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The Muslim Fatah-controlled authority in Judea and Samaria is encouraging a "sharp demographic shift" in Bethlehem, where the Christian population went from a 60 percent majority in 1990 to a 40 percent minority in 2000, to about 15 percent of the city's total population today. It is estimated that, for the past seven years, more than one thousand Christians have been emigrating from the Bethlehem area annually and that only 10,000 to 13,000 Christians remain in the city. International human rights lawyer Justus Reid Weiner, who teaches at Hebrew University, told the Jerusalem Institute for Global Jewish Affairs that, under...

Sarah Palin has emerged at the centre of a potentially embarrassing mystery when she abruptly aborted a visit to Bethlehem just yards from an Israeli checkpoint guarding the entrance to the city of Christ's birth. Mrs Palin, whose trip to the Holy Land is being seen as an attempt to burnish her foreign policy credentials ahead of a possible presidential bid, had been planning to tour Christian sites before holding evening talks with Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister. Bethlehem was supposed to be her first stop of the day, according to a leaked copy of her schedule. .... It...

When Christmas comes around, the Palestinian Authority looks for ways to incite Christian hatred of Jews worldwide. This year, the Jew-baiting has taken the form of a report by AFP regarding a Jewish town's opposition to Christmas trees and a book that calls Jesus "the first Palestinian martyr." While carrying the anti-Jewish Christmas tree story, world media neglected to note that the PA has been brutally and systematically driving out its Christian population - in Bethlehem and elsewhere - through torture and murder. Depicting Israel in the role of Dr. Seuss's "Grinch who stole Christmas," AFP sadly reported that "there...

We are far too accustomed to thinking that the Middle East is populated only by Muslims and a few Jews. There are Christians living there, too, often beleaguered and under attack. Here are three stories that remind us during this Christmas season that life for Christians in the Holy Land during this Holy Season can be particularly perilous. First, we learn that the cross, the very symbol of Christianity, has basically been abolished from Bethlehem, the birthplace of Jesus. “This Christmas in Bethlehem, the cross has been banned from souvenirs for tourists and pilgrims in the Holy Land. Some textile...

We are far too accustomed to thinking that the Middle East is populated only by Muslims and a few Jews. There are Christians living there, too, often beleaguered and under attack. Here are three stories that remind us during this Christmas season that life for Christians in the Holy Land during this Holy Season can be particularly perilous. First, we learn that the cross, the very symbol of Christianity, has basically been abolished from Bethlehem, the birthplace of Jesus. “This Christmas in Bethlehem, the cross has been banned from souvenirs for tourists and pilgrims in the Holy Land. Some textile...

This Christmas in Bethlehem, the cross has been banned from souvenirs for tourists and pilgrims in the Holy Land... Samir Qumsieh, journalist and director of the Catholic television station Al-Mahed Nativity TV in Bethlehem, said: "I want to launch a campaign to urge people not to buy these products - he says - because the removal of the cross is an intimidation against Christians, it is like saying that Jesus was never crucified. " Qumsieh points out that from 2002 to 2010 the Christian population of Bethlehem has dropped from over 18 thousand to 11 thousand people... Only 15,400 Christians...

Migal Eder-"Tower of the flocks"Alfred Edersheim, author of the excellent "Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah", wrote the following: "And yet Jewish tradition may here prove both illustrative and helpful. That the Messiah was to be born in Bethlehem, was a settled conviction. "Equally so, was the belief , that He was to be revealed from Migdal Eder, 'the tower of the flock.' This Migdal Eder was not the watchtower for the ordinary flocks which pastured on the barren sheepground beyond Bethlehem, but lay close to the town, on the road to Jerusalem." "A passage in the Mishnah leads to...

When I was in college, I journeyed to Cologne, Germany and visited the city's glorious cathedral. I was a Protestant at the time, but I remember being amazed that people had been building this cathedral for so many centuries. It is one of the greatest Gothic churches of all time.

Early Christians hid the origins of the Bethlehem star 13:15 21 December 01 Marcus Chown A US astronomer claims he has found the first mention of the star of Bethlehem outside the Bible. The reference is in a 4th-century manuscript written by a Roman astrologer and Christian convert called Firmicus Maternus. Photo: Bridgeman Art Library Michael Molnar, formerly of Rutgers University in New Jersey, is the originator of the idea that the star of Bethlehem was not a spectacular astronomical event such as a supernova or a comet but an obscure astrological one. The event would nevertheless have been ...

I am a Christian, I belive in Christ. However, why do Christians knowing that Christ was born in the summer time (northern Hemisphere, celebrate Christmas in Decemeber? I know that December 25th was a holiday during the Roman Empire. It would make sense if some astronomer could calculate when Christ was born. Also, I am sure other religions have records on when the astological event took place when Christ was Born. I think that God intended Christmas to be treated somewhat differently than Easter. For some reason it seems in the telling of the birth of Christ, there is a...

<p>FOR a few minutes on Christmas, children may set down their new toys from the man in the red suit and listen to transmissions from a machine on the red planet. On Thursday, the European Space Agency is scheduled to guide a British probe called the Beagle II onto the surface of Mars in what should become the first successful landing there since NASA's Mars Pathfinder in 1997. But while Mars grabs all the extraterrestrial attention this holiday ("The Beagle has landed!"), normally Christmas is the season of Jupiter, because there's a very good chance that the biggest planet in our solar system was the Star of Bethlehem.</p>

For centuries, historians, scientists and scholars have debated the existence of the Star of Bethlehem in the Biblical telling of Christ’s birth. Now Texas lawyer and professor Rick Larson says he has proven the existence of this celebrated, yet debated, star. He sets forth his case in a documentary, “The Star of Bethlehem.” “Historically, people have taken two positions on the Star,” said Larson in a news release. “Either they believe the Star is true or they think it was made up by the early Church. I took a different approach in my research and treated the Star as a...

According to the Bible, when Jesus was born three Magi saw a star in the East that signaled the birth of a new king. But just what was it, from an astronomical point or view, that the Magi actually saw? Fred Grosse, a professor of physics and astronomy at Susquehanna University in Selinsgrove, Pa., says there are several popular theories that may answer this question.

AnalysisMany balk at this element of the Nativity story, but historical and astronomical evidence tends to corroborate it. By Michael J. MillerDuring a 2007 BBC radio interview, the archbishop of Canterbury deconstructed elements of the Nativity story. “Stars simply don’t behave like that,” Rowan Williams said. Asked about the existence of three wise men, he replied, “It works quite well as legend.”But years ago Father Walter Brandmüller, president of the Pontifical Committee for Historical Sciences, published an essay applying the historical-critical method to the question of the Nativity story. (The essay is reprinted without cumbersome footnotes in Light and Shadows: Church...

The Christmas Star By Dr. Hugh Ross For centuries scholars and laymen alike have speculated on the nature of the star that led the wise men from the east to seek out the Messiah that had come to the Jews. The only reliable account of this event is found in Matthew 2 of the Bible. Three controversial questions arise out of a study of this text: 1. Were the wise men led by astrology? Some people have used the story of the advent of Jesus Christ, specifically the Matthew 2 portion, to suggest that astrology might be okay, at least...

For centuries scholars and laymen alike have speculated on the nature of the star that led the wise men from the east to seek out the Messiah that had come to the Jews. The only reliable account of this event is found in Matthew 2 of the Bible. Three controversial questions arise out of a study of this text...

The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) voted recently to officially declare Rachel's Tomb to be a mosque. UNESCO director Irena Bokova had previously stated “concern” at Israel's decision to treat the tomb as a heritage site. The vote called for Rachel's Tomb and the Tomb of the Patriarchs – the burial site of the other Biblical Patriarchs and Matriarchs – to be removed from Israel's National Heritage list. The Palestinian Authority has claimed that Rachel's Tomb is holy to Muslims as the site of a mosque called the Bilal Bin Rabah Mosque. The PA demands control over...

Some Milestones in Israel-Palestine1834 - 1886 - 1920 - 1922 - 1929 - 1938 - 1941 - 1948 - 1950s-1960s - 1970 1972 - 1973 - 1975 - 1976 - 1982 - 1987 - 1994 - 2000 - 2001 - 2005 - 2006 - 2007 - 2008 - 2010 1834 First recorded attack on native Jews in Israel by Muslims, is the one in June 1834, Safed (the Plunder), the massacres and mass rapes went on for 33 days, (an inciter, Muhammed Damoor, a self-proclaimed prophet, ‘prophesied’ the attack for which he agitated). It was repeated in 1838. 1886 First...

Muslim Coupled Jailed For Church Sex A Ugandan court has sent a Muslim couple to jail on charges of insulting the Christian religion by allegedly having sex in a church in Entebbe

“Epiphany: From Bethlehem to Baptism and Beyond” (Matthew 2:1-12; Luke 3:21-22)The Feast of the Epiphany of Our Lord always falls on January 6, which this year was this past Wednesday. And the reading for Epiphany Day proper is always the visit of the wise men, to Bethlehem, when Jesus was a baby. Then for the First Sunday after the Epiphany, which is today, the reading is the account of the Baptism of Our Lord, in the Jordan, when Jesus was about age 30. Well, because of the weather, we had to cancel our Epiphany service on Wednesday, and so today,...