Exploring the Bible

 In this chapter we will take a brief look at the extra seven books included in the Catholic version of the Old Testament. It should be noted, the Protestant Bible did not exclude these books because they feel they are false or inaccurate. They were excluded because they were not considered to be Holy Scripture. These books offer a very unique and helpful insight into the time between the Testaments. These 400 years are otherwise silent. It is fascinating to see some of the details and events contained in these extra books of the Bible. Others in this grouping were written well before this information void took place. Baruch - written sometime during the 6th century B.C. - the author is thought to be Baruch, but this is highly debatable. The Book of Baruch encouraged the people to be pro-Babylonian. Not only did he consider resistance futile, but he felt it was God’s desire that the people be in exile. Baruch lived in the 6th century B.C. and was the scribe or secretary for the pr...

The Dead Sea Scrolls contained all but one of the Books from the Old Testament. In all there were some 225 copies of various biblical books found in the caves above and around Qumran. This however, was only a portion of the scrolls discovered in the caves.  The scrolls which were not Books found in the ancient Hebrew Bible fall into two categories. The first is Non-Biblical Compositions. The second classification is Documents and Letters.  Most of the Documents and Letters were found in cave 5/6 which came to be known as the Cave of the Letters. Here they found fifty-five documents. Fifteen were military letters stored in a leather waterskin. There were also thirty-five financial documents that were apparently the personal archive of a refugee named Babatha. The final five documents belonged to Eleazar, the son of Shmuel. These were contracts found in a leather purse and one hidden inside a reed. The Non-Biblical Compositions have been broken down into at least ten different ...

Roughly a year before the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered by a shepherd boy, another major discovery took place in Egypt. Near the city of Nag Hammadi two brothers discovered a collection of ancient writings. The actual circumstances of the discovery remain unclear.  The brothers who made the discovery were somewhat vague in the details of how and exactly where the discovery took place. It seems clear the writings were found in a grave. It is considered highly probable the brothers were looting an ancient grave when they made the discovery and thus, they were not completely forthcoming with details. Regardless of where or how it was discovered, what they found was truly extraordinary. In all, the discovery consisted of thirteen leather bound papyrus codices. These codices contained fifty-two separate entries, mostly Gnostic treatises. Perhaps the best known of these is the Gospel of Thomas. The discovery of these texts helped show the vast differences between the early Christians ...

 #4 Oldest Proto-Alphabetic Inscription in Israel Contains the Name of YHWH. A lead tablet, first discovered in 2019, only recently had its hidden texts revealed. Found during the wet sifting led by Dr. Scott Stripling, the lead tablet contained a curse written in Hebrew text. The wet sifting project was going through the dump piles from Adam Zertal's excavations on Mount Ebal. While researchers knew the tablet contained writing, they were unable to read the inscription until just last year. Using advanced tomographic scans, researchers were able to reveal the hidden texts. The tablet has been dated to somewhere between 1,200 and 1,150 B.C. While it cannot be confirmed, many believe the tablet may be connected with the renewal of the covenant on Mount Ebal found in Joshua. "At that time Joshua built an altar to the Lord, the God of Israel, on Mount Ebal, just as Moses the servant of the Lord had commanded the people of Israel, as it is written in the Book of the Law of Moses, ...

  #8 - Shroud of Turin A new analysis of the Shroud of Turin reports a potential startling revelation. The Shroud, which many believe was the burial cloth used to wrap the body of Jesus after he was removed from the cross, has always been a subject of controversy and debate. Many believe the artifact to be genuine, while others insist it is a fake from the Middle Ages.  The debate seemed to be settled, at least to many, in 1988 when a portion of the shroud was subjected to carbon 14 dating. These tests showed the fabric to be from the Middle Ages and thus had to be a fake. Almost instantly, however, critics began to point out apparent flaws in this theory. The portion of the shroud tested, they pointed out, was a patch, not the original fabric. Also there have always been problems in accurately dating textiles with carbon 14. This is due to the porous nature of fabric. Many critics of the carbon 14 dating pointed to the fact the Chapel where the Shroud was kept experienced an ...