Saturday, January 4, 2014
Biblical dye found, researcher claims
JERUSALEM - An Israeli researcher says she has identified a nearly 2,000-year-old textile that may contain a mysterious blue dye described in the Bible, one of the few remnants of the ancient color ever found.
Naama Sukenik of Israel’s Antiquities Authority said Tuesday that recent examination of a small woolen textile discovered in the 1950s found that the textile was colored with a dye from the Murex trunculus, a snail researchers believe is the source of the biblical blue.
Researchers and rabbis have long searched for the enigmatic color, called tekhelet in Hebrew.
The Bible commands Jews to wear a blue fringe on their garments, but the dye was lost in antiquity.
Sukenik examined the textile for a doctorate at Bar-Ilan University and published the finding at a Jerusalem conference Monday.
Man gets 4 years for defacing Torah
JACKSON, Tenn. - A Jackson man who pleaded guilty to defacing a Torah and religious prayer books at a Jackson hotel has been sentenced to four years in prison.
The Jackson Sun reports Madison County Circuit Court Judge Roy Morgan Jr. sentenced 25-year-old Justin Shawn Baker on Monday to the maximum amount for the charges he faced.
“I think that’s just so very obvious from what’s been presented today as to why these individuals were victimized in this case,” Morgan said in court. “It’s quite clear that for thousands of years people have been attacked around the world and persecuted for their religious beliefs, whatever that belief is, and the nature of the crime here is clearly a direct, intentional attack on what’s guaranteed as a freedom in this country, freedom of religion.”
Students and faculty at the Margolin Hebrew Academy in Memphis were staying at the Doubletree Hotel in Jackson on Jan. 12, 2013, and had used a meeting room to conduct a Sabbath worship. They left the items in the room overnight with plans to resume worship the next morning.
They arrived to find the items defaced.
Baker was working at the hotel at the time as a security guard.
Vatican sets forum on peace in Syria
VATICAN CITY - The Vatican will host a brainstorming workshop on Jan. 13 about how to achieve a cease-fire in Syria so humanitarian aid can be delivered and how to end persecution of Christians there.
The Pontifical Academy of Sciences has lined up experts from the United States, Russia and elsewhere. Speakers include Tony Blair, the former British prime minister, and Mohamed ElBaradei, an Egyptian who is a former chief of the International Atomic Energy Agency.
Negotiations between the Damascus government and opposition representatives are scheduled to begin on Jan. 24 at the United Nations’ international headquarters in Geneva.
Pope Francis has said a military solution to the Syrian conflict would be “futile.”
Syria’s Christians fear they are being targeted by extremists seeking to oust Syrian President Bashar Assad. Christians make up about 10 percent of Syria’s 23 million people. Nationwide, some 450,000 Christians have fled their homes, part of an exodus of some 7 million during the more than two-year civil war.
Religion, Pages 12 on 01/04/2014