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Pope Francis and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu traded words on Monday over the language spoken by Jesus two millennia ago. "Jesus was here, in this land. He spoke Hebrew," Netanyahu told Francis, at a public meeting in Jerusalem in which the Israeli leader cited a strong connection between Judaism and Christianity. "Aramaic," the pope interjected. "He spoke Aramaic, but he knew Hebrew," Netanyahu shot back. Like many things in the Middle East, where the pope is on the last leg of a three-day visit, modern-day discourse about Jesus is complicated and often political. A Jew, Jesus was born in...

Many skeptics assert that Paul of Tarsus (the apostle Paul) hijacked the early Christian religion, changing the theology from what Jesus originally taught. Usually offered as proof for this claim are the doctrines found in Paul's great theological work, his letter to the Romans. Without a doubt, the book of Romans contains the most complete exposition of orthodox Christian doctrines. Are these doctrines contrary to what Jesus taught? Do they conflict with the teachings of the Old Testament from which they were purportedly derived? If Paul really "invented" Christianity, then one would expect that his teachings would be different from...

In my college years I worked with a company that built and serviced pipe organs around the Washington DC area. During those years I probably entered some 300 different churches both Catholic and Protestant.Of course, as a Catholic, I particularly loved going to the Catholic churches. I especially loved visiting the older city parishes that were built back before the revolution. I had grown up in the suburbs where almost every church was built after 1955, when church building took a decided turn for the worse: Ugly bland, beige buildings with carpeted floors and potted plants. A plain wooden table...

Observers say that by granting citizenship to all descendants of expelled Muslims, Spain, virtually overnight, would end up with the largest Muslim population in the European Union."Is Spain aware of what might be assumed when it makes peace with some but not with others? Is Spain aware of what this decision [not to include Muslims in the return] could cost?... Does Spain have alternatives to the foreign investment from Muslims? — Ahmed Bensalh, Morisco-Moroccan journalist. "Persecution of Jews was just that, while what happened with the Arabs was part of a conflict. There is no basis for comparison." — Jose...

Dr. David Jeremiah, senior pastor of Shadow Mountain Community Church in El Cajon, California, in his book entitled "I Never Thought I'd See The Day," which is listed as a "# 1 New York Times Bestseller," engages in historical revisionism as he attempts to portray William Tyndale as a "martyr" for the Bible. On page 161 of his book, Dr. Jeremiah asserts that, "..because TYndale believed that every English-speaking person deserved to have access to the Bible in English, he labored to produce the first complete New Testament (and part of the Old Testament) in English translated directly from the...

More than 500 years after the Spanish Inquisition, the Spanish government has voted to facilitate the naturalization of Jewish families of Spanish descent, without demanding they give up their other citizenship. Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand of Spain must be rolling in their graves: The government in Madrid on Friday approved legislation that would allow descendents of Jews who were exiled from Spain to be naturalized in the country without having to give up their former citizenship, which had been the law until now. Spanish Justice Minister Alberto Ruiz-Gallardon said that Spain "is indebted to Spanish Jews for spreading the...

Remembering the Early ChurchGEORGE SIM JOHNSTONLately, I have been hearing a lot about how the primitive Church was not Roman Catholic. Virgin and Child from the catacombs Rome, 4th century I don't know why it is, but this information keeps bursting upon me in the most unlikely settings — a lunch party near the sand dunes, cocktails on the upper east side — where a kindly soul informs me between sips of Dubonnet that the Catholic Church really began as an episcopal conspiracy centuries after Christ. My interlocutor has usually been reading a book by Garry Wills or Elaine Pagels,...

Not so long ago, casually throwing the Knights Templar into polite conversation was a litmus test of mental health. One of Umberto Eco’s characters in Foucault’s Pendulum summed it up perfectly. He declared that you could recognise a lunatic "by the liberties he takes with common sense, by his flashes of inspiration, and by the fact that sooner or later he brings up the Templars". But all good things come to an end. The enigmatic medieval monk-knights are no longer a fringe interest for obsessives. They are now squarely mainstream. And as 18 March 2014 draws closer, Templarmania is going...

For millennia the Catholic Church has consistently opposed unnatural vice. Here is a brief sampling of useful quotes from Saints, Doctors of the Church, Church Fathers and Ecclesiastical Writers who condemn homosexual vice in their writings. 1. Athenagoras of Athens (2nd Century) Athenagoras of Athens was a philosopher who converted to Christianity in the second century. He shows that the pagans, who were totally immoral, did not even refrain from sins against nature: "But though such is our character (Oh. why should I speak of things unfit to be uttered?), the things said of us are an example of the...

The Christians of the first century were rebels with a cause. They weren’t the hair-spray-addicted, religious sponges of pop culture and oppressive governments looking to be ogled by an Oprah-addled crowd or breastfed by some big government tit . Oh, no, senorita. The primitive church was out to change the world. After Jerusalem fell in AD 70, the church, birthed by the Holy Spirit during Rome’s heyday, exploded with growth in Asia Minor — which happened to be Ground Zero for Caesar worship. The punch-drunk citizens of Roman rule thought the various Caesars, their laws, and their government were...

Archaelogists excavating a medieval church in a dales village have found further evidence that the site was an Anglo Saxon settlement. A carved section from an eighth century stone cross was unearthed during a dig at St Botolph"s field in Frosterley in Weardale this week. The discovery was met with great excitement from the archaeologists and volunteers who were digging on the site as part of the Altogether Archaeology project... Mr Frodsham said Frosterley was largely a post-medieval village but recent finds have suggested people lived in the area much earlier... It has already attracted more than 500 volunteers who...

Full Question Until recently, I always thought Catholics worshiped on the Sabbath, and that the early Church moved the Sabbath from Saturday to Sunday. Is this true? Answer This is a common misunderstanding. Catholics do not worship on the Sabbath, which according to Jewish law is the last day of the week (Saturday), when God rested from all the work he had done in creation (Gen. 2:2-3). Catholics worship on the Lord’s Day, the first day of the week (Sunday, the eighth day); the day when God said "Let there be light" (Gen. 1:3); the day when Christ rose from...

Bl. John Henry Newman said it best: “To be deep in history is to cease to be Protestant.” History paints an overwhelming picture of St. Peter’s apostolic ministry in Rome and this is confirmed by a multitude of different sources within the Early Church. Catholic Encyclopedia states, “In opposition to this distinct and unanimous testimony of early Christendom, some few Protestant historians have attempted in recent times to set aside the residence and death of Peter at Rome as legendary. These attempts have resulted in complete failure.” Protestantism as a whole seeks to divorce Christianity from history by rending Gospel...

An Archaeologist has discovered what he believes to be the ruins of a buried Christian empire in the highlands of Yemen. The find has led to theories that there may have once been a Christian church in Mecca. A stone carving of a Christian figure was found in Zafar, some 581 miles south of the Holy City, and is thought to have been made in the era of the Prophet Muhammad. Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2254657/Was-church-Mecca-Chiselled-stonework-Christian-figure-discovered-holy-site-Yemen.html#ixzz2GmL9IgsA Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook

Archaeologists have discovered the ruins of a buried Christian empire in the highlands of Yemen, leading to theories that there may have once been a church in Mecca. A stone carving of a Christian figure was found in Zafar, some 581 miles south of Mecca, and is thought to have been made in the era of the Prophet Muhammad. Paul Yule, an archaeologist from Heidelberg in Germany, has dated the 5feet 7inch tall relief which shows a man with chains of jewellery, curls and spherical eyes to around 530AD. ... The figure is barefoot, which was typical of Coptic saints....

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Is Christmas Pagan? A Jewish Star of David Tops This Christmas Tree   THE CATHOLIC KNIGHT:   About this time every year we hear the usual misnomer that Christmas is a Pagan celebration whitewashed by the medieval Catholic Church. We hear this from all corners. Secularists just accept it as fact. Catholics, rather embarrassingly, often try to gloss over it. While Protestant Fundamentalists frequently rail against it, usually calling for either a boycott of the holiday, or else a return to the Jewish festival of Hanukkah. (For some ridiculous reason, some Fundamentalists subscribe to the notion that if a certain...

Tintoretto’s painting of the ascetic and acerbic St Jerome Jerome (c 347-420), the greatest scholar among the Church Fathers, made the Latin translation of the Bible which became known as the Vulgate.He was, however, a contentious individual, with a penchant for sarcasm which readily created enemies. “If he will only conceal his nose and hold his tongue,” he wrote of one opponent, “he might yet be taken as handsome and learned.”Jerome was born at Stridon, near Ljubljana in modern Slovenia. He was not baptised until he went to study in Rome as a teenager.His early propensity for idleness and amusement...

A Jewish class on why Jews do not accept Christianity. I post for Jews to self-educate and for Christians to understand the Jewish point of view--not that it matters (that they do.)