My pleasure, I hope you enjoy 'em.
Quest For The Lost Tribes
Simcha Jacobovici, director
VHS
Posted on 12/31/2011 10:12:25 AM PST by SunkenCiv
The Jewish scholarly world is abuzz over the discovery of ancient Jewish scrolls in a cave in Afghanistan's Samangan province, Channel 2 reported on Friday.
According to Arab Affairs correspondent Ehud Yeari, if validated the scrolls may be the most significant historical finding in the Jewish world since that of the Cairo Geniza in the 19th century.
"We know today about a couple of findings," Haggai Ben-Shammai, Professor Emeritus of Arabic Language and Literature at Hebrew University was quoted as saying. "In all, in my opinion, there are about 150 fragments. It may be the tip of the iceberg."
The scrolls, which were part of a geniza, a burial site for sacred Jewish texts, date from around 1,000 years ago and are in Arabic, Judeo-Arabic and ancient Persian.
One scroll, whose replica was shown to the cameras, is apparently a dirge written for an important person whose identity has not been determined.
"Where has he gone?" read the text. "His family members are now alone."
Besides the song of mourning other texts said to be found include an unknown history of the ancient kingdom of Judea, passages from the book of Isaiah and some of the works of Rabbi Saadia Gaon, a medieval sage.
In addition, rings with Jewish names like Shmuel Bar Yosef inscribed in Hebrew on them have surfaced.
The area in which the findings were discovered is on the so-called Silk Road, a trade route that connected Eastern Asia with the Middle East and Europe which Jewish merchants often traveled.
Yeari quoted sources as saying the scrolls were first moved to Peshawar province in Pakistan and from there had been sold to antiquities dealers around the world in Geneva, London, Dubai and Jerusalem.
(Excerpt) Read more at jpost.com ...
The Ark was known to have been in the First Temple hundreds of years after it was supposed to have been brought to Ethiopia. Ethiopians claim that the one in the Temple was a fake! Does that seem plausible? Or is it more likely that ancient Ethiopians may have had a copy?
An ancient copy would be almost as cool, but no one has produced one of those either.
If you’d like to be on or off, please FR mail me.
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The Taliban suggests burning them.
Most likely it rests somewhere in Warehouse 13.
Thanks, links to one of my favorite topics, the lost 10 tribes of Israel. Will have to take time and check them all out.
also may be worth checking out.
http://www.amazon.com/Across-Sabbath-River-Search-Israel/dp/0618029982
Thanks agrace, and Happy New Year.
Thanks jjotto for the interesting stuff about the Ark of the Covenant. My wild guess is (and has been) that the item in the Ethiopian shrine is just a pharaonic-era coffin from Egypt that had been set up as a tourist attraction at Elephantine.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/religion/2816298/posts
http://www.freerepublic.com/tag/arkofthecovenant/index
The expert in ancient Persian languages said the scrolls included an ancient copy of the book of Jeremiah; hitherto unknown scholarly works by the medieval sage Rabbi Sa’adia Gaon; personal poems of loss and mourning and even bookkeeping records that could teach us about everyday life in the community.
“The person who wrote it, a Jewish merchant, keeps track of who owed him how much,” said Shaked.
He added that the texts show the community may have been Karaite, a sect of Judaism which strictly adheres to the bible rather than the Talmud and other later Jewish texts, and name several early Karaite leaders.
In Afghanistan and northern Pakistan they all say they are the 10 Lost Tribes of Israel and I never knew what they were talking about,” said Eisenman, who visited the country in the ’60s. “If this was part of a Jewish permanent settlement then to my mind it reinforces the mythology that the 10 Lost Tribes were in that part of the world.”
http://www.jpost.com/JewishWorld/JewishNews/Article.aspx?id=251913&R=R5
The language used in the edicts found in the western part of India is closer to Sanskrit although one bilingual edict in Afghanistan is written in Aramaic and Greek.[At least two of the surviving inscriptions are in Aramaic, apparently there's also a third one in Aramaic that is now buried and unavailable for casual inspection]
(file from David Derrick files)
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