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NEW YORK — The directions, if a little stilted, look familiar: “The Order Of The Diagram Written Here Teaches The Return Home.”Think Parcheesi or Sorry.But then think again. The board is not cardboard or plastic; it’s 1,035-year-old vellum. And there are no dice — just prayers.Care to play?In April, Manhattan’s Les Enluminures Gallery, a dealer in medieval manuscripts, put a book on sale with a first page so rare that only five of its kind are known to exist. In fact, the book itself is rare, with a massive ancient carved-oak cover and sturdy clasps of worked copper. Dating back...

It seems almost everyone has a story of how they almost drowned, almost drove off a cliff, or narrowly dodged a bullet. What is your story of the closest you came to dying?

‘Everything Is Ready Now’: A Near-Death Experience by RICHARD JOHN NEUHAUS April 4, 2015 [America's Pre-Eminent Lutheran Theologian And Convert To Catholicism Writes...] NOTE: The following piece is excerpted from an essay, “Born Toward Dying,” that originally appeared in the February 2000 issue of First Things and became the basis for the book As I Lay Dying: Meditations upon Returning. The operation took several hours and was an unspeakable mess. The tumor had expanded to rupture the intestine; blood, fecal matter, and guts all over the place. My stomach was sliced open from the rib cage down to the pubic...

Members of Turkey’s Jewish community attend the reopening ceremony of the Great Synagogue in Edirne on March 26 after a five-year government restoration project. REUTERS Photo Just a week before Passover, Turkish Jews woke up to a morning full of excitement and hope. They got on the buses waiting to take them to Edirne, to the city that their families once had to leave following the Thrace pogroms in 1934. It was the reopening day of the Great Synagogue, which had been left in ruins for decades. “I was the last rabbi that had served in the synagogue,” said David...

The 'Gospel of Judas' 4/6/2006 Interview With Father Thomas Williams, Theology Dean ROME, APRIL 6, 2006 (Zenit) - The National Geographic Society has announced its intentions to publish an English translation of an ancient text called "The Gospel of Judas" later this month. The 31-page manuscript, written in Coptic, purportedly surfaced in Geneva in 1983 and has only been translated now. We asked Legionary Father Thomas D. Williams, dean of theology at the Regina Apostolorum university in Rome, to comment on the relevance of the discovery. Q: What is the "Gospel of Judas"? Father Williams: Though the manuscript still must...

Virgil's demi-god city 'found'Castor and Pollux fought Aeneas at Amyclae (ANSA) - Rome, April 6 - Italian archaeologists believe they have found an ancient city where the demi-gods Castor and Pollux fought Aeneas, the Trojan hero whose descendants founded Rome . Lorenzo and Stefania Quilici of Bologna and Naples universities claim the large, massive-walled settlement dating from the VI to III Century BCE was the city of Amyclae, believed by Renaissance scholars to be somewhere near Lake Fondi between Rome and Naples . "The road there is a perfectly preserved stretch of the ancient Via Appia," said Lorenzo Quilici ....

A 1,500-year-old book that contains a previously unknown gospel has been deciphered. The ancient manuscript may have been used to provide guidance or encouragement to people seeking help for their problems, according to a researcher who has studied the text. Written in Coptic, an Egyptian language, the opening reads (in translation): "The Gospel of the lots of Mary, the mother of the Lord Jesus Christ, she to whom Gabriel the Archangel brought the good news. He who will go forward with his whole heart will obtain what he seeks. Only do not be of two minds

An ancient gospel has been discovered in the pages of a diminutive book dating back to the 6th century. The text, dubbed the 'Gospel of the Lots of Mary' is written in Coptic and contains oracles that would have been used to provide support and reassurance to people seeking help for problems. It is not a gospel in the traditional sense, because it doesn't predominantly teach about Christ, and its translator suggests that the discovery could rewrite the ancient definition and purpose of gospels. The ancient book was given to Harvard University's Sackler Museum in 1984 by Beatrice Kelekian, in...

A mummified monk found preserved in Mongolia last week has been baffling and astounding those who uncovered him. Senior Buddhists say the monk, found sitting in the lotus position, is in a deep meditative trance and not dead. Forensic examinations are under way on the remains, found wrapped in cattle skins in north-central Mongolia. ... The monk was discovered after being stolen by a man hoping to sell him on the black market.

The Greek god of thunder and lightning had Earthly beginnings, and scientists think they finally know where. Ancient Greeks first worshipped the omnipotent Zeus at a remote altar on Mount Lykaion, a team of Greek and American archaeologists now think. During a recent dig at the site, the researchers found ceremonial goods commonly used in cult activity and dated at over three millennia old, making them the earliest known "appearance" of Zeus in Greece. The discovery challenges the idea that Zeus worship began on the Greek island of Crete, which at least one classical historian names as the god's mythic...

A Greek and American team of archaeologists working on the Mt. Lykaion Excavation and Survey Project believe evidence indicates that Zeus' worship was established on Mt. Lykaion as early as the Late Helladic period, if not before, more than 3,200 years ago... Over fifty Mycenaean drinking vessels, or kylikes, were found on the bedrock at the bottom of the trench along with fragments of human and animal figurines and a miniature double headed axe. Also found were burned animal bones, mostly of goats and sheep, another indication consistent with Mycenaean cult activity... Evidence from subsequent periods in the same trench...

NEW DISCOVERIES AT THE ASH ALTAR OF ZEUS, MT LYKAION, OFFER INSIGHTS INTO EARLY ORIGINS OF ANCIENT GREECE’S MOST POWERFUL GOD Mt. Lykaion Excavation and Survey Project Finds Early Activity Atop Arcadia’s Famous Mountain The Greek traveler, Pausanias, living in the second century, CE, would probably recognize the spectacular site of the Sanctuary of Zeus at Mt. Lykaion, and particularly the altar of Zeus. At 4,500 feet above sea level, atop the altar provides a breathtaking, panoramic vista of Arcadia. “On the highest point of the mountain is a mound of earth, forming an altar of Zeus Lykaios, and from...

A clutch of modern pagans honored Zeus at a 1,800-year-old temple in the heart of Athens on Sunday — the first known ceremony of its kind held there since the ancient Greek religion was outlawed by the Roman empire in the late 4th century. Watched by curious onlookers, some 20 worshippers gathered next to the ruins of the temple for a celebration organized by Ellinais, a year-old Athens-based group that is campaigning to revive old religious practices from the era when Greece was a fount of education and philosophy. The group ignored a ban by the Culture Ministry, which declared...

By the power of Zeus, ancient gods are back Worship of the 12 gods of Mount Olympus associated with ancient Greece could, thanks to a decision by a first-instance court in Athens, become part of the country’s contemporary culture. In a ruling made public yesterday, the court allowed the formation of an association whose members claim to worship Zeus and the other 11 gods. “I support everybody’s right to practice their faith, whichever it may be, without hindrance,” said Apostolos Vrachiolidis, a journalist and one of the founding members of the association. Members of the group deny that they engage...

How modern pagans are reviving the polytheistic religions of the ancient Greeks, Druids, Egyptians, and other civilizations. This year, Andrea Berman will watch the Olympics for the first time in her life. But she doesn't care who will jump the highest, run the farthest or swim the fastest. She'll be watching the games—being held this year in Greece, their ancestral home—for any mention of Zeus, Athena or Apollo. "I will watch it to see if anything even remotely resembles anything I would know as an ancient ritual and tradition," Berman said. "But I kind of have mixed feelings. On one...

This year, Andrea Berman will watch the Olympics for the first time in her life. But she doesn't care who will jump the highest, run the farthest or swim the fastest. She'll be watching the games—being held this year in Greece, their ancestral home—for any mention of Zeus, Athena or Apollo. "I will watch it to see if anything even remotely resembles anything I would know as an ancient ritual and tradition," Berman said. "But I kind of have mixed feelings. On one hand it will be great to see ancient traditions represented. But on the other hand, I know...

Icelanders will soon be able to publicly worship at a shrine to Thor, Odin and Frigg with construction starting this month on the island’s first major temple to the Norse gods since the Viking age. Worship of the gods in Scandinavia gave way to Christianity around 1,000 years ago but a modern version of Norse paganism has been gaining popularity in Iceland.

An enigma spanning thousands of years, the Green Man is a symbol of mysterious origin and history. Permeating various religious faiths and cultures, the Green Man has survived countless transformations and cultural diversities, enduring in the same relative physical form to this day. Although specifics about his beginnings and his worship are not fully known, due in large part to how far back and to what initial cultures he can be traced to, it is a testament to the widespread reach of his character that he is still remembered and worshipped to this day. The Green Man is most highly...

Marcus J. Borg, a scholar who popularized a liberal intellectual approach to Christianity with his lectures and books about Jesus as a historical figure, died on Wednesday at his home in Powell Butte, Ore. He was 72. His publisher, HarperOne, said the cause was idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis. Professor Borg was among a group of scholars, known as the Jesus Seminar, who set off an uproar with its very public efforts to discern collectively which of Jesus’ acts and utterances could be confirmed as historically true, and which were probably myths.

It is astonishing that scholars of religion refer so little to the Manichaean faith, which in its day -- roughly from the third century AD through the fourteenth century -- was a fully fledged world religion, which interacted with Christianity, Buddhism, Islam, Zoroastrianism and Judaism. At various times, its adherents could be found across the whole of Eurasia, from France to China. It also created a substantial body of scriptures and commentaries, most of which are now lost. Manichaeanism (Manichaeism) is, I believe, the only example of a world religion that has arisen and then vanished entirely, seemingly without trace....