DEBKAfile
The first Biblical scroll fragments to be discovered in 60 years are among the awesome relics unearthed in Israeli Antiquities Authority excavations in the most remote caves of the forbidding Judean Desert. More than a score of 2,000-year-old Greek translations of the books of Zechariah and Nachum were discovered with only the name of God written in Hebrew, as well as a 10,500-year-old woven basket and the 6,000year-old, mummified skeleton of a six-year-old child.
The expedition to uncover the secrets of the ancient desert was launched in 2017. After all efforts to stop the rampant looting of priceless sites, fired up by a Bedouin shepherd’s sensational discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls 70 years ago at Qumran, the Antiquities Authority mounted an inter-departmental, national project to beat the robbers at their own game. Since then, expeditions have exhaustively investigated every nook and cranny of this untamed wilderness.
by
William J. Tighe
For all Christians today who observe a “liturgical year,” the high point of that year is the annual commemoration of Christ’s passion, death, and resurrection at the end of Holy Week. Good Friday recalls to the faithful the Lord’s suffering and death, and in most Christian traditions is a day of ascetical practices, particularly fasting. Holy Saturday commemorates his entombment and descent to hell, and thus is also a day of asceticism. Easter Sunday, by contrast, is the joyous celebration of his resurrection, and of
the resurrection of mankind in him. Despite these discrete “episodes,” however, most Christian churches