Lolo in Jordan

Lolo, a black jaguar, plays with Ward, her 14-month-old spotted cub, inside their enclosure at the zoo in Amman, Jordan (Ali Jarekji/Reuters via CSMonitor).

Jordan'sTank Reef

A tank sunk by the Jordanian government into the Gulf of Aqaba in the Red Sea as an artificial reef for sea life and a tourist attraction for snorkelers and scuba divers (Dan Lundberg/CC BY-SA via In Focus - Original)

Clues to Early Christianity?

Could 70 lead books hold the key to early Christianity and the Hebrew converts who formed a portion of that community?  The Economist reports:

The fate of the Jews who followed Jesus is one of the puzzles of the history of monotheism. The New Testament has much to say about a related issue: the dilemmas faced by Jesus’s non-Jewish adherents. ... But when it comes to followers of Christ who were Jewish by culture and religious practice, the evidence is hazier. Such people clearly existed: the Epistle to the Hebrews, a deeply enigmatic section of the New Testament, is addressed to those who were steeped in the lore of the Jewish Temple ... Then there is a handful of references in other texts to Christians who fled eastward from Jerusalem before the Roman-Jewish war of 66AD. One account speaks of an exodus towards Jordan, after the Christian bishop, James, was attacked in the Temple courtyard.

... By the fourth century, a ferocious Cypriot bishop was describing a group of people whom he deemed heretics because they kept the Mosaic law—but who were also loathed by fellow Jews because of their belief in Christ. As in so many conflicts, people who straddled the divide upset both sides.

All that helps explain the excitement generated in recent weeks by the emergence of a collection of lead codices, which might, if they are genuine, throw light on the missing links in Christian and Jewish history. Some 70 or so ring-bound “books”, with up to 15 leaves each, are said to have been found, along with other artefacts, in a cave in Jordan, near the place where the Hebrew Christians seemingly took refuge.

They are now in the possession of an Israeli Bedouin, but the government of Jordan has claimed ownership, saying they came to light on Jordanian soil a few years ago. Amid much confusion, the objects’ keeper asserts that they have been in his family for a century. Ziad al-Saad, head of Jordan’s antiquities department, has said this could be the biggest find since the Dead Sea Scrolls in 1947. David Elkington, who is writing a book about the lead “books”, backs Jordan’s claim, saying it offers the best chance of ensuring the artefacts are open to scholars. An Oxford laboratory, after testing one of the codices, believes the lead might be 2,000 years old.

... But so far, no scientific authority in a position to judge has seen more than a fraction of the objects.

If they are authentic, the lead objects tell a teasing Judeo-Christian story. There is writing in an ancient script, Paleo-Hebrew, which was used by Jews largely for ceremonial purposes. The writing is mostly indecipherable; it may be in code. The imagery features the Jewish feast of Sukkot, which is both a harvest thanksgiving and a celebration of the Jews’ sojourn in Egypt. During this festival, celebrants brandish palm fronds (bound up with willow and myrtle) in one hand and a lemon-like fruit, the etrog, in the other. This is familiar Jewish material, but some may ask what it has to do with Christianity.

A good question. In various forms, most Jewish festivals found their way into the Christian calendar. Imagery and language from Sukkot occur at many moments in the Christian year; in the stories of Christ’s birth, baptism, transfiguration, and most obviously at Palm Sunday, when Christians wave palms (or in Russia, willow twigs) to commemorate Christ’s entry into Jerusalem on a donkey. In Christian commentaries on the Hebrew Scriptures, it is stressed that Sukkot was associated with the advent of the Messiah and with the coming of all nations to worship in Jerusalem. So images of Sukkot would be dear to the heart of Hebrew Christians.

None of that proves a Christian connection. The imagery might also be consistent with an alternative theory which was aired in the Jewish Chronicle, a British weekly: that the codices belonged to forerunners of the mystical tradition which became known as Kabbalah. But by stirring a discussion about the resonance of certain images to Jews and Christians alike, the lead objects have refocused attention on a deep but contentious commonality.

Related Posts:

• Incredible Relics of Early Christianity Discovered

Jordanian Peacekeeper in Cote D'Ivoire

A UN peacekeeper from Jordan Battalion reloads his weapon as he returns fire on troops supporting Ivory Coast strongman Laurent Gbagbo during a patrol in the streets of Abidjan, Ivory Coast on April 3rd, 2011. (AP Photo/Jane Hahn via The Atlantic: In Focus)

Shamgen [or Levant] Banking Agreement to be Signed

Turkey, Syria, Lebanon and Jordan are set to sign a regional banking cooperation agreement aimed at supporting and facilitating trade and investments between the countries.

The agreement comes in the wake of the signing of free-trade and visa-exemption agreements recently signed by the four countries, and comes amid a regional drive for further economic integration spearheaded by the Turkish government.

In comments made at the March 2011 "Enhancing Shamgen Banking: Turkey, Syria, Lebanon and Jordan" conference in Istanbul, Turkey's Central Bank Governon, Durmus Yilmaz, remarked "Although this conference is a step toward improving relations between the banking sectors of Turkey, Syria, Lebanon and Jordan in the short term, it is expected to contribute to the formation of a single market with the inclusion of other countries in the region in an area circumscribed by the Persian Gulf, Red Sea and the Mediterranean."

The Turkish daily, Today's Zaman has more on recent developments along that front:

Foreign ministers [from the four participating countries] decided on June 10 of last year to set up a high-level cooperation council to boost existing legal mechanisms ... to improve trade cooperation between them. The council plans to develop a long-term strategic partnership and to create a zone of free movement of goods and persons among them. ...

The countries’ aspirations to establish the planned single market in the Middle East are interpreted as the sign of the rise of an EU-like regional economic integration. Even the name of the conference proved how appropriate those interpretations are. The word “Shamgen” is a combination of “Sham,” the way the name of the Syrian capital of Damascus is pronounced in Turkish as well as in Arabic and with the meaningless “gen” to make it sound like the Schengen area, which comprises the territories of the 25 European states that act like a single state when it comes to international travel without internal border controls and visa requirements.
...
Also speaking at the conference, Turkish Regulation and Supervision Agency (BDDK) President Tevfik Bilgin said relations between the countries in terms of banking investments are insufficient at the moment. “Investments made by Syrian, Lebanese and Jordanian bankers in Turkey and investments by Turkish banks in these three countries are very small,” he said. ...

Related Posts:

• Excellent Documentary on Turkey
• Turkey-Syria Relations Progressing

Incredible Relics of Early Christianity Discovered

BBCNews reports on the discovery of a set of approximately 70 lead books thought to have survived approximately 2,000 years and potentially shedding light on the life, death and crucifixion of Jesus Christ, and the subsequent birth of Christianity:

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.

...

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.

...

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.

...

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."

...

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 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.

Working on Peace: Zoom Out

Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, President Barack Obama, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Jordan's King Abdullah II walk to East Room of the White House before making statements on the Middle East peace negotiations in Washington, Wednesday, Sept. 1, 2010. (AP Photo via Daylife)

Flotilla Survivors Talk + Knesset Video