Tag: bible

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Earth’s Magnetic Field Confirms Old Testament Event

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A breakthrough achieved by researchers from four Israeli universities will enable archaeologists to identify burnt materials discovered in excavations and estimate their firing temperatures. Applying their method to findings from ancient Gath (Tell es-Safi in central Israel), the researchers validated the Biblical account: “About this time Hazael King of Aram went up and attacked Gath and captured it. Then he turned to attack Jerusalem” (2 Kings 12, 18). They explain that unlike previous methods, the new technique can determine whether a certain item (such as a mud brick) underwent a firing event even at relatively low temperatures, from 200°C and up. This information can be crucial for correctly interpreting the findings. 

The multidisciplinary study was led by Dr. Yoav Vaknin from the Sonia & Marco Nadler Institute of Archaeology, Entin Faculty of Humanities, at Tel Aviv University, and the Palaeomagnetic Laboratory at The Hebrew University. The paper has been published in the scientific journal PLOS ONE (https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0289424).
The new method relies on measuring the magnetic field recorded and ‘locked’ in the brick as it burned and cooled down. Dr. Vaknin: “The clay from which the bricks were made contains millions of ferromagnetic particles – minerals with magnetic properties that behave like so many tiny ‘compasses’ or magnets. In a sun-dried mud brick the orientation of these magnets is almost random, so that they cancel out one another. Therefore, the overall magnetic signal of the brick is weak and not uniform. Heating to 200°C or more, as happens in a fire, releases the magnetic signals of these magnetic particles and, statistically, they tend to align with the earth’s magnetic field at that specific time and place. When the brick cools down, these magnetic signals remain locked in their new position and the brick attains a strong and uniformly oriented magnetic field, which can be measured with a magnetometer. This is a clear indication that the brick has, in fact, been fired.
 In the second stage of the procedure, the researchers gradually ‘erase’ the brick’s magnetic field, using a process called thermal demagnetization. This involves heating the brick in a special oven in a palaeomagnetic laboratory that neutralizes the earth’s magnetic field. The heat releases the magnetic signals, which once again arrange themselves randomly, canceling each other out, and the total magnetic signal becomes weak and loses its orientation.
After proving the method’s validity, the researchers applied it to a specific archaeological dispute: was a specific brick structure discovered at Tell es-Safi – identified as the Philistine city of Gath, home of Goliath – built of pre-fired bricks or burned on location? The prevalent hypothesis, based on the Old Testament, historical sources, and Carbon-14 dating attributes the destruction of the structure to the devastation of Gath by Hazael, King of Aram Damascus, around 830 BCE. However, a previous paper by researchers including Prof. Maeir, head of the Tell es-Safi excavations, proposed that the building had not burned down, but rather collapsed over decades, and that the fired bricks found in the structure had been fired in a kiln prior to construction. If this hypothesis were correct, this would be the earliest instance of brick-firing technology discovered in the Land of Israel. 
 To settle the dispute, the current research team applied the new method to samples from the wall at Tell es-Safi and the collapsed debris found beside it. The findings were conclusive: the magnetic fields of all bricks and collapsed debris displayed the same orientation – north and downwards. Dr. Vaknin: “Our findings signify that the bricks burned and cooled down in-situ, right where they were found, namely in a conflagration in the structure itself, which collapsed within a few hours. Had the bricks been fired in a kiln and then laid in the wall, their magnetic orientations would have been random. Moreover, had the structure collapsed over time, not in a single fire event, the collapsed debris would have displayed random magnetic orientations. We believe that the main reason for our colleagues’ mistaken interpretation was their inability to identify burning at temperatures below 500°C. Since heat rises, materials at the bottom of the building burned at relatively low temperatures, below 400°C, and consequently the former study did not identify them as burnt – leading to the conclusion that the building had not been destroyed by fire. At the same time, bricks in upper parts of the wall, where temperatures were much higher, underwent mineralogical changes and were therefore identified as burnt – leading the researchers to conclude that they had been fired in a kiln prior to construction. Our method allowed us to determine that all bricks in both the wall and debris had burned during the conflagration: those at the bottom burned at relatively low temperatures, and those that were found in higher layers or had fallen from the top –at temperatures higher than 600°C.”
 
https://www.aftau.org/news_item/tau-researchers-use-earths-magnetic-field-to-verify-old-testament-event/

AR #61

“Gnosis and the Secrets of Solomon’s Temple”

by Philip Gardner

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1,750-Year-Old Artifact of New Testament Text Discovered

With the help of ultraviolet photography, one of the oldest fragments of Gospel manuscript ever found has been revealed. Written in Syriac in the 3rd century, it was copied in the 6th century, and now has been brought to light by a researcher from the Austrian Academy of Sciences (https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/new-testament-studies/article/new-double-palimpsest-witness-to-the-old-syriac-gospels-vat-iber-4-ff-1-5/0DBE3923810C204EB39118267EB41614).

About 1,300 years ago a scribe in Palestine took a book of the Gospels inscribed with a Syriac text and erased it. Parchment was scarce in the desert in the Middle Ages, so manuscripts were often erased and reused, creating what are called palimpsests, on which the original text can still be made out. One of the earliest translations of the gospels ever was found by Grigory Kessel, a medievalist from the Austrian Academy of Sciences.

“The tradition of Syriac Christianity knows several translations of the Old and New Testaments,” says medievalist Grigory Kessel. “Until recently, only two manuscripts were known to contain the Old Syriac translation of the Gospels.” While one of these is now kept in the British Library in London, another was discovered as a palimpsest in St. Catherine’s Monastery at Mount Sinai. The fragments from the third manuscript were recently identified in the course of the “Sinai Palimpsests Project.”

The small manuscript fragment, which can now be considered as the fourth textual witness, was identified by Kessel using ultraviolet photography as the third layer of text, i.e., double palimpsest, in the Vatican Library manuscript. The fragment is so far the only known remnant of the fourth manuscript that attests to the Old Syriac version – and offers a unique gateway to the very early phase in the history of the textual transmission of the Gospels. For example, while the original Greek of Matthew chapter 12, verse 1 says: “At that time Jesus went through the grainfields on the Sabbath; and his disciples became hungry and began to pick the heads of grain and eat,” the Syriac translation says: “[…] began to pick the heads of grain, rub them in their hands, and eat them.”

ow shown in numbers. 

AR #60

Document Reveals Archimedes’Genius

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The Bible and GeoMagnetism 

A joint study by Tel Aviv University and the Hebrew University, has accurately dated 21 destruction layers at 17 archaeological sites in Israel by reconstructing the direction and/or intensity of the earth’s magnetic field recorded in burnt remnants. The new data verify the Biblical accounts of the Egyptian, Aramean, Assyrian, and Babylonian military campaigns against the Kingdoms of Israel and Judah.

 Findings indicate, for example, that the army of Hazael, King of Aram-Damascus, was responsible for the destruction of several cities – Tel Rehov, Tel Zayit, and Horvat Tevet, in addition to Gath of the Philistines, whose destruction is noted in the Hebrew Bible. At the same time, the study refutes the prevailing theory that Hazael was the conqueror who destroyed Tel Beth-Shean.


Other geomagnetic findings reveal that the cities in the Negev were destroyed by the Edomites, who took advantage of the destruction of Jerusalem and the Kingdom of Judah by the Babylonians.


The groundbreaking interdisciplinary study was published in PNAS (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA) and is based on the doctoral thesis of Yoav Vaknin, supervised by Prof. Erez Ben-Yosef and Prof. Oded Lipschits of TAU’s Nadler Institute of Archaeology and Prof. Ron Shaar from the Institute of Earth Sciences at the Hebrew University.


 The researchers explain that geophysicists, attempting to understand the mechanism of earth’s magnetic field, track changes in this field throughout history. To this end, they use archaeological findings containing magnetic minerals which, when heated or burned, record the magnetic field at the time of the fire.


Thus, in a 2020 study, researchers reconstructed the magnetic field as it was on the 9th of the month of Av, 586 BCE, the Hebrew date of the destruction of the First Temple and the City of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar and his Babylonian army.


Now, using archaeological findings unearthed over several decades at 17 sites throughout Israel, alongside historical information from ancient inscriptions and Biblical accounts, the researchers were able to reconstruct the magnetic fields recorded in 21 destruction layers. They used the data to develop a reliable new scientific tool for archaeological dating.

https://english.tau.ac.il/geomagnetic_fields_israel

AR Issue #119

Did Newton Predict the State of Israel?

by John Chambers

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Olive Trees Domesticated 7,000 Years Ago

Earliest evidence for fruit tree cultivation found in Jordan valley

Researchers have uncovered the earliest evidence for fruit tree farming. Researchers analyzed remnants of charcoal from the Chalcolithic site of Tel Zaf in the Jordan Valley and determined that they came from olive trees. Since the olive did not grow naturally in the Jordan Valley, this means that the inhabitants planted the tree intentionally about 7,000 years ago. Some of the earliest stamps were also found at the site, and as a whole, the researchers say the findings indicate wealth, and early steps toward the formation of a complex multilevel society.

In a groundbreaking study, led by Dr. Dafna Langgut of the Department of Archaeology & Ancient Near Eastern Cultures, The Sonia & Marco Nadler Institute of Archaeology and the Steinhardt Museum of Natural History at Tel Aviv University, the archaeologists studied charcoal remnants found in the archaeological excavation.
 According to Dr. Langgut, a specialist in identification of plant remains, “trees, even when burned down to charcoal, can be identified by their anatomic structure. Wood was the ‘plastic’ of the ancient world. It was used for construction, for making tools and furniture, and as a source of energy. That’s why identifying tree remnants found at archaeological sites, such as charcoal from hearths, is a key to understanding what kinds of trees grew in the natural environment at the time, and when humans began to cultivate fruit trees.”


In her lab, Dr. Langgut identified the charcoal from Tel Zaf as belonging to olive and fig trees. “Olive trees grow in the wild in the land of Israel, but they do not grow in the Jordan Valley,” she says. “This means that someone brought them there intentionally – took the knowledge and the plant itself to a place that is outside its natural habitat. In archaeobotany, this is considered indisputable proof of domestication, which means that we have here the earliest evidence of the olive’s domestication anywhere in the world.” 


“I also identified many remnants of young fig branches. The fig tree did grow naturally in the Jordan Valley, but its branches had little value as either firewood or raw materials for tools or furniture, so people had no reason to gather large quantities and bring them to the village. Apparently, these fig branches resulted from pruning, a method still used today to increase the yield of fruit trees.”


Storage capacities were up to 20 times greater than any single family’s calorie consumption, so clearly these were caches for storing great wealth. The wealth of the village was manifested in the production of elaborate pottery, painted with remarkable skill. In addition, we found articles brought from afar: pottery of the Ubaid culture from Mesopotamia, obsidian from Anatolia, a copper awl from the Caucasus, and more.

https://english.tau.ac.il/olive-trees-domesticated

AR #61

“Gnosis and the Secret of Solomon’s Temple”

by Phillip Gardiner

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X Ray Show Turin Shroud 2000 Years Old

The Shroud of Turin is arguably the most important relic of Christianity. According to tradition, it is the sepulchral sheet that would have wrapped the body of Jesus after the crucifixion. In 1988 the carbon 14 dating of some samples taken from the Shroud, carried out by three distinct laboratories, indicated that it should have only about 7 centuries of history, all in Europe. Therefore, the sheet would be inauthentic since, apparently, it dates back only to the Middle Ages. Now, in a new peer-reviewed study “X-ray Dating of a Turin Shroud’s Linen Sample” published in March 2022, by MDPI Heritage (https://www.mdpi.com/2571-9408/5/2/47), Italian scientist Liberato De Caro has reported that fabric tests show the Shroud is indeed 2,000 years old. De Caro and his colleagues made the discovery by utilizing a technique called “Wide-Angle X-ray Scattering” (WAXS). With such an analysis, it is possible, they say, to evaluate the structural degradation due to natural aging of the cellulose that makes up the fibers of the linen threads.


Textile samples, says the study, are especially vulnerable to contamination of all kinds, which are not always possible to control and to completely remove from the artifact to be dated. Molds and bacteria, colonizing textile fibers, and dirt or carbon-containing minerals, such as limestone, in the empty spaces between fibers represent about 50% of the volume, that at a microscopic level, can be difficult to completely eliminate in the sample cleaning phase. All of that can distort the dating. In fact, the fabric can include new carbon 14, assimilated through epochs subsequent to the one in which the textile originated. Textile samples indeed are the most at risk of contamination for radio dating, and are difficult to eliminate, since the surface per unit of weight exposed to the interaction with the outside is very high, due to the small diameter of the microfibers (10-20 micrometers) and the high number of microfibers per thread (about 200). About half the volume of a natural fiber yarn is actually empty, interstitial space, filled with air or anything else, between the fibers that compose it. Everything that enters the fibers must be carefully removed. If this does not happen, carbon 14 dating is not reliable.


It cannot be ruled out that such a thing could have happened in the 1988 study, a fact confirmed by the fact that moving from the periphery towards the center of the sheet, along the longer side, there is a significant increase in carbon 14. In this way, it is possible to date with X-ray analysis the ancient tissues from which the samples were taken. Starting from the results obtained in the 1988 study, on comparative samples taken from linen fabrics of varying age between 3000 BC and 2000 AD, it was possible to date a sample of the Shroud thread. According to the De Caro study, the Shroud sample analyzed consists of a wire taken near the 1988 / radiocarbon area (angle corresponding to the foot area of the frontal image, near the so-called Raes sample). The size of the linen sample analyzed is approximately 0.5 mm × 1 mm. The integrated WAXS data profiles, obtained on the Shroud sample (orange curve in the figure), are compatible with the similar measurements obtained on a linen sample whose dating, according to historical documents, is 55-74 AD, siege of Masada, Israel (green curve in the figure). The degree of natural aging of the cellulose that constitutes the linen of the investigated sample, obtained by X-ray analysis, showed that the Shroud fabric is much older than the 7 centuries proposed by the radiocarbon dating of 1988.

 

AR #126

“Shroud of Turin”
by William B. Stoecker

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Ancient Metal Mysteries

By J. Douglas Kenyon

Archaeologists digging at Mt. Ebal in Palestine’s West Bank region claim to have found proof that about thirty-three centuries ago, the Israelite followers of Joshua were not only literate but were using the divine name YHW. A tiny ‘curse tablet’ of  folded lead has been discovered, and according to the Times of Israel and scholars at BibleArchaeology.org, the potential significance of the find has led to an early announcement, even before completion of the peer review process (https://www.timesofisrael.com/archaeologist-claims-to-find-oldest-hebrew-text-in-israel-including-the-name-of-god/)

 Discovered in earth from a primitive altar site, the ‘curse tablet’ was near the biblical Shechem and today’s Nablus. Deuteronomy 11:29 called it a place of “curses”, and it is where the biblical Joshua, who succeeded Moses as the leader of Israel, reportedly built an altar still revered by some Christians and Jews. The Ebal site is described in Joshua 8:31 as “an altar of unhewn stones, upon which no man had lifted up any iron.”

Ironically, the discovery also lends credence to another school of thought regarding the use of metals for ancient religious purposes, one that connects the histories of Israel and Egypt just as chronicled in the Bible, but one involving, not lead or iron, but copper and gold.

In the mid 13-hundreds BC, a century before Mt. Ebal’s altar, the pharaoh Akhenaten, also known as  Amenhotep IV, reigned over Egypt, with his wife Nefertiti. The pair left the world its legacy of monotheism. Some scholars, including Sigmund Freud, have argued that Moses, who the Bible says was raised a prince of Egypt, was a follower of Akhenaten. Similar views were held by Emanuel Velikovsky.

Author Ralph Ellis (The King Jesus Trilogy), is among those who believe that biblical Hebrew history is virtual Egyptian history in disguise. The Garden of Eden, for example, could be rendered ‘the Garden of Aten’ (a possible veiled reference to Amarna, the remote capitol of Egypt established by Akhenaten). Adam and Eve, Ellis believes, represented Akhenaten and Nefertiti (Atlantis Rising Magazine #103, “The Garden of Eden in Egypt?”). Their  city was unearthed, beneath several villages, including Tel el-Amarna. 

Another author, British metallurgist Robert Feather (Black Holes in the Dead Sea Scrolls) has   found a strong connection between Amarna and the Dead Sea Scrolls, the ancient Jewish and Hebrew manuscripts first found in 1946/47 at the Qumran Caves on the northern shore of the Dead Sea (https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0098HODTU/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?). A mysterious ‘Copper Scroll’, found in cave 3 in 1952, Feather says, was made from the purest copper, and came from an ancient Egyptian mine which he has identified. The copper scroll provided detailed directions to, an enormous, albeit missing, ancient treasure. Its instructions, however, Feather says, do not, as is generally believed, apply to the Second Temple at Jerusalem destroyed by the Romans in AD 70. They apply, instead, with great precision, to the destroyed Egyptian capitol of Amarna. The Egyptian connection, Feather argues, was well understood, and consciously preserved, by the Essenes of Qumran, who are credited with writing the scrolls.

According to researcher Phillip Coppens in “The Copper Scroll Conundrum,” in Atlantis Rising Magazine #82, the scroll contained a list of 64 locations in 12 columns, each pertaining to a site specifying large quantities of gold, silver, and other precious objects, like jewelry, perfumes and oils. It was, in other words, a treasure map, and while the location of the treasure is still considered a mystery, there is evidence that it may actually have been found many years before the Copper Scroll itself.

In 1926, a jug, containing what might have been part of the treasure of which the Copper Scroll speaks, was found. Included were 23 gold bars, with nearby silver ingots, rings and more precious objects. The location of the discovery in Amarna is now called the “Crock of the Gold Square.” Here, Dr. Henri Frankfort found four kilograms (9 lbs.) of gold, apparently ready for smelting. Feather is convinced that these ingots were indexed in the Copper Scroll.

As to why Feather was the first to spotlight this incident: since this treasure was found before the Copper Scroll itself, no-one else had connected the  dots. Indeed, the villagers of el-Hagg Qandil have turned up other quantities of gold that might correspond to that specified in the Copper Scroll and he argues the Egyptian measurement system of the time and the known use of copper during the eighteenth Dynasty cannot be a coincidence. The items listed fit well with the list in the Copper Scroll, and the circumstances of its location can be mapped onto what is known about the Scroll. The “Crock of Gold,” moreover, could reasonably be interpreted as the property of a metalsmith.

In other words, commented Coppens, the mystery of the Copper Scroll may never have been… or was, at least, resolved before it came about.

AR #82, The Copper Scroll Conundrum
by Philip Coppens