Posted on 09/26/2006 6:26:26 AM PDT by NYer
A COLLECTION of sacred artefacts looted by the Romans from the Temple of Jerusalem and long suspected of being hidden in the vaults of the Vatican are actually in the Holy Land, according to a British archaeologist.
Sean Kingsley, a specialist in the Holy Land, claims to have discovered what became of the collection, which is widely regarded as the greatest of biblical treasures and includes silver trumpets that would have heralded the Coming of the Messiah.
The trumpets, gold candelabra and the bejewelled Table of the Divine Presence were among pieces shipped to Rome after the looting in AD70 of the Temple, the most sacred building in the ancient Jewish faith.
After a decade of research into previously untapped ancient texts and archaeological sources, Dr Kingsley has reconstructed the treasure’s route for the first time in 2,000 years to provide evidence that it left Rome in the 5th century.
He has discovered that it was taken to Carthage, Constantinople and Algeria before being hidden in the Judaean wilderness, beneath the Monastery of Theodosius.
Dr Kingsley said: “The treasure resonates fiercely across modern politics. Since the mid-1990s, a heated political wrangle has been simmering between the Vatican and Israel, which has accused the papacy of imprisoning the treasure.
“The Temple treasure remains a deadly political tool in the volatile Arab-Israeli conflict centred on the Temple Mount [the site of the Jewish Temple and the Muslim Dome of the Rock].
“The treasure’s final hiding place – in the modern West Bank . . . deep in Hamas territory – will rock world religions.”
Emperor Vespasian ordered the destruction of the Temple at Jerusalem after a Jewish revolt and Roman forces took about 50 tons of gold, silver and precious art to Rome.
The Arch of Titus, built a decade later, depicts Roman soldiers bearing the sacred spoils on their shoulders. The Jews were expelled from Jerusalem and dispersed throughout the world.
Between AD75 and the early 5th century, the treasure was on public display in the Temple of Peace in the Forum, in Rome.
The Vatican has told Dr Kingsley that there is no evidence in its archives that the treasure resided in Rome from the medieval period onwards.
He said: “One thing is for sure – it is not imprisoned deep in Vatican City. I am the first person to prove that the Temple treasures no longer languish in Rome.”
Dr Kingsley’s sources include Josephus, a 1st-century Jewish historian who sometimes exaggerated but is an authority on Roman and Jewish history. Dr Kingsley also found evidence in, among others, the works of Procopius, a court historian of the Emperor Justinian, who died in AD562, and from Theophanes Confessor (c760-817), a Christian monk from Constantinople.
In Chronographia, which spanned AD284 to 813, Theophanes recorded that Gaiseric, king of the Vandals, loaded the treasures that “Titus had brought to Rome after the capture of Jerusalem” on a boat to Carthage in Tunisia in AD455.
In the first holy crusade in AD533, the Byzantine Belisarius seized the treasure from a royal ship fleeing the Algerian harbour of Hippo Regius. It was then shipped to Constantinople, the capital of Byzantium.In the 7th century, Persians sacked Jerusalem, killing thousands of Christians, and dragging the Patriarch, Zacharias, to Persia. Dr Kingsley believes that his replacement, Modestus, spirited away the treasures to their final hiding place in AD614.
Dr Kingsley will reveal his findings in God’s Gold: The Quest for the Lost Temple Treasure of Jerusalem, to be published by John Murray on October 5.
I call that slave reparations, not booty. Besides, when The Big Guy tells you to take something, you do it.
They did not receive the lamb of God the one and final sacrifice and continue to bring the blood of bulls and goats to God for a sacrifice and in my opinion it was an abomination to God, an abomination that God made desolate in 70 AD.
Please show me where God has abandoned Israel and has transfered the covenant blessing of Israel to the church. thanks
"They did not receive the lamb of God the one and final sacrifice and continue to bring the blood of bulls and goats to God for a sacrifice and in my opinion it was an abomination to God, an abomination that God made desolate in 70 AD."
Nonsense. Without trying to start a theological argument (and the tension is there in many of the posts on this thread), I'd like to give you some information. Under Jewish law and tradition going back to WAY before 2,000 or so years ago, the "lamb of G-d" (your terminology) is not the Moshiach/Messiah (see below for more information). As such, there's no way that the Temple sacrifices were "an abomination" to G-d. Anyhow, the theologically accepted reason (in Judaism - and it WAS our Temple that was destroyed, so our scholars over the past 1,936 years ought to know quite a lot about the subject) that the 2nd Temple was destroyed was the great amount of "baseless hatred" of Jews by their fellow Jews, caused in large part by the forbidden activity of gossip (called "Lashon Hara" in Hebrew).
Jesus, if such person actually existed historically (and there's legitimate debate about it - but I'll assume he did for this discussion), simply didn't meet the qualifications. The single best explanation of this that I've seen is at http://www.jewsforjudaism.org/web/handbook/s_messiah.html Here's the text:
THE MESSIAH ACCORDING TO JUDAISM
One of the basic premises upon which Christianity rests is that Jesus was the Messiah predicted in the Jewish Bible. Judaism has always rejected this belief. Since the goal of "Hebrew Christian" missionaries is to convince Jews that Jesus did in fact fulfill the requirements of the promised Messiah, it is necessary to examine the Jewish understanding of the Messiah to understand why such claims are simply not true.
THE HEBREW ROOTS OF THE WORD "MESSIAH"
The Hebrew word for "Messiah" is "Moshiach --." The literal and proper translation of this word is "anointed," which refers to a ritual of anointing and consecrating someone or some-thing with oil. (I Samuel 10:1-2) It is used throughout the Jewish Bible in reference to a wide variety of individuals and objects; for example, a Jewish king (I Kings 1:39), Jewish priests (Leviticus 4:3), prophets (Isaiah 61:1), the Jewish Temple and its utensils (Exodus 40:9-11), unleavened bread (Numbers 6:15), and a non-Jewish king (Cyrus king of Persia, Isaiah 45:1).
THE CRITERIA TO BE FULFILLED BY THE JEWISH MESSIAH
In an accurate translation of the Jewish Scriptures, the word "Moshiach" is never translated as "Messiah," but as "anointed."1Nevertheless, Judaism has always maintained a fundamental belief in a Messianic figure. Since the concept of a Messiah is one that was given by G-d to the Jews, Jewish tradition is best qualified to describe and recognize the expected Messiah. This tradition has its foundation in numerous biblical references, many of which are cited below. Judaism understands the Messiah to be a human being (with no connotation of deity or divinity) who will bring about certain changes in the world and who must fulfill certain specific criteria before being acknowledged as the Messiah.
These specific criteria are as follows:
1) He must be Jewish. (Deuteronomy 17:15, Numbers 24:17)
2) He must be a member of the tribe of Judah (Genesis 49:10) and a direct male descendent of both King David (I Chronicles 17:11, Psalm 89:29-38, Jeremiah 33:17, II Samuel 7:12-16) and King Solomon. (I Chronicles 22:10, II Chronicles 7:18)
3) He must gather the Jewish people from exile and return them to Israel. (Isaiah 27:12-13, Isaiah 11:12)
4) He must rebuild the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem. (Micah 4:1)
5) He must bring world peace. (Isaiah 2:4, Isaiah 11:6, Micah 4:3)
6) He must influence the entire world to acknowledge and serve one G-d. (Isaiah 11:9, Isaiah 40:5, Zephaniah 3:9)
All of these criteria for the Messiah are best stated in the book of Ezekiel chapter 37:24-28:
"And My servant David will be a king over them, and they will all have one shepherd, and they will walk in My ordinances, and keep My statutes, and observe them, and they shall live on the land that I gave to Jacob My servant...and I will make a covenant of peace with them; it will be an everlasting covenant and I will set my sanctuary in their midst forever and My dwelling place shall be with them, and I will be their G-d and they will be My people. And the nations will know that I am the Lord who sanctifies Israel, when My sanctuary is in their midst forever."
If an individual fails to fulfill even one of these conditions, he cannot be the Messiah.
WHY JESUS COULD NOT HAVE BEEN THE JEWISH MESSIAH
A careful analysis of these criteria shows us that, although Jesus was Jewish, he did not fulfill any of the other criteria. An examination of the contradictory accounts of Jesus' genealogy demonstrates a number of difficulties with the fulfillment of the second criterion. Specifically, the New Testament claims that Jesus did not have a physical father. The Jewish Scriptures, however, clearly state that a person's genealogy and tribal membership is transmitted exclusively through one's physical father (Numbers 1:18, Jeremiah 33:17). Therefore, Jesus cannot possibly be a descendent of the tribe of Judah nor of King David and King Solomon.
There are even further problems with any attempts to use the Jewish Scriptures to prove Jesus' genealogy through Joseph, the husband of Mary (Jesus' mother). For the New Testament claims that Joseph was a descendent of King Jeconiah, who in the Hebrew Bible was cursed to never have a descendent "sitting on the throne of David and ruling any more in Judah" (Jeremiah 22:30). Joseph's genealogy, even if it were transmittable to Jesus, would only serve to further disqualify Jesus as the Messiah.
Finally, there is the problem of the contradictory accounts of Jesus' genealogy in Matthew, Chapter 1 and Luke, Chapter 3. The common Christian explanation of this contradiction claims that Luke's genealogy is that of Jesus' mother, Mary. However, this is unfounded, even according to the Greek original. In addition, it has already been established that genealogy is transferred solely through the father, making this attempted explanation completely irrelevant. Even if one could trace one's genealogy through one's mother, there would be the additional problem that Luke 3:31 lists Mary as a descendent of David through Nathan, Solomon's brother, and not through Solomon himself as required according to the prophesy in I Chronicles 22:10 of the Jewish Bible.
The third, fourth, fifth and sixth criteria have obviously not been fulfilled -- neither during Jesus' time nor since. Any Christian claims that these final criteria will be fulfilled in a "Second Coming" are irrelevant because the concept of the Messiah coming twice has no scriptural basis.
To summarize, we cannot know that someone is the Messiah until he fulfills all of the above criteria.
The Christian understanding of the Messiah and Jesus differs greatly from the Jewish biblical view. These differences developed as a result of the Church's influence during the time of the Emperor Constantine and the Council of Nicaea that issued the Nicene Creed in 325 CE.
The Messiah was never meant to be an object of worship. His primary mission and accomplishment is to bring world peace and to fill the world with the knowledge and awareness of one G-d.
1 Some form of the Hebrew word "Moshiach -- " is used over 150 times in the Jewish Bible. Christians consistently translate this word as anointed, except in the ninth chapter of Daniel. In this chapter missionaries deviate from this and other correct translations in an attempt to prove that the Messiah came before the destruction of the Second Temple. Rather than speaking about "the Messiah," when read in context and with a correct translation this chapter clearly speaks about two different "anointed" subjects hundreds of years apart: a) The first is the anointed King Cyrus (Isaiah 45:1) who granted permission to the Jews to return and build the Second Temple 52 years "7 weeks of years" after the destruction of the First Temple; b) The second is the anointed priesthood (Leviticus 4:3) that was terminated 434 years "62 weeks of years" later.
[End of text]
_________
Anyhow, now you know why observant Jews never have, don't now and never will accept Jesus as Moshiach/Messiah. He might have been many other things, just not the Moshiach according to Jewish law.
I won't even discuss the child molesting Arabian butcher - many of his followers are a good deal less tolerant of civil debate than Christians and Jews.
My only responce is:
Rom 11:25
25 For I would not, brethren, that ye should be ignorant of this mystery, lest ye should be wise in your own conceits; that blindness in part is happened to Israel, until the fulness of the Gentiles be come in.
Rom 14:11
11 For it is written, As I live, saith the Lord, every knee shall bow to me, and every tongue shall confess to God.
... and my only response is: G-d's covenant with Abraham was for all of his descendants through Isaac. Since G-d is eternal, and is not a liar, the covenant still applies and always will. Ditto for promises to Isaac, Jacob and the Jewish people in the time of Moses and subsequently through the various Prophets. Punishments meted out to the Jewish People over the millenia are akin to punishments given by parents to their kids - they express varying levels of displeasure, and seek to change behavior. But your children are still and always your children even if they misbehave, and one could say the same of G-d's relationship with the Jews.
Point of Order: since I do not believe in the validity or Divinity of the Christian Bible, and since your faith as a Christian is heavily dependent upon the Hebrew Bible (your "Old Testament," in which Jesus believed), I think that it is only sensible to debate/discuss/explore theological concepts with the use of Hebrew Bible/Old Testament text.
My guess is that the author is ........just guessing too! When he displays the artefacts I will be convinced!
The only thing is that, from my point of view, G-d said that the Law He gave to Moses would remain unchanged forever. Further, He said that the Moshiach/Messiah would observe the Law and bring others back to it (among many other things). Jesus, based on the Christian Bible, advocated not obeying certain aspects of the Law. Reconcile that with your views as you see fit.
The books of Revleations and Danile state that the anti-christ will cease all sacrafices and desecrate the temple.
As a Biblical Fundamentalist from the American Southeast (who grew up with Protestant beliefs and who loves Fundamentalist Protestants) one thing that I must admit burns my biscuits is the culturally-engendered belief that "the Bible" means the Protestant Bible (the 66 books of the "old testament" plus the "new testament"), and that this is the self-evident, self-authenticating Word of G-d independent of anything else. And it pains me to say this because for almost five hundred years Protestants have heard very bad and very hypocritical attacks on "sola scriptura" from Catholic and Orthodox chr*stians so that it's hard to criticize the Protestant attitude without sounding Catholic--something I absolutely hate to do.
But anyway, all Fundamentalist Protestants depend for the absolute truth on a book which they received from false religions. Think about it. The "old testament" comes from Judaism and the "new testament" from Catholicism/Orthodoxy. Sincere Fundamentalist Protestants reject these religions as false and mistaken, yet they accept without question the sacred books of these false religions. Perhaps it is the fact that Protestantism was born with the printing press that makes it so difficult for Protestants to understand the concept of a scribal tradition (dependent on oral laws) for transcribing the Biblical text, since their experience has always been that "the Bible" is spat out of a machine. But that wasn't the case until almost six hundred years ago.
The first part of the Bible in history was the Torah. The Torah, alone of all the sacred and pseudo-sacred books on the world, was literally written by G-d before the creation and then dictated to Moses letter-for-letter. The Torah alone did not require canonization by some sort of religious body. It is wholly Divine--in fact, it is the "logos" by which the universe was created. Again, this applies only to the Torah (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, and Deuteronomy) and to nothing else. The later books are not "higher" than the Torah . . . they are lower! The Torah was written and dictated by G-d directly, without any mediation. The Prophetic books were written under the spirit of Prophecy, which is a lower form of inspiration. And the Ketuvim (the Hagiographa) was written under Ruach HaQodesh (Divine inspiration), which is even lower. Revelation isn't "progressive" (if it were, there would be no end of ever newer and higher forms of revelation!). Instead it is "regressive." The Torah is absolute. The other books are in the Bible only because the 'Anshei-HaKenesset HaGedolah (the forerunner of today's Orthodox Rabbinate) "canonized" them. In fact, the other books are time-conditioned and will be of no special use after all has been fulfilled (they are in the Bible only temporarily), whereas the Torah (and the Book of Esther) will be publicly read as Scripture forever. Needless to say, the Sages who canonized the TaNa"KH (the Bible) would never have canonized any book that claimed to be "higher" than the Torah or to predict a future of which the Torah was only the "prototype." The chr*stian misinterpretations of the TaNa"KH are foreign additions from the outside.
Now unfortunately, so far this sounds like the same stuff Catholics and Eastern Orthodox say in their anti-Protestant apologetics. And the tragedy is that these groups often use the fact that the Bible is the product of a scribal tradition to attack Biblical inerrancy and promote the blasphemous documentary hypothesis and other such concepts. Because of this many sincere Fundamentalist Protestants won't listen to the Jewish response to sola scriptura Protestantism--the moment they hear "the Bible didn't drop out of the sky" or the words "scribal tradition" they hear the echoes of higher critical blasphemy and they tune out the message. It is for this reason that Catholicism and Orthodox chr*stianity have perpetrated great evil; they have so blended the concept of a transcribed Bible (the only way the Bible could exist prior to the printing press) with the blasphemies of higher criticism that sincere Protestants assume that the two concepts go together. They do not! The Jewish tradition, within which alone the Bible may be correctly understood, has always opposed the idea that the Torah is derived from pagan mythology or the work of redactors over a great period of time. The entire Torah was dictated to Moses, who wrote it down. But unfortunately many good people will always assume that the mechanically printed Bible, existing independently of an authoritative scribal tradition, is the only way to defend the Word of G-d from blasphemous modern criticism.
Moreover, unlike the Catholics and Eastern Orthodox, the Jewish People received the genuine original Biblical text. All forms of chr*stianity use translations (which give only the ideas, and not the very words of G-d which verbal-plenary inspirationists so defend). Alone of all the peoples of the world the Jewish People are expected to learn to read the original Biblical text. And even more importantly, only the Jewish tradition possesses the (unwritten) rules and regulations for writing the Biblical text down so that it remains unaltered from the day it was first transcribed by Moses himself. No other tradition, however ancient, has this tradition. No other translation, however ancient or traditional, is really the Bible. To trust (in fact, depend upon) the Jewish Oral Laws to preserve the "old testament" text so that chr*stians can have it today while rejecting the traditional Jewish interpretation of the Biblical text (part of the same Oral Tradition communicated from G-d to Moses at Sinai) is to engage in the greatest hypocrisy.
Plus there's another factor. Unlike the ancient Biblie translations in such languages as Greek, Latin, Armenian, Georgian, Slavonic, etc., the original, authentic Biblical text consists only of consonants. There are no vowels and no punctuation. The vowels and punctuation are part of the Oral Torah, not the Written Torah. The Torah Scrolls which are read in synagogues (written on scrolls made of the hides of kosher animals and stitched together with threads made of the tendons of kosher animals just as in the days of Moses) have no punctuation or vowels. The written text of the Bible is quite literally a keyhole into which the vowels and punctuation (provided by the Oral Torah) fit perfectly. No other tradition, however ancient, can say this. The Jewish interpretation of the TaNa"KH is the only correct interpretation of the Bible, and that excludes chr*stianity.
Most Protestants believe in J*sus only because their "bible" (ie, the composite TaNa"KH/"new testament" text they use) tells them to. But the first chr*stians didn't have a "new testament" to "authorize" belief in J*sus. And the thing that Protestants sometimes seem absolutely incapable of even contemplating is that if the "new testament" doesn't truly belong in the Bible, then the Bible cannot be said to authorize chr*stianity. The stubbornness of Jews in refusing to consider chr*stianity is no greater than the stubbornness of Fundamentalist Protestants who simply cannot seem to fathom the very possibility that the composite Protestant Bible they know is not the authentic Word of G-d. And when you consider that Fundamentalist Protestants condemn as false the religions from whom they receive their holy book, it is quite maddening.
Unfortunately, Jewish anti-chr*stian polemics tend to sound exactly like Catholic anti-Protestant polemics for the simple reason that chr*stianity has been preaching Protestantism to the Jews for two thousand years (Luther merely took the anti-Torah message of the Catholic Church and applied it quite logically to the "new law"). One Jewish/Noachide site says that Jews believe in the Bible because G-d told them to whereas chr*stians believe in G-d because the Bible tells them to. Actually, the ancient churches (Catholicism, Orthodoxy, etc.), predating the canonization of the "new testament," don't believe in J*sus on the authority of the Bible but the other way around. For all their hypocrisy, the ancient churches do have a historical memory of the days when chr*stianity existed but the "new testament" didn't. Unfortunately, unlike the Jews, they have allowed this knowledge to open them up to modern critical theories that Orthodox Jews have always rejected.
I doubt that this post will win any converts, but I hope it will at least make my frustration easier to understand.
Please forgive me, but I am so very tired of Catholics invoking the Jewish Ritual in order to justify the use of images in chr*stianity. According to those same Catholics the Temple was superseded by the chr*stian church (which I absolutely reject) and its rebuilding would be highly displeasing to G-d (remember the stories about the fire consuming the people in the days of Julian the Apostate when they allegedly tried to rebuild it?). Liturgical chr*stians use the Jewish rituals (prescribed in the Torah) to justify chr*stian rituals derived from paganism, while insisting that the Biblical Jewish rituals would now be sinful. They use Biblical Jewish holidays to justify pagan-derived chr*stian holidays while condemning the observance of Jewish holidays by chr*stians. They use tefillin (prescribed in the Torah) to justify rosary beads while the use of tefillin by a chr*stian now would be "denying J*sus." In short, the Torah is used to justify what is not in it, and what is in it is considered prohibited under "the new dispensation."
The truth of chr*stianity or the chr*stian interpretation of the TaNa"KH are not at all self-evident, despite what chr*stians think.
PS: The liturgical honores given Nechushtan were identical to those given to statues, icons, and other "holy objects" by chr*stians for the past two thousand years, but Judaism could not tolerate even this. And it is very insulting to hear "Jewish idolatry" condemned by a religion that justifies the exact same practices for other images. The brazen serpent was made by Moses at the explicit command of G-d. If liturgical honors (latria?) were forbidden to it then I don't see how you can justify the same acts by chr*stians other than the blanket statement "the old testament is no longer in force."
> I doubt that this post will win any converts, but I hope it will at least make my frustration easier to understand.
Thanks for this.
Yours is a valid viewpoint. You're probably right: you won't win many converts on the strength of this explanation, but I don't think that was your intention.
In defense of the 66 books, I think many Christians would argue that there is internal consistency -- despite multiple authors -- between the books: the internal themes remain intact between the OT and the NT, from Genesis thru Revelation.
One of the strongest themes are the Promises by God, first thru Eve, then to Noah, then to Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, David, Solomon, and ultimately to Jesus and His follower -- both Jew and Gentile (the latter by Adoption, the former by Forgiveness, both by Grace). It is a beautiful, consistent string stretching many thousands of years, but with a harmonizing, unifying theme: that all of His Creation shall be filled with His Glory.
*DieHard*
Where do you get that idea? Jesus said that not one jot or tittle of the law shall pass until all things have been accomplished.
'The ironic part - The Romans saved these treasure from absolute destruction as eventually Jerusalem fell to the islamic hordes'
double irony - they might be buried deep in Hamas country....
In your opinion and belief, not mine or that of any other believing Jew of the last nearly 2,000 years (and that includes an awful lot of people a whole bunch smarter and tremendously more informed than me on matters of religion).
Why has He not spoken to you?
Is your God dead?
Does He have no ears no eyes no mouth to speak with?
Where are the prophets of today speaking out for God like Isaiah, Jeremiah, speaking of the condition of Israel crying out for repentance?
Seems like your God has not spoken for over 2000 years. Where is His promises fulfilled is He a lier? NO!
They have all been fulfilled in Jesus the Christ!
The only thing not yet fulfilled is that great and terrible day of the Lord! When men will find no place to hide from the face of GOD!
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