John J. Collin's Interview on the Dead Sea Scrolls

This is worth the listen to all who are into biblical studies, and even those who are not!!!

There are too many conspiraciones surrounding the composition and translation of the scrolls. It is about time that you hear it from someone who was personally involved in the process, and learn somethings about those who compose the texts found at the caves of Qumran.

Guns don't kill people... toddlers do. Right?

It looks like the Palestinians are not the only ones who give guns to their children to kill others, or kill themselves:

 A Tennessee toddler is dead after accidentally shooting himself.
Janice Atkinson, with the Hamilton County Sheriff's Office, told WRCB-TV that 2-year-old Brennan Nowell died late Thursday from his injuries.
Authorities have said the child was shot in the stomach with a firearm that belonged to his grandfather.
Neighbors told the station that the child found the handgun and was playing with it when he accidentally shot himself.

This is very sad. It just happens too often. Go and have a look at the source.

Dead Sea Scrolls and the New Testament

If you are interested in seeing the connection, this is the essay for you.

Survival at the End of Days: Aspects of Soteriology in the Dead Sea Scrolls Pesharim

For those interested in knowing more about the concepts of salvation (soteriology) in the Judaism of the Second Temple (Jesus' time), will do well reading this essay.

This is a bit technical, but don't read the footnotes, and you will be alright.

Enjoy.

Christianity and Other Ancient Religions by Stephen J. Bedard

The perfect pastor, was a dead pastor!!!!! Total Madness

I will post the whole story so you guys can read it, and comment on those parts that are totally, totally amusing.

OZEMAN, Mont. — An associate pastor and church sound man pulled a Weekend-At-Bernie’s-style scheme, keeping their church’s senior pastor in the pulpit six weeks after his unexpected death.“I thought he was going through a personal renewal which mellowed him,” says one member after learning that pastor Lenny Dillon had been dead since July.
Dillon, 57, died of a stroke while vacationing with his wife in Canada. She went along with the scheme because she couldn’t bear to let her husband go.
It “comforted me to see him preaching, even though I knew he was dead,” she says.

I feel sorry for the wife, but give me a break, a dead pastor can preach? The funny thing about this is that it reminds me of some people at the pulpit, which really look and sound dead!! Next time, I will go to front and pinch them to make sure that they are alive, not dead!!

To the trio’s amazement, the church flourished. Rancorous disagreements stopped. People felt ministered to and cared for.
“He seemed so happy all of a sudden,” says one woman. “That peace spread through the congregation.”
Barry and Linda Cox attended several counseling sessions with the dead pastor and said it vastly improved their marriage.
“He was such a good listener,” she says.

There you go. Get a dead pastor so your church can grow!!! And yes, I bet a dead pastor will be way a better listener than me. 

Embalmed and dressed in a three-piece suit, Dillon was propped against the pulpit every Sunday. The associate stitched sermons together from past sermon tapes. The sound man turned down the lights. After service the associate and sound man helped Dillon shake hands in the foyer. They put sunglasses on Dillon and made up a story about botched laser eye surgery.Though the ruse has ended, some people in the church want the corpse back.“Best two months this church has ever had,” said one man. •

So, for two months these people were listening to their dead pastor? Apparently they never heard anything before, because if they did, they would have pick up on the past sermons. 


People are unbelievable. they want the corpse back??? 


Sad news if you tell me.   

The Chinese girl ran over by two vans, dies. Sad story

I think that this news has really hit me, because I have a two year old, and this has really, really hurt me. How can people be so heartless? And things get worst when you read what the first driver was doing when he did this atrocity, fighting with her then ex-girlfriend on the phone. He left the girl for dead, and drove away.

Now is time for soul searching in China. How their new found wealth has produced such selfish people. And this goes both for the victims and those who want to help them. Many good samaritans have been taken to court by people who have suffered a sort of calamity, in order to get money from them. The response to this, is what we have seen on the news, no one wants to help anybody.

This is one of the things we have to thanks the marvellous rise of living. It creates greed in victims and apathy in those who witness the misfortunes of others.

Here is the link for the news of such a sad ending for this little girl.

May she rest in peace now. May God have mercy on those who ran over her, and on those who didn't help. They will have to live with that shame till they die.

Dead Sea Scrolls now digitized

The Israel Museum welcomes you to the Dead Sea Scrolls Digital Project, allowing users to examine and explore these most ancient manuscripts from Second Temple times at a level of detail never before possible. Developed in partnership with Google, the new website gives users access to searchable, fast-loading, high-resolution images of the scrolls, as well as short explanatory videos and background information on the texts and their history. The Dead Sea Scrolls, which include the oldest known biblical manuscripts in existence, offer critical insight into Jewish society in the Land of Israel during the Second Temple Period, the time of the birth of Christianity and Rabbinic Judaism. Five complete scrolls from the Israel Museum have been digitized for the project at this stage and are now accessible online.

"We are privileged to house in the Israel Museum's Shrine of the Book the best preserved and most complete Dead Sea Scrolls ever discovered," said James S. Snyder, Anne and Jerome Fisher Director of the Israel Museum. "They are of paramount importance among the touchstones of monotheistic world heritage, and they represent unique highlights of our Museum's encyclopedic holdings. Now, through our partnership with Google, we are able to bring these treasures to the broadest possible public."

The five Dead Sea Scrolls that have been digitized thus far include the Great Isaiah Scroll, the Community Rule Scroll, the Commentary on Habakkuk Scroll, the Temple Scroll, and the War Scroll, with search queries on Google.com sending users directly to the online scrolls. All five scrolls can be magnified so that users may examine texts in exacting detail. Details invisible to the naked eye are made visible through ultra-high resolution digital photography by photographer Ardon Bar-Hama– at 1,200 mega pixels each, these images are almost two hundred times higher in resolution than those produced by a standard camera. Each picture utilized UV-protected flash tubes with an exposure of 1/4000th of a second to minimize damage to the fragile manuscripts. In addition, the Great Isaiah Scroll may be searched by column, chapter, and verse, and is accompanied by an English translation tool and by an option for users to submit translations of verses in their own languages.