Christians Really Own the ‘Temple Mount’

Yes, I’m afraid it’s true. Christians too can now lay claim to the Temple Mount in general, and the area where the Al Aksa Mosque now sits in particular, because recently discovered photos prove that under Al Aksa sat a Christian Church.

The Jerusalem Post notes

The photo archives of a British archeologist who carried out the only archeological excavation ever undertaken at the Temple Mount’s Aksa Mosque show a Byzantine mosaic floor underneath the mosque that was likely the remains of a church or a monastery, an Israeli archeologist said on Sunday. The excavation was carried out in the 1930s by R.W. Hamilton, director of the British Mandate Antiquities Department, in coordination with the Wakf Islamic Trust that administers the compound, following earthquakes that badly damaged the mosque in 1927 and 1937.

Here’s the photographic proof:

I think I speak for all Christians when I say, Jews, and Muslims, get off our ‘Temple Mount’!  It clearly belongs to us as the archaological evidence gives us the oldest established claim.

The Desktop Challenge

In one of those ‘I wonder what…’ moments we all have from time to time I wondered this eve what folk have as their desktop background.  So let’s see.  Bibliobloggers one and all, take a screenshot of your desktop (if it’s not filthy), post it on your blog, and drop me a note in comments when you’ve so done so I, and others, can take a look.  Mine, you’ll not be surprised to learn, changes fairly regularly.  This one at present is of beautiful downtown Chester, UK (taken at last year’s SOTS meeting).  So what’s on your desktop?  Kittens (you depraved reprobates) or puppies (a little better than kittens but not much) or your room or workspace or what?

Make your confession.

Attending the Boston SBL?

Ad Matthaeum Alberum de coena dominica epistola

Was published on the 16th of November in 1524.  Stemming, as it does, from the early years of the Zurich Reformation it concerns itself with a number of matters alongside the chief one- the meaning of the Lord’s Supper.

The reform of the Church in practice and appearance was making good speed forward in 1524 but less than a year later it would explode with opposition from the far left and the far right.  Hints towards that direction can be sighted in a careful reading of this tightly packed Latin text.

Zwingli puts to good use John 6, which will become such a central text in his later disputes with Luther and the Catholics on one side and the Anabaptists on the other.

Monty Python Didn’t Invent the Dead Parrot Sketch, the Greeks Did

Reuters reports

For those who believe the ancient Greeks thought of everything first, proof has been found in a 4th century AD joke book featuring an ancestor of Monty Python’s Dead Parrot sketch where a man returns a parrot to a shop, complaining it is dead. The 1,600-year-old work entitled “Philogelos: The Laugh Addict,” one of the world’s oldest joke books, features a joke in which a man complains that a slave he has just bought has died, its publisher said Friday. “By the gods,” answers the slave’s seller, “when he was with me, he never did any such thing!” In a British comedy act Monty Python’s Flying Circus sketch, first aired in 1969 and regularly voted one of the funniest ever, the pet-shop owner says the parrot, a “Norwegian Blue,” is not dead, just “resting” or “pining for the fjords.” The English-language book will appeal to those who swear that the old jokes are the best ones. Many of its 265 gags will seem strikingly familiar, suggesting that sex, dimwits, nagging wives and flatulence have raised laughs for centuries.

There really is nothing new under the sun… Still, I do love Python.

ABC News, You Do Disappoint

Unsurprisingly, ABC reported this morning on the Texas (of course) mega church preacher who will devote his time sermonizing to telling his congregation to randy it up.  Frankly, I don’t expect any better from mega churches since their whole aim is to market the church rather than preach the Gospel.  I am disappointed that ABC reports such stories as though they have some sort of value or meaning.  They could have reported on the events in Congo, but instead, they stooped to examine the lowest form of so called ‘christianity’ and promoted the theological ineptitude of a guy who will preach his sermon from a bed on stage.

ABC seems bent on portraying the stupidest manifestations of Christianity whenver they have an opportunity.  They’ve featured all the dreck like Warren and Jakes and the morons meeting at the bar during beer guzzling hour and now Ed Young and never cast an eye towards Churches or Christians that are doing something real, meaningful, and intelligent.

ABC, you do disappoint.