The Great Debates
"From a small dig in 2002, the site of the Dead Sea Scrolls community has grown to the status of a major excavation in size, scope, and importance.
In 2004, a repository (?) was discovered with a winding passageway, storage areas, and steps leading down from the ancient surface level to the passageway. This "repository" was located below an oven (tabun) and a number of bone burials. The floor into which the passageway had been cut was marked with evidence of the earthquake that had destroyed the first phase of the community in 31 B.C. and the passageway and storage areas had been filled with fine dune sand. The storage areas, usually small circular pits cut in the floor to hold jars or larger hollows cut into the sides of the passageway, contained large pieces of broken pottery (sherds), indicating that the area had once been used to hold (or hide?) pottery vessels.
In 2005, following the passageway to the west revealed more of the repository and a new set of steps leading downward. Coming to light at the very end of the dig restricted us further exploration of the passageway, which continued beyond the limits of our excavation area.
Also explored in 2005 was an area next to the ancient settlement’s eastern wall, which separates it from the community’s cemetery with over 1,000 graves. The section of wall at the point of our excavation was collapsed and appeared to have been so from the past – but when and why?
Our dig revealed the answer: a large man-made circular pit that had been abandoned and filled in the time of the Hasmoneans (a half-century or more before the birth of Jesus). Uncovering this 2,000 year-old pit with its rich archaeological fill required careful skill on behalf of our team and discovering its original purpose will occupy scholars for years to come."
If you are a Christian, his findings will strengthen your faith. If you are an atheist, he'll challenge your world view. If you want to understand what is going on in the Middle East, his writings will help you to understand the GWOT, and its implications for America.
I believe that the Holy Bible is God's word to Mankind, but this essay did not prove it.
I am sure both truths and falsehoods were written back then just as they are now still.
Just because someone found something old does not mean it is true.
The Bible contains only truth and it is the word of God because the Catholic Church says it is.
The Catholic Church is the Church that Jesus Christ came down from Heaven to establish and He said He would not leave us orphans. He told St. Peter that what he bound on Earth would be bound in Heaven and what he loosed on Earth would be loosed in Heaven.
If the pope declared that the Bible is the word of God, then it is true. If you say this is not so, then you are calling Jesus Christ a liar or you are saying that He was mistaken. Or that He was crazy. Pick one.
The Bible is not true because it is old.
It is true because the Catholic Church, which commissioned St. Jerome to put together only certain books to form what we now call "The Bible," and has been, from the beginning, the protector of the Bible, has declared on the authority of God, Himself, that the Bible is the Word of God.
It is not true because it is old. A lot of lies were told back then and many of those writings may some day be dug up and discovered.
Their age does not make them truthful.
The acknowledgment of Christ's Church that it is valid is what makes it valid. Not its age.
Victoria Wingate
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