>Tiny church finds original King James Bible

>

A little English village church has just made a remarkable discovery.

The ornate old Bible that had been sitting in plain view on a table near the last row of pews for longer than anyone could remember is an original King James Bible – one of perhaps 200 surviving 400-year-old original editions of arguably the most important book ever printed in English.

In fact, the Bible at St. Laurence Church in Hilmarton, England, was sitting right under a hand-lettered sign saying it was an original.

The sign said it had been found in “the parish chest” in 1857, that the cover had been added, and that it was the second of the two impressions published in 1611 – the year of first publication.

But no one knew whether to believe it, parish council member Geoff Procter said. As the anniversary of publication in 1611 approached, they decided it was worth investigating.

“We had no way of knowing whether it really was a 1611 Bible so we had to get it verified somehow,” he said.

He and two other church members took it to a specialist, the Rev. David Smith at the Museum of the Book in London.

Smith knew immediately what he was looking at, Procter said.

“We put it on his table and he opened it and immediately he said, ‘Yes, this is a 1611 Bible,'” Procter remembered. …

via Tiny church finds original King James Bible – CNN Belief Blog – CNN.com Blogs.

>Pope Benedict appears in TV question-and-answer show

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Pope Benedict XVI has made history as the first pontiff to take part in a televised question-and-answer session.

The pre-recorded programme was broadcast on the Italian Rai channel on Good Friday afternoon.

Seven questions were chosen from thousands submitted for the Pope to answer during the 80-minute programme.

Most of the questions, from people across the world, dealt with the struggle with suffering.

TV viewers saw a split screen, with the Pope sitting in the Vatican library and those asking the questions filmed near their homes.

The first question was asked by a seven-year-old Japanese girl traumatised by the recent devastating earthquake and tsunami.

She asked why she and other children should have to feel afraid. The Pope replied that he had also asked himself the same question.

“We do not have the answers but we know that Jesus suffered as you do,” he said.

Another question came from the Italian mother of a boy in a long-term coma. She asked if he still had a soul, to which the Pope replied that, yes, his soul is still present in his body.

“The situation, perhaps, is like that of a guitar whose strings have been broken and therefore can no longer play,” he said.

“The instrument of the body is fragile like that, it is vulnerable, and the soul cannot play, so to speak, but remains present.”

To a Muslim woman in the Ivory Coast who asked his advice about how to cope with the conflict that has afflicted her country, he said people should look to Christ as an example of peace.

“Violence never comes from God, never helps bring anything good, but is a destructive means and not the path to escape difficulties,” he said.

He told Christian students in Iraq – when asked how to encourage fellow Christians not to flee the country – that the Church was encouraging dialogue between religions.

The BBC’s Duncan Kennedy, watching the programme, said it would be viewed by critics as very controlled and a little sanitised…

There was no opportunity to ask tough questions of the Church, such as about the priestly sex scandals that overshadowed the Church’s Easter celebrations last year.

But the Vatican will have viewed it as a first step in their overall effort to be more accountable and transparent, arising from accusations that the Church was failing to be open about the abuse scandal, our correspondent adds.

Until now, he has only ever taken questions from journalists on planes during foreign trips. …

via BBC News – Pope Benedict appears in TV question-and-answer show.

It’s about time the Pope pipped up. Plenty of people he oversees overseas could use practical prescriptions for peace.  What else is the purpose of the position? Not to placate people, nor to persuade a population of puppets they are protected by some prosperous papal pallium. Pope powers, activate!

>1866 Letter: Honest Abe Lincoln was not a Christian

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He won the Civil War, ended slavery, had his bust carved into Mount Rushmore and now beams from five dollar bills. But the God-fearing patriots of Middle America are about to receive a reminder that Abraham Lincoln had a strained relationship with one of their most respected institutions: organised religion.

A three-page letter highlighting the 16th president’s unconventional relationship with the Almighty has just been put on sale. It offers a possible insight into why he was never baptised, did not attend a church and, in defiance of political protocol of the era, would refuse to publicly discuss his spiritual beliefs. Such was his reluctance to embrace piety that, if he were standing for office today, there is a good chance he would be unelectable.

The letter was written by William Herndon, a legal partner and close friend of “Honest Abe” in 1866, a year after Lincoln had been assassinated by John Wilkes Booth. And while the letter is at pains to stress that Lincoln did believe in “a God” at the time of his death, it reveals that he took a long time getting to that point. “Mr Lincoln’s religion is too well known to me to allow even a shadow of a doubt; he is, or was, a Theist and a Rationalist, denying all extraordinary, supernatural inspiration or revelation,” it reads, before detailing the president’s spiritual evolution in the years after Herndon met him in Springfield, Illinois, in the 1840s.

“At one time in his life, to say the least, he was an elevated Pantheist, doubting the immortality of the soul as the Christian world understands that term. He believed that the soul lost its identity and was immortal as a force. Subsequent to this, he rose to the belief of a God, and this is all the change he ever underwent. I speak knowing what I say. He was a noble man – a good great man for all this.”

Historians have long debated Lincoln’s religious views, and how they affected his political career. He was born into a humble Kentucky family in 1809 and raised as a Baptist, but became sceptical and rejected organised religion. He never joined a church in his adult life. …

A couple of decades after Lincoln’s death, several biographers attempted to portray him as a Christian. They were helped by the fact that he often quoted the Bible during speeches.

In today’s political environment, it is almost unthinkable that someone could be elected president without being a member of a congregation. Barack Obama, who cites Lincoln as a political hero, regularly attends churches in Chicago and Washington, even if roughly a half of Republican voters (according to several polls) believe he is a Muslim – despite the fact that he smokes, occasionally drinks, and eats pork….

via ‘Pantheist’ Lincoln would be unelectable today – Americas, World – The Independent.

>Scientists claims historic meal was TWO days before crucifixion

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Christians have long marked Jesus Christ’s Last Supper on Maundy Thursday but new research by a leading academic suggests they have got the wrong date.

Professor Colin Humphreys, a scientist at the University of Cambridge, has now concluded that the final meal took place on the Wednesday before the crucifixion, a day earlier than previously accepted.

He believes his findings, which are likely to cause ripples among millions of Christians, could present a case for finally introducing a fixed date for Easter.

They also present a solution to apparent contradictions in the Gospels and logistical issues relating to the hours before the crucifixion.

In a new book, The Mystery Of The Last Supper, Prof Humphreys uses a combination of Biblical, historical and astronomical research to address the precise nature and timing of Jesus’s final meal with his disciples.

Researchers have long been puzzled by an apparently fundamental Biblical inconsistency.

While Matthew, Mark and Luke all assert that the Last Supper coincided with the start of the Jewish festival of Passover, John claims it took place before Passover.

The contradiction has presented what has been described as ‘the thorniest problem in the New Testament’.

But Prof Humphreys has now concluded that Jesus – along with Matthew, Mark and Luke – may have been using a different calendar to John.

Whatever you think about the Bible, the fact is that Jewish people would never mistake the Passover meal for another meal, so for the Gospels to contradict themselves in this regard is really hard to understand,’ Prof Humphreys said.

‘Many Biblical scholars say that, for this reason, you can’t trust the Gospels at all. But if we use science and the Gospels hand in hand, we can actually prove that there was no contradiction.’

In his theory, Jesus went by an old-fashioned Jewish calendar rather than the official lunar calendar which was in widespread use at the time of his death and is still in use today.

This would put the Passover meal – and the Last Supper – on the Wednesday, explaining how a large number of events took place between the meal and the crucifixion.

It would mean Jesus’ arrest, interrogation and separate trials did not all take place in the space of one night but in fact occurred over a longer time frame.

By ironing out all the perceived discrepancies in the timing of events, Prof Humphreys believes a date could be ascribed to Easter in our modern solar calendar. Working on the basis that the crucifixion took place on April 3, Easter Day would be on April 5. …

via Was the Last Supper 24 hours earlier? Scientists claims historic meal was TWO days before Jesus¿ crucifixion | Mail Online.

>German ‘thought car’ could be driven on Sabbath, Rabbi says

>

A German-designed car that can be driven by thought alone could allow Jews to drive on the Sabbath, a young Rabbi and artificial intelligence scientist says.Rabbi Dror Fixler, an electro-optics expert from Bar-Ilan University in Ramat Gan, Israel, told The Local that the distinction between thought and action could mean that driving on the traditional Jewish day of rest was mutar, or permitted.

In October, scientists at Berlin’s Free University announced they had tested a “proof of concept” car that could be driven by thought. An electroencephalography headset with sixteen sensors measures the brain’s signals and sends them to a computer that operates the car.

Last week, Rabbi Fixler gave a lecture at the “Torah and Science Conference” at the Jerusalem College of Technology, during which he showed a video of the car being test driven at the former Tempelhof airport in Berlin.

That lecture, he said, has sparked a debate in Israel about whether such devices that integrate the mind with machinery would be permitted on the Sabbath, when driving is typically forbidden.

“When you are making only thoughts, it is no action at all. There is a difference – if you are thinking, it is not the same thing, so you can’t say it’s forbidden,” he said. “That was what I asked the audience to think about. …

Fixler stressed he personally did not think driving thought-controlled cars should be permitted on the Sabbath, as it would destroy the whole purpose of having a rest day. …

via German ‘thought car’ could be driven on Sabbath, Rabbi says – The Local.

>Jordan battles to regain ‘priceless’ Christian relics

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They could be the earliest Christian writing in existence, surviving almost 2,000 years in a Jordanian cave. They could, just possibly, change our understanding of how Jesus was crucified and resurrected, and how Christianity was born.

A group of 70 or so “books”, each with between five and 15 lead leaves bound by lead rings, was apparently discovered in a remote arid valley in northern Jordan somewhere between 2005 and 2007.

A flash flood had exposed two niches inside the cave, one of them marked with a menorah or candlestick, the ancient Jewish religious symbol.

A Jordanian Bedouin opened these plugs, and what he found inside might constitute extremely rare relics of early Christianity.

That is certainly the view of the Jordanian government, which claims they were smuggled into Israel by another Bedouin. …

The books, or “codices”, were apparently cast in lead, before being bound by lead rings.

Their leaves – which are mostly about the size of a credit card – contain text in Ancient Hebrew, most of which is in code.

If the relics are of early Christian origin rather than Jewish, then they are of huge significance.

One of the few people to see the collection is David Elkington, a scholar of ancient religious archaeology who is heading a British team trying to get the lead books safely into a Jordanian museum.

He says they could be “the major discovery of Christian history”, adding: “It’s a breathtaking thought that we have held these objects that might have been held by the early saints of the Church.”

He believes the most telling evidence for an early Christian origin lies in the images decorating the covers of the books and some of the pages of those which have so far been opened.

Mr Elkington says the relics feature signs that early Christians would have interpreted as indicating Jesus, shown side-by-side with others they would have regarded as representing the presence of God. …

tests by metallurgists on the badly corroded lead suggest that the books were not made recently.

The archaeology of early Christianity is particularly sparse.

Little is known of the movement after Jesus’ crucifixion until the letters of Paul several decades later, and they illuminate the westward spread of Christianity outside the Jewish world.

Never has there been a discovery of relics on this scale from the early Christian movement, in its homeland and so early in its history.

via BBC News – Jordan battles to regain ‘priceless’ Christian relics.

>Parts of Bible’s New Testament written by ‘pretend apostles’

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Parts of the Bible were written by people who lied about their identity, an author has claimed.

Bart D Ehrman claims many books of the New Testament were forged by people pretending to be the apostles Peter, Paul or James.

Writing in the Huffington Post, Professor Ehrman, best selling author of ‘Misquoting Jesus’ and ‘Jesus, Interrupted’, said religious scholars were well aware of the ‘lies’ of the Bible.

While some were happy to acknowledge them others refer to them as ‘pseudepigrapha’ – meaning a falsely attributed work -, he wrote.

In his new book , Why the Bible’s Authors Are Not Who We Think They Are, Professor Ehrman claims The Second Epistle of Peter – or 2 Peter – was forged.

‘…scholars everywhere – except for our friends among the fundamentalists – will tell you that there is no way on God’s green earth that Peter wrote the book.

‘Someone else wrote it claiming to be Peter,’ he writes.

He then suggests scholars who say it was acceptable in the ancient world for someone to write a book in the name of someone else, are wrong.

‘If you look at what ancient people actually said about the practice, you’ll see that they invariably called it lying and condemned it as a deceitful practice, even in Christian circles,’ Professor Ehrman writes.

Many scholars think six of the 13 letters allegedly written by Paul were actually authored by somebody else claiming to be Paul, Professor Ehrman claims.

‘In the ancient world, books like that were labelled as pseudoi – lies,’ he writes.

Professor Ehrman also claims the author of the book of 1 Timothy claimed to be Paul but in actual fact was someone living after Paul had died.

The author then used the apostle’s name to address a problem he saw in church, according to Professor Ehrman.

‘Women were speaking out, exercising authority and teaching men. That had to stop,’ he writes.

‘The author told women to be silent and submissive, and reminded his readers about what happened the first time a woman was allowed to exercise authority over a man, in that little incident in the garden of Eden.

‘No, the author argued, if women wanted to be saved, they were to have babies (1 Tim. 2:11-15).’

Paul is known as one of history’s great misogynists, largely based on this passage from the Bible.

But Professor Ehrman argues this label is not necessarily justified because he wasn’t the one to write it.

‘And why does it matter? Because the passage is still used by church leaders today to oppress and silence women,’ writes Professor Ehrman. …

via Bart D Ehrman: Parts of Bible’s New Testament written by ‘pretend apostles’ | Mail Online.

 

>Theory: Nephilim were Neanderthal man

>I’d like to explore the idea that the Nephilim mentioned in the bible were Neanderthal man, a distant memory, or perhaps a clan of Neanderthal that actually survived and lived in Canaan. I have four points to support my theory.

#1. The first thing I’d like to point out is that people “of great size” does not necessarily mean tall “giant” people.

The term “Nephilim” occurs just twice in the Hebrew Bible, both in the Torah. The first is Genesis 6:1-4, immediately before the Noah’s ark story:

… The Nephilim were on the earth in those days—and also afterward—when the sons of God went to the daughters of men and had children by them. They were the heroes of old, men of renown. …

The second is Numbers 13:32-33, where the Hebrew spies report that they have seen fearsome giants in Canaan:

And they spread among the Israelites a bad report about the land they had explored. They said, “The land we explored devours those living in it. All the people we saw there are of great size.

We saw the Nephilim there (the descendants of Anak come from the Nephilim). We seemed like grasshoppers in our own eyes, and we looked the same to them.”

The reference could refer to strength, not height. Neanderthal men were of great size, and powerful. Even the women were powerful:

“… even Arnold Schwarzenegger at his muscular peak no match for a Neanderthal woman … Regarding the inadequacy of Schwarzenegger, McAllister studied the remains of “La Ferrassie 2”, a Neanderthal lass discovered in a French cave in 1909. She boasted ten per cent more muscle than modern European men, and her upper arm strength was more than enough to “slam him to the table without a problem”. – link

#2. The second point is the location of the sighting mentioned in the bible.

… The Mount Carmel caves outside Haifa set the geographical limits for Neanderthal fossils. One skeleton found buried in the Kebara cave is so well preserved that it has provided the best data yet on Neanderthal anatomy and led scholars to reassess the function of the Neanderthal pelvis and linguistic capabilities, following the discovery of the hyoid bone in the throat.  … – link

The obvious question: Was Kebara Cave, Mt Carmel, Israel in what was known as  Canaan? According to this map, Mt. Carmel is very close to Galilee in ancient Israel. And according to worldatlas.com “Israel occupies about 75% of an area long known as Canaan.”

Below is a map of Canaan. In what was called Asher, you can see Mt. Carmel where the Neanderthal bones were found. Neanderthal man was in Canaan, and so were the Nephilim!

 

#3. The third supporting point is that the bible states that some men were descendants of the Nephilim and we now know that Neanderthal man interbred at least twice with Homo sapiens. The bible says, “We saw the Nephilim there (the descendants of Anak come from the Nephilim).” Who was Anak?

Anak … was a well known figure, and a forefather of the Anakites who have been considered “strong and tall,” they were also said to have been a mixed race of giant people, descendants of the Nephilim. ‘ – wiki

“Using projected rates of genetic mutation and data from the fossil record, the researchers suggest that the interbreeding happened about 60,000 years ago in the eastern Mediterranean and, more recently, about 45,000 years ago in eastern Asia.” – nature.com

Yes, Israel (Canaan) is considered to be in the eastern Mediterranean.

#4. Fourth the phrase “The land we explored devours those living in it.” and “We seemed like grasshoppers in our own eyes, and we looked the same to them,” I think, are references to cannibalism.  Having worked with locusts in some of my research, I can definitely tell you that they eat each other. It is revolting. It is something you never forget.  This would not have escaped the observation of early men, for whom locusts (super grasshoppers) devouring your crops were one of the worst things that could happen.

We now know from archaeological research that our ancestors ate Neanderthal men.

… fossil expert Fernando Rozzi of Paris’s Centre National de la Récherche Scientifique, … based [the conclusion that we ate Neanderthal men] on a jawbone from a Neanderthal clearly butchered for food by someone with Homo Sapiens tools…  – link

Ancient men seemed to be saying, “We are cannibals. We know it, and our food knows it.” We ate them!

Did Neanderthal man eat Homo sapiens? Perhaps not. Perhaps the tricky Homo sapiens felt guilt at his behavior and blamed his own “sins” on the enemy he killed and ate.  The winners of a war get to rewrite history.

Once the giant Nephilim hybrids were born, these legendary warriors (Titans) of renowned fierceness began to kill off all the humans from the earth. In Numbers 11 we are told that they were not only giants but cannibals as well.  The book of Enoch states that they ate the flesh and drank the blood of the people on earth. They were also the number one enemy of Israel.”

And I said, Hear, I pray you, O heads of Jacob, and ye princes of the house of Israel; Is it not for you to know judgment? Who hate the good, and love the evil; who pluck off their skin from off them, and their flesh from off their bones; Who also eat the flesh of my people, and flay their skin from off them; and they break their bones, and chop them in pieces, as for the pot, and as flesh within the caldron. Then shall they cry unto the LORD, but he will not hear them: he will even hide his face from them at that time, as they have behaved themselves ill in their doings

In fact, rather than them killing off all of the humans, it was our human ancestors who killed off all of the Titans, if “the Titans” is, as I suspect, another name for Neanderthal. And we at them.  I tend to think the book of Enoch is a guilty historical rewrite.

#5. The fifth point of evidence is the fate of Neanderthal and the meaning of the word “Nephilim”.

“Nephilim” (נְפִילִים) probably derives from the Hebrew root npl (נָפַל), “to fall” which also includes “to cause to fall” and “to kill, to ruin”. The Brown-Driver-Briggs Lexicon gives the meaning as “giants”[1] Robert Baker Girdlestone argued the word comes from the Hiphil causative stem. Adam Clarke took it as passive, “fallen”, “apostates”. Ronald Hendel states that it is a passive form “ones who have fallen”, equivalent grammatically to paqid “one who is appointed” (i.e. overseer), asir, “one who is bound”, (i.e. prisoner) etc.

via Nephilim – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

The large powerful Neanderthal men were eventually wiped out. They were the fallen, the ruined, the killed, and it would not be a stretch to believe that they were once made prisoners by their more tricky, more deceptive, better planning Homo sapien cousins.  Genesis says, “The Nephilim were on the earth in those days”. Now the Nephilim, like the Neanderthal, are no longer on the earth.

Arguments Against the Nephilim being Neanderthal Man

The major problem with my theory, if you accept that “giant” could just mean “a bit taller and much more muscular,” is, of course, the timing.  Could a story in Genesis really be describing something that happened 60,000 years ago? When did the spies of Israel see the Nephilim in Canaan? One source puts the conquest of Canaan at 1406 to 1399 BC. Another says The Conquest of Canaan by Joshua took 6 years from 1487 to 1493 BC.

The 7 nations that confronted Joshua were GIANTS and they were like the sands of the sea in number. The Lord told Joshua to completely destroy these corrupt nations

 

Evidence suggests that dates in the bible must be wrong:

A 1401 BC date of the beginning of the conquest is supposed to violate the assured results of archeological findings in Palestine, notably at Ai, Lachish, and Debir. The problem of Ai is indeed acute, if the mound of et Tell is actually the biblical city. Excavation of the site by Mme. Judith Marquet-Krause in 1933 and 1934 has shown that there was an occupational gap in the history of the mound from about 2200 BC until after 1200 BC, so that supposedly there was nothing but a ruin there when Joshua and Israel are said to have captured and destroyed it… – theology.edu

For my theory to hold, the story of the Conquest of Canaan in Genesis would be drawn, in part, on more ancient sources than anyone has so far believed. Genesis, fantastically, may tell of the defeat of the last Neanderthals who survived as late as up to 24,000 years ago.

After wandering in the wilderness for 40 years, Moses handed over leadership to Joshua, whose responsibility it was to bring the nation of Israel into the promised land of Canaan. After entering Canaan, Joshua had to go to war with the people who occupied the land. – link

Perhaps Neanderthal man was around in the time of Moses, but there is, so far, no evidence for Neanderthal being around after 24,000 years ago. Another possibility is that an older story was woven into the real Conquest of Canaan.

Neanderthals, prehistoric cousins of humans, ate grains and vegetables as well as meat, cooking them over fire in the same way homo sapiens did. … The squat, low-browed Neanderthals lived in parts of Europe, Central Asia and the Middle East for around 170,000 years but all evidence of them disappears some 28,000 years ago, their last known refuge being Gibraltar. Why they died out is a matter of debate, because they co-existed alongside modern man. – physorg

Neanderthal died out because they were out planned and because they were not deceptive cannibals like “modern” man.

 

>Theory: Nephilim were Neanderthal man

>I’d like to explore the idea that the Nephilim mentioned in the bible were Neanderthal man, a distant memory, or perhaps a clan of Neanderthal that actually survived and lived in Canaan. I have four points to support my theory.

#1. The first thing I’d like to point out is that people “of great size” does not necessarily mean tall “giant” people.

The term “Nephilim” occurs just twice in the Hebrew Bible, both in the Torah. The first is Genesis 6:1-4, immediately before the Noah’s ark story:

… The Nephilim were on the earth in those days—and also afterward—when the sons of God went to the daughters of men and had children by them. They were the heroes of old, men of renown. …

The second is Numbers 13:32-33, where the Hebrew spies report that they have seen fearsome giants in Canaan:

And they spread among the Israelites a bad report about the land they had explored. They said, “The land we explored devours those living in it. All the people we saw there are of great size.

We saw the Nephilim there (the descendants of Anak come from the Nephilim). We seemed like grasshoppers in our own eyes, and we looked the same to them.”

The reference could refer to strength, not height. Neanderthal men were of great size, and powerful. Even the women were powerful:

“… even Arnold Schwarzenegger at his muscular peak no match for a Neanderthal woman … Regarding the inadequacy of Schwarzenegger, McAllister studied the remains of “La Ferrassie 2”, a Neanderthal lass discovered in a French cave in 1909. She boasted ten per cent more muscle than modern European men, and her upper arm strength was more than enough to “slam him to the table without a problem”. – link

#2. The second point is the location of the sighting mentioned in the bible.

… The Mount Carmel caves outside Haifa set the geographical limits for Neanderthal fossils. One skeleton found buried in the Kebara cave is so well preserved that it has provided the best data yet on Neanderthal anatomy and led scholars to reassess the function of the Neanderthal pelvis and linguistic capabilities, following the discovery of the hyoid bone in the throat.  … – link

The obvious question: Was Kebara Cave, Mt Carmel, Israel in what was known as  Canaan? According to this map, Mt. Carmel is very close to Galilee in ancient Israel. And according to worldatlas.com “Israel occupies about 75% of an area long known as Canaan.”

Below is a map of Canaan. In what was called Asher, you can see Mt. Carmel where the Neanderthal bones were found. Neanderthal man was in Canaan, and so were the Nephilim!

 

#3. The third supporting point is that the bible states that some men were descendants of the Nephilim and we now know that Neanderthal man interbred at least twice with Homo sapiens. The bible says, “We saw the Nephilim there (the descendants of Anak come from the Nephilim).” Who was Anak?

Anak … was a well known figure, and a forefather of the Anakites who have been considered “strong and tall,” they were also said to have been a mixed race of giant people, descendants of the Nephilim. ‘ – wiki

“Using projected rates of genetic mutation and data from the fossil record, the researchers suggest that the interbreeding happened about 60,000 years ago in the eastern Mediterranean and, more recently, about 45,000 years ago in eastern Asia.” – nature.com

Yes, Israel (Canaan) is considered to be in the eastern Mediterranean.

#4. Fourth the phrase “The land we explored devours those living in it.” and “We seemed like grasshoppers in our own eyes, and we looked the same to them,” I think, are references to cannibalism.  Having worked with locusts in some of my research, I can definitely tell you that they eat each other. It is revolting. It is something you never forget.  This would not have escaped the observation of early men, for whom locusts (super grasshoppers) devouring your crops were one of the worst things that could happen.

We now know from archaeological research that our ancestors ate Neanderthal men.

… fossil expert Fernando Rozzi of Paris’s Centre National de la Récherche Scientifique, … based [the conclusion that we ate Neanderthal men] on a jawbone from a Neanderthal clearly butchered for food by someone with Homo Sapiens tools…  – link

Ancient men seemed to be saying, “We are cannibals. We know it, and our food knows it.” We ate them!

Did Neanderthal man eat Homo sapiens? Perhaps not. Perhaps the tricky Homo sapiens felt guilt at his behavior and blamed his own “sins” on the enemy he killed and ate.  The winners of a war get to rewrite history.

Once the giant Nephilim hybrids were born, these legendary warriors (Titans) of renowned fierceness began to kill off all the humans from the earth. In Numbers 11 we are told that they were not only giants but cannibals as well.  The book of Enoch states that they ate the flesh and drank the blood of the people on earth. They were also the number one enemy of Israel.”

And I said, Hear, I pray you, O heads of Jacob, and ye princes of the house of Israel; Is it not for you to know judgment? Who hate the good, and love the evil; who pluck off their skin from off them, and their flesh from off their bones; Who also eat the flesh of my people, and flay their skin from off them; and they break their bones, and chop them in pieces, as for the pot, and as flesh within the caldron. Then shall they cry unto the LORD, but he will not hear them: he will even hide his face from them at that time, as they have behaved themselves ill in their doings

In fact, rather than them killing off all of the humans, it was our human ancestors who killed off all of the Titans, if “the Titans” is, as I suspect, another name for Neanderthal. And we at them.  I tend to think the book of Enoch is a guilty historical rewrite.

#5. The fifth point of evidence is the fate of Neanderthal and the meaning of the word “Nephilim”.

“Nephilim” (נְפִילִים) probably derives from the Hebrew root npl (נָפַל), “to fall” which also includes “to cause to fall” and “to kill, to ruin”. The Brown-Driver-Briggs Lexicon gives the meaning as “giants”[1] Robert Baker Girdlestone argued the word comes from the Hiphil causative stem. Adam Clarke took it as passive, “fallen”, “apostates”. Ronald Hendel states that it is a passive form “ones who have fallen”, equivalent grammatically to paqid “one who is appointed” (i.e. overseer), asir, “one who is bound”, (i.e. prisoner) etc.

via Nephilim – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

The large powerful Neanderthal men were eventually wiped out. They were the fallen, the ruined, the killed, and it would not be a stretch to believe that they were once made prisoners by their more tricky, more deceptive, better planning Homo sapien cousins.  Genesis says, “The Nephilim were on the earth in those days”. Now the Nephilim, like the Neanderthal, are no longer on the earth.

Arguments Against the Nephilim being Neanderthal Man

The major problem with my theory, if you accept that “giant” could just mean “a bit taller and much more muscular,” is, of course, the timing.  Could a story in Genesis really be describing something that happened 60,000 years ago? When did the spies of Israel see the Nephilim in Canaan? One source puts the conquest of Canaan at 1406 to 1399 BC. Another says The Conquest of Canaan by Joshua took 6 years from 1487 to 1493 BC.

The 7 nations that confronted Joshua were GIANTS and they were like the sands of the sea in number. The Lord told Joshua to completely destroy these corrupt nations

 

Evidence suggests that dates in the bible must be wrong:

A 1401 BC date of the beginning of the conquest is supposed to violate the assured results of archeological findings in Palestine, notably at Ai, Lachish, and Debir. The problem of Ai is indeed acute, if the mound of et Tell is actually the biblical city. Excavation of the site by Mme. Judith Marquet-Krause in 1933 and 1934 has shown that there was an occupational gap in the history of the mound from about 2200 BC until after 1200 BC, so that supposedly there was nothing but a ruin there when Joshua and Israel are said to have captured and destroyed it… – theology.edu

For my theory to hold, the story of the Conquest of Canaan in Genesis would be drawn, in part, on more ancient sources than anyone has so far believed. Genesis, fantastically, may tell of the defeat of the last Neanderthals who survived as late as up to 24,000 years ago.

After wandering in the wilderness for 40 years, Moses handed over leadership to Joshua, whose responsibility it was to bring the nation of Israel into the promised land of Canaan. After entering Canaan, Joshua had to go to war with the people who occupied the land. – link

Perhaps Neanderthal man was around in the time of Moses, but there is, so far, no evidence for Neanderthal being around after 24,000 years ago. Another possibility is that an older story was woven into the real Conquest of Canaan.

Neanderthals, prehistoric cousins of humans, ate grains and vegetables as well as meat, cooking them over fire in the same way homo sapiens did. … The squat, low-browed Neanderthals lived in parts of Europe, Central Asia and the Middle East for around 170,000 years but all evidence of them disappears some 28,000 years ago, their last known refuge being Gibraltar. Why they died out is a matter of debate, because they co-existed alongside modern man. – physorg

Neanderthal died out because they were out planned and because they were not deceptive cannibals like “modern” man.

 

>Mustaine: Black magic haunts me

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Megadeth rocker Dave Mustaine refuses to play heavy rock anthem The Conjuring live – because the track is laden with black magic imagery and occult spells.

The singer became fascinated in witchcraft as a teen and he’s convinced spells he cast have come back to haunt him.

Now a strict Christian, he’s keen to distance himself from his dark past – and refuses to play his song The Conjuring from 1986 album Peace Sells… but Who’s Buying on tour – because the lyrics about black magic still affect him.

He tells Total Guitar magazine, “Performance wise, The Conjuring is one of the heaviest songs on the record, but unfortunately it’s got black magic in it and I promised that I wouldn’t play it any more, because there’s a lot of instructions for hexes in that song.

“Although it seems kinda corny, anybody who’s a Wiccan (witch) or a warlock or anything like that will know that all of that stuff is instrumental.

“When I got into black magic I put a couple of spells on people when I was a teenager and it haunted me forever, and I’ve had so much torment. People say, ‘Goddamn, Dave never gets a break, he’s had such a hard life,’ and I just think, ‘No, Dave didn’t – he got into black magic and it ruined his life.’

“Fortunately for me, with all the work and the love of my friends, and not giving up with my guitar playing, I got over it. So I look back now and I think, ‘Hmm, I don’t wanna play The Conjuring’.”

via Mustaine: Black magic haunts me | Music | Entertainment | Toronto Sun.

He has always had an active imagination. Still does. Nice bass sound around 1:25. I have no idea what he is saying. Can’t really hear the lyrics.