I'm really interested in hearing any and all comments on this article. I've pondered over posting this and decided - this is what blogging is all about. So....if you're up to it - let's hear it :-)
Per: http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,182068
5,00.html
Was Jesus' Resurrection a Sequel?
Monday, Jul. 07, 2008 By DAVID VAN BIEMA / NEW YORK AND TIM MCGIRK / JERUSALEM
When David Jeselsohn, a Swiss-Israeli collector, bought this ancient tablet from a Jordanian antiquities dealer, he was unaware of its significance
A 3-ft.-high tablet romantically dubbed "Gabriel's Revelation" could challenge the uniqueness of the idea of the Christian Resurrection. The tablet appears to date authentically to the years just before the birth of Jesus and yet — at least according to one Israeli scholar — it announces the raising of a messiah after three days in the grave. If true, this could mean that Jesus' followers had access to a well-established paradigm when they decreed that Christ himself rose on the third day — and it might even hint that they they could have applied it in their grief after their master was crucified. However, such a contentious reading of the 87-line tablet depends on creative interpretation of a smudged passage, making it the latest entry in the woulda/coulda/shoulda category of possible New Testament artifacts; they are useful to prove less-spectacular points and to stir discussion on the big ones, but probably not to settle them nor shake anyone's faith.
The ink-on-stone document, which is owned by a Swiss-Israeli antiques collector and reportedly came to light about a decade ago, has been dated by manuscript and chemical experts to a period just before Jesus' birth. Some scholars think it may originally have been part of the Dead Sea Scrolls, a trove of religious texts found in caves on the West Bank that were possibly associated with John the Baptist. The tablet is written in the form of an end-of-the-world prediction in the voice of the angel Gabriel; one line, for instance, predicts that "in three days you will know evil will be defeated by justice."
Such "apocalypses," often featuring a triumphant military figure called a messiah (literally, anointed one), were not uncommon in the religious and politically tumultuous Jewish world of 1st century B.C. Palestine. But what may make the Gabriel tablet unique is its 80th line, which begins with the words "In three days" and includes some form of the verb "to live." Israel Knohl, an expert in Talmudic and biblical language at Jerusalem's Hebrew University who was not involved in the first research on the artifact, claims that it refers to a historic 1st-century Jewish rebel named Simon who was killed by the Romans in 4 B.C., and should read "In three days, you shall live. I Gabriel command you." If so, Jesus-era Judaism had begun to explore the idea of a three-day resurrection before Jesus was born.
This, in turn, undermines one of the strongest literary arguments employed by Christians over centuries to support the historicity of the Resurrection (in which they believe on faith): the specificity and novelty of the idea that the Messiah would die on a Friday and rise on a Sunday. Who could make such stuff up? But, as Knohl told TIME, maybe the Christians had a model to work from. The idea of a "dying and rising messiah appears in some Jewish texts, but until now, everyone thought that was the impact of Christianity on Judaism," he says. "But for the first time, we have proof that it was the other way around. The concept was there before Jesus." If so, he goes on, "this should shake our basic view of Christianity. ... What happens in the New Testament [could have been] adopted by Jesus and his followers based on an earlier messiah story."
Not so fast, say some Christian academics. "It is certainly not perfectly clear that the tablet is talking about a crucified and risen savior figure called Simon," says Ben Witherington, an early-Christianity expert at Asbury Theological Seminary in Wilmore, Ky. The verb that Knohl translates as "rise!," Witherington says, could also mean "there arose," and so one can ask "does it mean 'he comes to life,' i.e., a resurrection, or that he just 'shows up?' " Witherington also points out that gospel texts are far less reliant on the observed fact of the Resurrection (there is no angelic command in them like the line in the Gabriel stone) than on the testimony of eyewitnesses to Jesus' post-Resurrection self. Finally, Witherington notes that if he is wrong and Knohl's reading is right, it at least sets to rest the notion that the various gospel quotes attributed to Christ foreshadowing his death and Resurrection were textual retrojections put in his mouth by later believers — Jesus the Messianic Jew, as Knohl sees him, would have been familiar with the vocabulary for his own fate.
Knohl stands by his reading. "The spelling and the phrasing is unique," he told TIME, "but it is similar to to other texts found around the Dead Sea." Yet for now, at least, Gabriel's Revelation must take its place among a slew of recently discovered or rediscovered objects from around the time of Jesus that are claimed to either support or undermine Scripture but are themselves sufficiently, logically or archaeologically compromised to prevent their being definitive. In 2002, a bone-storage box with the legend "James Son of Joseph Brother of Jesus" bobbed up that seemed to buttress Jesus' historicity while at the same time suggest that the Catholic teaching that he had no true brothers was false — but the Israeli Antiquities Authority declared the inscription as a forgery (although various experts continue to disagree). In 2007 the Discovery Channel aired a documentary (funded by Titanic director James Cameron) that purported to have located the "Jesus Family Tomb" in the Israeli suburb of Talpiot, with bone boxes with the names "Jesus Son of Joseph," "Mary" and one of the names of Mary Magdalene. If the ossuaries were for the gospel Jesus, his mother and Mary Magdalene, then the implications for Christianity would be dire; but despite considerable initial hoopla, the idea is regarded by many as speculation.
It remains to be seen whether Gabriel's Revelation, and especially Knohl's interpretation, will weather the hot lights of fame. Even the authors of its initial research seem a little dubious about his claims that it is a dry run for the Easter story. But, as often happens in such cases, they seem better disposed to a slightly toned-down assertion: in this case, that the Gabriel tablet does indicate a very rare instance of the idea that a messiah might suffer — a notion introduced in Judaic thought centuries before by the prophet Isaiah but which supposedly went out of style by Jesus' time. If that more modest theory gains traction, it will forge a link between a trend in first-century Judaism and one of Christianity's galvanizing thoughts — that God might throw in his lot with a suffering or even murdered man — that could contribute to a growing mutual understanding.
This was just emailed to me. I would like to pass it along just for fun and a few chuckles. but I would like to dedicate it to my dear friend:integrityforus
TWENTY NINE LINES TO MAKE YOU SMILE
> >1.. My husband and I divorced over religious differences. He thought he was >God and I didn't. >2.. I don't suffer from insanity; I enjoy every minute of it. >3.. Some people are alive only because it's illegal to kill them. >4.. I used to have a handle on life , but it broke. >5.. Don't take life too seriously; No one gets out alive. > >6.. You're just jealous because the voices only talk to me >7.. Beauty is in the eye of the beer holder. >8.. Earth is the insane asylum for the universe. >9.. I'm not a complete idiot -- Some parts are just missing. >10... Out of my mind. Back in five minutes. >11.. NyQuil, the stuffy, sneezy, why-the-heck-is-the-room-spinning >medicine. >12... God must love stupid people; He made so many. >13.. The gene pool could use a little chlorine. >14.. Consciousness: That annoying time between naps. >15.. Ever stop to think, and forget to start again? >16.. Being 'over the hill' is much better than being under it! >17.. Wrinkled Was Not One of the Things I Wanted to Be When I Grew up. >18. Procrastinate Now! > >19.. I Have a Degree in Liberal Arts; Do You Want Fries With That? >20.. A hangover is the wrath of grapes. >21.. A journey of a thousand miles begins with a cash advance. >22.. Stupidity is not a handicap. Park elsewhere! >23..They call it PMS because Mad Cow Disease was already taken. >24.. He who dies with the most toys is nonetheless DEAD. >25.. A picture is worth a thousand words, but it uses up three >thousand times the memory. > >26.. Ham and eggs...A day's work for a chicken, a lifetime commitment for a >pig. >27.. The trouble with life is there's no background music.. >28.. The original point and click interface was a Smith & Wesson. >29.. I smile because I don't know what the hell is going on. > >Appreciate every single thing you have, especially your friends! >Life is too short and friends are too few! >Get the "Going Out of Business" signs ready.
Put them up right on the bridge, or that sloppy looking tower with the broken sign.
When our city leaders are busy making plans to save the city without upsetting each other, you can bet they are scared of each belligerent statement made in retaliation that each may utters. By contrast, what the people say is a much cheaper currency. We are the Great OZ, on the wrong side of the curtain of "comfort of the privileged" and we have been ignored.
The reason: We elected them and then ran away when their first "dark move" appeared. Making deals with criminal elements.
Typical, we have a daylight or sunshine law and we the people don't make sure it is enforced. This is a common practice in businesses that bear the moniker of "going out of". ALL businesses that de-evolve into this direction, and there are thousands every year, go out of business.
It's called, "Evolving a Business Around the Comfort of the Staff".
I can make it sound nice, eh?
"A business that cares for the employees more than the customers."
OOOOH, don't you just want to work at that place?
It would be FANTASTIC!
Until the owner runs out of money. Then you'll be looking for a new job.
BUT WAIT!
There is a secondary strategy I've noticed going down that could possibly save the world!
Here it is:
Steal money from the biz and sneak stuff out the door. It could work, right?
Until the place goes out of business and you can't get anymore or you get caught.
Then you're broke again.
WAIT!
There is another strategy!
The owner could mortgage everything he has to try and keep you employed, his house, his kid's education, whatever worth is left in the business, getting him or her so deep in debt that they will never climb out. So now, evolving the business around comfort is destroying the economy, because of the bad debt when the loan is un-payable. Banks can lend on 90 x assets! That should just about cover the bad debt!
But now your money is worthless. Gas, milk, staples will get expensive. Big companies will go out of business causing more people with more problems.
MORE BROKE PEOPLE.
WAIT! There is another strategy!!
You could deal drugs.
Yep, when legal ways of getting paid don't work, do what the greedy do, deal drugs.
Drugs, even the illegal drugs, are controlled by law enforcement, every big-time drug dealer knows this. So if you deal them, you will be required to supply "patsies" for drug busts once in a while. A patsy is someone you think is your friend, but, your going to set him or her up to get busted with a generous amount of illegal drugs to make law enforcement look effective. If you aren't "big-time", you are probably going to be a patsy one day. Your bills will be big to get out of jail, unless you get a public defender, then you will be in jail till your money runs out.
Broke again.
So, now you're broke again, your country's monetary system is worthless, you've been busted, so, forget working, you have no insurance, your utilities are going, now you can't afford to eat or travel.
Let's go back!
THERE IS NO "THING TO DO" THAT WILL SAVE MEMPHIS.
It's already too late for that, but, don't feel bad, it always was.
Memphis is suffering from a chronic lack of integrity that could be fatal if it isn't willing to develop some very soon.
From the people to the leadership, there is no unifying future, no common goal, nothing to draw Memphis together to save it and NO INTEGRITY.
Without it nothing works.
We have a common past, a shared past, but, that is not the future.
It doesn't look as if Memphis is even looking for one. It looks like it is preparing to be buried. It looks like Memphis is constantly looking for the next "fix it" that won't work like a crackhead looks for the next dose.
Rather than create a future that wasn't going to happen without being created, Memphis de-evolved into "blame-storming", rather than plan ahead for future developments that could be seen, Memphis made a lot of city jobs and made them cushy, Rather than serve the purpose Memphis sneaked things out of the store, Rather than hold people accountable Memphis mortgaged it's future through MCS, Rather than straighten those things out Memphis made deals with criminals.
Rather than own up to all this, Memphis leadership feigns being flabbergasted in and at the media at why people are disappointed and begins round 1 of blame-storming for who and why.
The valley of the kings in Egypt is filled with people who gawk and wonder at the empty pyramids there and they say, "what kind of idiocy could have had all this and now it is a dusty lump?"
Here's the kicker: Looking for how and why it broke will not fix it, looking for way to cut costs and make the people pay for their voiced disappointment will not fix anything or make it work. No amount of finger pointing or cost cutting will make it work. To look for something that works, first you have to admit that it isn't working now. We have numbers on paper that spell it all out yet we won't admit the truth for fear of a belligerent lawsuit.
Things that work require an investment, in a common future, that draws all people involved at all levels to willingly perform what is called for to make it work. Once that is done, you will not need cost cutting because things hat work produce results and one of the results that will be produced here is the absence of waste. Budgets will be reduced voluntarily and specifically as required.
ANYBODY WHO CAN GET IT BACK ON TRACK AND MAKE IT WORK CAN BE FORGIVEN.
If we continue this path of stupidity we are on we might as well get the signs ready, heck we're almost there!
i can not for the life of me understand why a person can not accept rejection, or accept the fact that a person does not want to continue in a relationship, or marriage with them, a person who decides to be free, should not have to fear for their life just because they do not want you any more !
i think it shows a lack of self respect, self esteem, as well as mental soundness for a
man, or woman to try to take a persons life just because they do not want to be with them anymore. I think a lot of these sad creatures think that it is love that drives them to want to kill that person who rejected them, or they just might be thinking that you are their property, I think that it is pride, and arrogrance, and a state of mental instability that drives one to commit such an atrocious act toward another person, especially one that you confesses to love so much ! and most of them are the cause of the
relationship ending in the first place !
Time travelers
Time travelers
We, you and I, are time travelers.
Yes we are. We are exploring an instant in your real life, before birth, this life you know now, and what's after that's over. Tied on a single strand of destiny we travel time together, we are one. You are me and I am you. Everyone gets a turn as everyone to explore all aspects of being. Oppressor and oppressed, blesser and blessed.
In this temporal reality we all share a history. It is not in the moment of right now, the only moment we are alive in. Yes, we are not alive in the past and we are not alive in the future. We are only alive right now. The past we shared we were everyone there too.
Look into someone's eyes and see yourself. It's more than a metaphor.
We travel through time and together we experience our unfolding destiny, together. Right now, we can not experience the past. We can do what works right now. We can choose to do what works in the future, live in reality of, if there is no integrity nothing works, because it is so.
With all that, this is only a blip, smaller than the size of a quark in the star Alderran. It seems like everything on purpose, but, it is not all of the ultimate reality we "be" in.
We are beings. Where does time have anything to do with something that just "Be"?
So now that you know that all there is is right now, what could you do to make your reality of right now work out for your family, right now.
Could you eat together, right now?
Could you play scrabble right now?
Could you call your mother and put your kids on the phone,
Could you go see your grandpa in the old folks home,
Could you put a meal in someone homeless' hands with a note that says "you do matter and you are worth something, people are afraid to show that and share that, it's not you",
Could you mentor a child in your neighborhood,
Could you comfort someone who's parents passed,
Could you teach a child or ten how to garden,
Could you do something good for no reason at all as a regular routine,
Could you sit down and think about what you could do without destroying your own life to make the world a better place and then take action on your plan and have your whole life work out because of it?
You don't have to make a commitment to continue to do anything you don't like doing, but, you'll find that rewarding feeling will really call you into being in the NOW!
The human potential movement
completely passed Memphis TN by.
To this day, there has been no exploration of human potential in Memphis, TN. We live in a fog of what we think is going on and the rumors, superstitions, outright lies by power to the people and all the failures that generated for us that have gone on in the past and on into the future. Though there is a lack of governmental transparency, the lies to us from power have us not even looking at life in a way that we aren't willing to really explore what our true human potential is. If you want to know what that does over time, just look at our statistics.
Was it done on purpose? Is it done on Purpose?
Maybe not, maybe so. It doesn't matter and though unwilling to help, Government is powerless to stop us from exploring our human potential on our own.
For a people so concerned with ourselves, you'd think that some exploration is due.
The problem comes when the acknowledgment of who we've been and what results in our lives we've generated is required, to know who we are/have been in reality. We don't like to look at the truth of ourselves, we like to look at "who we think we've been", as if what we think in our head is reality even when it isn't.
We need to look at what our "successes" have done to people and communities around us. Good effects and /or bad and own the full extent either way it goes.
We like to think about things the same old way and we think we don't.
Lazy thinking, not actually thinking. We get pawned by our own thoughts. We look for "reasons" not to change our way of thinking and when we find them we pat ourselves on the back for "good thinking", then, nothing new happens. But we tried! as if trying is worth something even when we fail.
When we are so right about a position that we have that we begin giving a coworker hell in their job, especially because of an opinion we have, that should be an alarm that we have stopped focusing on making things work and that we have begun sabotaging our own work environment, our own success, our own city. The vicious cycle begins.
In the case of MCS administration, the children of Memphis' futures.
In the case of MLGW, the wallets of the citizens and a very hateful atmosphere in the customer service center.
In the case of Memphis City Government it's property values, dead businesses, race crimes, violent crime, drug trafficking, blight, insurance rates, racially polarized neighborhoods, a huge population of unsuccessfully rehabilitated ex-cons used as pawns, an unending supply of aspiring young inmates to get into the system, a perception by the rest of the world that Memphians are black, racists, uneducated, angry, poor, violent, unwilling to do anything to change.
Fertile ground for anything positive you can think of?
Bet you can't.
I can.
Let's see how you do.
This is also from my sister:
No matter how many times you have seen this or anything like it, it's always worth reading again!
I PLEDGE ALLEGIANCE TO THE
FLAG,
OF THE
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
AND TO THE REPUBLIC, FOR
WHICH IT STANDS,
ONE
NATION UNDER GOD,
INDIVISIBLE, WITH
LIBERTY
AND JUSTICE FOR ALL!
KEEP
IT LIT!! KEEP
IT LIT!
For All of our other military personnel, where ever they may Be
Please
Support all of the troops defending our Country.
And God
Bless our Military who are protecting our Country for our
Freedom.
Thanks
To them, and their sacrifices we can celebrate the 4th of July
PLEASE
KEEP IT GOING TO YOUR FRIENDS, DON'T LET THE FLAME DIE
OUT!
PLEASE
KEEP THIS GOING
We must never forget who
Gets the credit for the freedoms we have, of which we should be
Eternally grateful.
I watched the flag
Pass by one day,
It fluttered in the breeze.
A young Marine
Saluted it,
And then he stood at ease..
I looked at
Him in uniform
So young, so tall, so proud,
With hair cut square
And eyes alert
He'd stand out in any crowd.
I thought how many men
Like him
Had fallen through the years.
How many died on foreign
Soil
How many mothers' tears?
How many pilots' planes
Shot down?
How many died at sea
How many foxholes were soldiers'
Graves?
No, freedom isn't free.
I heard the sound of Taps
One night,
When everything was still,
I listened to the bugler Play
And felt a sudden chill. I wondered just how many times
That Taps had meant 'Amen,'
When a flag had draped a
Coffin.
Of a brother or a friend.
I thought of all the
Children,
Of the mothers and the wives,
Of fathers, sons and
Husbands
With interrupted lives.
I
Thought about a graveyard
At the bottom of the sea
Of unmarked graves in
Arlington.
No, freedom isn't free.
Enjoy Your Freedom
&God Bless Our Troops
Show Your Support Send
This Page Along Today
This was sent to me. Verify with link posted.
Very uplifting information about IRAQ. Wonder why the media didn't tell us about all of this??
Did you know?
I didn't know!
How could we?
Did you know that 47 countries' have
reestablished their embassies in Iraq ?
Did you know that the Iraqi government
currently employs 1.2 million Iraqi people?
Did you know
that 3100 schools have been renovated,
364 schools are under rehabilitation,
263 new schools are now under construction;
and 38 new schools have been completed in Iraq ?
Did you know
that Iraq 's higher educational structure consists
of 20 Universities, 46 Institutes or colleges and 4 research centers,
all currently operating?
Did you know
that 25 Iraq students departed for the United States in
January 2005 for the re-established Fulbright program?
Did you know
that the Iraqi Navy is operational?
They have 5 - 100-foot patrol craft,
34 smaller vessels and a naval infantry regiment.
Did you know
that Iraq ' s Air Force consists of three operational squadrons,
Which includes 9 reconnaissance and 3 US C-130 transport aircraft
(under Iraqi operational control) which operate day and night,
and will soon add 16 UH-1 helicopters and 4 Bell Jet Rangers?
Did you know
that Iraq has a counter-terrorist unit and a Commando Battalion?
Did you know
that the Iraqi Police Service has over 55,000
fully trained and equipped police officers?
Did you know
that there are 5 Police Academies in Iraq
that produce over 3500 new officers every 8 weeks?
Did you know
there are more than 1100 building projects going on in Iraq ?
They include 364 schools, 67 public clinics, 15 hospitals,
83 railroad stations, 22 oil facilities, 93 water facilities
and 69 electrical facilities.
Did you know
that 96% of Iraqi children under the age of 5
have received the first 2 series of polio vaccinations?
Did you know
that 4.3 million Iraqi children were enrolled in primary school by mid October?
Did you know
that there are 1,192,000 cell phone subscribers in Iraq
and phone use has gone up 158%?
Did you know
that Iraq has an independent media that consists of
75 radio stations, 180 newspapers and 10 television stations?
Did you know
that the Baghdad Stock Exchange opened in June of 2004?
Did you know
that 2 candidates in the Iraqi presidential election had a
televised debate recently?
OF COURSE WE DIDN'T KNOW!
WHY DIDN'T WE KNOW?
BECAUSE OUR MEDIA WON'T TELL US!
Instead of reflecting our love for our country,
we get photos of flag burning incidents at Abu Ghraib
and people throwing snowballs at the presidential motorcades.
Tragically, the lack of accentuating the positive
in Iraq serves two purposes:
It is intended to undermine the world's perception
of the United States thus minimizing consequent support;
and it is intended to discourage American citizens.
----
Above facts are verifiable on the Department of Defense web site.
http://www.defenselink.mil/
Did you know?
Why I didn't know
But I know now.....
.......Pass it on! Give it a Wide Dissemination!
