Brilliant article. Will be sharing some of this information with my students.

Lewis Hales

This article is a collection of unscientific and incoherent drivel. An inscription claiming to contain the names James, Joseph and Jesus, proves absolutely nothing; the analysis of the finds has not even been submitted to a peer reviewed journal. I wonder why.

Back in the 30's it was more about greed and being a shadowy person, he probably didnt report the find as he wanted to just sell it for the dough, more than being popular. If he didnt find it, he probably had control where it would go from there. But all this dont mean it cant be real.

Manuel; My thanks for your most profound thoughts and words of wisdom. Hopefully they will shed a light upon those of little understanding and help others to learn to accept.

I agree with you on every point. my wife said the same
Religion is a money maker. many people only not go by
it. just pay to listen. if there is any miracles that can be
then some cases it is by luck. I respect all religions.Through
spirituality has been in me not religion.

I spent 14 years of my life as a practicing Classical Sunni Muslim. I travelled to Morocco in 1998 and spent a month intensively studying about ten hours a day at the most ancient University on this planet, the Qarawiyyin, in Fez. We studied Islamic Theology according to the 'Ashari schoo; Islamic Jurisprudence according to the Maliki school; Qur'anic Recitation according to I forget which of the seven schools of recitation and we studied traditional Sufism. That was within my first six months as a convert to Islam. I was also initiated into the Nimatullahi, Shadhili and Qadiri - Rifa'i Orders of Sufism. My ex-wife is an Egyptian-American Muslim and her family is obviously all Muslim. Our little son, who is now six years old, is Muslim. So is his stepdad, Saleh, who serves in the US Coast Guard. I majored in Comparative Philosophy and Religion in college and have spent a considerable amount of time studying Islam -- both Sunni and Shi'a -- from the outside and the inside.

I consider myself to be a Renewal Jew, now, like Rabbi Zalman Schachter Shalomi, and I come from an extensive Jewish ancestry, both Sephardic and Ashkenazi. Rabbi Zalman believed that Muhammad 'Ibn 'Abdullah was a True Prophet, but he followed the way of his ancestors because it is the original path of Abraham given to Isaac's lineage. I have taken that road also but I think it is only fair to straighten out some fallacies stated here.

First of all, the overwhelming majority of Muslims that I have met are very gentle people. True, many of them are a little closed - minded by today's standards but they are a very far cry from this notion of vicious thugs and terrorists and anyone who pretends otherwise is either a liar or someone who has never known too many Muslims.

The notion that FGM is a teaching in Islam is false. There is nothing Qur'anic even mentioning it. The only type of circumcision taught Islamically is male circumcision, as with Judaism. FGM is a practice among some sub-Saharan African tribes. It is not an Islamic practice. Here are some quotes from the Wikipedia article on Female Genital Mutilation:

"In 2007 the Al-Azhar Supreme Council of Islamic Research in Cairo ruled that FGM had "no basis in core Islamic law or any of its partial provisions."[98][2]:70[n 18]

There is no mention of FGM in the Bible.[100] Christian missionaries in Africa were among the first to object to FGM,[101] but Christian communities in Africa do practise it. UNICEF reported in 2013 that, for example, 55 percent of Christian women and girls in Niger had experienced FGM, compared with two percent of their Muslim counterparts.[102] The only Jewish group known to have practised it are the Beta Israel of Ethiopia. Judaism requires male circumcision, but does not allow FGM.[103] FGM is also practised by animist groups, particularly in Guinea and Mali.[2]:175"

So it is obviously an African practice. My ex-wife was never "circumcized" and neither have any Muslim women whom I have known, for they would have talked about it. Every Muslim girl that I knew in college always shuddered and saw it as an act of ignorance by people who didn't have much of an education.

There are teachings in each of the World's Religious Traditions which, when taken out of context and placed in the hands of the insane or psychotic, lead to chaos, abuse and violence. There are also teachings -- in the majority of each sacred tradition -- which lead aspirants toward a constant search for wisdom. Most religious scriptures are filled with wisdom sayings.

Today, it has become acceptable to pretend that Islam is an evil religion filled with all kinds of anti-social teachings while Christianity and Judaism are blessed and sacred faiths that have no ill taught within the pages of the Tanakh or the Gospels' pages. This is obviously a far cry from the truth.

Anyone who has read the Book of Joshua knows that, taken out of context, it teaches a very extensive tale of sacred genocide in which each of the pagan city states, from Jericho to the rest, was put to the sword and every man, woman and child of each city - state was slaughtered. To me, it is fascinating that people who hold this as part of their scripture -- especially those crazy fundamentalists who take it literally as the "word of G-d" -- have the gall to point at Muslims and call them violent. Talk about hypocrisy.

If Islam really taught "terrorism" then we wouldn't see one or two episodes every year or two. We would see dozens of episodes every single month. We have roughly six million Muslims in the United States of America. About half of them are teens or older. So that means we have about 3 million Muslims capable of acts of terror. So where is all the terror? With three million Muslims in this country, why aren't we seeing things happening every day?

I'll tell you why. Because Islam does not teach terrorism and because those who take that kind of interpretation are the vast minority, that's why. "Shari'ah" does not mean "violent, extreme religious law." All it really means is "laws based on religious codes" in Islam. That's all it means. And these can be from very liberal, loving codes based on encouraging the universal virtues of love, compassion, mercy, justice, loyalty, humility, courage, etc. to draconian laws used to punish an individual who transgresses. As I have said, most Muslims whom I have met are very gentle people -- and when they say that they believe in the "shari'ah," the overwhelming majority are not talking about draconian legal principles. They are talking about laws that encourage the universal virtues of humanity as found in the wisdom teachings of the Prophet Muhammad. So let's grow up and stop being bigots.

And let's look at each people without prejudice and hatred so that we can look into their scriptures and find more clues as to the ramifications of expanded theories and explanations, such as those of the Ancient Astronauts.

The following is copied from Amazon's description of the book; " Leading genealogist Anthony Adolph traces Brutus's story from Roman times onwards, charting his immense popularity and subsequent fall from grace, along with his lasting legacy in fiction, pseudo-history and the arcane mythology surrounding some of London's best-known landmarks, in this groundbreaking biography of the mythological founder of Britain.

REVIEWS

On his last book, In Search of Our Ancient Ancestors, Anthony Adolph gave us a long view of genealogy, exploring the pedigree of the human race, and the British in particular, since primeval times. This book is a sequel in a sense, but now moves away from what science and history have told us into more mythological territory, to explore what might be described as the ‘psychological ancestry’ of the British. "

It could be interesting, if i can get a free Kindle version of it.

Surely you don't expect anyone to believe other factions of the church, or the church hierarchy are blameless in history? When they had their own armies, they were intolerant and wicked. The armies are gone today, but the human nature remains,they're still wicked. And what's with the name calling, are you an undisciplined juvenile?

Last week I finished reading Anthony Adolph’s “Brutus of Troy.” This was an extremely well researched publication focusing on the creation of Brutus and tracing his descendents to today’s royal family of Britain.

http://www.amazon.com/Brutus-Troy-Quest-Ancestry-British/dp/1473849179/