I had a most engaging experience today at the Shepherd of the Hills Dead Sea
Scrolls exhibit in Porter Ranch, CA. It's free, and it's worth every penny.
They have a nice, low-grade museum layout going on, with professional-grade
rub-on letter displays and spotlight illumination, with plexiglass exhibit cases
surrounding the articles. Not a few of the items are literally priceless, including
original pages of Gutenberg Bibles, and 1611 Authorized Version Bibles (now
referred to commonly as "King James Version (KJV)"). I was highly impressed
at the collection of very old books, although I was rather disappointed that I
was not able to touch any of them. HAHAHAHAHAHAHA
But seriously, they had 5 actual fragments of the Dead Sea Scrolls. I have never
been physically close to such items in the past. You can literally get within
10 inches of their real presence. It's an awesome thing to behold. The lighting
is excellent, and you can readily see just what it is that they are, even though
they are in a kind of glass encasement or "slide" about a half inch thick, and under
a 3/8" thick plexiglass exhibit case. Above each fragment is a photographic
enlargement, and a photographic image made using infrared technology, which
evokes a most dramatic contrast in the ink markings on the parchment. Then
they provide a copy of the Hebrew Scripture which match these fragments, and
that amounts to paragraphs with some letters in bold and others not, for the
fragments only show some of the letters, since there are holes in the parchment
and the perimeters are irregular. Then they have an English translation of those
Scriptures with the same letters in bold, approximately (for the Hebrew words
are a different language, obviously).
To top it all off, these scrolls were discovered in our own time years before
I was born, so that it had been a study well under way before I had been old
enough to understand any of this stuff. And now, for the first time in my
life, I am able to stand within mere inches of some of them; it was a most
moving and profound experience. I simply must return for more of this. The
exhibit is running through February 25th, Monday-Friday, 10:00 am - 8:00 pm,
with an expert on hand until at least 5:00 every weekday. He was not there
today, because he takes the weekend off.
Isn't that nice?! Keeping the Sabbath! What a concept!
The point is, that our Bibles today have the same words in them that these
ancient scrolls had which were written around 120 B.C. I was most pleased to
see they do not say, "B.C.E.," like all the Jєωιѕн historians are pushing like a
major agenda item in all the history books and public museums worldwide. It
stands for "Before Common Era." That's so they can draw a line through our
recognition of the Year of Our Lord, and drop Him conveniently down the memory
hole.
These Protestants are doing a bang-up job for recognizing the importance of
the Bible, and that is a spiritual work of mercy, even though the deny the
efficacy of spiritual works of mercy, per se.
Nor is the entire exhibit free of such oxymorons and self-contradictions. But that
actually adds to its interest for me. I had to bite my tongue an awful lot there
but I was having a tremendously good time. It was FUN!
They have one showcase regarding the Hugenots. I had to stop and soak it in.
Soon a young man and what appeared to be his mother showed up to look over
my shoulder. The grown boy looked innocent enough, and I thought this would
be his chance to have his eyes opened, so I gave it a shot. I said, "It's interesting
how they make it look here like the Hugenots were the recipients of all the
abuse and persecution, since it says they were fairly chased out of France and
into New England. Well, I'm here to say that my great-great grandparents were
chased out of New England BY THE HUGENOTS, who were trying to KILL them.
That is, the Hugenots were doing the persecuting of other Christians! (I did not
explain that my ancestors were Catholic.) They chased my ancestors out of New
England and into French (Catholic) Canada, where they went westward and
eventually emigrated back into the USA in North Dakota, where my mother was
raised. So it works both ways." The young man stared at me with his mouth open.
I had a lot of such things to share with everyone, and I managed, somehow, to
do so without letting on that I was Catholic. That was extra fun! There were
people walking up to me presuming I was the tour guide and I had to convince
them that I was not, and that was NOT EASY.
They really wanted to believe that I was an expert. I was utterly blowing them
away with a little knowledge of Latin. A little Latin goes a long way when you're
talking to people who are convinced that the Whore of Babylon attempted to
keep the commoner "in the dark" by prohibiting the translation of Scripture
into the vernacular. I told them that the Latin Vulgate WAS in the "vernacular,"
because that is the meaning of the word "vulgate!" Vernacular!
They stared at me like I was from Mars.. And they said, "You just told me
that you are not the docent here. How can I believe that?" One guy said,
"How come everyone is whispering here?" And I told him, in a whisper, "Just
make believe you're at the BANK." Boy, was that fun.
I found it most enlightening to see how they have done everything in such a way
so as to make it pro-Protestant. It is really a propaganda project, with highly
slanted editing. I could not find any conspicuously erroneous data or propositions,
but they just omit all the Catholic information, or, that is, the vast majority of it.
In so doing, they effectively provide not a small amount of half-truths, which
in turn lead to erroneous judgments.
A half truth is a whole lie, basically, when logic is involved. For by omitting
important data, the conclusions one is drawn to make are FALSE conclusions,
because the missing truth allows for error to creep in.
For those dedicated readers on CI who have managed to read this far, I have
a reward for you. Call this number: 626-389-5786 and use the codes 1# thru
15# to navigate through 15 recorded messages that describe each of 15
exhibits there at Shepherd of the Hills in Porter Ranch, CA. Do not delay, for
this feature is only open thru Feb. 25th, 2013, or 15 days from today.
EVEN THOUGH all this is going on, with the deplorable state of national
politics and education, this swiss-cheese docuмentary is frankly a breath of
fresh air! How do you like them apples? Apples and cheese - not a bad combo!
HAHAHAHAHA
I had a great time.
I met a man from Iraq. He's been here for 30 years. He says that he is
a direct descendant of King Nebucadnezzar. Now you may be laughing at me,
but I'm really being most serious. Not only was he precisely in appearance a
dead-ringer for the Greatest King in the History of the World, he spoke with a
clarity of thought and precise English diction that belies the heritage of royalty.
My question to him was about the BRICK that is in one display case, which is
on loan from some family trust, and it is a brick that was found in the ruins of
the palace of the ancient king himself. I wanted to know if he could read the
inscriptions on the brick. He said that those markings were in cuniform, and he
was not sufficiently familiar with that genre. But he said if someone gives him
their name, he can translate it into modern Aramaic, or the language of Our
Lord Jesus Christ. I was very pleased to hear a Protestant say "Our Lord Jesus
Christ." That was literally music to my ears. So he had me, as it were, in the
palm of his hand. I stood there in rapt amazement for a half hour listening to
his description of how the prophet David was called to interpret the dream that
King Nebucadnezzar had had, and how the King had just executed all of his
useless mystics who were incapable of making sense out of his dream. I
interjected that if that were me, I'd be afraid that the King was going to kill me
too! He said, that David was not afraid of that. Then he said David told the
King, not to let him know what his dream was, but that David would come back
and tell him all about his dream. This is in the Bible, but it was most interesting
to hear a descendant of the King himself explain what had happened. He
looked at me and seemed to be unsure if he could trust me to be able to
appreciate what he had to say. But I reassured him. This was a living exhibit
if I have ever seen one.
He went on to say how David came back and told the King about the tall
statue with a head of gold, and a chest of bronze and loins of iron and legs of
whatever and feet of clay and the ten toes were the ten nations of the last
days of the world, and so on.
He was most thoroughly convinced that we are in the last days because this
image of the tall statue describes the history of the world up until our day, and
as we speak the nations of the world are being united under one, a reversal of
the Tower of Babel that was built in his own homeland, where he had been born
some 60 years ago. He said that the Lord God had scattered the proud
humanity of that time all over the world, but now we are being re-united in
a virtual One World Society, on a "spiritual level." He said, "spiritual." I offered
to him, "One World Religion," and he said that that is a deception of the devil.
It is the One World Religion of satan that is happening, and he looked to behind
his back as if to be sure that someone wasn't listening who doesn't want him to
say these things.
It was a most enjoyable afternoon.
Topic: Dead Sea Scrolls Exhibit - well worth the experience (Read 653 times)