Posted on 08/16/2004 9:09:34 AM PDT by technomage
AP: Group Discovers John the Baptist Cave
KIBBUTZ TZUBA, Israel (AP)
KARIN LAUB
Archaeologists said Monday they have found a cave where they believe John the Baptist anointed many of his disciples - a huge cistern with 28 steps leading to an underground pool of water.
During an exclusive tour of the cave by The Associated Press, archaeologists presented wall carvings they said tell the story of the fiery New Testament preacher, as well as a stone they believe was used for ceremonial foot washing.
They also pulled about 250,000 pottery shards from the cave, the apparent remnants of small water jugs used in baptismal ritual.
"John the Baptist, who was just a figure from the Gospels, now comes to life," said British archaeologist Shimon Gibson, who supervised the dig outside Jerusalem.
However, others said there was no proof that John the Baptist ever set foot in the cave, about 2 1/2 miles from Ein Kerem, the preacher's hometown and now part of Jerusalem.
"Unfortunately, we didn't find any inscriptions," said James Tabor, a religious studies professor at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte.
Tabor and his students have participated in the excavations.
Both Tabor and Gibson said it was very likely that the wall carvings, including one showing a man with a staff and wearing animal skin, told the story of John the Baptist. The carvings stem from the Byzantine period and apparently were made by monks in the fourth or fifth century.
Gibson said he believed the monks commemorated John at a site linked to him by local tradition.
Gibson said the carvings, the foot washing stone and other finds, taken together with the proximity of John's hometown, constituted strong circumstantial evidence that the cave was used by John.
John, a contemporary of Jesus who also preached a message of redemption, is one of the most important figures in Christianity. The discovery, if confirmed, would be among the most significant breakthroughs for biblical scholars in memory.
The cave is on the property of Kibbutz Tzuba, an Israeli communal farm just outside Jerusalem. A member of the kibbutz, Reuven Kalifon, knew of the cave's existence - the community's nectarine orchards run right up to the mouth of the cave - but it was filled with soil almost to the ceiling.
In 1999, Kalifon asked Gibson to inspect the cave more closely.
The archaeologist, who has excavated in the Holy Land for three decades, crawled through the small opening and began removing boulders near the wall of the cave. When he pushed aside one of the stones, he saw a head carved into the wall - the top of the figure he believes depicts John.
Gibson, who heads the Jerusalem Archaeological Field Unit, a private research group, organized an excavation. During the five-year project, he wrote a book, entitled "The Cave of John the Baptist," to be published later this week.
Gibson said the cave - 24 yards long, around four yards wide and four yards deep - was carved in the Iron Age, somewhere between 800 and 500 B.C., by the Israelites who apparently used it as an immersion pool.
"It apparently was adopted by John the Baptist, who wanted a place where he could bring people to undergo their rituals, pertaining to his ideas of baptism," Gibson said.
Believers would have walked down 28 stone steps. To their right, they would have discarded their clothes in a niche carved into the wall.
At the bottom of the steps, they would have placed the right foot onto a stone with an imprint of a foot. A small depression to the right of the imprint would have contained oil, to be poured over the foot for cleansing, Gibson said.
Catholic doctrine:
Faith in Jesus is the rock apon which the CHurch is built.
Peter, as Pope, is the repository in which that faith lies.
Luke 1:36 - And, behold, thy cousin Elisabeth, she hath also conceived a son in her old age: and this is the sixth month with her, who was called barren.
Luke 1:58 - And her neighbours and her cousins heard how the Lord had shewed great mercy upon her; and they rejoiced with her.
So, if those be the cousins of Jesus, then cousins would have been used...
>>If Peter was in Rome, do you think he would have said "hi" to Paul while Paul was in prison? In fact Peter's Tomb was found outside Jerusalem.<<
Bwa-hah-hah-ha!
That old canard makes the James Ossuary look as established as the site of the Battle of Gettysburg. Give me a break.
Of course, the reality is that sola scriptura is false.
So is the Catholic faith based on a false Bible?
If the Bible cannot be wholly trusted, on what grounds can
Catholic faith be valid?
But earlier on the thread you claimed that you were born without sin.
If you were innocent at birth, why wasn't Mary?
You need to look up the conceot of univerality in grammar, as well as quit referring to the "emmaculate conception."
Because Mary, as well as I both grew up in a world full of sin and have commited sin. there is no one righteous, none with out sin!
Had this thread before. The slaughter of the saints took place in Rome. The beast dwelt in Rome. I *did* concede when I last argued this the epistological Babylon may indeed be Jerusalem, but the historical babylon was Rome.
Only in the sense that Hillary is likely to have Kerry's head served on a platter.
Except this obelisk, all the obelisks in Rome toppled down in the Middle Ages. The Egyptologist Labib Habachi writes a reason in his book; "Legend has it that in the Vatican Circus innumerable Christians, including St. Peter, were put to death and that the reason this obelisk was not later overturned as were all the others in Rome was that it was looked upon as the last witness to the martyrdom of St. Peter." (Source: "The Obelisk of Egypt" by Labib Habachi, 1977 Charles Scribner's Sons)I believe Peter was then buried at the site of what is now the Basilica.
Do you have a link to that one?
I've been Catholic forever, but there's still so much to learn.
First it claims that Franciscans claim to have a tomb of St. Peter in Jerusalem.
They do not.
The author claims he spoke to an Arab Christian who asserted that St. Peter was buried in Jerusalem - this stands to reason, since the claims of Arab Melkites and other sects are theologically opposed to the notion that St. Peter was at Rome. However, a tale told by an unnamed Arab is hardly evidence.
Then he translates an Aramaic inscriptiuon using Hebrew? Would he translate a Latin inscription using Italian instead of Latin?
Very strange.
Then he says a Yale archaeologist told him that probably only St. Peter of the Bible had the name Simon bar Jonah.
That's like saying that Jeb Bush is the only guy named John who had a father named George.
Please.
Your link is hackwork without scholarly references and is based on hearsay from an interested party.
What a joke.
Catacombs are cemetaries.
This is sidestepping. You claim that the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception is false, yet it teaches that Mary was born without sin.
Then you tell us you were born without sin.
So you believe that you were immaculately conceived and yet that the concept of immaculate conception is false.
Start making sense.
You don't see the word cousin because you are reading an English (mis)translation. (A better translation would be "kinsmen.") The word in Greek for brothers/cousins is "adelphos," but is a translation of the language Jesus spoke, Hebrew. Hebrew has no separate words for brothers and cousins. So Matthew translated it into the closest Greek word, which can mean either cousins or brothers.
Granted, the Greek construct is unusual, in that elsewhere there is reference to both adelphos and adelphe. (m. and f.) (Mark 6:3) It was uncommon for Greeks to separate adelphos and adelphe when using either to refer to cousins. However, not only does the context suggest a reason to do so, but one must also keep in mind that Jesus did not speak in Greek, but in Aramaic, and Mark is translating what was spoken in Aramaic.
Elsewhere, John is called "THE son of you [Mary]," when JEsus puts him charge of his mother. The phrasing implies that Mary had no other sons.
He left his grave-clothes to be found by the disciples, as scripture testifies. Do you think they just left them there?
Then again it's logical that John's baptism was an extention of the existing practices of Jewish baptism (Yes, Jews did and do have "baptism," as a ritual cleansing, though the term "baptism" is avoided).
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