Free Republic

et out the cigars—Methuselah, a Judean date palm tree that was grown from a 2,000 year old seed, has become a papa plant. Elaine Solowey, of the Arava Institute for Environmental Studies at Kibbutz Ketura in Israel, recently broke the good news to National Geographic: “He is over three meters [ten feet] tall, he's got a few offshoots, he has flowers, and his pollen is good," she says. "We pollinated a female with his pollen, a wild [modern] female, and yeah, he can make dates." Methuselah sprouted back in 2005, when agriculture expert Solowey germinated his antique seed. It had...

As the Arabs in Judea and Samaria threaten to storm Jewish communities, the women at Pnei Kedem in Gush Etzion, in the Judean hills, are learning to shoot firearms. The extra precaution is due to concerns that Arabs will descend on communities en masse, spreading IDF forces too thin to effectively block them. In such a scenario, the civilians in some communities may have to fend for themselves.

The largest-ever known number of coins from the time of Bar-Kochba, the Jewish leader against Roman invaders, has been discovered in the Judean Hills by cave researchers from Hebrew and Bar-Ilan Universities.

Will Judean Desert find shed light on Shroud of Turin? By ETGAR LEFKOVITS Updated May 29, 2008 7:28 Can a 6,000-year-old shroud uncovered in the Judean Desert in 1993 help illuminate the centuries-old debate over the Shroud of Turin? The Shroud of Turin Slideshow: Pictures of the week That is the question posed by Olga Negnevitsky, a conservator at the Israel Museum who was involved in the conservation of the lesser-known shroud for the Antiquities Authority after it was discovered inside a small cave near Jericho. The idea to use the older shroud to learn more about the famous one...

What happened to the 50 tons of gold, silver and sacred treasures looted from Herod's Temple following the Roman legionnaires' sack of Jerusalem on Tisha b'Av in the year 70 CE? The Arch of Titus in Rome, erected shortly after the death of Titus who reigned as emperor from 79 to 81, clearly depicts Roman soldiers bearing on their shoulders the golden candelabrum, silver trumpets and bejewelled Table of the Divine Presence which the Roman emperor Vespasian and his son Titus carted back to Rome as trophies of war. Between 75 CE and the early 5th century, the treasure...

Skeleton 'may be John the Baptist' A professor claims a skeleton discovered near where the Dead Sea Scrolls were found may be the remains of John the Baptist. He suggests the phrophet who annointed Christ may also have been the leader of the tribe to which the burial ground belonged. Israeli archaelogists say his theory is far-fetched and that the burial site unearthed is probably that of an 18th century Bedouin man. US professor Richard Freund at a Centre for Judaic Studies in Connecticut, has been art of an expedition in the Judean Desert. Professor Freund says there is "circumstantial...