 f.). As for Mithiliyeh, first suggested by Conder in 1876 (see Survey of Western Palestine, ‘Memoirs’, ii. 156 f.), it is even less entitled to consideration, for it lies nearly two miles east of the caravan track; guarding no pass, and of little or no strategic importance. Evidently, the attitude, hostile or friendly, of this remote village would be a matter of indifference to a great invading army on its way to attack Jerusalem. Its inhabitants, while simply defending themselves at home, certainly could not have held the fate of Judea in their hands; nor could it ever have occurred to the writer of such a story as this to represent them as doing so.
He the proceeds to contrast the inappropriateness of these sites with the significant Shechem:
Again, having once accepted the plain statement of the writer that the army during its halt extended from Scythopolis to Geba, there is the obvious objection to each and all of the places in this region which have been suggested as possible sites of Betylūa (see those recorded in G. A. Smith, /. c, p. 356, note 2; Buhl, Geographie des alien Paldstina, p. 201, note), that they are all north of Geba.
From the sequel of the story we should be led to look for the pass occupied by Betylūa at some place on the main road not yet reached by the army. It is plainly not the representation of the writer that a part of the host of Holofernes had already passed it.
And finally, Betylūa is unquestionably represented as a large and important city. This fact is especially perplexing, in view of the total absence of any other mention of it. Outside of this one story the name is entirely unknown. On the other hand, nothing can be more certain than that the author of the book of Judith had an actual city in mind when he wrote. Modern scholars are generally agreed in this conclusion, that whatever may be said of the historical character of the narrative, the description of Betylūa and the surrounding country is not a fiction.
Shechem, he says, “meets exactly the essential requirements of the story” – it and no other site in the entire area (p. 164):
… no other city between Jezreel and Jerusalem can compete with [Shechem] for a moment in this respect. When the advance guard of Holofernes’ army halted in the broad valley below Geba, it was within four hours’ march of the most important pass in all Palestine, namely that between Ebal and Gerizim. Moreover, this was the one pass through which the army would now be compelled to proceed, after it had once turned westward at Bethshan and chosen the route southward through Genin. We see now why the narrator makes Holofernes encamp “between Scythopolis and Geba.” It is a good illustration of the skill which he displays in telling this story. Having advanced so far as this, it was too late for the ‘Assyrians’ to choose another road. As for the city Shechem, which was planted squarely in the middle of the narrow valley at the summit of the pass … its attitude toward the invaders would be a matter of no small importance.
As to why Shechem might be called “Bethulia” in the Book of Judith, the explanation may be in the following statement by Dr. John Osgood: “W. Ross in Palestine Exploration Quarterly (1941), p. 22–27 reasoned, I believe correctly, that the Bethel of Jeroboam must be Shechem, since it alone fills the requirements”. https://creation.com/techlets
Both the unidentified woman of Judges 9, and Judith, will slay a male foe, attacking the enemy’s head, in the environs of Shechem.
God also made the people of Shechem pay for all their wickedness.
The curse of Jotham son of Jerub-Baal came on them.
Judges 9:56-57
‘Woe to the nations that rise up against my people! The Lord Almighty will take vengeance on them in the day of judgment; he will send fire and worms into their flesh; they shall weep in pain forever’.
Judith 16:17
And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; she will crush your head, and you will strike her heel.
Genesis 3:15
[1]Survey of Western Palestine, vol. II, pp. 156-157. Emphasis added.
“The Virgin Mary also looked up to the godly women
she discovered in the pages of Scripture”.
Fr. Joseph Gleason
Parallels can be found between the prayer (Magnificat)of the Virgin Mary and Hannah’s praying, as Fr. Joseph Gleason has shown in his article, “A Role Model for the Virgin Mary”:
“A meditation on Hannah’s contribution to the Magnificat . . .
Sometimes we forget that the saints do not arrive to us from heaven, fully-formed. Before Moses parted the sea, he was a little baby in a basket. Before David slew Goliath, he was an unknown little shepherd boy.
And before Mary became the mother of God, she was a humble, young Jewish girl, with godly parents, cousins, and friends. And just like any other young girl, she needed good role models to encourage her toward positive spiritual growth.
Her most obvious role models were her dad and mom, the saints Joachim and Anna. They both set a good example for their daughter, and they raised her up in the nuture and admonition of the Lord. Mary was also able to look up to her older cousin, Elizabeth.
Scripture tells us that Elizabeth was righteous before God, walking in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord blameless.
Her living relatives were not her only role-models. The Virgin Mary also looked up to the godly women she discovered in the pages of Scripture. As a young Jewish girl, she would have been familiar with the stories of Old Testament heroines such as Miriam, Deborah, Jael, Ruth, Hannah, Judith, and Esther.
These holy women provided guidance, by setting godly examples for young women to follow.
I have long been intrigued by the close connections shared between Hannah and Mary. They both are godly women who conceived holy children in miraculous ways.
After years of barrenness, Hannah fervently prayed for God to give her a child. He heard her prayer, opened her womb, and granted her to become the mother of Samuel, one of Israel’s greatest prophets.
As a virgin, Mary was approached by an archangel who told her she would bear a child. She willingly accepted his words and invited the miracle. God regarded her lowliness, and granted her to become the mother of the Lord . . . God incarnate.
Hannah’s response was a lovely prayer. Mary’s response was also lovely, and it closely resembles Hannah’s prayer:
Hannah’s heart is strong in the Lord. (1 Sam. 2:1)
Mary’s soul magnifies the Lord. (Luke 1:46)
Hannah rejoices in her salvation. (1 Sam. 2:1)
Mary rejoices in her Savior. (Luke 1:47)
Hannah praises the holiness of God. (1 Sam. 2:2)
Mary praises the holiness of God’s name. (Luke 1:49)
Hannah shuns pride and arrogance. (1 Sam. 2:3)
Mary says God regards lowliness. (Luke 1:48)
Hannah praises God for feeding the hungry, and for emptying those who were formerly full. (1 Sam. 2:5)
Mary praises God for feeding the hungry, and for causing hunger among the rich. (Luke 1:53)
Hannah praises God for exalting poor beggars, causing them to inherit the thrones of princes. (1 Sam. 2:8)
Mary praises God for exalting the lowly, and for casting the mighty off their thrones. (Luke 1:52)
Hannah says the most important thing is to know the Lord. (1 Sam. 2:10)
Mary says that the Lord’s mercy is reserved for those who fear him. (Luke 1:50)
Hannah prophesies the coming of Christ, the Lord’s anointed. (1 Sam. 2:10)
Mary’s entire prayer is in response to Christ’s coming, in her own womb.
Just think . . . over 1000 years before Christ, Hannah had already prayed the prayer which would one day inspire Mary to pray the Magnificat.
This teaches us that the inspiration of the Holy Spirit is not always a bolt from the blue, disconnected from the past. Instead, God routinely works through our families, through our worship, and through our role models. God did not wait until Mary prayed, to inspire the Magnificat. Rather, God started much earlier, when He inspired Hannah’s prayer.
He knew that 1000 years hence, a little Jewish girl named Mary would learn about Hannah, and would look up to her as a godly role model. Then, at just the right time, Hannah’s words would grace Mary’s lips.
This is how the inspiration of the Holy Spirit works . . . in an organic, long-term, familial way.
It is encouraging when we are given opportunities to pray with our children, teach them the Scriptures, and worship with them during the Divine Liturgy. If God is able to reach through a millennium, using Hannah’s example to inspire the heart of Mary, then He is able to do the same for us and for our children. The spiritual seeds we plant are watered by our prayers, and the Holy Spirit will cause them to sprout at just the right time. …”.
“Every human life, beginning with that of the unborn child in its mother’s womb, cannot be suppressed, nor become an object of commodity”.
Dignitas infinita
Vatican calls gender fluidity and surrogacy threats to human dignity
Story by Angela Giuffrida in Rome
The Vatican has described the belief in gender fluidity as “a concession to the age-old temptation to make oneself God”, as it released an updated declaration of what the Catholic church regards as threats to human dignity.
The new Dignitas infinita (Infinite Dignity) declaration released by the Vatican’s doctrinal office on Monday after five years in the making reiterates Pope Francis’s previous criticism of what he has called an “ugly ideology of our time”.
“Desiring a personal self-determination, as gender theory prescribes, apart from this fundamental truth that human life is a gift, amounts to a concession to the age-old temptation to make oneself God, entering into competition with the true God of love revealed to us in the gospel,” the 20-page document says.
Reiterating opposition to gender reassignment surgery, it adds: “It follows that any sex-change intervention, as a rule, risks threatening the unique dignity the person has received from the moment of conception.”
The Holy See distinguished between these sorts of surgeries and procedures to resolve “genital abnormalities” that are present at birth or develop later. It said those abnormalities could be treated with the help of healthcare professionals.
The Vatican said Pope Francis had approved the document, which also reaffirms its condemnation of surrogacy, saying the practice represents “a grave violation of the dignity of the woman and the child”.
“A child is always a gift and never the basis of a commercial contract,” the document says. “Every human life, beginning with that of the unborn child in its mother’s womb, cannot be suppressed, nor become an object of commodity.”
The chief cardinal, Victor Manuel Fernández, said on Monday that the pope had asked for the Vatican’s doctrinal office (DDF) to include “poverty, the situation of migrants, violence against women, human trafficking, war and other themes” in its updated assessment of threats to human dignity.
The document says gay people should be respected and denounces the fact that “in some places not a few people are imprisoned, tortured, and even deprived of the good of life solely because of their sexual orientation”.
Fernández, a liberal theologian who was appointed to the DDF role – one of the Vatican’s most powerful positions – by Francis last year, said punishing homosexuality was “a big problem” and that it was “painful” to see some Catholics support anti-homosexuality laws.
The declaration also reaffirms the church’s position on abortion and euthanasia while strongly condemning femicide. “Violence against women is a global scandal, which is increasingly being recognised,” it says.
In a series of revelations to St. Maria Faustina Kowalska in the 1930s, our Lord called for a special feast day to be celebrated on the Sunday after Easter. Today, we know that feast as Divine Mercy Sunday, named by Pope St. John Paul II at the canonization of St. Faustina on April 30, 2000.
The Lord expressed His will with regard to this feast in His very first revelation to St. Faustina. The most comprehensive revelation can be found in her Diary entry 699:
My daughter, tell the whole world about My inconceivable mercy. I desire that the Feast of Mercy be a refuge and a shelter for all souls, and especially for poor sinners. On that day the very depths of My tender mercy are open. I pour out a whole ocean of graces upon those souls who approach the fount of My mercy. The soul that will go to Confession and receive Holy Communion shall obtain complete forgiveness of sins and punishment. On that day are opened all the divine floodgates through which graces flow. Let no soul fear to draw near to Me, even though its sins be as scarlet. My mercy is so great that no mind, be it of man or of angel, will be able to fathom it throughout all eternity. Everything that exists has come from the very depths of My most tender mercy. Every soul in its relation to Me will contemplate My love and mercy throughout eternity. The Feast of Mercy emerged from My very depths of tenderness. It is My desire that it be solemnly celebrated on the first Sunday after Easter. Mankind will not have peace until it turns to the Fount of My mercy.
In all, St. Faustina recorded 14revelations from Jesus concerning His desire for this feast.
Nevertheless, Divine Mercy Sunday is NOT a feast based solely on St. Faustina’s revelations. Indeed, it is not primarily about St. Faustina — nor is it altogether a new feast.
The Second Sunday of Easter was already a solemnity as the Octave Day of Easter[1].
The title “Divine Mercy Sunday” does, however, highlight the meaning of the day. ….
“… Haaretz reportedthat during a dig in Tiberias, archaeologist Moshe Hartal “noticed a mysterious phenomenon: Alongside a layer of earth from the time of the Umayyad era (638-750), and at the same depth, the archaeologists found a layer of earth from the Ancient Roman era (37 B.C.E.-132). ‘I encountered a situation for which I had no explanation — two layers of earth from hundreds of years apart lying side by side,’ says Hartal. ‘I was simply dumbfounded”.”
Gunnar Heinsohn
The major Caliphates of Islam are listed as these five (1-5):
1 Rashidun Caliphate (632–661)
2 Umayyad Caliphate (661–750)
3 Abbasid Caliphate (750–1258)
4 Mamluk Abbasid dynasty (1261–1517)
5 Ottoman Caliphate (1517–1924)
It will be my purpose here – abstracting from the immense problems already associated with the Qur’an (Koran) itself (e.g.):
Dr Günter Lüling: Christian hymns underlie Koranic poetry
– to show that virtually none (if any at all) of this presumed history of the successive Caliphates is properly historical, and, hence, underpinned by a reliable archaeology.
Abbasid Caliphate
Aiming right at the centre, the middle one (No. 3 above), the famed Abbasid Caliphate: “The Abbasid caliphs established the city of Baghdad in 762 CE. It became a center of learning and the hub of what is known as the Golden Age of Islam”:
I have already disposed of this supposedly the most glorious age of Islam by arguing that early Baghdad (not the modern city of that name), known as Madinat-al-Salam, “City of Peace”, was actually Jerusalem, meaning just that, “City of Peace”:
In the same article I noted that the imagined early Baghdad had, unsurprisingly, left no discernible archaeological trace. There I wrote:
The first thing to notice about ancient Baghdad is that it has left “no tangible traces”:
“Built of the baked brick, the city’s walls have long since crumbled,
leaving no trace of Madinat-al-Salam today”.
“While no tangible traces have yet been discovered of the eighth-century
Madinat-al-Salam, and as it is currently impossible to conduct excavations in Baghdad, one can only hope that one day material evidence may be discovered”.
It never recovered;[b] its walls were destroyed by 912,[c] nothing of
them remains,[d][6] there is no agreement as to where it was located.[7]”
[End of quotes]
And just as I have shown, time and time again, that the Prophet Mohammed was a fictitious, largely biblical, composite, so, too, basically, I believe, were the luminaries of the so-called Abbasid Golden Age.
And in the names of a handful of presumed Islamic scholars of the Golden Age, the polymathic Al-Kindi (c. 800); Al-Farabi (c. 900); Avicenna (c. 1000); and Averroes (c. 1150), I found what I would consider to be elements of Ahikar’s (Tobit’s nephew) Assyro-Babylonian names: respectively, Aba-enlil-dari and Esagil-kinni-ubba.
Thus:
Al-Kindi – Esagil-Kinni;
Al-Farabi – Enlil-Dar-Ab(i);
Avicenna – Ubb-kinni(a);
Averroes – Aba-(d)ar(i)
In these famous names is largely encompassed Islamic philosophy, science, astronomy, cosmology, history, demography, medicine and music for the Golden Age.
Melting down the fake Golden Age of Islamic intellectualism
If the glorious and lengthy Abbasid Caliphate can be thus expunged from history, and the very originator of Islam, Mohammed, found to have been an artificial construct – not to mention Loqmân and Abu Lahab (see below) – then we appear to have no firm archaeological foundations upon which to erect a plausible history of the Caliphate.
And things, apparently, do not get much better.
Rashidun Caliphate
Let us go back for a moment to Mohammed and his presumed era, more than a century before the so-called Abbasids.
Not only has Mohammed been shown to have been a non-historical entity, a fictitious composite based upon real historical (biblical) characters:
Mohammed, a composite of Old Testament figures, also based upon Jesus Christ
but the historicity of some of Mohammed’s supposed contemporaries, too, is highly suspect.
Mohammed’s very uncle, Abu Lahab, for instance, has been found to have had suspiciously (biblical) Ahab-like traits, as, correspondingly, does Abu-Lahab’s unbelieving wife, Umm Jamīl, somewhat resemble Queen Jezebel:
And their (Mohammed and Nehemiah’s) contemporary, the Byzantine emperor, Heraclius, is a most bizarre character, somewhat like a frog in a blender, whom I have described as being “a composite of all composites”:
Again, there is the Islamic sage Loqmân (Luqman) of the Qur’an (31st sura), who quotes from the wisdom of Ahikar, an Israelite nephew of the biblical Tobit:
With so insecure an archaeologico-historical base, beginning with Mohammed himself, the entire Caliphate period, from, say, 650-1250 AD (Rashidun to Abbasid), must needs be looking very shaky indeed.
At this stage I have not analysed the four caliphs closely associated with Mohammed (the Rashidun Caliphate), Abū Bakr (reigned 632–634), ʿUmar (reigned 634–644), ʿUthmān (reigned 644–656), and ʿAlī (reigned 656–661). But, based on the cases of Mohammed and Abu Lahab, I would strongly suspect that these four, too, can be identifiable with one or more biblical characters ranging from, say, Moses to Tobit (possibly also embracing the New Testament).
Let us switch now to the Umayyads (661-750 AD).
Umayyad Caliphate
As with the 1 Rashidun Caliphate (632–661), so, too, in the case of the 2 Umayyad Caliphate (661–750), I have not yet analysed the various caliphs with an eye to biblical comparisons.
But the great shock about the Umayyads came at the very beginning of this article, with archaeologist Moshe Hartal’s observation that the Umayyads existed on the same stratigraphical level as the Romans of the period approximating to Jesus Christ.
How shattering!
According to professor Gunnar Heinsohn’s interpretation of the Umayyads, these were none other than the Nabataeans (era of Maccabees and Jesus Christ):
I do not necessarily agree with every detail (e.g. date) of the following.
….
“Archeologists have no way of distinguishing Roman and Byzantium buildings from Umayyad buildings, because “8th-10th Cent. Umayyads built in 2nd Cent. technology” and followed Roman models”.
In Heinsohn’s SC chronology, the rise of Christianity in the first three centuries AD and the rise of Islam from the 7th to the 10th century are roughly contemporary. Their six-century chasm is a fiction resulting from the fact that the rise of Christianity is dated in Imperial Antiquity while the rise of Islam is dated in the Early Middle Ages, two time-blocks that are in reality contemporary. The resynchronizing of Imperial Antiquity and Early Middle Ages provides a solution to some troublesome archeological anomalies. One of them concerns the Nabataeans.
During Imperial Antiquity, the Nabataean Arabs dominated long distance trade. Their city of Petra was a major center of trade for silk, spice and other goods on the caravan routes that linked China, India and southern Arabia with Egypt, Syria, Greece and Rome.
In 106 AD, the Nabataean Kingdom was officially annexed to the Roman Empire by Trajan (whose father had been governor of Syria) and became the province of Arabia Petraea. Hadrian visited Petra around 130 AD and gave it the name of Hadriane Petra Metropolis, imprinted on his coins. Petra reached its urban flowering in the Severan period (190s-230s AD).[18]
Mackey’s comment: I actually date the Trajan-Hadrian period to the Maccabean age, not c. 106 AD:
Hadrianus Traianus Caesar – Trajan transmutes to Hadrian
And yet, incredibly, these Arab long-distance merchants “are supposed to have forgotten the issuing of coins and the art of writing (Aramaic) after the 1st century AD and only learned it again in the 7th/8th century AD (Umayyad Muslims).
” …. It is assumed that Arabs fell out of civilization after Hadrian, and only emerged back into it under Islam, with an incomprehensible scientific advancement. The extreme primitivism in which pre-Islamic Arabs are supposed to have wallowed, with no writing and no money of they own, “stands in stark contrast to the Islamic Arabs who thrive from the 8th century, [whose] coins are not only found in Poland but from Norway all the way to India and beyond at a time when the rest of the known world was trying to crawl out of the darkness of the Early Middle Ages.”…. Moreover, Arab coins dated to the 8th and 9th centuries are found in the same layers as imperial Roman coins. “The coin finds of Raqqa, for example, which stratigraphically belong to the Early Middle Ages (8th-10th century), also contain imperial Roman coins from Imperial Antiquity (1st-3rd century) and Late Antiquity (4th-7th century).” …. “Thus, we have an impressive trove of post-7th c. Arab coins lumped together with pre-7th c. Roman coins of pre-7th c. Roman times. But we have no pre-7th c. Arab coins from the centuries of their close alliance with Rome in the pre-7th c. periods.”
….
The first Islamic Umayyad coins, issued in Jerusalem, “continue supposedly 700 years earlier Nabataean coins.”
….
Often displaying Jewish menorahs with Arabic lettering, they differ very little from Jewish coins dated seven centuries earlier; we are dealing here with an evolution “requiring only years or decades, but not seven centuries.”
….
Architecture raises similar problems. Archeologists have no way of distinguishing Roman and Byzantium buildings from Umayyad buildings, because “8th-10th Cent. Umayyads built in 2nd Cent. technology” and followed Roman models. …. “How could the Umayyads in the 8th c. AD perfectly imitate late Hellenistic styles,” Heinsohn asks, “when there were no specialists left to teach them such sophisticated skills?”
….
Moreover, “Umayyad structures were built right on top of Late-Hellenistic structures of the 1st c. BCE/CE.” …. One example is “the second most famous Umayyad building, their mosque in Damascus. The octagonal structure of the so-called Dome of the Treasury stands on perfect Roman columns of the 1st/2nd century. They are supposed to be spolia, but . . . there are no known razed buildings from which they could have been taken. Even more puzzling are the enormous monolithic columns inside the building from the 8th/9th c. AD, which also belong to the 1st/2nd century. No one knows the massive structure that would have had to be demolished to obtain them.”
….
Far from rejecting the Umayyads’ servile “imitation” of Roman Antiquity, their Abbasid enemies resumed it: “8th-10th c. Abbasids bewilder historians for copying, right down to the chemical fingerprint, Roman glass.”
The millefiori technique, which takes its name from the Italian word meaning “thousand flowers”, reached a culmination in the Roman period. . . .
The technique seems to have been rediscovered by Islamic glassmakers in the 9th century, since examples of millefiori glass, including tiles, have been excavated in the Abbasid capital of Samarra. ….
I included in “How Long Was the First Millennium?” one of Heinsohn’s illustrations of identical millefiori glass bowls ascribed respectively to the 1st-2nd century Romans and to the 8th-9th century Abbasids. Here is another puzzling comparison: ….
Heinsohn concludes that, “the culture of the Umayyads is as Roman as the culture of early medieval Franks.
Their 9th/10th century architecture is a direct continuation of the 2nd c. AD. The 700 years in between do not exist in reality.” …. “The Arabs did not walk in ignorance without coinage and writing for some 700 years. Those 700 years represent phantom centuries. Thus, it is not true that Arabs were backward in comparison with their immediate Roman and Greek neighbours who, interestingly enough, are not on record for having ever claimed any Arab backwardness. . . . the caliphs now dated from the 690s to the 930s are actually the caliphs of the period from Augustus to the 230s.”
….
This explains why archeologists often find themselves puzzled by the stratigraphy. For example, Haaretz reported that during a dig in Tiberias, archaeologist Moshe Hartal “noticed a mysterious phenomenon: Alongside a layer of earth from the time of the Umayyad era (638-750), and at the same depth, the archaeologists found a layer of earth from the Ancient Roman era (37 B.C.E.-132). ‘I encountered a situation for which I had no explanation — two layers of earth from hundreds of years apart lying side by side,’ says Hartal. ‘I was simply dumbfounded.’”
….
Heinsohn argues that the Umayyads of the Early Middle Ages are not only identical with the Nabataeans of Imperial Antiquity, but are also documented in the intermediate time-block of Late Antiquity under the name of the Ghassanids. “Nabataeans and Umayyads not only shared the same art, the same metropolis Damascus, and the same stratigraphy, but also a common territory that was home to yet another famous Arab ethnicity that also held Damascus: the Ghassanids. They served as Christian allies of the Byzantines during Late Antiquity (3rd/4th to 6th c. AD). Yet, they were already active during Imperial Antiquity (1st to 3rd c. AD). Diodorus Siculus (90-30 BC) knew them as Gasandoi, Pliny the Elder (23-79 AD) as Casani, and Claudius Ptolemy (100-170 AD) as Kassanitai.” …. In the Byzantine period, the Ghassanid caliphs had “the same reputation for anti-trinitarian monotheism as the Abbasid Caliphs now dated to 8th /9th centuries.” …. They also, like the Islamic Arabs, preserved some Bedouin customs such as polygamy. ….
[End of quotes]
In a most interesting twist, Taycan Sapmaz identifies:
with more, hopefully, to be written on this subject in the future.
Conclusions
The Prophet Mohammed is clearly a non-historical, composite entity based on a bunch of real historical figures from a vast range of eras.
Mohammed’s relatives, contemporaries, likewise are biblico-historically-based, e.g. uncle Lahab as Ahab; Nehemiah ben Hushiel as the biblical Nehemiah; emperor Heraclius as possibly literature’s most composite of composites.
This necessitates that the closely associated Rashidun Caliphate could have no real historical reality in AD time. This view being totally reinforced by the next Caliphate,
The Umayyad as belonging archaeologically to a Roman period, some six centuries prior to the supposed era of Mohammed. This being totally reinforced by the next Caliphate,
The Abbasid, as having no archaeological trace for its epicentre, ancient Baghdad, Madinat al-Salam, which is really ancient Jerusalem.
“How much suffering we see in the eyes of the children:
the children in those lands at war have forgotten how to smile!
With those eyes, they ask us: Why? Why all this death?
Why all this destruction?
War is always an absurdity, war is always a defeat!”
Pope Francis
URBI ET ORBI MESSAGE OF HIS HOLINESS POPE FRANCIS
EASTER 2024
Central loggia of the Vatican Basilica Sunday, 31 March 2024
________________________________________
Dear brothers and sisters, Happy Easter!
Today throughout the world there resounds the message proclaimed two thousand years ago from Jerusalem: “Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified, has been raised!” (Mk 16:6).
The Church relives the amazement of the women who went to the tomb at dawn on the first day of the week. The tomb of Jesus had been sealed with a great stone. Today too, great stones, heavy stones, block the hopes of humanity: the stone of war, the stone of humanitarian crises, the stone of human rights violations, the stone of human trafficking, and other stones as well. Like the women disciples of Jesus, we ask one another: “Who will roll away the stone for us from the entrance to the tomb?” (cf. Mk 16:3).
This is the amazing discovery of that Easter morning: the stone, the immense stone, was rolled away. The astonishment of the women is our astonishment as well: the tomb of Jesus is open and it is empty! From this, everything begins anew! A new path leads through that empty tomb: the path that none of us, but God alone, could open: the path of life in the midst of death, the path of peace in the midst of war, the path of reconciliation in the midst of hatred, the path of fraternity in the midst of hostility.
Brothers and sisters, Jesus Christ is risen! He alone has the power to roll away the stones that block the path to life. He, the living One, is himself that path. He is the Way: the way that leads to life, the way of peace, reconciliation and fraternity. He opens that path, humanly impossible, because he alone takes away the sin of the world and forgives us our sins. For without God’s forgiveness, that stone cannot be removed.
Without the forgiveness of sins, there is no overcoming the barriers of prejudice, mutual recrimination, the presumption that we are always right and others wrong. Only the risen Christ, by granting us the forgiveness of our sins, opens the way for a renewed world.
Jesus alone opens up before us the doors of life, those doors that continually we shut with the wars spreading throughout the world. Today we want, first and foremost, to turn our eyes to the Holy City of Jerusalem, that witnessed the mystery of the Passion, Death and Resurrection of Jesus, and to all the Christian communities of the Holy Land.
My thoughts go especially to the victims of the many conflicts worldwide, beginning with those in Israel and Palestine, and in Ukraine. May the risen Christ open a path of peace for the war-torn peoples of those regions. In calling for respect for the principles of international law, I express my hope for a general exchange of all prisoners between Russia and Ukraine: all for the sake of all!
I appeal once again that access to humanitarian aid be ensured to Gaza, and call once more for the prompt release of the hostages seized on 7 October last and for an immediate cease-fire in the Strip.
Let us not allow the current hostilities to continue to have grave repercussions on the civil population, by now at the limit of its endurance, and above all on the children. How much suffering we see in the eyes of the children: the children in those lands at war have forgotten how to smile! With those eyes, they ask us: Why? Why all this death? Why all this destruction? War is always an absurdity, war is always a defeat! Let us not allow the strengthening winds of war to blow on Europe and the Mediterranean. Let us not yield to the logic of weapons and rearming. Peace is never made with arms, but with outstretched hands and open hearts.
Brothers and sisters, let us not forget Syria, which for thirteen years has suffered from the effects of a long and devastating war. So many deaths and disappearances, so much poverty and destruction, call for a response on the part of everyone, and of the international community.
My thoughts turn today in a special way to Lebanon, which has for some time experienced institutional impasse and a deepening economic and social crisis, now aggravated by the hostilities on its border with Israel. May the Risen Lord console the beloved Lebanese people and sustain the entire country in its vocation to be a land of encounter, coexistence and pluralism.
I also think in particular of the region of the Western Balkans, where significant steps are being taken towards integration in the European project. May ethnic, cultural and confessional differences not be a cause of division, but rather a source of enrichment for all of Europe and for the world as a whole.
I likewise encourage the discussions taking place between Armenia and Azerbaijan, so that, with the support of the international community, they can pursue dialogue, assist the displaced, respect the places of worship of the various religious confessions, and arrive as soon as possible at a definitive peace agreement.
May the risen Christ open a path of hope to all those who in other parts of the world are suffering from violence, conflict, food insecurity and the effects of climate change. May the Lord grant consolation to the victims of terrorism in all its forms. Let us pray for all those who have lost their lives and implore the repentance and conversion of the perpetrators of those crimes.
May the risen Lord assist the Haitian people, so that there can soon can be an end to the acts of violence, devastation and bloodshed in that country, and that it can advance on the path to democracy and fraternity.
May Christ grant consolation and strength to the Rohingya, beset by a grave humanitarian crisis, and open a path to reconciliation in Myanmar, torn for years now by internal conflicts, so that every logic of violence may be definitively abandoned.
May the Lord open paths of peace on the African continent, especially for the suffering peoples in Sudan and in the entire region of the Sahel, in the Horn of Africa, in the region of Kivu in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and in the province of Capo Delgado in Mozambique, and bring an end to the prolonged situation of drought which affects vast areas and provokes famine and hunger.
May the Risen One make the light of his face shine upon migrants and on all those who are passing through a period of economic difficulty, and offer them consolation and hope in their moment of need. May Christ guide all persons of good will to unite themselves in solidarity, in order to address together the many challenges which loom over the poorest families in their search for a better life and happiness.
On this day when we celebrate the life given us in the resurrection of the Son, let us remember the infinite love of God for each of us: a love that overcomes every limit and every weakness. And yet how much the precious gift of life is despised! How many children cannot even be born? How many die of hunger and are deprived of essential care or are victims of abuse and violence? How many lives are made objects of trafficking for the increasing commerce in human beings?
Brothers and sisters, on the day when Christ has set us free from the slavery of death, I appeal to all who have political responsibilities to spare no efforts in combatting the scourge of human trafficking, by working tirelessly to dismantle the networks of exploitation and to bring freedom to those who are their victims. May the Lord comfort their families, above all those who anxiously await news of their loved ones, and ensure them comfort and hope.
May the light of the resurrection illumine our minds and convert our hearts, and make us aware of the value of every human life, which must be welcomed, protected and loved.
Australian Marian Academy of the Immaculate Conception 