Comments on: Israeli Archeologists Discover “Jesus’ Synagogue”

By: Nicholas Galanti

Nicholas Galanti — Fri, 08 Feb 2013 22:48:00 +0000

Father Juan Maria Solana is right, but for all the wrong reasons. as this dig shows, the team keeps moving stones key stones around. i just hope they kepr accurate records as to their original position, if not, much of the history they had no clue of, will be lost for ever. also, why did Israel assign Mexicans to excavate the one of the most important sites in many years? Sad,, very sad.

By: Henry Stadhouders

Henry Stadhouders — Sat, 02 Feb 2013 11:30:00 +0000

I suspect that the pious, yet shrewd priest is cherishing the vision of huge flocks of silly pilgrims dwarfing those Jesus would have attracted setting out to visit the place in order to enjoy their share of the same illusions as he is professing to have experienced there. Imagine the touristic potential of the now ignominious place!
I would not be surprised, when Jesus’ very own footprints were to be exposed as the dig proceeds, only to add the latest instance to the long record of pia fraus.

By: CatmanbytheBay

CatmanbytheBay — Sun, 06 Jan 2013 23:30:00 +0000

Though Jesus’ ties to Galilee strongly suggest that he and his followers at least visited the synagogue, Mary Magdalene’s ties to Magdala in Galilee are more tenuous. There is also a “Magdala” in Ethiopia, and that there are suggestions in the gospels that she was a foreigner, rather than a native Galilean — and a reference in one of the Gnostic Gospels to her being “dark.”

There are other questions regaring Christian assumptions about places mentioned in the New Testament. One is Jesus’ birthplace being modern Bethlehem, rather than a former village of the same name (“Beit Lehem,” in Arabic) in Galilee, and only a few miles from Nazareth — making it a far more likely place for Joseph to have gone for the census. Some scholars also argue that there is no record of Rome ever having ordered its subjects to answer a census at their place of birth at all, as this would have caused both logistical and administrative nightmares.

Another is Jesus himself even being from Nazareth, when there is no record outside the Bible of any such town having existed before the 3rd century — the argument here being that “Nazarene” is more likely a corruption of “Nazorean,” which was one of the early Jesus sects, and most likely the original one.

By: Gary Walmsley

Gary Walmsley — Sun, 06 Jan 2013 00:45:00 +0000

I agree with Mr. Harland, Father Solana had contorted the mere possibility that ‘historical’ Jesus might have visited Magdala to some how that he DEFINITELY was at Magdala, and therefore HAD to have been at the synagogue, borders on a blatant attempt to inflate the discovery (as significant as it is to Jewish history) into some kind of prima facie Christian holy place, simply because of a vague proximity and because the Father claims he had some ‘feeling’ of the specialnees of the place. It seems very opportunistic and more than a little manipulative.

I’m sure Mr. Ray, you find that I also am guilty of ‘a bad attitude’. And I can very comfortably live with that.

By: Danny Ray

Danny Ray — Sat, 05 Jan 2013 23:51:00 +0000

Jeffry, You sound just as certain as Father Solana, but with a bad attitude.

By: Melanie Moon

Melanie Moon — Sat, 05 Jan 2013 23:38:00 +0000

Among other things, “Charity (love) ……believeth all things, hopeth all things…for we know in part, and we prophesy in part. But when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away….For now we see through a glass, darkly but then face to face: now I know in part, but then shall I know even as also I am known. And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity. I Corinthians 13:4-13 I believe

By: Jeffry Harland

Jeffry Harland — Fri, 04 Jan 2013 23:19:00 +0000

I’m always disturbed by the leaps to certainty of religious people such as Father Solana. It’s a long way to go from this being a synagogue dating from the time of Jesus ministry to being “certain” that he’s discovered the first Christian church. And if Christians did meet there, so what? They met in a lot of places, most notably peoples homes. If this is, in fact, a synagogue dating from that time it is undoubtedly more Jewish than Christian.