"The seal of the Temech family gives us a direct connection between archeology and the biblical sources and serves as actual evidence of a family mentioned in the Bible," she said. "One cannot help being astonished by the credibility of the biblical source as seen by the archaeological find."

Once again archeology has proved the Bible. When traveling in Israel and the so-called 'occupied territories' one does not need a Michelin Guide or Baedeker. The Bible describes the Holy Land better than any guidebook because it is authoritative and authentic. This is something that any honest, thinking person has to come to terms with. The Bible tells us which people this land belongs to, and the evidence is manifest everywhere. The events and revelation contained therein are sealed by God.

By ETGAR LEFKOVITS

A stone seal bearing the name of one of the families who acted as servants in the First Temple and then returned to Jerusalem after being exiled to Babylonia has been uncovered in an archeological excavation in Jerusalem's City of David, a prominent Israeli archeologist said Wednesday.

Photo: Edwin Trebels courtesy of Dr. Eilat Mazar

The 2,500-year-old black stone seal, which has the name "Temech" engraved on it, was found earlier this week amid stratified debris in the excavation under way just outside the Old City walls near the Dung Gate, said archeologist Dr. Eilat Mazar, who is leading the dig.

According to the Book of Nehemiah, the Temech family were servants of the First Temple and were sent into exile to Babylon following its destruction by the Babylonians in 586 BCE.

The family was among those who later returned to Jerusalem, the Bible recounts.

The seal, which was bought in Babylon and dates to 538-445 BCE, portrays a common and popular cultic scene, Mazar said.

The 2.1 x 1.8-cm. elliptical seal is engraved with two bearded priests standing on either side of an incense altar with their hands raised forward in a position of worship.

A crescent moon, the symbol of the chief Babylonian god Sin, appears on the top of the altar.

Under this scene are three Hebrew letters spelling Temech, Mazar said.

The Bible refers to the Temech family: "These are the children of the province, that went up out of the captivity, of those that had been carried away, whom Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon had carried away, and came again to Jerusalem and to Judah, every one unto his city." [Nehemiah 7:6]... "The Nethinim [7:46]"... The children of Temech." [7:55].

The fact that this cultic scene relates to the Babylonian chief god seemed not to have disturbed the Jews who used it on their own seal, she added.

The seal of one of the members of the Temech family was discovered just dozens of meters away from the Opel area, where the servants of the Temple, or "Nethinim," lived in the time of Nehemiah, Mazar said.

"The seal of the Temech family gives us a direct connection between archeology and the biblical sources and serves as actual evidence of a family mentioned in the Bible," she said. "One cannot help being astonished by the credibility of the biblical source as seen by the archaeological find."

The find will be announced by Mazar at the 8th annual Herzliya Conference on Sunday.

The archeologist, who rose to international prominence for her recent excavation that may have uncovered King David's palace, most recently uncovered the remnants of a wall from Nehemiah.

The dig is being sponsored by the Shalem Center, a Jerusalem research institute where Mazar serves as a senior fellow, and the City of David Foundation, which promotes Jewish settlement throughout east Jerusalem.

First Temple seal found in Jerusalem | Jerusalem Post

Besides the ability to climb to 10,000 feet within minutes, the parent eagle also assists its young in flight. As it flies alongside the eaglet, whirlpools of air formed by its primary feathers provide the eaglet with additional lift.

In speaking of his protective care over the nation of Israel, God states, "... I bore you on eagles' wings ..." (Exodus 19:4). The Hebrew word for bear is nacah, and its primary root means "to lift". This is exactly what the parent eagle does to help its young in flight.

The precise selection and meaning of words used in the Bible is a testimony to both the accuracy and precision of this remarkable book.

From Character Sketches, Volume III (1985), The Institute in Basic Life Principles, August 1995.

'You yourselves have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I bore you on eagles' wings, and brought you to Myself.' (Exodus 19:4)

They have been described as the most important archeological discovery of the 20th century. The media, when referring to these ancient texts, often mentions their association with a religious community. Often, a passing mention is made that the scrolls contain some books that are part of the Old Testament in the Christian and Hebrew Bibles. What is their significance for the Christian faith and for you?

For those who have slow internet connections or are not interested enough yet to take the time to watch or listen, I would like to summarize the most important points.

The Dead Sea Scrolls contain all the Books of the Old Testament of the Christian Bible, except for the Book of Esther. (The likely reason for this omission is explained in the mp3 file below. The content of this book displeased the Essenes, the religious community associated with the Dead Sea Scrolls). What is most important to note is that the Dead Sea manuscripts containing the books of the Old Testament have been scientifically dated and are known to have been written before the time of Christ.

The true significance of this is rarely, if ever, mentioned in the secular press. This is possibly because most writers are unaware of the implication, but most likely because what this reveals makes most people very uncomfortable.

The point to understand is this: that throughout the Old Testament, particularly in the Book of Isaiah, there are many prophecies of Jesus Christ. These prophecies cover all facets of Jesus' life, from His birthplace to His manner of death, His lineage, His title, His miracles, His entry into Jerusalem, His character and His true identity.

These prophecies were given to us mainly to authenticate who Jesus claimed to be, so He would be recognized in the future, when He came to earth, as the true and final Messiah and Redeemer; as well as to prove the divine authorship of the Holy Scriptures. We have started to explain this concept in more detail in our series 'Bible Prophecy' which starts with this article, and to which much will be added, God willing.

These prophecies were so accurate and detailed that liberals and believers of other religions have alleged that they were either written after the facts occurred, or that the Bible has been somehow corrupted.

Fortunately for us God is merciful, He preserves His Word, and diligently provides proof of His existence to those who earnestly seek Him.

In the Dead Sea Scrolls God has given us an authentication of the authentication. First, for authentication of Jesus as the true Messiah, He provided many prophecies that were fulfilled only in Him and no-one else. Now, to a later unbelieving generation, He has proved to us that these prophecies were exactly what they claimed to be, because we now have clear evidence that they were written well before the time Jesus Christ came to this earth. First God authenticated His Son and His Word by the fulfillment of these prophecies. Now He has further sealed this authentication with the stamp of time and history. Nothing can now change this.

This is best illustrated by the Isaiah scroll. The Book of Isaiah contains prophecies of Christ's character and nature, His suffering and atoning work for us, His crucifixion, His piercing, His God nature, His miracles and His physical birth, among others.

It is amazing that this Isaiah scroll has been dated to between 100 and 250 years before the birth of Christ, the very same person whom it portrays! The text is virtually identical to what we can read today in our Bibles:

Gleason Archer states that the Isaiah copies of the Qumran community 'proved to be word for word identical with our standard Hebrew Bible in more than 95 percent of the text. The 5 percent of variation consisted chiefly of obvious slips of the pen and variations in spelling'

Millar Burrows concludes: 'It is a matter of wonder that through something like a thousand years the text underwent so little alteration. As I said in my first article on the scroll, "Herein lies its chief importance, supporting the fidelity of the Masoretic tradition"'. Cited in Evidence for Christianity, Josh McDowell, Nelson Reference and Electronic, pages 115-116.

If this makes you uncomfortable, it should.

Another deception by liberal interpreters and other critics of the Bible is that the New Testament is myth. These people have chosen to target certain phrases, use of language, idioms, etc., which they allege were in common usage only long after Christ lived, so the New Testament, including the Epistles of Paul, must have been written long after the time that the writers of these books claimed.

However, the other manuscripts among the Dead Sea Scrolls, those not containing Biblical texts, opened wide a door to the culture, thoughts, ideas, customs and religious practices of the Jews living at the time of Christ. This new information showed clearly that the Books of the New Testament were not out of context to the time of Christ.

Please take time to delve into this more deeply. The video below is an excellent, basic and easy to understand introduction to the Dead Sea Scrolls and is less than 5 minutes long.

The audio file is approximately 60 minutes in length. It is addressed to a university level audience. It is rich in detail and beautifully explains the discovery and historical and spiritual significance of these precious and important documents. We urge you to commit yourselves to this study. You will certainly benefit.

Video: Importance of the Dead Sea Scrolls by Randall Niles.

[googlevideo=http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3517183900667880734&hl=en]

Randallniles.com

MP3 audio: The Dead Sea Scrolls and Their Significance for Christianity by James Hamilton, Ph D.

[blip.tv ?posts_id=365873&dest=-1]

It is reported that among African Muslims: "42 percent of the new believers come to Christ through visions, dreams, angelic appearances and hearing God's voice."

Humankind can do all it can to discredit the Holy Scriptures, but as it is said in the video "... The Book can never be lost...". Furthermore, Christ has given us the final proof of His life and resurrection, which is the seal of the Holy Spirit living in our hearts after we accept Jesus as Lord. The evidence of this is a transformed life, such as we see with Khalil.

God is working in the world today as He has always done, in a personal manner, responding to the earnest seeker as he or she cries out to God. In the Bible, God's manner of dealing with mankind in this, the Church age, is clearly described in the Book of Acts. What you can read about in Acts you will also see in this video. God does not change.

May this video be a great blessing to you!

[googlevideo=http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-8646631630074476867&hl=en]

What most of these converts have in common is a sincere and deep hunger for God. The Bible makes it clear that God will abundantly bless the sincere seeker.

This is a scripture that many of these believers now quote as relevant to them in light of their experience:

"It will come about after this That I will pour out My Spirit on all mankind; And your sons and daughters will prophesy, Your old men will dream dreams, Your young men will see visions. "Even on the male and female servants I will pour out My Spirit in those days.
(Joel 2:28-29)

Please also read this article by Joel Rosenberg about Muslim converts to Christianity in what were once Islamic strongholds.

Here is a testimony of another such conversion after a vision of Jesus Christ in a dream:

Monday, June 11, 2007
By Mark Ellis
Senior Correspondent, ASSIST News Service
GHANA, WEST AFRICA (ANS) -- It was a hot, breezeless afternoon when a young Muslim man arrived at the mission center and demanded an audience with the pastor.

“I directed him to see one of my co-workers,” says Pastor Yusif, a national missionary active in West Africa. “But he insisted it was personal and wanted to see me.”

The man introduced himself as Ahmed, 33, from a strong Muslim background. In fact, he said he memorized the entire Koran by the age of 11 and later became a Koranic instructor and musician.

Despite Ahmed’s achievements, he told Pastor Yusif about a profound emptiness at the core of his being. He was looking for God but doubted he existed. Internal anxieties robbed him of peace. After his wife left him, he struggled to find meaning in life.

“I felt like cotton,” Ahmed told Pastor Yusif. “I would go wherever the wind blew me, but I was confused and afraid.”

As time passed, Ahmed started to isolate himself. He stayed in his room for days, rarely venturing out. In his desperation, he asked God to speak to him and show him if he is real.

One night a vivid dream terrified him. “A huge man appeared to him in the dream and said he had to cut off his head and put on a new one,” Pastor Yusif reports. “The man was holding a long sword. Ahmed observed that the handle of the sword had a cross.”

When Ahmed awakened, he suddenly realized the man meant for him to take off his Muslim head and replace it with a Christian head. The man wanted him to become a Christian, but how could he do that? He could never become an infidel! If he did that, he would be ostracized or killed. His family and friends would never forgive him. He would lose all his rights of inheritance and privilege.

The more Ahmed tried to forget about the dream, the more it returned to him. He decided he must find a Christian pastor.

And so there he was, staring face to face at Pastor Yusif. “I want to be a Christian; can you help me to be a Christian?” Ahmed asked.

Pastor Yusif shared the way of salvation, and Ahmed prayed to receive Jesus as his Savior and Lord.

“Even if I die poor, I am happy,” Ahmed exclaimed, with a huge smile on his face, “because I know where I’m going. I know Jesus is real.”

Pastor Yusif gave Ahmed a New Testament and told him to memorize the Book of Matthew, chapters five through seven. Ahmed came to see Pastor Yusif the next day, and proudly recited all three chapters.

“For the past four weeks, he attended every service,” Pastor Yusif notes. “He sings beautiful songs to honor the Lord Jesus and he wants to be an evangelist.”

Pastor Yusif believes Ahmed’s life is at risk, and maintains concern that Muslim leaders may try to harm the new convert. “Pray that Ahmed’s faith in Christ will grow and the Lord will use him to touch the lives of many for his Kingdom,” he says. “Pray that the Lord gives us wisdom to disciple him and get him deeply rooted in the Word of God, and that he becomes a vibrant evangelist.”

“Pray also that the Lord would protect him from militants and would supply the support he needs for the next 12 months, and for all the other “Ahmeds” who are hiding and sitting on the fence to come out boldly and follow Jesus Christ.”

Muslim in West Africa Led to Christ through a Dream

GAZA CITY (ANS) -- “Caught amid the infighting between Hamas and Fatah and Israel’s retaliation for rockets launched at its southern cities is an easily overlooked segment of the population: Christians number only 2,000 among 1.5 million in the Gaza Strip—less than 1 percent of the population.”

This was revealed recently by Nicole Jansezian in a story posted on the Israel Today (www.israeltoday.co.il) website.

She added that “if you break it down even further, evangelical Christian’s number far less than that.”

Hanna Massad (Photo: BBC)

“We are a minority of minorities,” Hanna Massad, pastor of Gaza Baptist Church, told Israel Today. “It is really difficult. The Christian community here is 2,000 including Catholic, Greek Orthodox and evangelical Christians.”

The six-floor Gaza Baptist Church, the only evangelical church in the Gaza Strip, ministers to 150 to 200 people.

“In the latest round of fighting, an Israeli bomb landed on a Hamas office just 300 feet from Massad’s home shattering all of the windows,” Jansezian continued in her story. “No one was injured, but the consequences of a war they are not involved in are continually getting closer to home.

“Frequently, one Palestinian faction or the other commandeers the church’s buildings to use as a lookout point. Once, a library worker was literally caught in the crossfire and shot in the back. He has since recovered.

Outside of the six-floor building of the Gaza Baptist Church

“The church driver wasn’t as fortunate. The 22-year-old newlywed was shot and killed in a Hamas-Fatah shootout, an innocent bystander.

“Not long ago, militants carried through on a threat to bomb the Gaza Bible Society where Massad’s wife is a director. Now the church itself has been threatened.”

Massad said, “There is a small militant group that hates everything western and Christian and in their minds, they are trying to clean up the city. They are a narrow-minded group and the government is unable to control it.”

But, Jansezian said that the Gaza church isn’t playing victim to the circumstances. Instead the Christians are running clinics, libraries, bringing humanitarian aid to the needy and carrying on meeting. They meet openly at the church.

“One thing that strikes me is that you don’t hear negative language from them,” Labib Madanat, director of the Bible Society in Israel and Palestinian territories, told us. “Their language is positive, a language of mission: ‘What is my role as a believer; what can I do in this situation?’”

“I’m not saying it is not hard, that they don’t have fears,” he said. “There are troubles, threats, danger and sometimes they are down. But the overall sum is they are a group of people who are resilient, totally dependent on the Lord and positively thinking of what God wants them to be in the Gaza Strip.”

Her story continued by saying, “Madanat said the church worldwide needs to encourage believers in Gaza. Compared to believers in the West Bank, the believers in Gaza are more ‘focused on what God wants them to do in this situation. Gaza is much more difficult. The sense of need of total dependency on the Lord is much stronger.’”

The American Consulate has been warning all Americans to get out of Gaza because of the constant dangers. Massad, who also holds American citizenship, was asked by the consulate if they want to leave.

“Without any hesitation I said no,” he explained. “This is where we feel God wants us to be at this time and it is a privilege to be in the midst of God’s will.”

Gaza’s forgotten Christians

It's highly doubtful that Dr. Justus Reid Weiner's chilling forecast of the impending demise of Christian communities under Palestinian Authority jurisdiction will generate much outrage or uproar in Christendom.

If, as expected, it fails to do so, it will be more than a shame. At the very least, Weiner's words of warning ought to ring powerful alarm bells among overseas coreligionists of local Christians.

As reported in Tuesday's Jerusalem Post, Weiner - a human rights lawyer and scholar-in-residence at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs - painted a bleak picture of the travails of the PA's fast-dwindling Christian enclaves. He went on to predict that in some 15 years, Muslim harassment and hounding will lead to the disappearance of these communities. Christian presence will shrink to be a smattering of westerners, assorted clerics and church representatives, but grassroots Christian-Arabs will have dispersed.

An ongoing exodus is already under way, as many thousands of Christians emigrate to the West.

Read the full story here: Christians' Plight | Jerusalem Post

A young Iranian man, depressed and without hope, met Jesus Christ in a vision. The Savior extended His hand and invited him to take hold, promising that his "life would change forever." He took Jesus' hand and, as he describes it, "waves of electricity flowed through my body over and over again. I wept for the first time since I was a child and joy filled my heart."

It is estimated that almost half of Muslim converts to Christianity in the Middle east and Africa do so through dreams and visions. Sometimes these occur with no prior contact with Christians.

God is working to redeem His people. Open your heart to Him!

[googlevideo=http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7323105779374559629&hl=en]