Dr Paul Allen

Photo credit: Randall Price A New Cave, an Old Controversy: Dramatic New Discovery in Israel will Re-Ignite Debates By Craig A. Evans . The last Dead Sea Scrolls cave, linked to the ruins on the marl shelf at the mouth of Wadi Qumran , was discovered in 1956, bringing the total number of caves to eleven — eleven caves containing the famous Dead Sea Scrolls, ceramic jars, and a number of other artifacts. For sixty years archaeologists and looters have been searching for a twelfth cave. Would another one ever be found? Most didn’t think so. This is what makes the announcement from Hebrew University so astounding: A twelfth cave has been discovered! Playing in the dirt One of the Operation Scroll volunteers was archaeologist Randall Price, who today serves on the faculty of Liberty University . One of the briefly examined caves in 1993 — cave 53 — caught his attention.  Last year Price received permission to excavate that cave. Last month (January 2017) he, Oren G...

Christ and The Pharisees (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) It may well be in the calculus of evil that the only character faring worse than a Nazi is the Pharisee . These were the original black hats. In each of the gospel accounts they are the no-accounts, the very foil of Jesus Himself. We, because we are sinners just like them, ascribe to the Pharisees every conceivable sin that we think ourselves not guilty of. We may have to confess to this sin or that, but at least, we tell ourselves, we aren’t like those guys. In our scapegoating narrative we think that when Jesus showed up the Pharisees hated Him for the simple reason that He was good and they evil. He walked down the street, and they hissed and sputtered. He healed a puppy and they kicked it. The truth is that the Pharisees did hate Jesus, and He rightly isn’t known for showing them a great deal of grace. He called them out for their hypocrisy. He exposed their inner tombs. But the hatred they felt for Him wasn’t mere sour gra...