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.
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2006israelwar or WOT
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... and Belshazzar died that very night...
bejewelled Table of the Divine Presence
The 'Table' was not 'bejewelled'.
What treasures there were would have had to survive greedy Romans, Byzantines, and various other looters of Rome.
And those specific 'treasures', whatever they were, are not needed at all in the rebuilt Temple.
As an aside, the Menorah depicted on the Arch of Titus does not match the shape of the Menorah in the Temple.
Not on purpose, anyway...like Christians never worship their prosperity.
We don't have it.
And never have.
Not 'bearing false witness against thy neighbor' is right up there with 'thou shalt not steal'
Hyam Maccoby, Revolution In Judaea: Jesus and the Jewish Resistance
I'll certainly give you that.
Bill Clinton: "Hey! Maybe that treasure'll have some good lookin' mummies buried with it!"
The sects that you refer to were the non-religious and anti-religious groups, who had control of the political offices in the Temple, such as the high-priesthood. However the common people who revered and worshiped in the the temple were the religious Jews who followed the teachings of the Rabbis. The non-religious groups disappeared, they had no long-term staying power and were not interested in keeping up a Jewish facade when there was no longer any power positions for them to occupy. As for your remark about the third temple, it will be built by God after the coming of the Messiah, so it will have God's permanent protection.
Glad to see that Groucho Marx is alive and well.
The thing is (as I understand it), the implements for the Temple can't be duplicated, so the implements that have been built ahead of time and stored in museums aren't kosher for use in the Temple. They will have to be built especially for use in the Temple and for no other purpose, which has to wait until Mashiach arrives and begins the process.
Then there's the problem of the vast majority of all Jews (all but the very youngest) being temei' metim (defiled by contact with dead bodies), a condition that can only be remedied by the mei niddah (made from the ashes of the Red Heifer), and these have to be mixed with the ashes of the previous heifer. It's a very complicated maze. Then there's the problem of having to have children raised in absolute purity in order to acquire water from the pool of Shiloach, for which no provision has yet been made (so far as I know).
The only thing we can be sure of is that G-d will be able to remove all these many difficulties so that the Holy Temple will indeed be rebuilt correctly in accordance to all the laws. This accomplishment will be a miraculous evidence that Mashiach has arrived and the Kingdom of G-d is here.
What group is that? Do you mean "Nazarite?" Samson and John the Baptizer were Nazarites.
The worship by chr*stians of statues, icons, holy places, and saints makes any claim of "temple-olatry" absolutely ludicrous and perhaps malicious.
The "new testament," of course, has about as much credibility as the koran.
Sure would ... the beginning of the end.
On a related note, Hamas and Hizballah refused to recognize the treasure and vowed to push it all into the sea.
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