The Teachings of Jesus or Beliefs about Jesus?

The latest issue of Discovering the Bible is now online -- The Teachings of Jesus or Beliefs about Jesus?

Which was most important to Jesus – “his teachings” or “beliefs about him”? Today, which do you think is most important to Christians – “beliefs about Jesus” or “what Jesus taught”? How many people think it will be what they believe that will determine their fate after death? But what did Jesus have to say about that subject? In order to find out we must turn to our only sources for what the historical Jesus taught – the Gospels. However, you should be aware of the conditions in the world in which they were written -- before you attempt to understand what they say.

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Archaeologist: Stop Muslim Temple Mount Denial, 'Barbaric' Digs

Dr. Gabi Barkai, senior lecturer at Bar Ilan University and recipient of the Jerusalem Prize for Archaeology, says Israelis must demand that Israeli antiquities law be enforced at Israel's most important archaeological site– the Temple Mount.

"It is the most important site in the world for the Jewish people," Barkai told Benny Tucker of Arutz Sheva's Hebrew newsmagazine in a Jerusalem Day interview, "as well as the most important archaeological site in Israel, and despite all this, Israel has abandoned it. Over the past ten years, the Waqf has taken control, making major changes in the status quo: It has conducted illegal digs, built mosques and the like, and the situation has changed from one extreme to the other." . . . .

Barkai explained that in addition to building mosques on the site, the Moslems clearly have the goal of detaching Israel from its past and Holy Temple connections: "They wish to undermine Jewish ownership and bonds to the Temple Mount. They've built a giant mosque there in Solomon's Stables [under the Temple Mount] and another one nearby – but aside from that, they have an ideological goal which is even making inroads to naïve circles in the west, and it is called 'Holy Temple denial.' They act as if there never was a Holy Temple. This is very very grave; regarding the Holocaust, there are living people who still remember it, but the same cannot be said regarding the Temple…"

"We must demand that Israeli law and sovereignty be enforced on the Temple Mount," Barkai concluded. (IsraelNationalNews.com)

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Ptolemaic Statue and Temple Found

Archaeologists excavating at Taposiris Magna, a site west of Alexandria, have discovered a huge headless granite statue of a Ptolemaic king, and the original gate to a temple dedicated to the god Osiris. In a statement issued by the SCA, Dr Zahi Hawass says that the monumental sculpture, which is a traditional figure of an ancient Egyptian pharaoh wearing collar and kilt, could represent Ptolemy IV, the pharaoh who constructed the Taposiris Magna temple. He added that the statue is very well preserved and might be one of the most beautiful statues carved in the ancient Egyptian style. . . . Behind the temple, a necropolis was discovered, containing many Greco-Roman style mummies. Early investigations, said Dr Hawass, show that the mummies were buried with their faces turned towards the temple, which means it is likely the temple contained the burial of a significant royal personality, possibly Cleopatra VII.
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Ethical Conflicts over Care

Most physicians in a recent survey said they would refer their patients elsewhere for barred services, but 4% would violate hospital policy to provide care. One in five primary care physicians working in religiously affiliated health care organizations has experienced a conflict over faith-based patient care policies, according to a new study in the Journal of General Internal Medicine. The findings, based on a nationwide survey of 446 family physicians and internists, appear to be the first to document how frequently doctors disagree with institutional policies in areas such as
reproductive and end-of-life care, said Debra B. Stulberg, MD, the study's lead author. "It's an issue that patients and we, as physicians, should be aware of," said Dr. Stulberg, instructor in the Dept. of Family Medicine at the University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine.
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Latest Noah's Ark is a Hoax

Has the real Noah's Ark spoken of in the Bible truly been found? At least two seasoned archaeologists who have made numerous expeditions to Mount Ararat in search of Noah's Ark are throwing cold water on this week's claim the Old Testament vessel has finally been discovered, saying it's a hoax involving wood hauled in from the Black Sea region.
"To make a long story short: this is all reported to be a fake," said Randall Price, director of Judaic Studies at Liberty University in Lynchburg, Va.
"This is not Noah's Ark," adds Bob Cornuke of the Bible Archaeology Search and Exploration Institute. "This is a fake. It's a fraud and it's of the highest caliber according to what I can assess from the evidence and talking to eyewitnesses and people from Turkey."
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Has Noah's Ark Been Found?

Web sites are buzzing over claims that remains from Noah’s Ark may have been found on Turkey’s Mount Ararat. The finders, led by an evangelical group, say they are "99.9 percent" that a wooden structure found on the mountainside was part of a ship that housed the Biblical Noah, his family and a menagerie of creatures during a giant flood 4,800 years ago.
But researchers who have spent decades studying the region – and fending off past claims of ark discoveries – caution that a boatload of skepticism is in order. "You have to take everything out of context except the Bible to get something tolerable, and they're not even working much with the Bible," said Paul Zimansky, an archaeologist and historian at Stony Brook University who specializes in the Near East - and especially the region around Ararat, known as Urartu. Cornell archaeologist Peter Ian Kuniholm, who has focused on Turkey for decades, was even more direct - saying that the reported find is a "crock."
The quest to find remnants of the Bible's most famous cargo ship goes back to, well, virtually biblical times (or at least back to the time of the ancient historian Josephus). In the Book of Genesis, God tells Noah to build a boat that would be longer than a modern-day football field and more than three stories high. Animals were sent to seek shelter in the ship and ride out a flood that wiped out the entire
world.
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A New Sumerian City Discovered in Southern Iraq

Abdul-Amir Hamdani is the Director of Dhi-qar antiquities office for the Iraqi State Board of Antiquities and Heritage. . . Hamdani states that he found this site on December 30th of 2009. The new site is located in a remote desert about 33 km southeast from the ruins of Eridu near modern Abu Sahrein. Eridu was long thought to be the southernmost of the Sumerian cities, and possibly the oldest city in the region, now this new site revises the map of antiquity. Site Dated To Ur's 3rd Dynasty Exploration of the site has revealed bricks inscribed in cuneiform writing which have been dated to the 3rd Dynasty of Ur (ca. 2113-2006 BCE).
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