Early Christian writings discovered in Jordanian cave - 70 new books

Fighting Irish

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-12888421

They could be the earliest Christian writing in existence, surviving almost 2,000 years in a Jordanian cave. They could, just possibly, change our understanding of how Jesus was crucified and resurrected, and how Christianity was born.

A group of 70 or so "books", each with between five and 15 lead leaves bound by lead rings, was apparently discovered in a remote arid valley in northern Jordan somewhere between 2005 and 2007.

A flash flood had exposed two niches inside the cave, one of them marked with a menorah or candlestick, the ancient Jewish religious symbol.

A Jordanian Bedouin opened these plugs, and what he found inside might constitute extremely rare relics of early Christianity.

That is certainly the view of the Jordanian government, which claims they were smuggled into Israel by another Bedouin.
Continue reading the main story
“Start Quote

As soon as I saw that, I was dumbstruck”

End Quote Philip Davies Sheffield University

The Israeli Bedouin who currently holds the books has denied smuggling them out of Jordan, and claims they have been in his family for 100 years.

Jordan says it will "exert all efforts at every level" to get the relics repatriated.
Incredible claims

The director of the Jordan's Department of Antiquities, Ziad al-Saad, says the books might have been made by followers of Jesus in the few decades immediately following his crucifixion.

"They will really match, and perhaps be more significant than, the Dead Sea Scrolls," says Mr Saad.

"Maybe it will lead to further interpretation and authenticity checks of the material, but 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."
Detail from the Jordanian relic The texts might have been written in the decades following the crucifixion

They seem almost incredible claims - so what is the evidence?

The books, or "codices", were apparently cast in lead, before being bound by lead rings.

Their leaves - which are mostly about the size of a credit card - contain text in Ancient Hebrew, most of which is in code.

If the relics are of early Christian origin rather than Jewish, then they are of huge significance.

One of the few people to see the collection is David Elkington, a scholar of ancient religious archaeology who is heading a British team trying to get the lead books safely into a Jordanian museum.

He says they could be "the major discovery of Christian history", adding: "It's a breathtaking thought that we have held these objects that might have been held by the early saints of the Church."

He believes the most telling evidence for an early Christian origin lies in the images decorating the covers of the books and some of the pages of those which have so far been opened.

Mr Elkington says the relics feature signs that early Christians would have interpreted as indicating Jesus, shown side-by-side with others they would have regarded as representing the presence of God.

"It's talking about the coming of the messiah," he says.

"In the upper square [of one of the book covers] we have the seven-branch menorah, which Jews were utterly forbidden to represent because it resided in the holiest place in the Temple in the presence of God.

"So we have the coming of the messiah to approach the holy of holies, in other words to get legitimacy from God."
Location clues

Philip Davies, Emeritus Professor of Old Testament Studies at Sheffield University, says the most powerful evidence for a Christian origin lies in plates cast into a picture map of the holy city of Jerusalem.

"As soon as I saw that, I was dumbstruck. That struck me as so obviously a Christian image," he says.

"There is a cross in the foreground, and behind it is what has to be the tomb [of Jesus], a small building with an opening, and behind that the walls of the city. There are walls depicted on other pages of these books too and they almost certainly refer to Jerusalem."
Book found in Jordan The books were bound by lead rings

It is the cross that is the most telling feature, in the shape of a capital T, as the crosses used by Romans for crucifixion were.

"It is a Christian crucifixion taking place outside the city walls," says Mr Davies.

Margaret Barker, an authority on New Testament history, points to the location of the reported discovery as evidence of Christian, rather than purely Jewish, origin.

"We do know that on two occasions groups of refugees from the troubles in Jerusalem fled east, they crossed the Jordan near Jericho and then they fled east to very approximately where these books were said to have been found," she says.

"[Another] one of the things that is most likely pointing towards a Christian provenance, is that these are not scrolls but books. The Christians were particularly associated with writing in a book form rather than scroll form, and sealed books in particular as part of the secret tradition of early Christianity."

The Book of Revelation refers to such sealed texts.

Another potential link with the Bible is contained in one of the few fragments of text from the collection to have been translated.

It appears with the image of the menorah and reads "I shall walk uprightly", a sentence that also appears in the Book of Revelation.

While it could be simply a sentiment common in Judaism, it could here be designed to refer to the resurrection.

It is by no means certain that all of the artefacts in the collection are from the same period.

But tests by metallurgists on the badly corroded lead suggest that the books were not made recently.

The archaeology of early Christianity is particularly sparse.

Little is known of the movement after Jesus' crucifixion until the letters of Paul several decades later, and they illuminate the westward spread of Christianity outside the Jewish world.

Never has there been a discovery of relics on this scale from the early Christian movement, in its homeland and so early in its history.

Slide show of images
http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_9434000/9434907.stm

old hippy

They could end up being hidden away in The Vatican with all the other manuscripts, scrolls and gospels that are seen as... challenging.

Fanny Cradock

old hippy wrote: »

They could end up being hidden away in The Vatican with all the other manuscripts, scrolls and gospels that are seen as... challenging.

Enough of your silliness. Address the topic or don't post.

old hippy

Fanny Cradock wrote: »

Enough of your silliness. Address the topic or don't post.

I thought I had?

I'm not being all Dan Brown. Friend of mine used to work in The Vatican. There are countless artefacts from the Middle East there that are considered out of step with Catholic teaching.

Still, an interesting discovery.

philologos

There's nothing about dating?

Fighting Irish

Fanny Cradock wrote: »

Enough of your silliness. Address the topic or don't post.

As the OP, i don't mind what people discuss. If thread goes off topic so be it

old hippy

Fighting Irish wrote: »

As the OP, i don't mind what people discuss. If thread goes off topic so be it

It's a fascinating discovery. I'm not sure how it will change anything because certain institutions, IMHO, aren't known for taking change on board - especially at such a fundamental level.

But I certainly welcome any chance to un-earth the past.

PDN

Fighting Irish wrote: »

As the OP, i don't mind what people discuss. If thread goes off topic so be it

What the mods want is more important than what the OP wants.

It would be fascinating if these finds were what they are cracked up to be. Evidence of Christian writings that predates Paul's epistles could certainly debunk a lot of the conspiracy theories.

I read somewhere recently that the Israeli authorities reckon they are forgeries.

Fanny Cradock

Fighting Irish wrote: »

As the OP, i don't mind what people discuss. If thread goes off topic so be it

PDN wrote: »

What the mods want is more important than what the OP wants.

Darn tootin'

This thread is about the not so recent discovery of ancient artefacts in Jordan, not what the Vatican may or may not have burred in it's vaults.

Fanny Cradock

PDN wrote: »

It would be fascinating if these finds were what they are cracked up to be. Evidence of Christian writings that predates Paul's epistles could certainly debunk a lot of the conspiracy theories.

Yeah, but there would always be others.

Fighting Irish

PDN wrote: »

What the mods want is more important than what the OP wants.

Boards.ie - Now Ye're Not Talkin' Unless We Give The OK

Fanny Cradock

Yeah, that's it.

If you want to start another thread about the burred secrets of the Vatican you can either start an new thread here or go to the creative writing forum and discuss The Da Vinci Code.

mcmoustache

I hope these are genuine and that they can be accessed by the public. There is a bit of a gap between the death of jesus and the confirmed biblical writings and these could help fill a lot in. I'd be very interested to know what they contain.

As for Israelis calling them forgeries, now there's a conspiracy.....

Fighting Irish

Fanny Cradock wrote: »

Yeah, that's it.

If you want to start another thread about the burred secrets of the Vatican you can either start an new thread here or go to the creative writing forum and discuss The Da Vinci Code.

I don't really care what he said tbh, i'm just not that pushed about this thread staying exactly on topic

PDN

Fighting Irish wrote: »

I don't really care what he said tbh, i'm just not that pushed about this thread staying exactly on topic

I suggest we move on to discuss the books found in Jordan. Please read the Charter if you are in doubt as to the position regarding backseat modding.

Fighting Irish

Snip!

Lab_Mouse

Fanny Cradock wrote: »

Yeah, that's it.

If you want to start another thread about the burred secrets of the Vatican you can either start an new thread here or go to the creative writing forum and discuss The Bible.

FYP:pac:

faw1tytowers

Fanny Cradock wrote: »

Enough of your silliness. Address the topic or don't post.

He speaks the truth. Its well known fact! These documents will probably never been seen by us mortals.

Fanny Cradock

Lab_Mouse wrote: »

FYP:pac:

Consider yourself warned :pac:

faw1tytowers wrote: »

He speaks the truth. Its well known fact! These documents will probably never been seen by us mortals.

That really is neither here nor there. I guess you missed the part about staying on topic.

faw1tytowers

Fanny Cradock wrote: »

Consider yourself warned :pac:



That really is neither here nor there. I guess you missed the part about staying on topic.

But sure its all topic we would love to see these docs (and the others).. but we wont. Still on topic. ***Point made?

Fanny Cradock

faw1tytowers wrote: »

But sure its all topic we would love to see these docs (and the others).. but we wont. Still on topic. ***Point made?

Then start another thread - something I suggested early on.

Lab_Mouse

Fanny Cradock wrote: »

Consider yourself warned :pac:
.

warning considered and accepted:pac:

strobe

Jakkass wrote: »

There's nothing about dating?

They say they have only translated a 'few fragments' so far. So I'd imagine it will be a couple of years (no idea how long translation of these things takes) at least before people start throwing semi-specific dates out.

Peregrinus

I may be talking through my *rse here, but I think dating could be a problem. Because the books are metal, there can be no question of carbon-dating them. They are going to have to be dated from the evidence of their contents, which must largely mean slotting them in to a date by comparing them with the contents of existing, already dated, works.

For instance, the works seem to abound in illustrations. That strongly points towards a comparively late date, since the earliest Christians seem to have followed the Jewish practice of not making images. The fact that one of these illustrations includes a cross points even more strongly towards a later date. It could be that what we have found is the evidence of a group of Christians who started making imaged much earlier than we previously thought, but in the absence of other evidence pointing to this the more likely explanation is that these books come from a later period.

There won't be a huge amount of text in them. There's 70 books, each with 5 to 15 metal leaves, the size of a credit card. Allowing for the fact that a good number of the leaves seem to carry illustrations, how much text can you fit onto the remaning credit-card sized leaves? But a limited amount of text will yield limited information which can be used to date the books. To the extent that the books turn out to contain text from works which are already known and dated, all we can say is that the books post-date the composition of those works.

I suspect it will be a while before we hear about the conclusions that scholars draw, and when we do hear it may be about new theories, new speculations or new arguments, more than newly-established and accepted facts.

Interesting times!

Fighting Irish

http://derrenbrown.co.uk/blog/2011/04/fake-seventy-metal-books-cave-jordan-labeled-important-find-christian-history/

Fanny Cradock

Wow! That certainly is a breathless article (but nowhere near as bad as the BBC's effort).

alex73

old hippy wrote: »

I thought I had?

I'm not being all Dan Brown. Friend of mine used to work in The Vatican. There are countless artefacts from the Middle East there that are considered out of step with Catholic teaching.

Still, an interesting discovery.

Yes. Sure... I have been in the Vatican archives.. And its full of things you would not believe!!!. They even have the Original Jewish Menorah!!!.

Look lets be serious, Ludwig von Pastor was given FULL access to the archives to write a history of the Church.. Read his work and stop the Dan Brown fantasy.

Zombrex

Fighting Irish wrote: »

http://derrenbrown.co.uk/blog/2011/04/fake-seventy-metal-books-cave-jordan-labeled-important-find-christian-history/

Peter Thonemann wrote:

However, this text corresponds precisely to line 2 of the Greek text of a bilingual Aramaic/Greek inscription published by J.T. Milik, Syria 35 (1958) 243-6 no.6 (SEG 20, 494), and republished in P.-L. Gatier, Inscriptions grecques et latines de Syrie XXI: Inscriptions de la Jordanie, 2: Region centrale (Paris 1986), no.118

*cough* nerd *cough* :P

old hippy

alex73 wrote: »

Yes. Sure... I have been in the Vatican archives.. And its full of things you would not believe!!!. They even have the Original Jewish Menorah!!!.

Look lets be serious, Ludwig von Pastor was given FULL access to the archives to write a history of the Church.. Read his work and stop the Dan Brown fantasy.

I am being serious; I was told this by a reliable source, long before your Dan Brown came on the scene. There's plenty of writings that do not hold with the rank and file sermons and stories. It's like Chinese whispers, the story changes from person to person. Who knows what the truth is, if any.

PDN

old hippy wrote: »

I am being serious; I was told this by a reliable source, long before your Dan Brown came on the scene. There's plenty of writings that do not hold with the rank and file sermons and stories. It's like Chinese whispers, the story changes from person to person. Who knows what the truth is, if any.

Enough of this nonsense. There are plenty of writings from the 2nd to the 4th Centuries that are contrary to orthodox Christian belief and which, for very good reasons, did not shape the development of mainstream Christianity. You can access them (either in the original languages or in English translations) online and read them for yourself.

This idea of the Vatican somehow suppressing documents or hiding them in secret vaults is unhistorical nonsense that belongs in the Conspiracy Theories Forum, not here.

old hippy

PDN wrote: »

Enough of this nonsense. There are plenty of writings from the 2nd to the 4th Centuries that are contrary to orthodox Christian belief and which, for very good reasons, did not shape the development of mainstream Christianity. You can access them (either in the original languages or in English translations) online and read them for yourself.

This idea of the Vatican somehow suppressing documents or hiding them in secret vaults is unhistorical nonsense that belongs in the Conspiracy Theories Forum, not here.

I see, so you're calling my friend a liar?

I sometimes wonder if you shouldn't just move all this religious mumbo jumbo over to conspiracy theories too, following your logic.

Seeing as the whole thing is just one big con job.

PDN

old hippy wrote: »

I see, so you're calling my friend a liar?

I have no idea whether you friend is a liar or not.

If you posted that your friend had seen a live dinosaur then I would call that nonsense too. It's not up to me to decide whether your friend is lying or whether he even exists.

I sometimes wonder if you shouldn't just move all this religious mumbo jumbo over to conspiracy theories too, following your logic.

Seeing as the whole thing is just one big con job.

Congratulations, you have just used up your get out of jail free card. Now please read the Forum Charter before posting here again.

old hippy

Backseat modding deleted

Ghost Buster

Yup. The 'get away from my bubble with that pin' charter.

TravelJunkie

I don't understand what this post is about. Is there meant to be some drama about this relic? The link says it's an artefact with religious symbols and mostly code. Umm... and so?

One little artefact with no known author is hardly going to make waves in christianity or our bible.

darjeeling

TravelJunkie wrote: »

I don't understand what this post is about. Is there meant to be some drama about this relic? The link says it's an artefact with religious symbols and mostly code. Umm... and so?

One little artefact with no known author is hardly going to make waves in christianity or our bible.

FightingIrish posted a link to a blog which says that the lead codices are modern forgeries. The evidence for this is very convincing - read all about it here.

It's disappointing that the BBC and a whole load of other media organisations ran the story without adequate checking.

ShowMeTheCash

Let be pose a few possibilities.

1. It is a fake, therefore any opinion on it is does not really matter.

2. It is a document written around the time as suggested.

Like any publication even today it does not necessarily mean it will reflect the actual events accurately. Publications are rarly void of any prejudice or bias. That is just the reality of human nature.

That being said, lets say it does or does not reflect the events thereafter. This in actual fact will not matter to the church, basically 1 of 2 things will happen.
If it supports popular theology then it will probably be embraced if it fly's in the face of current theology it will be rejected.

Nothing short of Jesus himself coming down on a cloud would change any Church on there current path or to accept anything that would argue or fundamently change the core views of the church. Or any church for that matter.

thebullkf

Jakkass wrote: »

There's nothing about dating?

why.?

.. you wanna go out sometime:D












*lame*