Posted on 12/08/2015 7:32:46 PM PST by Faith Presses On
BEIT SHEMESH, Israel — The carved stone block is about the size of an occasional table. It has held its secrets for two millenniums. Whoever engraved its enigmatic symbols was apparently depicting the ancient Jewish temples.
But what makes the stone such a rare find in biblical archaeology, according to scholars, is that when it was carved, the Second Temple still stood in Jerusalem for the carver to see. The stone is a kind of ancient snapshot.
And it is upending some long-held scholarly assumptions about ancient synagogues and their relationship with the Temple, a center of Jewish pilgrimage and considered the holiest place of worship for Jews, during a crucial period, when Judaism was on the cusp of the Christian era.
Known as the Magdala Stone, the block was unearthed in 2009 near the Sea of Galilee in northern Israel, where a resort and center for Christian pilgrims was going to be built. Government archaeologists are routinely called in to check for anything old and important that might be destroyed by a project, and in this case they discovered the well-preserved ruins of a first-century synagogue and began excavating.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Did the NYT really say millenniums?
PING
You know...they’re all alumnuses of ivy league collegia
Ha!
The site turned out to be the presumed hometown of Mary Magdalene, one of Jesus’s most faithful followers. The dig also revealed an ancient marketplace and fishermen’s quarters along with the synagogue.
Experts have raised the tantalizing possibility that Jesus may have taught in the synagogue when he was in Galilee. A local coin found in a side room was minted in A.D. 29, when Jesus is thought to have been alive.
Ping!
“Did the NYT really say millenniums?”
“Millenniums” is not incorrect, but “millennia” is preferred as the plural of “millennium.”
Most likely more people would understand the meaning of “millenniums” than “millennia”, and I suspect the NYT is having to gradually dumb-down their writing to keep pace with the declining IQ of their declining readership.
I’ve never seen millenniums used. It is written that way for the dummii.
No. They printed it. You read it.
My Protestant friend and I went on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land in 2011. WHAT a wonderful trip that was.
Most people don’t understand Greek and Latin plurals. Today I heard a man refer to his wife as “an alumni” of a particular university.
I wish the main point proffered in the article was in the posted excerpt; that because a carving of the Holy of Holies was found in the center of a First Century synagogue, dating to the time of Jesus (29 AD/CE), the religious role of the synagogue prior to the destruction of the Second Temple was perhaps more significant in religious life than previously thought.
“the religious role of the synagogue prior to the destruction of the Second Temple was perhaps more significant in religious life than previously thought.”
I’d amend that to “more significant in religious life than previous thought by atheist scholars with an axe to grind.”
From the descriptions given in the New Testament of Jesus in synagogues, I would never have thought that previously synagogues weren’t that significant in religious life.
My “Webster’s New World Dictionary” (1957) has both as correct.
Nyuk, nyuk, nyuk.
The New World was a lot newer in 1957.
Scholars grind their axes; it's what they do; whether secular or sacred leaning.
What descriptions in the New Testament are you referring to, and how does that elevate them with respect to the existing Temple and keeping the laws thereof, especially for the men to appear three times a year in Jerusalem ?
The line of inquiry explored by the article makes me consider what customs allowed some to worship in the synagogues as an alternative to making the journey to Jerusalem (the sick or elderly perhaps). The Mishnah says, "All are under obligation, to appear, except minors, women, the blind, the lame, the aged, and one who is ill physically or mentally." A minor in this case is defined as one who is too young to be taken by his father to Jerusalem. Three times thou shalt keep a feast unto me in the year. Thou shalt keep the feast of unleavened bread: (thou shalt eat unleavened bread seven days, as I commanded thee, in the time appointed of the month Abib; for in it thou camest out from Egypt: and none shall appear before me empty:) And the feast of harvest, the firstfruits of thy labours, which thou hast sown in the field: and the feast of ingathering, which is in the end of the year, when thou hast gathered in thy labours out of the field. Three times in the year all thy males shall appear before the Lord GOD.
Exodus, Catholic chapter twenty three, Protestant verses fourteen to seventeen,
as authorized, but not authorized by King James.
Love your tagline!! I think none of this crap around us today would have happened if Jerry were still alive :)
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