Free Republic

RUSH: Everybody’s waiting on President Trump to show up at the microphones in the White House. He’s gonna announce that the official position of the United States government is that Jerusalem is the capital of Israel. It’s simply a recognition of what already is. The Israeli government is in Jerusalem and our embassy is in Tel Aviv. Tel Aviv is the party town. If there is a party town in Israel, it’s Tel Aviv, and our ambassador is there and our embassy is there. Whenever there are official government meetings in Israel, they have to travel from Tel Aviv to...

Three Pakistani brothers who managed the IT affairs for several Democratic government officials were relieved of their duties in February on suspicion that they accessed specific computer networks without permission, also known as hacking. Imran Awan, who started working for Wasserman Schultz in 2005, received $164,600 in 2016, with close to $20,000 of that coming from Wasserman Schultz. His brother Jamal, who started working as a staffer in 2014, was paid $157,350.12 in 2016. Abid, who started working in 2005, was paid $160,943 in 2016. Hina Alvi, who was employed as a staffer from February 2007, was paid 168,300 in...

New fragments of the Dead Sea Scrolls have been found in the Cave of the Skulls by the Dead Sea in Israel, in a salvage excavation by Israeli authorities. The pieces are small and the writing on them is too faded to make out without advanced analysis. At this stage the archaeologists aren't even sure if they're written in ancient Hebrew, Aramaic or another language. “The most important thing that can come out of these fragments is if we can connect them with other documents that were looted from the Judean Desert, and that have no known provenance," says Dr....

A natural skeptic, Twain was not taken by the splendor of the Holy Land. He wrote irreverently about the country’s legendary sites. At his peak, Mark Twain was probably the most popular American celebrity of his time. What few realize is that it was an unlikely trip to the Holy Land that established his fame as an author. A century and a half ago, Twain traveled on an excursion with his American church group to Europe and the Middle East. The material he gathered, first published in a San Francisco newspaper, formed the basis of the humorous book that made...

8-year-old Israeli girl found a rare coin from the Second Temple period. The half-shekel coin dates from a time when it was used to pay a yearly Temple tax, archaeologist Zachi Dvira told The Times of Israel. The custom is prescribed in the Torah (Exodus 30:11-16). Hallel Halevy discovered the coin in May when she was picking up her sister from kindergarten in the Halamish settlement in the West Bank, The Times of Israel reported. On Wednesday, she gave the coin to the archaeological department of the Israeli body that coordinates government activities in the West Bank, as required by...

In Matthew 11, Jesus expresses his frustration with the people in his native region who, despite witnessing his mighty works, refused to repent and believe the Gospel. He singled out the residents of Bethsaida, the home town of Peter, Andrew and Philip. “Woe to you, Bethsaida!” he declared. “For if the mighty works done in you had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes. But I tell you, it will be more bearable on the day of judgment for Tyre and Sidon than for you.” Other mentions of Bethsaida in the...

At 3:30 a.m. on Sunday, Israeli police say, authorities arrested five Palestinian antiquities dealers in Jerusalem and confiscated items dating back thousands of years from their homes and shops: papyrus fragments from the Egyptian Book of the Dead, the bust of an Etruscan woman, a fresco from Pompeii depicting swimming fish. They also seized more modern objects — two black luxury Audi vehicles — and more than $200,000 in cash.

During the eight years of the Obama administration, half a million Christians, Yazidis and Muslims were slaughtered in the Middle East by ISIS and other Islamic jihadists, in a genocidal campaign waged in the name of Islam and its God. Twenty million others were driven into exile by these same jihadist forces. Libya and Yemen became terrorist states. America - once the dominant foreign power and anti-jihadist presence in the region – was replaced by Russia, an ally of the monster regimes in Syria and Iran, and their terrorist proxies. Under the patronage of the Obama administration, Iran - the...

The Israeli government missed the point of Palestinian anger directed at metal detectors placed at entrances to the Temple Mount and, having misdiagnosed the situation, made a decision that failed to resolve the crisis and has only made it worse. At least, that’s what many of the Muslim protesters in the streets of Jerusalem’s Old City have been saying since the metal detectors were removed early Tuesday morning. Israel thought it was making a concession by removing the detectors, which were installed after three Arab Israelis carried out a shooting attack at the Temple Mount, killing two policemen with weapons...

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Tuesday urged all Muslims to visit and protect Jerusalem after violence broke out over metal detectors that Israel installed and later removed from a sensitive holy site in the city. "From here I make a call to all Muslims. Anyone who has the opportunity should visit Jerusalem, Al-Aqsa mosque," Erdogan said in Ankara. "Come, let's all protect Jerusalem." He was referring to the site, known to Jews as the Temple Mount, which is central to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

- Simply put, Jerusalem's Judaic history dates back to thousands of years before the birth of Islam, only in the seventh century CE. - As an American friend delicately asked: "Isn't Turkey supposed to be investing millions to help rebuild Gaza?" - Not, it seems, when Islamist ideology is involved. Less than a year ago, Turkey and Israel agreed to end their six-year-long diplomatic stand-off and officially "normalized" their relations. They appointed ambassadors Kemal Okem to Israel and Eitan Na'eh to Turkey, two prominent career diplomats, who, since then, have been struggling actually to normalize formally normalized ties. As some...

No amount of land in Arab or Muslim hands is enough. Any amount of land in Israeli/Jewish hands is too much. The narratives would have it: Expansionist Israel! The Jews stole Palestinian land! The Jews Will Take Over the World by Next Thursday the Latest! The next time someone raises the idea of a “Greater Israel” or that the jews are taking over the world, ask them to find Israel on the map. “When the Arabs are doing the killing and the Jews are doing the dying, all is well and good with the world. When the Jews are doing...

Psalm 132 - in what is probably the least read verse: Lord Jehovah, remember David and all his affliction! For he swore to Lord Jehovah and vowed to the God of Jacob: “I shall not enter to the roof of my house; I shall not ascend to the mattress of my bed,” “I shall not give sleep to my eyes, neither slumber to my eyebrows” “Until I find a place for Lord Jehovah and a tent for the God of Jacob“. Behold, we heard it in Ephrata and we found it in the fields. We shall enter his tabernacle and...

What Is the Geography of the Holy Land Like? Msgr. Charles Pope • March 21, 2017 • N.B.: I am in the Holy Land at this time. As my travel schedule is heavy, I am republishing some articles about life in Jesus’ day. I hope you will enjoy reading (or re-reading) them as much as I did.Karya ini diberi lisensi dan tunduk di bawah ketentuan Creative Commons Atribusi versi 3.0. Nomenclature – The land today called Israel or the Holy Land, was known to the Greeks and Romans in Jesus’ day as Palestine. This name came from the Philistines,...

What Were Houses Like at the Time of Jesus? Msgr. Charles Pope • March 21, 2017 • N.B.: I am in the Holy Land at this time. As my travel schedule is heavy, I am republishing some articles about life in Jesus’ day. I hope you will enjoy reading (or re-reading) them as much as I did.The smallest homes of the very poor might be little better than a square, stone structure, covered with a whitewashed sort of stucco. There would typically be one larger multi-purpose room and a smaller back room for the animals. Some houses in hilly...

Israeli and French researchers to excavate ancient site of Kiryat Ye’arim, outside Jerusalem, one of the few unstudied biblical tels One of the few remaining unstudied major biblical sites, where according to the Bible the Ark of the Covenant was kept for two decades, will be excavated by archaeologists this summer for the first time. Organizers hope the anticipated study of Kiryat Ye’arim (also transliterated as Kiriath Jearim) will shed light on the site’s significance during the Iron Age, the period associated with the biblical account of King David. Kiryat Ye’arim is mentioned over a dozen times in the Bible...

Dinosaurs in Noah’s vineyard by David Lewis The carving (see image at right), which appears to show two dinosaurs, is on an outside wall of the bell-tower of a fourteenth century church in the Republic of Georgia. Holy Trinity Church (also known as Tsminda Sameba) is on Mount Gergeti, near Stephantsminda village, in the Mount Kazbegi area—close to the borders with North Ossetia and Ingushetia. When I visited this area in 2006 and saw the carvings, I asked a Georgian cleric at the church what they depicted. He commented that they looked like dinosaurs, and he had no idea when...

Archaeologists believe they have found evidence of King David’s footprints in a mysterious two-gated city from 3,000 years ago, mentioned in the Bible’s story of David and Goliath The site is known by its modern name, Khirbet Qeiyafa, in Israel’s Elah Valley. After nearly seven years of excavations, the public can now explore the archaeological findings of Qeiyafa through “In the Valley of David and Goliath,” a new Bible Lands Museum exhibition that opened earlier this week in Jerusalem. The Qeiyafa findings have sparked debate and intrigued historians and archaeologists since they were first revealed. The city was discovered between...

Archaeologists unearthed the ruins of a synagogue near Mount TaborLimestone benches line the walls where worshippers would have sat It sits within a Jewish village thought to date back to the first century ADThe New Testament states Jesus visited village synagogues in Galilee  An unusual rural ancient synagogue that dates back to shortly after the time of Jesus has been unearthed in Galilee.  The rare find – a huge 29 feet long and 26 feet wide room with walls lined by limestone benches – promises to add weight to stories about Jesus in the Bible.  Most synagogues dating from around...

Chapter 11 of the Acts of the Apostles says that Antioch was the city in which, for the first time, the disciples of Jesus were called “Christians.” Tradition has enthroned Peter as the founder of the Church of Antioch, following the narration of the very same Book of Acts, which tells not only of the arrival of Peter and Barnabas to the Turkish city, but also of their preaching.Moreover, this very same tradition claims that it was in the Knisset Mar Semaan Kefa (“Grotto of St. Peter” in Aramaic) where Peter would celebrate the Eucharist for this community. That is to...