Archaeologists Find Ancient Hammurabi-Like Law Code in Israel Clay Tablet

Archaeologists have uncovered for the first time in Israel fragments of a law code that resemble portions of the famous Code of Hammurabi. The code was found on two fragments of a clay tablet, and is between 3,700 and 3,800 years old, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem said today in an e-mailed statement.... more »

Five Women Executed For Witchcraft in Salem

Does freedom of religion mean that anyone can say anything, as long as it's a religious belief? Does what people belief really matter? I am sure that the five women that were hanged on July 19, 1692, and the 150-200 that were imprisoned, would all agree that what people believe can change the lives of others forever.... more »

The Bible Through Their Eyes - Section 3

This is the third second section of "The Bible Through Their Eyes" program -- "You Can't Take Some Words Literally" Every language contains words that cannot be translated literally from one language into another. They may create some very difficult situations for Bible readers and translators who do not understand... more »

The Bible Through Their Eyes: Part Two

The second section of "The Bible Through Their Eyes" program -- "Learning How Words Work" -- has been revised and uploaded to the website.

"A goal that every reader of the Bible should have is to determine what the words they are reading meant to the original author and the audience to whom he or she was writing. This is not a simple task. As a matter of fact it may be impossible in some cases. There are, however, guidelines that one may use to ensure the highest possibility of accuracy.

This is what we call learning how words work

Learning how words work allows us to see beyond the cultural blinders that we have worn all of our lives. We have been acquiring words, along with the bundles of association provided by our culture, all of our lives. So have many others, otherwise, without this process, communication with one another would be impossible. It is those shared bundles of associations that combine to create our languages."

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Hammurabi, Sixth King of Babylon

Famous for the Code of Hammurabi, a symbol of the Mesopotamian civilization, Hammurabi was a Babylonian king and the sixth ruler of the Amorite dynasty. He is revered today as one of the great rulers and lawgivers of ancient times. Hammurabi (also spelled Hammurapi) was a member of the Amorite tribe, a Semitic group of people who lived in Mesopotamia, an area between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. Very little information exists about his early life and immediate family. His father was named Sinmuballit, his sister was Iltani and his firstborn son was Samsuiluna. The origin of Hammurabi’s name isn’t distinctly Babylonian and remains a bit of a mystery, the Catholic Encyclopedia explains. Some scribes have translated it as “Kimta-rapaashtum,” meaning “great family” in the South Arabian dialect. Many scholars agree that Hammurabi’s dynasty was of Arabic or Aramean origin, originating in the “land of Amurru.”
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Woman Arrested for Carrying Torah Near Western Wall

JERUSALEM (RNS) An Israeli feminist was arrested Monday (July 12) when she carried a Torah scroll at the Western Wall, the holiest site in Judaism. Jerusalem police detained Anat Hoffman, co-founder of the Women of the Wall, for five hours, fined her $1,300 and ordered her to stay away from the Western Wall for 30 days, according to the statement released by Hoffman's group. . . The incident occurred on the same day the Israeli parliament took steps to approve a contentious law that would codify the Orthodox establishment's control over all matters related to conversions to Judaism.
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How Will 9,000,000,000 People Live Together?

The world's population has risen from two billion in 1930 to 6.8 billion now, with nine billion projected by 2050. Think about those numbers for a moment. More people will be added to the present population in the next 40 years than the entire world population in 1930. What will be required to supply 9,000,000,000 people with water, food, clothing, housing, transportation, education, entertainment, etc.? Where will they work and who will pay them? How will they relate to one another? What they believe will clearly play a role in the way they relate. If they believe that the protection, preservation and enhancement of the quality of life is their top priority in 40 years the world could be a more peaceful and safer place. But, if they believe that their mutually exclusive belief systems should be imposed on the rest of the population, the quality of life that we have experienced could steadily degenerate over next 40 years. Clearly the current trend of for the concentration of wealth in fewer & fewer hands has some dangerous implications. As the general unrest of billions of people increases their beliefs will be a major factor in determining what they do. In 40 years my oldest grandson will be younger than I am now, and my youngest granddaughter will be 43 years old. How old will you children and grandchildren be? What can we do to make their world better and safer?

Jerusalem's Most Ancient Letter Revealed

Archaeologists working in Jerusalem have uncovered the most ancient written document ever found in the city – a fragment of a letter thought to date back to the 14th century BCE. The letter was engraved in clay using the Akkadian text, used at the time as a "bridge language" between kingdoms and others. Researchers said the fragment shows that Jerusalem was an important city in the late Bronze age, even before it became the capital of the Jewish state and the city in which the Holy Temple was built.
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Ancient Egyptian City Located in Nile Delta by Radar

An ancient Egyptian city believed to be Avaris, the capital of the Hyksos people who ruled 3,500 years ago, has been located by radar, Egypt's culture ministry says. A team of Austrian archaeologists used radar imaging to find the underground outlines of the city in the Nile Delta, a now densely populated area. The Hyksos were foreign occupiers from Asia who ruled Egypt for a century.
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Egyptian Kingdoms Dated

A three-year study of hundreds of artefacts looks set to settle several long-standing debates about Egypt's ancient dynasties. The study, which appears in today's issue of Science1, is the first to use high-precision measurements of radioactive carbon isotopes to produce a detailed timeline for the reigns of Egyptian pharaohs from about 2650 BC to 1100 BC. "It is a very, very important finding," says Hendrik Bruins, an archaeologist and geoscientist at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Israel, who was not associated with the work. "For the first time, radiocarbon dating more or less corroborates the essence of the Egyptian historical chronology."
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What Does God Require?

An unforgettable moment that almost every Informed Believer, with a Christian biblical heritage, never forgets is the moment he or she became aware of the differences between the Jewish Yeshua and the Roman Jesus. It is a shocking experience, to say the least. The Jewish Yeshua was the person that lived in the first century CE and some of his teachings are recorded in the Synoptic Gospels – Matthew, Mark & Luke. The Roman Jesus is a theological creation of Gentile Christians, who were heavily influenced by Roman Emperors and the pre-Christian pagan beliefs of generations of Gentile church leaders. Who the Roman Jesus was and what he required of his followers fluctuated from time to time; depending on who was in charge of the church. In the famous 4th century CE conflict between two Alexandrian church leaders, Arius and Athanasius, the Roman Church first ruled that Athanasius was correct, reversed its position in favor or Arius for a while, and then reversed it again back to Athanasius. The status of their followers changed from orthodox believers to lost heretics without any changes in their individual beliefs. Changing the “official standard” for determining who is saved or damned has been repeated many times throughout the history of Christianity. However, the constant factor found almost universally among the different standards of salvation is that they all require adherence to the “correct beliefs,” which is determined by a religious institution.
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Presbyterians Push to Demonize Israel

You probably don’t remember but before June 1967 there was peace in the land between the Mediterranean and the Jordan. There were no fedayeen, no terror attacks, no PLO. Only after it was “colonized in the 20th century” by Jewish immigrants from Europe who took “the land of Palestine from a majority of its inhabitants at gunpoint” did things go sour. First came the Nakba, the catastrophe that was the creation of the State of Israel in 1948, followed 19 years later by the “illegal” occupation of the West Bank and Gaza. That’s the view the Presbyterian Church USA (PCUSA) will be asked to endorse next month when it meets in Minneapolis to consider a report by its Middle East study committee. . . . This document ignores Arab refusal to recognize the Jewish state, the attempts to destroy it at birth and the threats to drive it into the sea. It was the Jews’ own fault for being there in the first place. The report reaches back to biblical times to delegitimize Jewish claims to the land. Jacob, aka Israel, stole the birthright from his brother Esau and refused later entreaties to combine their interests and dwell in the land together. . . . National Jewish organizations, which the report accuses of “complicity in the excesses of Israeli policy,” have understandably denounced the document. The United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism has said it is “distinctly onesided, traffics in troubling theology, misrepresents Jewish history.”
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Searching for the Better Text

How errors crept into the Bible and what can be done to correct them. Isaiah’s vision of universal peace is one of the best-known passages in the Hebrew Bible: “The wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them” (Isaiah 11:6). But does this beloved image of the Peaceable Kingdom contain a mistranslation? For years many scholars suspected that it did. Given the parallelism of the phrases, one would expect a verb instead of “the fatling.” With the discovery of the Isaiah Scroll among the Dead Sea Scrolls, those scholars were given persuasive new support. The Isaiah Scroll contains a slight change in the Hebrew letters at this point in the text, yielding “will feed”: “the calf and the young lion will feed together.” This is just one of numerous variations from the traditional text of the Hebrew Bible contained in the Dead Sea Scrolls. In some cases the traditional text is clearly superior, but in others the version in the scrolls is better. Thanks to the scrolls, more and more textual problems in the Hebrew Bible are being resolved. The notes in newer Bible translations list variant readings from the scrolls, and in some cases, the translations incorporate these readings in the text as the preferred reading. No one has ever seriously suggested that the Dead Sea Scrolls contain anything like an eleventh commandment; but the scrolls do help clarify numerous difficult phrases in the Hebrew Bible, and for textual scholars that is more than enough. Before we list other examples of how the Dead Sea Scrolls influenced — or altered —Bible translations, we need to understand how ambiguities crept into the text of the Hebrew Bible in the first place. And we must also familiarize ourselves with the ancient versions of the Hebrew Bible on which modern translations rely (for good reason scholars call these ancient versions “witnesses” to the biblical text).
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Saving a Life Trumps Dogma

The principle of saving a life is paramount in Jewish law – so why are ultra-orthodox Jews still opposed to organ donation? Supporters of a new initiative encouraging organ donation in the Jewish community face an uphill task convincing certain groups that the practice is compatible with religious law. Even though the ultimate mitzvah (commandment) in Judaism is saving another's life, there is still resistance when it comes to donating organs for just such a cause. According to the misinterpretations of many ultra-orthodox leaders, a person must be buried intact so as to be in full working order when the Messiah comes to revive the dead. Due to the sanctity of every
individual's body – which is viewed as simply a receptacle for the God-given neshama (soul) – it is forbidden to desecrate a body, whether living or dead, either with superficially, as with tattoos, or by more extreme actions such as cremation. The issue of organ donation has divided the Jewish community for generations. Despite an apparent softening in the approach of many ultra-orthodox rabbis to the subject, there are still vast swaths of the Jewish public who are vehemently opposed to it – to the point that many Haredim carry anti-organ-donor cards expressly forbidding the
removal of their organs under any circumstances. Of course, those same people have no problem receiving organs from other donors, displaying the kind of hypocrisy that earns the Haredi community such opprobrium from their Jewish peers both in Israel and
abroad. Their all-take, no-give approach over organ transplants is reminiscent of their refusal to serve in the IDF, despite their expectation that others put their lives on the line to defend Israel's citizens and protect their freedom.
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How Religion Made Jews Genetically Distinct

Jewish populations around the world share more than traditions and laws – they also have a common genetic background. That is the conclusion of the most comprehensive genetic study yet aimed at tracing the ancestry of Jewish people.
In a study of over 200 Jews from cities in three different countries, researchers found that all of them descended from a founding community that lived 2500 years ago in Mesopotamia. . . .
Results of the analysis also tally with biblical accounts of the fate of the Jews. Using their DNA analysis, the authors traced the ancestors of all Jews to Persia and Babylon, areas that now form part of Iran and Iraq.

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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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http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/137513
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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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New Movie about Branch Davidians

Waco, USA - Kurt Russell, Adrien Brody and Sharon Stone have all signed up to star in new drama Waco. The movie, directed by Stigmata's Rupert Wainwright, tells the true story of the the 1993 incident in Texas when the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco And Firearms sieged the compound where David Koresh and his personal cult, the Branch Davidians, were holed-up. It is not known which roles the stars are taking, but Production Weekly reports Kurt, Sharon and Adrien are all on board. Federal agents took action against the cult after reports of child abuse and rape emerged from the isolated compound, leading to a devastating fire within the structure that left 81 people dead and controversy surrounding how the authorities handled the situation. Investigative journalist Lee Hibberd apparently wrote the script and the filmmakers will be advised by documentary maker Michael McNulty, who made Waco: The Rules Of Engagement about the incident. SOURCE

Happy Birthday, Israel

The modern nation of Israel will be 62 years old next week. Many Jewish Americans in the United States remember Israel’s Independence Day, also known as Yom Ha’Atzmaut (or Yom HaAtzmaut). Celebrations are annually held on or around the fifth day of the month of Iyar, according to the Jewish calendar. Many Americans will celebrate on April 19th & 20th.

Read more about this holiday at --
http://www.myjewishlearning.com/holidays/Jewish_Holidays/Modern_Holidays/Yom_Haatzmaut.shtml
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Jesus Didn't Go to Church

The April 2010 issue of Discovering the Bible is "Jesus Didn't Go to Church." Jesus didn't found or attend a church - he went to the synagogue. Understanding the role of the synagogue helps readers understand Jesus and his movement much better. You will find this newsletter, plus all of our 2010 newsletters & more at --
http://www.biblicalheritage.org/DTB/bhc_dtb.htm
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Distinguishing Between Fact, Opinion, Belief, and Prejudice

In today's religious and political environment a growing number of "prejudices" are being mistakenly being labeled as "facts" and "beliefs." I came across a very short paper for a writing course at Colorado State University, which provides some very useful definitions of the above words. The professionally engineered "prejudice traps" that are dominating 30-second sound bites only work on an uninformed audience. Make sure you are able to distinguish between facts, opinions, beliefs and prejudices. Please take a moment to read it at -- http://writing.colostate.edu/guides/teaching/co300man/pop12d.cfm
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Religious Belief Exemptions From Healthcare Bill

Religion and healthcare is not a new subject, but it is getting a lot
of attention now. The exemption based on religious beliefs which
allows people to opt out of the requirement to purchase insurance
under the newly signed heathcare bill is creating a great deal of
interest. Below are quotes from an article published in Canada Free
Press:

"The recently signed bill contains a clause exempting certain
religious groups, American Indians, illegal immigrants, and hardship
cases (prison inmates) from the health insurance mandate.

The Amish are exempt because they believe it is their church’s
responsibility to care for the material needs of the members, not the
government or insurance companies. When members of the Amish community
have need of a doctor or a hospital, they get financial help from
their church and neighbors and pay in cash for the services.

According to a reputable Islamic Web site managed by Sheikh Muhammed
Salih Al-Munajjid, Islam’s Council of Senior Scholars have issued
fatwas (decrees) that not only prohibit Muslims from purchasing risk
insurance, the fatwas also prohibit them from working for companies
that provide such insurance or any other form of commercial insurance.

`If the government can tolerate a religious exemption, then it must do
so evenhandedly among religious believers with the same beliefs. This
is sheer favoritism for a certain class of religions, or even for one
religion,' wrote Marci A. Hamilton, a professor and lawyer at Yeshiva
University’s Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law in New York."

You may want to do a search on Google for "exemption certificate under
section 1311(d)(4)(H)."
The source of the above information is: http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/21699
- you will also find a link there to download the entire bill from the
New York Times website.
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Prehistoric City Discovered in Syria

A prehistoric town that had remained untouched beneath the ground near
Syria for 6,000 years is now revealing clues about the first cities in
the Middle East prior to the invention of the wheel.

The town, called Tell Zeidan, dates from between 6000 B.C. and 4000
B.C., and immediately preceded the world's first urban civilizations
in the ancient Middle East. It is one of the largest sites of the
Ubaid culture in northern Mesopotamia.

Now archaeologists from the University of Chicago's Oriental Institute
and their Syrian colleagues are studying the town, which sits below a
mound in an area of irrigated fields at the junction of the Euphrates
and Balikh Rivers in what is now northern Syria.

So far, they have unearthed evidence of the society's trade in
obsidian and production and development of copper processing, as well
as the existence of a social elite that used stone seals to mark
ownership of goods and culturally significant items.

The evidence here supports what archaeologists had long surmised, that
the Ubaid people were among the first in the Middle East to experience
division of social groups according to power and wealth.

Read complete article at --
http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2010/04/06/prehistoric-city-discovered-syria/
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British archaeologist: 125,000 years ago first human settlement began in Oman

A new study by a British archaeologist says that the first human
settlement in Oman began about 125,000 years ago. Dr Jeffrey I Rose,
Institute of Archaeology and Antiquity, University of Birmingham, UK,
said this during a lecture here yesterday on “Oman at the Dawn of
Time: The Archaeology of Human Origin in Southern Arabia.”

Speaking to Oman local media, Dr Jeffrey said it is commonly agreed by
archaeologists that originally the human expansion began from Africa,
perhaps from Ethiopia or Kenya. But until recently experts believed
that early human species moved from Africa to Australia. According to
this study, in the journey of human expansion, the first modern humans
followed the rivers into Arabia 125,000 years ago, more specifically
Wadi Aybut in Dhofar, in response to improved environmental
conditions.

For years, Dr Jeffrey and his seven-member team were exploring as to
what was the role of Arabia in the human expansion and subsequent
behavioural revolution? When and why did man first leave Africa? “At
long last, after a decade of searching, we found a site in Wadi Aybut
with stone tools that represent the footprints of the human
expansion,” said Dr Jeffrey. Archaeological researches establish that
human race has the same origin.

Read complete article at --
http://www.english.globalarabnetwork.com/201004095443/Culture/british-archaeologist-125000-years-ago-first-human-settlement-began-in-oman.html
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Pieces of Rare Biblical Manuscript Reunited

JERUSALEM – Two parts of an ancient biblical manuscript separated
across centuries and continents were reunited for the first time in a
joint display Friday, thanks to an accidental discovery that is
helping illuminate a dark period in the history of the Hebrew Bible.

The 1,300-year-old fragments, which are among only a handful of Hebrew
biblical manuscripts known to have survived the era in which they were
written, existed separately and with their relationship unknown, until
a news photograph of one's public unveiling in 2007 caught the
attention of the scholars who would eventually link them. Together,
they make up the text of the Song of the Sea, sung by jubilant
Israelites after fleeing slavery in Egypt and witnessing the
destruction of the pharaoh's armies in the Red Sea.

Read complete story by clicking on --
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100226/ap_on_re_mi_ea/ml_israel_reunited...
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Studies of Psalms

One of the great barriers that keeps readers of the Bible from seeing
its words through the eyes of the ancient authors is the failure of
the translators to reveal the divine names or references to deity in
their translations. Divine names or references to deity in the
following Psalms will be transliterated so readers will be aware of
the Hebrew words found in the ancient text.

The first Psalm in this series is Psalm 150. Click on --
http://www.biblicalheritage.org/Bible%20Studies/Psalms/psalms.htm

New studies will be added, however, there will be no specific order.
Please share these studies with others. Your comments and suggestions
for any specific Psalms you would like to see added to this section
are welcomed.
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New BHC Recommended Books

The Seven Questions You're Asked in Heaven:
Reviewing & Renewing Your Life on Earth
by Dr. Ron Wolfson (American Jewish University)
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How to Do Good & Avoid Evil:
A Global Ethic from the Sources of Judaism
by Hans Kung (Roman Catholic theologian and priest) &
Rabbi Walter Homolka (Rector of the Abraham Geiger College & Professor
at Potsdam University)

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For more information or to buy the above books click on
http://www.biblicalheritage.org/
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A Great Children's Book

The Stapler Caper
"You Write the Story!"

A great way to energize your child's creativity. The4 story is
whatever you want to be. You can erase and start all over or keep
what you've got.

For more information or to buy the above book click on
http://www.biblicalheritage.org/BHC%20Online%20Bookstore/children.htm

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Walking in the Shoes of a Translator

Every translation of any Bible is exactly that – a translation.
Translators have to make thousands of decisions as they choose which
words millions will read in their translations, which are called “the
Bible.” When translators consider the ancient Greek or Hebrew words
of the Bible they must choose from a number of options.

For an overview of those options click on --
http://www.biblicalheritage.org/BHC_Handouts/Translation_Guide_01.pdf
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Please forward this to others who may be interested in learning how to
more accurately understand
the words of their Bible.

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Your support is appreciated and it really helps.
BHC is completely supported by contributions from individuals.
http://www.biblicalheritage.org/BHC/donate.htm

JEHOVAH-JIREH

In Genesis 22:14, we have the phrase JEHOVAH-JIREH which appears in
many English translations:

(1) "and Abraham called the name of the place, Jehovah-Jireh; as it is
said to this day, `In the Mount of the Lord it shall be
provided' (King James Version [KJV]).

(2) "So Abraham called that place the Lord will provide.' On the
mountain of the Lord it will be provided" (New International Version
[NIV]).

I must hasten to add that other versions of the KJV do not follow the
exact wording of this verse as quoted above. The purpose of
displaying the verses as they are is to alert you to the fact that
there is a Hebrew phrase that has been left untranslated in the KJV,
but translated in the NIV.

The phrase JEHOVAH-JIREH which appears only one time in all of
Scripture (Gen. 22:24) is a phrase that has often been translated "God
provides" or "God will provide." Bibles that are written in Hebrew
contain many words or phrases that appear only once in Scripture, as
many as 1800 by some counts. This makes a clear meaning of many of
these words extremely difficult to determine since there is no basis
for comparison in their use. In many cases the translators simply
guess at the best possible meaning given the context of the preceding
and succeeding sentences. But is this true for the phrase JEHOVAH-
JIREH? Since these are clearly two Hebrew words, let's take a look at
them and see if it is difficult to determine their meaning. The NIV
came up with a meaning. Can we confirm that meaning using a few
simple tools which are at hand?

Read complete article (PDF) at --
http://www.biblicalheritage.org/DTB/0310_DTB_Jehovah%20Jireh%20Reprint.pdf
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contributions make a big difference. Make an online donation at --
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Thank You!

Muslim Scholar Declares Terrorism Forbidden by Quran

Islamabad, Pakistan (CNN) -- A fatwa, or religious ruling, issued this
week is roiling theological waters after it took aim at those
notorious for targeting others: terrorists. The anti-terrorism fatwa
by renowned Muslim scholar Muhammad Tahir ul-Qadri pulled no punches,
declaring that terrorism was "haraam," or forbidden by the Quran, and
that suicide bombers would be rewarded not by 72 virgins in heaven, as
many terrorist recruiters promise, but with a suite in hell. . . .

"This is a landmark theological study -- a careful and systematic
treatment of a thousand years of legal tradition dealing with armed
resistance against the state, rules of engagement, aspects. The fatwa
itself ... is categorically and comprehensively against terrorism in
any form and for any cause," Ahmed said.

Read complete article at --
http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/asiapcf/03/03/terror.fatwa.analysis/index.html?hpt=C2
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of individuals. Your support is greatly appreciated and your
contributions make a big difference. Make an online donation at --
http://www.biblicalheritage.org/BHC/donate.htm
Thank You!

Temple Complex in Turkey Predates the Pyramids

Standing on the hill at dawn, overseeing a team of 40 Kurdish diggers,
the German-born archeologist waves a hand over his discovery here, a
revolution in the story of human origins. Schmidt has uncovered a vast
and beautiful temple complex, a structure so ancient that it may be
the very first thing human beings ever built. The site isn't just old,
it redefines old: the temple was built 11,500 years ago—a staggering
7,000 years before the Great Pyramid, and more than 6,000 years before
Stonehenge first took shape.

Read complete at --
http://www.newsweek.com/id/233844
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of individuals. Your support is greatly appreciated and your
contributions make a big difference. Make an online donation at --
http://www.biblicalheritage.org/BHC/donate.htm
Thank You!

I am Israel Video

This is a very good 6 min. video about Israel --
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZprVPKi-W6s&annotation_id=annotation_252323&feature=iv

Please share it with others.

Archaeologist Sees Proof for Bible in Ancient Wall

JERUSALEM – An Israeli archaeologist said Monday that ancient
fortifications recently excavated in Jerusalem date back 3,000 years
to the time of King Solomon and support the biblical narrative about
the era.

If the age of the wall is correct, the finding would be an indication
that Jerusalem was home to a strong central government that had the
resources and manpower needed to build massive fortifications in the
10th century B.C.

That's a key point of dispute among scholars, because it would match
the Bible's account that the Hebrew kings David and Solomon ruled from
Jerusalem around that time.

While some Holy Land archaeologists support that version of history —
including the archaeologist behind the dig, Eilat Mazar — others posit
that David's monarchy was largely mythical and that there was no
strong government to speak of in that era.

Speaking to reporters at the site Monday, Mazar, from the Hebrew
University of Jerusalem, called her find "the most significant
construction we have from First Temple days in Israel."

Read complete article at --
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/ml_israel_ancient_wall
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Pig Heads Left at Malaysia Mosques after Allah Row

Several severed pigs' heads have been found in mosque compounds in the
Malaysian capital, Kuala Lumpur.

The national police chief, Musa Hassan, linked the discoveries to
recent attacks on various houses of worship.

Pigs are considered unclean by Muslims and their presence in the
mosque compound will be taken as an insult.

In recent weeks, 11 churches, one Sikh temple and some Muslim prayer
halls have been vandalised amid a row over non-Muslims' use of the
word Allah.

Religious tensions in Malaysia have increased since a court ruled last
month that a Roman Catholic newspaper could use the word Allah in its
Malay-language edition to describe the Christian God.

Read complete article at --
http://wwrn.org/articles/32528/
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Methodists Ready to Merge with Church of England

London, UK - The Methodist Church is prepared to be absorbed by the
Church of England if that is the price of unity, Britain’s most senior
Methodist said yesterday.

The Rev David Gamble, president of the Methodist Conference, told the
General Synod of the Church of England, meeting at Church House,
Westminster: “We are prepared to go out of existence, not because we
are declining or failing in mission, but for the sake of mission.”
Methodists were “prepared to be changed and even to cease having a
separate existence as a Church” if that served the needs of the
Kingdom of God. . . The founder of Methodism, John Wesley (1703-1791),
was a Church of England clergyman and never intended to start a
denomination.

Read complete article at --
http://wwrn.org/articles/32694/
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A Find Dates Seafaring 100,000-plus Years Ago

Early humans, possibly even prehuman ancestors, appear to have been
going to sea much longer than anyone had ever suspected. That is the
startling implication of discoveries made the last two summers on the
Greek island of Crete. Stone tools found there, archaeologists say,
are at least 130,000 years old, which is considered strong evidence
for the earliest known seafaring in the Mediterranean and cause for
rethinking the maritime capabilities of prehuman cultures.

Crete has been an island for more than five million years, meaning
that the toolmakers must have arrived by boat. So this seems to push
the history of Mediterranean voyaging back more than 100,000 years,
specialists in Stone Age archaeology say. Previous artifact
discoveries had shown people reaching Cyprus, a few other Greek
islands and possibly Sardinia no earlier than 10,000 to 12,000 years
ago.

The oldest established early marine travel anywhere was the sea-
crossing migration of anatomically modern Homo sapiens to Australia,
beginning about 60,000 years ago. There is also a suggestive trickle
of evidence, notably the skeletons and artifacts on the Indonesian
island of Flores, of more ancient hominids making their way by water
to new habitats.

Read entire article at --
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/16/science/16archeo.html
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A Frail King Tut Died from Malaria, Broken Leg

CAIRO – Egypt's most famous pharaoh, King Tutankhamun, was a frail boy
who suffered from a cleft palate and club foot. He died of
complications from a broken leg exacerbated by malaria and his parents
were most likely brother and sister.

Two years of DNA testing and CT scans on Tut's 3,300-year-old mummy
and 15 others are helping end many of the myths surrounding the boy
king. While a comparatively minor ruler, he has captivated the public
since the 1922 discovery of his tomb, which was filled with a stunning
array of jewels and artifacts, including a golden funeral mask.

The study, which will be published Wednesday in the Journal of the
American Medical Association, provides the firmest family tree yet for
Tut. The tests pointed to Pharaoh Akhenaten, who tried to
revolutionize ancient Egyptian religion to worship one god, as Tut's
father. His mother was one of Akhenaten's sisters, it said.

Tut, who became pharaoh at age 10 in 1333 B.C., ruled for just nine
years at a pivotal time in Egypt's history. Speculation has long
swirled over his death at 19. A hole in his skull fueled speculation
he was murdered, until a 2005 CT scan ruled that out, finding the hole
was likely from the mummification process. The scan also uncovered the
broken leg.
The newest tests paint a picture of a pharaoh whose immune system was
likely weakened by congenital diseases. His death came from
complications from the broken leg — along with a new discovery: severe
malaria.

Read the complete article at --
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/ml_egypt_king_tut
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Shame and Illness: A Jewish Perspective

I am working on my book, which includes a study of the opening
chapters of Genesis, and came to a place where I needed to discuss
"shame" in the Jewish culture. While searching the internet I came
across a great article by Michelle E. Friedman, M.D. It was published
in "The Yale Journal for Humanities in Medicine; Spirituality,
Religious Wisdom and the Care of the Patient." Below is an excerpt
from her paper:

"Shame, on the other hand, must be understood in the context of group
culture. Shame implies a failure to live up to internalized parental
and larger societal goals, i.e. what a person "should be like". The
shamed person experiences his/her failure as a lowering of personal
dignity in the eyes of the group and fears ridicule, contempt or
expulsion. . . From the first chapters of Genesis on, we see humankind
struggling to resolve interpersonal and intergroup conflict. These
meaning making narratives depict their characters wrestling with
powerful and sometimes contradictory impulses. . . Shame is a powerful
operative dynamic in Jewish tradition where individual personal and
religious destiny can only be truly fulfilled through membership in
the larger units of family, tribe, and nation. The concept of
individual salvation plays a much less dominant role in Judaism as
compared with Christianity. Shame relies on group context."

Read the complete article at --
http://yjhm.yale.edu/archives/spirit2004/shame/mfriedman.htm
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Teshuvah (Repentance)

At tonight's meeting we studied the Hebrew word TESHUVAH, which is
translated "repentance." We discussed what it would have meant to
Jesus and his Jewish followers. The study notes and handout are online
at [link]
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Bart Ehrman and Other Recommended Books

You will find other very good books written by Bart Ehrman, as well as
other authors in our recommended books sections --

http://www.biblicalheritage.org/books.htm

http://www.biblicalheritage.org/BHC%20Online%20Bookstore/bhc_online_bookstore.htm

Great Bible Study Tools

At the top of every page on the Biblical Heritage website are links
created to help you. Immediately below our logo (open book) are links
to "Google" and "Bible Study Tools." If you click on it you will find
the following:

BIBLES -- Douay-Rheims, New International Version, Greek New
Testament, Parallel New Testament, JPS 1917 Edition Tanakh, Parallel
Old Testament, King James Version, Revised Standard Version, Latin
Vulgate, Septuagint, Net Bible & Tanakh.

DICTIONARIES -- Dictionary.com, Funk & Wagnalls.com, Merriam-Webster,
Webster's 1913 & 1828 Dictionaries, and Wordsmyth.

ENCYCLOPEDIAS - Britannica, Catholic Encyclopedia, Internet
Encyclopedia of Philosophy, and Jewish Encyclopedia.

OTHER -- Bible Study Resources, Concise Dictionary of Religious
Movements, Dictionary of the History of Ideas, Early Christian
Writings, Gnostic Society Library, Historic Church Documents, Livius,
Rome Project, Sacred Texts, The Classical Library, and Virtual
Religions Index.

The above resources are available for FREE! Make sure you get the
benefits of using these great Bible Study Tools & tells your friends
about them so they can benefit, too. Check them by click on "BIBLE
STUDY TOOLS" at the top of every page on our website or click on --
http://www.biblicalheritage.org/study_tools.htm

Which Bible is "The" Bible?

We have all heard the phrase The Bible" all of our lives. It is used
in polls, sermons and everyday life. It is used in a way that is
conveys the idea that there is only one Bible and it is "The" Bible.
However, every time I walk into a bookstore I am always amazed at the
rows of shelves that display lots of different books, which are all
called "The" Bible. Over the past 30 years I have compared verses from
many of them and discovered that there are some very important
differences. Many years ago I decided to make a list of them. I
received a request for the lists today, so I updated it and put a link
to it on the website at --
http://www.biblicalheritage.org/Bible/Many%20Books.pdf

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The Biblical Heritage Center is an educational organization
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