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...

Qumran in the West Bank, Middle East. In this cave the Dead Sea Scrolls were found. In dieser Höhle in Qumran wurden die Schriftrollen gefunden. (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) In the 1948 printing of his excellent book Our Bible and Ancient Manuscripts, Sir Frederic Kenyon , the textual scholar, had this to say, “There is indeed no probability that we shall find manuscripts of the Hebrew text going back to a period before the formation of the text which we know as Massoretic. We can only arrive at an idea of it by a study of the earliest translations made from it… ” (cited by Pfeiffer, The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Bible, p. 107).  At the same time his book was being printed, discoveries began in 1947 that would render any further statements like Kenyon’s impossible. Until this time, scholars had only the clay tablets of Babylon and the Egyptian papyri to help them understand background information on the Bible, since no ancient Old Testament manuscripts were known to have surv...

TEMPLE Mount : It’s the hill at the heart of much of the Middle East ’s turmoil. Now, for the first time, archaeologists say they have found evidence of King Solomon’s temple . The veracity of the Old Testament ’s accounts of King Solomon building the First Temple has long been questioned. While remnants of the Second Temple abound, only uncertain hints of an earlier structure have previously been found . The Bible states Solomon’s Temple was destroyed by Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar II . This has been dated to about 587BC. The Second Temple, remnants of which include the Jerusalem’s famous Wailing Wall, was razed by the Romans about AD70. But the Times of Israel is today reporting a secret archaeological excavation  on Temple Mount has unearthed the first ever artefacts conclusively dated to the First Temple — some 2600 years ago. The paper says the dig was done with the permission of the Islamic organisation that administers the 7th Century Dome of the Rock , from which t...

English: Roman Triumphal arch panel copy from Beth Hatefutsoth, showing spoils of Jerusalem temple. עברית: העתק של שער הניצחון של טיטוס (מוצב במוזיאון התפוצות) (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) Gessius Florus loved money and hated Jews. As Roman procurator , he ruled Judea, caring little for their religious sensibilities. When tax revenues were low, he seized silver from the Temple. In 66, as the uproar against him grew, he sent troops into Jerursalem to crucify and massacre some of the Jews. Florus’s action sparked the explosion of a rebellion that had been sizzling for some time. For the previous century, Rome had not handled the Jews very well. First Rome had propped up the hated usurper Herod the Great. For all the beautiful public buildings he erected, Herod could not buy his way into the people’s hearts. Herod’s son and successor, Archelaus, was so bad that the people cried to Rome for relief. Rome obliged by sending a series of governors—Pontius Pilate, Felix, Festus, and Flo...

When Jesus answered the disciples’ question about the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem and his return and the end of the age, he prophesied events and developments that the disciples understood. The events of signs 1 through 8 and sign 10 (see question 3) describe realities in the first century as well as the history of the church from the first century until today. Sign 9, the siege and destruction of Jerusalem , happened in A.D. 70. That the reference of Jesus’ prophecy in Matthew 24–25 (and Mark 13 / Luke 21 ) refers to the entire period between Jesus’ first coming in the first century and his second coming emerges from a consideration of (1) the structure of Jesus’ discourse on the end times, (2) Jesus’ warnings and exhortations, and (3) Jesus’ comments on the consequences of his prophecy for his followers. The Structure of Jesus’ Discourse on the End Times Jesus’ discourse on the end times follows his prediction of the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem and a...

A stone with Hebrew inscription "To the Trumpeting Place" excavated at the southern foot of the Temple Mount (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) Matthew 21:23–27 “They answered Jesus , ‘We do not know.’ And he said to them, ‘Neither will I tell you by what authority I do these things’” (v. 27). Many scholars believe Matthew 21:21 refers implicitly to Rome ’s destruction of the Jerusalem temple in 70 A.D. The disciples might have seen Mt. Zion as Jesus told them believing prayer can cast a mountain into the sea, perhaps getting them to wonder if the Temple Mount might one day fall away. Jerusalem ’s fall to the Romans is, in the New Testament , seen as God’s judgment on those Israelites who rejected Christ (Luke 19:41–44). Of course, not every ethnic Jew was condemned, for Jesus and His earliest followers were faithful sons of Abraham. But divine wrath fell upon most of the religious authorities and the temple because they would not bow to their Messiah. This passage depicts...

English: An etching by Jan Luyken illustrating Luke 13:6-9 in the Bowyer Bible, Bolton, England. (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) "He was hungry: And seeing a fig tree afar off having leaves, he came, if haply he might find any thing thereon: and when he came to it, he found nothing but leaves; for the time of figs was not yet. And Jesus answered and said unto it, No man eat fruit of thee hereafter for ever. And his disciples heard it." ( Mark 11:12-14 ) Many detractors of our Lord have pointed with glee to what on the surface seems like a fit of petty anger on Christ 's part, spawned by His selfish appetite. In reality, it was probably unrealistic to expect figs at that time of year, a fact which He must have known quite well. Perhaps the key to the whole passage is in the fact that "His disciples heard it." When we look at the surrounding passages, we see that Christ was using the barren fig tree to teach His disciples something they desperately needed to...

Jesus casting out the money changers from the Temple by Giotto, 14th century (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) Matthew 21:12–13 “ Jesus entered the temple and drove out all who sold and bought in the temple, and he overturned the tables of the money-changers and the seats of those who sold pigeons” ( v. 12 ). Messianic expectations were at a fever pitch after Jesus came into Jerusalem on a donkey ( Matt. 21:1–11 ), and the next action He performed only added fuel to the fire. We will today look at our Lord’s cleansing of the temple in Matthew 21:12–13 and examine what it teaches us about the Christ. Of Herod’s building projects, none were greater than the Jerusalem temple , which he expanded. It sat on what we now call the Temple Mount , an area of some thirty-five acres. Only priests could enter the temple itself, which took up a small part of the mount and was surrounded by three courts: Israelite men could enter the court closest to the temple. Israelite men and women could occupy...