Biblical Mysteries

This question is almost always asked whenever atheists and agnostics are trying to confound or confuse a New Christian. It comes from a reading of: "So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them. And God blessed them, and God said unto them. Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth..." (Genesis 1:27-28) Men have theorized for years about the possibility of the co-existence of another race of human beings upon the earth during the time of Adam. It must be recognized that there is considerable evidence to show that the earth was not only inhabited by a race(s), but as a result of the earth becoming void and without form, that race or races were apparently destroyed. But first let's look at the word "Replenish": Replenish: 1). to make full or complete again, as by furnishing a new supply. 2). to supply again...or the like. 3). of people. (New World Dictionary of the American Language, Second Edition page 1205)

Jeremiah the Prophet refers briefly to the existence of such a race(s), but he states that, as a result of the earth becoming void and without form, that race(s) were apparently destroyed. "I beheld the earth, and, lo, it was without form, and void; and the heavens, and they had no light. I beheld the mountains, and, lo, they trembled, and all the hills moved lightly. I beheld, and, lo, there was no man...I beheld, and, lo, the fruitful place was a wilderness, and all the cities thereof were broken down at the presence of the Lord, and by his fierce anger... For this shall the earth mourn, and the heavens above be black..." (Jeremiah 4:23-28) Job also makes reference to a past age, a former time: "For enquire... of the former age, and prepare thyself to the search of their fathers." (Job 8:8) Job then relates: "For want and famine they were solitary; fleeing into the wilderness in former time desolate and waste." (Job 30:3)...

A clay tablet that has baffled scientists for more than a century has been identified as a witness's account of an asteroid that destroyed the Biblical cities of Sodom and Gomorrah 5,000 years ago. Researchers believe that the tablet's symbols give a detailed account of how a mile-long asteroid hit the region, causing thousands of deaths and devastating more than one million sq km (386,000 sq miles).The impact, equivalent to more than 1,000 tons of TNT exploding, would have created one of theworld's biggest-ever landslides. The Old Testament story describes how God destroyed the 'wicked sinners' of Sodom with fire and brimstone but allowed Lot, the city's one good man, to flee with his family.The theory is the work of two rocket scientists - Alan Bond and Mark Hempsell - who have spent the past eight years piecing together the archaeological puzzle. At its heart is a clay tablet called the Planisphere, discovered by the Victorian archaeologist Henry Layard in the remains of the library of the Royal Palace at Nineveh. Using computers to recreate the night sky thousands of years ago, they have pinpointed the sighting described on the tablet - a 700BC copy of notes of the night sky as seen by a Sumerian astrologer in one of the world's earliest-known civilisations - to shortly before dawnon June 29 in the year 3123BC. Half the tablet records planet positions and clouds, while the other half describes the movement of an object looking like a 'stone bowl' travelling quickly across the sky. The description matches a type of asteroid known as an Aten type, which orbits the Sun close to the Earth.

Its trajectory would have put it on a collision course with the Otz Valley. 'It came in at a very low angle - around six degrees - and then clipped a mountain called Gaskogel around 11km from Köfels,' said Mr Hempsell. 'This caused it to explode - and as it travelled down the valley it became a fireball. 'When it hit Köfels it created enormous pressures which pulverised the rock and caused the landslide. But because it wasn't solid, there was no crater.' Thee......

Submitted by Da Verminator: When last we saw the lost Ark of the Covenant in action, it had been dug up by Indiana Jones in Egypt and ark-napped by Nazis, whom the Ark proceeded to incinerate amidst a tempest of terrifying apparitions. But according to Tudor Parfitt, a real life scholar-adventurer, Raiders of the Lost Ark had it wrong, and the Ark is actually nowhere near Egypt. In fact, Parfitt claims he has traced it (or a replacement container for the original Ark), to a dusty bottom shelf in a museum in Harare, Zimbabwe. As Indiana Jones"s creators understood, the Ark is one of the Bible"s holiest objects, and also one of itsmost maddening McGuffins.

A wooden box, roughly 4 ft. x 2 ft. x 2.5 ft., perhaps gold-plated and carried on poles inserted into rings, it appears in the Good Book variously as the container for the Ten Commandments (Exodus 25:16: "and thou shalt put into the ark the testimony which I shall give thee"); the very locus of God"s earthly presence; and as a divine flamethrower that burns obstacles and also crisps some careless Israelites. It is too holy to be placed on the ground or touched by any but the elect. It circles Jericho behind the trumpets to bring the walls tumbling down. The Bible last places the Ark in Solomon"s temple, which Babylonians destroyed in 586 BC. Scholars debate its current locale (if any): under the Sphinx? BeneathJerusalem"s Temple Mount (or, to Muslims, the Noble Sanctuary)? In France? Near London"s Temple tube station? Parfitt, 63, is a professor at the University of London"s prestigious School of Oriental and African Studies. His new book, The Lost Ark of the Covenant: Solving the 2,500 Year Mystery of the Fabled Biblical Ark (HarperOne) along with a History Channel special scheduled for March 2 would appear to risk a fine academic reputation on what might be called a shaggy Ark story.

View: Full Article | Source: Time Magazine

Since the extraordinary discovery, made between 1947 and 1956, of the 900-odd Dead Sea Scrolls in 11 caves at Qumran in the West Bank, paleographers, religion historians, and other specialists have tried to determine their origins. The identity and motivations of the depositors remain a mystery, but we now know that the scrolls come from two distinct sources. This adds another piece to a puzzle that contains tens of thousands of text fragments originating between 300 BC and 70 AD. During their initial discovery, the texts were rapidly identified by researchers: fragments of the Bible, known apocryphaltexts, and texts from the numerous sects which coexisted with Judaism during a period when there was no unified form of the religion.

"Different types of texts were found in each cave," explains Daniel Stoekl Ben Ezra, the religion historian at Centre Paul-Albert Fevrier who recently uncovered the scrolls' different origins. "The distribution is about the same in each cave, and as a result, researchers have for a long time assumed that all the texts were part of the same collection."There remained the question of why the texts had been placed in caves in the desert. Had they been taken out of Jerusalem for protection before the Romans attacked the city between 68 and 70 BC? This is one theory, butin that case, the absence of Pharisian texts (a well represented sect in Jerusalem at the time) is peculiar. "The study of the pottery, tombs, and other archeological clues at the site has convinced most researchers that this is the work of an isolated group that lived at the site, but whose identity is still under debate. It could have been before an attack, the group was probably in a hurry when they hid the texts in the caves, some of which are very difficult to access," says Stoekl Ben Ezra.

View: Full Article | Source: CNRS