Ancient Mosaic Floor Found Near Kibbutz Bet Qamain, Israel

It’s Byzantine and it’s spectacular:

A magnificent 1,500-year-old mosaic floor has been uncovered by archeologists  near Kibbutz Beit Kama in the south, the Israel Antiquities Authority announced  Sunday.

The mosaic was the most outstanding find in a Byzantine-era village unearthed  in the Negev during a survey conducted prior to construction of a highway.

The village, which thrived from the 4th through 6th centuries C.E.,  encompassed about six dunams – or an acre and a half – and was discovered under  the fields of the kibbutz. Among the finds was a public building measuring 12  meters by 8.5 meters (about 40 feet by 26 feet) containing the mosaic floor.  Archaeologists assume the building was a public one due to its size and relative  opulence.

The colorful mosaic includes geometric motifs and features amphorae – wine  containers— in the corners, as well as a pair of peacocks and a pair of doves  pecking at grapes on grapevines. The combination of so many motifs in one mosaic  is unusual, say Israel Antiquities Authority officials.

The building also features a system of water channels, pipes and water pools.

The site, situated on an ancient road that led north from Be’er Sheva, apparently included a large estate with a church, residential buildings, storerooms, a large water cistern, a public building and agricultural fields equipped with irrigation pools. One building appears to have served as a hostel for travelers passing through the area, according to the Israel Antiquities Authority…

The official IAA press release with more photos is here.

 

On Fiddleback Chasubles

Christopher Howse finds that Anglicans who have joined with Rome do not all favour Baroque brocade and lace.

Sacred Mysteries: Bring fiddleback chasubles back?

Bishop’s Luxury Goods Seized

The Assets Forfeiture Unit here in South Africa has raided the home of Bishop Samuel Banzana.

Port Elizabeth – R2.9 million worth of luxury goods have been seized from a retired bishop’s home in Port Elizabeth.

 

The Asset Forfeiture Unit raided Reverend Samuel Banzana’s home early this morning.

He’s under investigation for accepting kickbacks from a construction company he allegedly awarded tenders to, for RDP houses.

Banzana is the manager of the Mzingisi Trust, which was founded by ANC veteran Govan Mbeki.

The organisation builds RDP houses in the Port Elizabeth area.

The Eastern Cape High Court has granted the National Prosecuting Authority a protection order, effectively freezing the prominent bishop’s assets.

Among the goods seized were three luxury cars.

His home will also be seized.

The cleric has 14 days to respond to the allegations against him.

He is Bishop Ordinary of the Holy Catholic Church – Western Rite, the Diocese of the Umzi Wase Topiya.

 

IDF Infographic

 

Ascension Day

Ascension day is the 40th day of Easter and commemorates the ascension of Jesus into heaven 39 days after resurrection on Easter Sunday.

You will find the Biblical accounts of the Ascension in Matthew 28:16-20, Mark 16:19-20, Luke 24:50-53 and Acts 1:6-11.

During the forty-day period before he ascended into heaven, it is believed that Jesus preached and intermingled with his apostles and disciples.

According to tradition, Ascension Day was first celebrated in 68 AD, however the first written evidence of the Ascension Day
feast occurred in 385 AD.

Today, Ascension Day is celebrated primarily by Catholics and Anglicans. According to Western Christianity methods of calculating the dates of Easter, the earliest possible date for Ascension Day is April 30, the latest possible date is June 3.

Ascension Day celebrations include the following:

The Easter (Paschal) candle is put out.

There may be processions with torches and banners and fruits and vegetables may be blessed in church.

Ten days after Ascension Day is Pentecost (Whitsuntide) which commemorates the coming of the Holy Spirit to the disciples. Pentecost ends the cycle of Easter related events in the Christian Calendar.

Source

HT

 

The Anglican Catholic Chronicle – ACCC Newsletter (May 2013)

The Anglican Catholic Chronicle newsletter of the Anglican Catholic Church of Canada for the month of May is out.

It also covers the recent Consecrations of two new ACA - TAC Bishops in the United States.

Download it in pdf. here.

I see the TAC has a QR code too. That’s great.

There are more including one for the diocesan website of the ACCC:

Ancient Quarry, Key Unearthed in Jerusalem

The Times of Israel reports:

Archaeologists working in Jerusalem have discovered a 2,000-year-old stone quarry, along with an iron key and masonry tools dating to the same period, the Israel Antiquities Authority announced Wednesday.

The large quarry adjacent to the modern-day neighborhood of Ramat Shlomo dates to the first century CE and would have been active around the time of the Second Temple in Jerusalem, archaeologists say.

Some of the stones cut from the rock were more than two yards long. They were likely transported downhill, on an ancient road discovered nearby, to the walled city to the south, where they would have been used in the construction of monumental buildings.

The quarry, seen here from above, is located adjacent to the north Jerusalem neighborhood of Ramat Shlomo (photo credit: Skyview/Courtesy of the Israel Antiquities Authority)

Also unearthed at the site was an iron key.

“The key that was found, and which was probably used to open a door some 2,000 years ago, is curved and has teeth. What was it doing there? We can only surmise that it might have fallen from the pocket of one of the quarrymen,” archaeologist Irina Zilberbod, the excavation director, said in the statement from the Antiquities Authority.

The excavators also found pickaxes and metal wedges used to sever the cut stones from the surrounding rock.

The excavation is a salvage dig meant to allow the construction of a new road.

Ramat Shlomo, an ultra-Orthodox neighborhood, was built in a part of the West Bank annexed to the Jerusalem municipality after the 1967 war.

The IAA press release is here.

 

Woman Accused of Stealing a Bible

Huff Po:

If you steal a book that famously commands you not to steal, does that drive home the point or negate it?

Fleming, 23, of Powder Springs, Ga., was arrested April 26, for allegedly stealing the good book from a Barnes & Noble in Cobb County, Ga.

She was charged with misdemeanor shoplifting, according to an arrest warrant obtained by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

Fleming was released on a $1,000 bond, MyFoxAtlanta.com reported.

However, she could have avoided the whole thing if she went to a church instead of a book store.

That’s because many churches and other groups offer Bibles for free…

Duh!

 

Man Spends 4 Years Writing Out the Bible by Hand

A man in upstate New York has just about finished a task that was common enough until the invention of the printing press: Over the past four years, he has copied the King James Bible by hand, the Associated Press reports.

Phillip Patterson, a 63-year-old resident of Philmont, N.Y., a town near the Massachusetts border, may be an unlikely scribe for the Bible. He is not especially religious, for one thing, though he does go to church.  A retired interior designer whose battles with anemia and AIDS have often slowed his work, he began the monumental task mostly out of curiosity.

In 2007, Patterson’s longtime partner, Mohammed, told him about the Islamic tradition of writing out the Koran by hand. When Patterson said that the Bible was too long for Christianity to have a similar tradition, Mohammed said, well, he should start it.

“I hadn’t counted on the fact that it would be so beautiful,” Patterson told the AP. “Or that it would be so exhilarating. And so long.”

Although counts disagree, according to most sources, the King James Bible has 788,000 words or more.

Patterson uses sheets of 19-by-13-inch watercolor paper for his task, which he rules by hand with pencil lines. Sitting at a desk by his bed, he tracks the page of his hardcover Bible with one hand, and writes, using felt-tip pens, with the other. When the page is finished, he erases the pencil lines, leaving black ink on a clear white page.

At first, Patterson used to work 14-hour days on the project, and he still works until he can no longer stay awake, usually about six to eight hours a day.  He says he particularly enjoyed working on the Book of Ruth, disliked all the plagues and killing, and found the character of Jesus somewhat glib, though he found his message laudable. There were times, Patterson said, when he didn’t think he would live to finish, but now he believes he’s become more patient, more loving, and more open to difference due to this work.

The project has been documented by photographer Laura Glazer, who has shot more than 4,000 pictures of Patterson at work. According to Glazer, Patterson has little in common with the medieval monks whose task this historically was. ”He’s not a martyr or a saint,” she said. “That’s what’s so nice. It’s just what he does. He’s not trying to prove anything to anybody. He’s making something beautiful.”

Read more.

HT

 

Gay Man Takes Church to Court for Refusing to Ordain Him

This was bound to happen.

A homosexual man is taking the Anglican Bishop of Auckland to the Human Rights Tribunal after being rejected for training as a priest.

A hearing begins today following a complaint from the man, who says he feels discriminated against because of his sexuality.

It is understood the man – who is in a sexual relationship with his partner – has wanted to enter the church’s training programme for priests for years.

But after applying to enter after years of study, he was rejected by the Bishop Ross Bay, who approves entrants.

Bishop Bay told One News last night that he was simply following the church’s doctrines.

The man was rejected “by reason of the defendant not being chaste in terms of canons of the Anglican Church,” the bishop said.

That means that anyone wanting to become ordained needs to be in what the Anglican Church deems to be a chaste relationship – a marriage between a man and a woman or committed to a life of celibacy.

In a statement to the tribunal, the complainant says he “felt totally humiliated that I had spent six years of my life in study, for a process that I was not permitted to enter because I was a gay man and in a relationship”.

“My humiliation and disappointment continue to this day.”

He also claims that had he been unmarried but in a heterosexual relationship, he would have been allowed to train as a priest.

However, it is understood that is not the case and that Bishop Bay has rejected people in such relationships in the past.

A spokesman for the Anglican diocese of Auckland, Jayson Rhodes, said he could not get into details of the case.

“The best way for both sides of this to be heard is before the tribunal, rather than through the media.”

HT