Biblical Mysteries

Archaeologists think they’ve found a cave where John the Baptist baptized many of his followers - basing their theory on thousands of shards from ritual jugs, a stone used for foot cleansing and wall carvings that tell the story of the biblical preacher. Only a few artifacts linked to New Testament figures have ever been found in the Holy Land, and the cave is potentially a major discovery in biblical archaeology. “John the Baptist, who was just a figure from the Gospels, now comes to life,” British archaeologist Shimon Gibson said during an exclusive tour of the cave given to The Associated Press. But some scholars said Gibson’s finds aren’tenough to support his theory, and one colleague said that short of an inscription with John’s name in the cave, there could never be conclusive proof of his presence there.

Matching tradition with the evidence John, a distant relative of Jesus — their mothers were kin, according to the Bible — was a fiery preacher with a message of repentance and a considerable following. Tradition says he was born in the village of Ein Kerem, which today is part of modern Jerusalem. Just 2.5 miles (4 kilometers) away, on the land of Kibbutz Tzuba, a communal farm, the cave lies hidden in a limestone hill — 24 yards (meters) long, 4 yards deep and 4 yards wide.It was carved by the Israelites in the Iron Age, sometime between 800 B.C. and 500 B.C, thescientists said. It apparently was used from the start as a ritual immersion pool, preceding the Jewish tradition of the ritual bath.Over the centuries, the cave filled with mud and sediment, leaving only a tiny opening that was hidden by trees and bushes. Yet in recent years, it had occasional visitors — Reuven Kalifon, an immigrant from Cleveland who teaches Hebrew at the kibbutz, took his students spelunking.They would crawl through the narrow slit at the mouth of the cave, all the way to the back wall, though they saw nothing but dirt and walls. In December 1999, Kalifon asked Gibson, a friend, to take a closer look.Five years of excavationGibson, who has excavated in the Holy Land for more than 30 years, moved a few boulders nearthe. ...

BIG trouble is brewing in little Brentford. Property developers are planning to destroy the town's beloved football ground, Griffin Park, and build executive homes on the site. Something must be done to halt this iconoclasm, and who better than to thwart the plan than the drinkers at The Flying Swan', also known as The Bricklayers Arms' on Ealing Road Sound familiar? So reads the blurb advertising Robert Rankin's latest book, launched in Brentford last week, under the title, Knees up Mother Earth'. Except that the plot for the seventh instalment of the Brentford Trilogy' includes a corner shopkeeper who'sdiscovered a Victorian computer, which holds the plans to the secret super-technology of a bygone age.

And Archroy, Brentford's lone yachtsman and explorer, has just returned from his seventh voyage, bringing with him the fabled Golden Fleece. There's Jim Pooley and John Omally, unemployed bachelors of this parish. And that Victorian time traveller, who's crash-landed on the allotments. "Brentford is the original site of the Garden of Eden - beneath the grounds of Brentford FC is the original serpent," Mr Rankin explained'.For those that haven't read one of his books, part of Brentford's attraction for Rankin is that the area is a huge triangle binded by the Great West Road, the Thames and the GrandUnion Canal, while the four pubs around the football ground are in the constellation of the plough - bestowing on it a certain mystical aura."This is the seventh book about Brentford, so I thought why not write about Brentford Football Club, given that it's the club centenary year," he explains."It's a great way to celebrate - we get to beat Man United and win the World Cup. It's not that far-fetched - I hear they have an Isaiah Rankin playing for them now. With a Rankin on the team, they should be unstoppable."Mr Rankin lived, in Brentford, for a period of eight years, between 1972 and 1980, working his way through 41 different jobs, all of which he was fired from, dreaming of ways to escape the boredom ofthe office....

Somewhere in the great beyond, if Aaron J. Smith isn't smiling, he must at least feel satisfaction that so many have followed him up that mountain. "We have paved the way for other expeditions,'' Smith wrote in 1949 after his return to Greensboro -- "home sweet home,'' as he called it -- from remote northeast Turkey. Sure enough, another expedition will go in search this summer for the ultimate archaeological prize, Noah's Ark. A 10-member joint Turkish-American team will be on Mt. Ararat from July 15 to Aug. 15. The 16,945-foot-high mountain seems to be the place where, according to the Book of Genesis, Noah and his boatload of two animals of every kind docked when the Great Deluge ended thousands of years ago. Others had looked for the ark before Smithorganized and led an expedition in August 1949.

But his was one of the largest and best-planned endeavors. Since then, at least 100 expeditions have followed, including the one planned for this summer. The search team will use satellite photos and other high-tech gear to search for remains of a vessel that the Biblical scholars calculate measured 450 feet long, 75 feet wide and 45 feet tall. Smith's team carried no fancy gear, just maps and a camera. Bad luck accompanied the expedition. When team members arrived in Turkey, the government wasted weeks of their time before granting traveling permits to Mt. Ararat, which was in an area that the Turkish military considered sensitive because of its closeness to the Russian border. Smith, of course, found no evidence of an ark. In a pamphlet he wrote the next year, Smith mentioned human problems that hurt the mission, including "rebellion'' among some partymembers. Smith said they wouldn't pool their money to help find a key Turkish figure who had reportedly seen traces of the ark in 1948. Smith accused some members of an "insatiable craving'' for publicity. Smith's group wound up spending about two weeks on the mountain. Judging from what he wrote later, he knew that some viewed the adventure as a failure. He thought that was unfair. "To telescope into 12 or 15 days,'' he wrote, "a work that ordinarily would consume from 4 to 6 weeks is unreasonable, that such a monumental project should be accomplished in so brief a time, is an insult to human intelligence.''

View: Full Article | Source: News-Record

Almost since Moses reported the great flood and the ark that survived it in the Bible's book of Genesis, men have searched Mount Ararat for remains of the life-saving craft.In this century, Ed Davis of Albuquerque was one of the few who, before his death in 1998 at age 95, claimed to have seen the ark.But it was Mountainair's Don Shockey who told Davis' story to the world in his book "Agri-Dagh, Mount Ararat— The Painful Mountain" and who continues trying to prove that what Davis saw in 1946 was indeed Noah's Ark.In the book, Davis recounts to Shockey his experiences in and near Hamadan, Iran, while serving with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in 1943. Mount Ararat rises from within the Turkish borders near Iran and Russia.Davis said he was shownartifacts from the ark and held them in his hands.

Then, accompanied by the family of a man who represented himself as a guardian of the ark, Davis said he was taken to it.Since writing the book Shockey has himself scaled Mount Ararat three times— in 1984, 1989 and again in 1990.Countless TV and radio appearances, including an episode of the popular "Unsolved Mysteries" series, have given thousands of people a look at Shockey's own photographs of the mountain and what appears to be an object resting high on a northern slope. Shockey believes this object is the ark.But Shockey, a true New Mexican who made all three climbs to the snowline in cowboy boots, has never been able to get close enough to gather conclusive evidence of his find.On the 1984 trip that resulted in the now-famous photos, he said, climbing permits issued by the Turkish government and enforced by guides did not allow him tocross into the distant area where the object was resting.On subsequent trips— including 1989, when Shockey rented a helicopter to photograph the object from the air and hopefully land nearby— he said he was prevented by border hostilities and military actions taking place in Russia and Iran.If proven, the finding of Noah's Ark would validate Christianity and set the world on its ear, Shockey said in a recent interview at his Mountainair home."Gilbert Grosvenor (chairman) of National Geographic said it would be the single most important archaeological find in the world," Shockey said.

View: Full Article | Source: Mountain View Telegraph