Posted on 04/04/2011 7:26:13 AM PDT by Red Badger
After 2,000 years buried within a cave in the Holy Land, the features are barely distinct as that of a human face.
But Bible historians are trying to determine whether this is the first ever portrait of Jesus Christ.
They are investigating whether the picture, which can still just about be seen to depict a man wearing a crown of thorns, was created in Jesus’s lifetime by those who knew him.
The portrait was found on a lead booklet, slightly smaller than a credit card, which lay undiscovered in a cave in a remote village in Jordan overlooking the Sea of Galilee.
It was part of an astonishing hoard of 70 books found there, each with between five and 15 cast lead pages bound by lead rings.
Historians believe the collection was made by followers of Jesus in the few decades immediately after his crucifixion. The most convincing evidence that the books are Christian is that one plate appears to show a map of the holy city of Jerusalem featuring crosses outside the city walls.
And one phrase in the booklets appears to read ‘Saviour of Israel’ in ancient Hebrew.
The discoveries were supposedly made between 2005 and 2007, when a flash flood exposed two nooks inside the cave, containing the booklets, metal plates and scrolls.
The director of Jordan’s Department of Antiquities, Ziad al-Saad, believes the booklets were made by Jesus’s followers shortly after his death.
He said: ‘They will really match, and perhaps be more significant than the Dead Sea Scrolls.
‘The initial information is very encouraging and it seems that we are looking at a very important and significant discovery – maybe the most important discovery in the history of archaeology.’
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
“You saw no form of any kind the day the Lord spoke to you at Horeb out of the fire . . . .” Not a portrait because Jesus would not have sat for it. No Jew that believed Jesus was Messiach would have made it.
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“It could also be the first known depiction of an extraterrestrial, too.”
Yeah, waiting for the Chariots of the Gods folks and History Channel/NatGeo to jump on this one - looks like a space helmet on whomever it was.
“What would be the limit on Jesus’ credit card?”
The sky?
There is a GOOD market for souvenirs there, and it's illegal to remove real antiquities from the country. I doubt that Jordan is all that different from Turkey, and it's not all that far from Antakya.
Oh, and the little souvenir shops in Incirlic Village, outside the Air Base, have lots more. Some of them are plates of cast brass, assembled into Koran stands, or hour glasses, or other replica antiquities, as well as many of carved stone. I still have the mermaid plaque here somewhere, but a little deformed Hittite god was left in country, his deformity not something I cared to collect. ;)
I also spent some time in the environs of Diyarbakir. Many of the same souvenirs, but also many different ones, due to their proximity to Nemrut Dag among other ruins. As well as graffiti to the effect that the VIth Roman Legion had been there, carved into the wall surrounding the old town. (I think it was the 6th, anyway. Long ago, and far away, etc.)
OS
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