Jewish Odysseus: I'M NOT SEEING THE WORD "PALESTINE" ON THESE ROYAL SEALS...

Saturday, March 31, 2012

I'M NOT SEEING THE WORD "PALESTINE" ON THESE ROYAL SEALS...

In the land of Israel, there are about 40,000--that's right, forty thousand--archeological sites identified RIGHT NOW. But none of those sites have ever produced a single artifact referring to a land of "Palestine." Why, it's almost as if that famous country...NEVER EXISTED.

But here we have this beautiful find that literally connects to two Biblical Israelite figures by name.

The first of the clay bullae, which surfaced during [Eilat] Mazar’s excavation of what may be King David’s palace, bears the name “Yehuchal [or Jehucal] ben Shelemyahu [Shelemiah]” (pictured above left). The second was found in the First Temple period strata underneath what has been identified as Nehemiah’s Northern Tower, just a few yards away from the first, and reads “Gedalyahu [Gedaliah] ben Pashur” (pictured above right).

These two men are mentioned together in the Bible as ministers of King Zedekiah (597–587 B.C.E.). As the Babylonians closed in on Jerusalem during the last years of the First Temple period, Jeremiah, prophet to Judah’s last kings, advised Zedekiah and the people of the city to surrender to Nebuchadnezzar’s men so that their lives and city might be spared. But not everyone liked Jeremiah’s message, including Gedaliah son of Pashur and Jehucal son of Shelemiah. According to Jeremiah 38:1–13, the two ministers had Jeremiah thrown into a pit because they did not like the message of surrender he was preaching to the people of Jerusalem.

Ya know, the Wakf can't destroy EVERY ancient treasure in the land of Israel, though they may do their worst.

"Truth, crushed to earth, shall rise again."

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The Odyssey by Homer, Chapter 21:

For long Odysseus stood with the bow in his hands, handling it as a minstrel handles a lyre when he stretches a cord or tightens a peg. Then he bent the great bow; he bent it without an effort, and at his touch the bow-string made a sound that was like the cry of a swallow. The wooers seeing him bend that mighty bow felt, every man of them, a sharp pain at the heart. They saw Odysseus take up an arrow and fit it to the string. He held the notch, and he drew the string, and he shot the bronze-weighted arrow straight through the holes in the back of the axe-heads. Then as Eumæus took up the axes, and brought them outside, he said, ‘Thou seest, lord Telemachus, that thy guest does not shame thee through foolish boasting. I have bent the bow of Odysseus, and I have shot the arrow aright. But now it is time to provide the feast for the lords who woo thy lady mother. While it is yet light, the feast must be served to them, and with the feast they must have music and the dance.’ Saying this he nodded to Telemachus, bending his terrible brows. Telemachus instantly girt his sword upon him and took his spear in his hand. Outside was heard the thunder of Zeus. And now Odysseus had stripped his rags from him and was standing upright, looking a master of men. The mighty bow was in his hands, and at his feet were scattered many bronze-weighted arrows.