Current Events

Some of the world's first farmers may have sped around in two-wheeled carts pulled by camels and bulls, suggests a new analysis on tiny models of these carts.

http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2009/06/26/wheeled-vehicle-camel.html

Editorial note: The almost unanimous opinion of Biblical scholars is that mention of domesticated camels in the Patriarchal narratives (Gn 12:16; 24:10; 30:43) constitutes an anachronism. Camels, they say, were not domesticated until late in the second millennium BC, centuries after the Patriarchs were supposed to have lived. Yet evidence continues to amass that camel domestication was widely known earlier. The following articles provide data to show the skeptics are incorrect.

Patriarchal Wealth and Early Domestication of the Camel

Bronze Age Camel Petroglyphs In The Wadi Nasib, Sinai

TWO THOUSAND years of tradition have held that the bones of Paul of Tarsus lie in the basilica of St. Paul Without The Walls. Now, Pope Benedict XVI says, science has confirmed it...

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/frontpage/2009/0630/1224249784768.html

Workers renovating a house in the town of Jesus' birth accidentally discovered an untouched ancient tomb containing clay pots, plates, beads and the bones of two humans, a Palestinian antiquities official reported.

http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2009/06/23/tomb-found-bethlehem.html

Dr. Russell Humphreys' continued work on general relativity is a new answer to the light-transit-time problem—to explain how light traveled from the distant cosmos and reached Earth, all during one ordinary-length day on Earth, the fourth day of creation. The model says that early on the fourth day, God’s creation of Sun and planets nearby plunges Earth into a zone of timelessness. In the zone all physical processes, including clocks, come to a complete stop.

http://creation.com/new-creation-cosmology

The patriarch of the Orthodox Church of Ethiopia says he will announce to the world Friday, June 26, 2009, the unveiling of the Ark of the Covenant, perhaps the world's most prized archaeological and spiritual artifact, which he says has been hidden away in a church in his country for millennia, according to the Italian news agency Adnkronos.

http://wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=102119

A partnership between Italy and Iraq has resulted in a website that showcases the recovered antiquities of Baghdad’s National Museum. A virtual tour of the museum’s artifacts, spanning from the prehistoric to the Islamic era of the Mesopotamian region can be viewed on the website in Arabic, English and Italian.

Since the looting of the museum in 2003 during the US invasion of Iraq, stolen antiquities have been steadily recovered and placed back in the museum. Ancient artifacts that can be found online include the famous Warka Mask, a female marble head from Uruk believed to date between 3,400 and 3,100 B.C., as well as limestone statues of lamassu, which are winged, bull-like creatures with human heads that date to the eighth and ninth centuries B.C.

http://www.virtualmuseumiraq.cnr.it

The orchestrated multimedia blitz over this fossil is almost unbelievable. The paleontologists even got Michael Bloomberg, Mayor of New York, to officiate at the public “launch” of Ida (the cute nickname for the fossil), when it was unveiled—like a new sculpture by a famous artist—to the assembled journalists.

http://creation.com/darwin-fossil-ida-hype

A fascinating session at last year’s annual meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature (SBL) in Boston was dedicated to graffiti, especially early Christian graffiti in Izmir (ancient Smyrna), Turkey. But what counts as graffiti? Does the word “graffito” imply something clandestine, something possibly illegal, like the defacing of a building by modern graffiti artists in major American cities?

http://www.bib-arch.org/bar/article.asp?PubID=BSBA&Volume=35&Issue=03&ArticleID=05

Archaeologists from Israel’s Antiquities Authority (IAA) have revealed two important artifacts recently discovered in Jerusalem, both dating from the First Temple Period (800-700 BC).

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/131460

Israel News Photo: (Vladimir Naykhin)

Israel News Photo: (Mariana Salzberger/IAA)

On the weekend of May 8-9, 2009, ABR was represented at the Christian Homeschool Assocation of PA Convention. This is the first year we participated in this event. As ABR Director of Outreach, I had the pleasure of interacting with dozens of parents and kids interested in the ministry of ABR, the reliability of the Bible and various archaeological subjects. Many people had never heard of ABR, so we praise God that we made new friends who we can equip to defend the faith and teach their children that the Bible can be trusted. Please pray for ABR as we plan to expand our outreach to more of these important events in the future.