Israeli Rabbis Hope to Search Vatican

Associated Press ^ | Jan. 15, 2004 | Gavin Rabinowitz

[Alouette]

JERUSALEM - Israel's chief rabbis, who will meet the pope Friday, said they hope to get permission to search Vatican storerooms for artifacts such as the huge golden menorah that stood in the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem 2,000 years ago.

Vatican officials confirmed the meeting would take place but declined comment on the rabbis' request.

Yehuda Metzger and Shlomo Amar are to have an audience with Pope John Paul II, the first by Israel's chief rabbis in the Vatican. The pope met Israel's previous chief rabbis in the Holy Land during his visit in 2000.

Amar, spiritual leader of Israel's Jews of North African origin, told Army Radio that when he received the invitation, "the truth is I asked them, I could not resist ... I asked them about the Temple vessels and the menorah."

When the Romans sacked Jerusalem in 70 A.D., they took huge amounts of booty home. Legend has it that religious articles from the Temple, including the menorah, were among them.

The Arch of Titus in Rome depicts victorious Roman legions marching off with the seven-branch menorah in hand.

Amar said the Vatican official denied the menorah was there.

"My heart tells me this is not the truth, but that it is some kind of camouflage," Amar said. An aide to the rabbi said the Vatican was not likely to permit a search.

The Vatican will allow the rabbis to view rare Jewish manuscripts in its possession, Amar said.

He said if the rabbis were to come across "other objects," they would be happy to bring them home.

The menorah was the most important symbol of the Temple after the Ark of the Covenant. The image of the biblical menorah is the symbol of the modern state of Israel.

Some Orthodox Jews believe the restoration of the menorah and other holy vessels to Jerusalem would be the first step in rebuilding the Temple, whose site is now occupied by the Al Aqsa Mosque, the third holiest shrine of Islam.

[Darksheare]

True.
As in any organization.
But the side point was that these were officials being dishonest, and no-one is immune to dishonesty however large or small.

I'm still curious as to what their archives has.
They've GOT to have some of teh oldest surviving parches in existence.
Their archives has existed for quite a long time, and hasn't been disturbed too much like other places.
Historians dream, should they let people in there.
What do you suppose there is in there, just plain parchment/ parchment fragment wise?

[sphinx]

It's conceivable that they have a lot of STUFF jumbled away in vast storage catacombs which hasn't been sorted or catalogued or cleaned out in centuries. Kind of like my basement.

I would guess that the Vatican has a very professional, very active curatorial staff that has a pretty good idea of what it has.

[AAABEST]

Some Orthodox Jews believe the restoration of the menorah and other holy vessels to Jerusalem would be the first step in rebuilding the Temple, whose site is now occupied by the Al Aqsa Mosque, the third holiest shrine of Islam.

YES

Let's do it! We could raise billions in about 5 minutes.

Get rid of this POS

[Darksheare]

"I don't think you are being quite truthful in your characterization of isolated allegations of collaboration as policy of "the then church"."
There was recently an apology and some articles on what I mentioned.
IIRC, one or more were posted/mentioned here on FR somewhere.

[truthandjustice1]

Are you going to see Mel Gibson's "Passion"?

[Askel5]

=== It's conceivable that they have a lot of STUFF jumbled away in vast storage catacombs which hasn't been sorted or catalogued or cleaned out in centuries.


I'll agree it's conceivable (I wish I had a basement for my "archives"), but it's highly improbable.

Keep in mind the archivist and ordered nature of the Medieval mind, particularly. The Church is painstakingly scrupulous about its central libraries and texts.

It's the bones and writings of martyrs and saints, actually ... particularly as hidden away from time to time in areas formerly the frontier of Christianity ... that tend to surprise everyone when an old catacomb or secret panel is discovered under the altars of ancient churches and such.

[AAABEST]

Holyland ping.

[SJackson]

It's simply inconceivable that the Vatican would be hiding it. If they had it, they would say so. And in the present climate of opinion, they would return it to the Jews, although it's not altogether obvious who it would be returned to. Short of rebuilding the Temple, which no government of Israel has ever wanted to even talk about, it's not clear where it should be kept.

I'd tend to agree with you, but I'd bet if they found it the talk of rebuilding the Temple would move up a few octaves.

In all this, I can't help think of the artifacts the Wakf is excavating by the truckload and hauling to garbage dumps, but I guess that's another thread.

[xJones]

It's conceivable that they have a lot of STUFF jumbled away in vast storage catacombs which hasn't been sorted or catalogued or cleaned out in centuries.

Alouette, it's no time to start ragging the Catholics to be allowed to go climbing through the Vatican. Next, any remaining Albigensians may declare that the Holy Grail is hidden in there, or something equally ridiculous.

Catholics aren't blowing up Israeli IDF soldiers up, Muslims are. Stick to the real enemy.

[CaptRon]

Personally, I think it's more likely the Palestinian "archaeologists" digging on the Temple Mount have it.

[Askel5]

I don't discount for a moment the notion members of the hierarchy or Vatican officials themselves could be disingenous.

But it's virtually impossible to do so in a public statement (save where some radical's doing their best to twist words as he sees feit). And it's particularly unlikely on this issue, that's all.

It's hard to believe the early Church would have inherited (with no fanfare or mention by historians) a relic like that from the Romans who'd persecuted them for centuries.

And it's true that the curators of the Vatican are probably the world's most impeccably precise librarians on the planet.

[redhead]

"If burning the whole country down, breaking out the salt for the fields, deporting a whole mess of them, enslaving tons more, and publicly executing any leaders they could get their hands on (apart from Josephus), wasn't enough."

It's never "enough" for tyrants. They especially want to go after a defeated peoples' religious faith.

[Askel5]

=== but I'd bet if they found it the talk of rebuilding the Temple would move up a few octaves


Pardon my ignorance, but I'm genuinely curious ...

Besides the obvious problem of moving the Islamic mosque off the site, are there certain requisites to actually rebuilding the Temple?

In other words, could it be rebuilt with or without the relics which the Romans stole when they destroyed the Temple?

[AAABEST]

They wouldn't keep such a thing from the Jews. People can say what they want about the Vatican but people of conscience wouldn't do this, especially collectively.

These things aren't needed to rebuild the temple. All that's needed is the will to do so.

[Ruy Dias de Bivar]

**They melted it down and made it into money, odds are.***

I read somewhere it was broken up and thrown in the Tiber River, however I believe Eusebius mentioned it being displayed years later somewhere.

[skepsel]

As to why the Romans would keep something of this nature and not melt it down, well it wasn't unknown for the victors in classical antiquity to dedicate a portion of the spoils of battle to one god or another and for the offerings to be displayed in that god's temple or kept in a treasury.
That said I think if this had been done it would be highly unlikely for an object of that mass of gold to have survived all the wars, invasions and looting of the intervening centuries, but who knows.

skepsel

[PAR35]

http://www.vatican.va/library_archives/vat_secret_archives/docs/documents/vsa_doc_10121999_regeng_en.html

[bvw]

Gravemakers from the roman and hellene eras, as I recllect show the menora as curved.

Here's a ancient one from Greece:

I'm looking for more.

[Colosis]

Because the notion "the then church" somehow rationalized cooperation with the Nazis even as it attacked the Third Reich (well in advance of the war) and countless of its own were imprisoned and slaughtered for their resistance and their aid to Jews, I don't think you are being quite truthful in your characterization of isolated allegations of collaboration as policy of "the then church".

Well said and thank you.

[missyme]

The Re-Building of the Temple as told in the Book of Revelation:

Prophecy is happening before our eyes.....