The Associated Press reports that, “Egypt said Tuesday that its archaeologists have unearthed a Ptolemaic-era temple dating back more than 2,000 years, that may have been dedicated to the ancient cat goddess, Bastet.”

The Supreme Council of Antiquities said the temple’s ruins were discovered in the heart of the Mediterranean port city of Alexandria, the seat of the dynasty founded by Alexander the Great in the 4th century B.C., that ended with the suicide of Cleopatra 300 years later.

The statement said the temple was thought to belong to Queen Berenice, wife of King Ptolemy III who ruled Egypt in the 3rd century B.C.

It is an exciting find. Mohammed Abdel-Maqsood, the Egyptian archaeologist who led the excavation team, believes “the discovery may be the first trace of the long-sought location of Alexandria’s royal quarter.” We’ve seen elsewhere recently that much of this part of Alexandria is now lying in the harbor.

Zahi Hawas, Egypt’s chief archaeologist, said the temple may have been used in later times as a quarry and that this was evidenced by the large number of missing stone blocks.

This is not unusual, obviously. Many ancient temples ended up as quarries. Those that did not survived only because they were turned into churches or were in remote areas. Alexandria is most definitely not remote. We are further told that this temple “was found in the Kom el-Dekkah neighborhood near the city’s main train station and is also the site of a Roman-era amphitheater and well preserved mosaics.”

Unfortunately, the ancient city lies directly beneath the modern city and maps of ancient Alexandria are incomplete and speculative as a result. Finds such as this, which illuminate the ancient city, are exciting. It leaves you wondering what else is lying under the streets, or in the harbor, waiting to be discovered.

I’m sure I’m far from the only one who would like to see Cleopatra’s Alexandria come to light.

It’s not often a piece of Norse sculpture shows up. They pull classical items out of the Mediterranean all the time, or dig them out of the ground in one of the many areas once belonging to the Roman Empire. But Norse items are a rarity. So it’s all the more remarkable when they find something this beautiful. This has been called the Odin from Lejre. Roskilde Museum revealed him on Friday November 13. He was unearthed during excavations in Gammel Lejre (Old Lejre). As the Roskilde Museum tells us, this area is central to Denmark’s early history:

It is here, according to the Norse literature and medieval chronicles, that we find the beginning of the story of the Kingdom of Denmark, which was ruled by the legendary royal family the Scyldings. This was in the period before the conversion of the Danes to Christianity and the transformation of the country to a European medieval state under Harald Bluetooth and his successors.

Though the Scyldings are a myth, as with many myths there is a kernel of truth to the stories. This was a seat of early Danish royal authority, as some of the finds, including a massive hall 60m in length, attest. And then there is this beautiful piece:

The find, a small figure only 2 cm high, is of Odin sitting on his throne. That it is the Nordic gods’, the Æsir’s, supreme god who is depicted, is clearly shown by the two birds sitting on the armrests of the chair. They are Odin’s two ravens, Hugin and Munin, that flew out every day and returned home in the evening to tell Odin all that had happened. The elaborately made chair is Odin’s throne or high seat known as Hlidskjalf. The seat gave Odin magic powers and from it he could see over the whole world. These attributes are connected to Odin in his capacity as the all-seeing and all-knowing god. Up until very recently, the representations of Odin as the ruler, to a greater extent than the warrior, have only been known from later traditions, such as the national romantic interpretations of history during Denmark’s Golden Age or the more modern Valhalla comics. Now for the first time, with the coming to light of Odin from Lejre, we can gain an insight into how the Vikings themselves viewed their supreme god. The figurine is cast in silver, and decorated with gilding and inlay of niello, a black-coloured metal alloy. It is richly detailed and a very beautiful piece of craftsmanship.

There has been discussed the possibility that this is Freya and not Odin (note the shawl and the strings of beads). On the other hand, the figure seems to be one-eyed unless the damage to the left eye is incidental. Either way, there is some explaining to do. Either what is Freya doing on Odin’s high seat, or what is Odin doing wearing what looks like a shawl? Viking Rune points out that “Odin might have been depicted in a dress, since in Norse mythology he is known for “unmanly” magical practices.” Take a look for yourself at the detail in this video:

Exciting news from Alexandria:  They have pulled a pylon of the temple of Isis from the harbor, where it ended up after earthquakes in the fourth century. The pylon is red granite from quarries in Aswan, 700 miles south of Alexandria. It is a single slab weighing 9 tons and it is 7.4 feet tall. It once stood at the entrance to the temple of Isis, next to Cleopatra’s palace, and is going to be used now as the centerpiece of an underwater museum being built to showcase the sunken city.

We are told that the pylon ” is the first major artifact extracted from the harbor since 2002, when authorities banned further removal of major artifacts from the sea for fear it would damage them.”

In recent years, excavators have discovered dozens of sphinxes in the harbor, along with pieces of what is believed to be the Alexandria Lighthouse, or Pharos, which was one of the seven wonders of the ancient world.

“The tower is unique among Alexandria’s antiquities, we believe it was part of the complex surrounding Cleopatra’s palace,” Egypt’s top archaeologist Zahi Hawass said, as the crane gently placed the pylon on the harbor bank. “This is an important part of Alexandria’s history and it brings us closer to knowing more about the ancient city.”

The palace and other buildings and monuments now lay strewn on the seabed in the harbor of Alexandria, the second largest city of Egypt. Since 1994, archaeologists have been exploring the ruins, one of the richest underwater excavations in the Mediterranean, with some 6,000 artifacts. Another 20,000 objects are scattered off other parts of Alexandria’s coast, said Ibrahim Darwish, head of the city’s underwater archaeology department.

Hawass has already launched another high-profile dig connected to Cleopatra. In April, he said he hopes to find the long-lost tomb of Antony and Cleopatra — and that he believes it may be inside a temple of Osiris located about 30 miles (50 kilometers) west of Alexandria.

I read an interesting story in the New York Times this morning, Killer Tsunamis. We’ve all seen on TV how terrifying tsunamis can be. How much worse must it have been for Bronze Age peoples who had no idea such things existed let alone any sort of warning system.

James Cameron (of whom you’d expect better) and Canadian filmmaker Simcha Jacobovici, in their recent television special, The Exodus Decoded, argued that the volcanic eruption of Santorini (ancient Thera) was responsible, that it was a tsunami that destroyed the Pharaoh’s army.[1] The producers assure the viewer that “Exodus Decoded solves the mystery of the events of the Biblical Exodus for the first time ever,” a claim that has been made before (reminds me of those PC vs. Mac commercials), and in any event, the assertions made by Cameron do not fit the chronology, as the Exodus is traditionally supposed to date from the reign of Ramesses II (1279-1213 BCE) while Thera erupted, according to radiocarbon dating, c. 1720 BCE (for some reason this most recent article gives 1630 and 1550 B.C., which would still exclude Cameron’s hypothesis from consideration). As Manfred Bietak points out in his recent review of the special, the eruption could have occurred anywhere between that date and 1500, or even later, and that “Jacobovici’s contention holds water, so to speak, only if 1500 B.C.E. proves correct.” Jacobovici and Cameron jettison Ramesses by resorting to the old argument that the Hyksos were, in fact, the Israelites,[2] which then allows the Ten Plagues to be blamed on the eruption as well.

But here other flaws appear in the Cameron/Jacobovici’s thesis: the biblical account refers to the “Way of the Philistines,” yet there were no Philistines in the Hyksos period. And the first attestation of Israel itself comes only in the 12th century with the Merneptah stela. [3] The Philistines would come only with the “Sea Peoples” – again in the 12th century – three hundred years too late, and the argument for the biblical plagues, Bietak asserts, is way off base as analyses show that sediment from the eruption did not enter Egypt at all, but was blown northwestward across Asia Minor. “The dark clouds never reached Syria, Palestine, or Egypt.” [4] In the final analysis, as Robin Lane Fox points out, “we still do not know if biblical stories happened at the places in question.”

Indeed, we do not know if they happened at all, but that’s another story altogether.

Notes:

[1] Tony Allen-Mills, “Volcanic Eruption ‘Triggered Biblical parting of Red Sea’,” The Sunday Times, August 6, 2006. See also The Exodus Decoded website at http://theexodusdecoded.com/index1.jsp The special aired on September 7, 2006. See for a discussion of the dating of the Thera eruption a study from Cornell University, “Overview and Assessment of the Evidence for the Date of the Eruption of Thera” at http://www.arts.cornell.edu/dendro/thera.html

[2] Albright argues that Jacob came to Egypt in Hyksos times and speaks of the “bitter years of state slavery which followed the triumph of Amosis over the Hyksos in the third quarter of the sixteenth century BC.” See idem, Yahweh and the Gods of Canaan, A Historical Analysis of Two Contrasting Faiths (Winona Lake, Indiana: Eisenbrauns, 1994 [1968]), 153-154.

[3] The Merneptah stela is variously dated. Michael Hasel, “Israel in the Merneptah Stela,” Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research 296 (1994), 45-61, discusses the various views held of the inscription’s mention of Israel. Following K.A. Kitchen (1987; 1992) Hasel dates the stela to 1207 (Low Chronology). Hasel’s own findings are that the inscription “places Israel within Canaan, indicating its existence within that region as a people and not as a city-state or territory” and that the use of prt (seed) gives “additional support to the understanding that Israel functioned as an agriculturally-based/sedentary socioethnic entity in the late 13th century B.C., one that is significant enough to be included in the military campaign against the political powers in Canaan.”

[4] Manfred Bietak, “The Volcano Explains Everything – Or Does It?” BAR November/December 2006, 60-65. Bietak is currently Professor of Egyptology at the University of Vienna and Director of the Austrian Archaeological Institute in Cairo and has led Austrian expeditions at two critical sites, Avaris (modern Tell el-Daba), the capital of the Hyksos period; and of neighboring Piramesse, the Nineteenth Dynasty capital of Egypt. The Hyksos Era closes with the Egyptian capture of Avaris, an event Bietak says can be dated to between 1532 and 1512 BCE. See idem, “Egypt and Canaan During the Middle Bronze Age,” BASOR 281 (1991), 48. Egypt and Canaan During the Middle Bronze Age,”

I think most Pagans today are probably aware of Christian apologetics. Apology is from the Greek word for “defense” (apologia). Apologetics are as old as orthodox Christianity and they are as popular (and necessary) today as they were in the second century. Not a few of them are aimed at Bart Ehrman, which is reason alone to read his books, if you haven’t already.

Christians constantly feel the need to justify their religion. And why not? Something as derivative and cobbled-together (not to say ramshackle) needs to be defended and justified. The whole rotten edifice comes crumbling down the moment you start applying the historical record to the myth and Christians have long been aware of this fact. The purpose of apologetic works is to enable Christians to sleep free of doubts. “There is no reason to panic!” they say. “Everything you believe is true, and we will prove it to you!”

Currently, the Catholic Answers Project is offering a terrific gift for those who contribute hundreds of dollars to the campaign to defend “The Truth”:

Handbook of Catholic Apologetics—by Peter Kreeft and Ronald Tacelli. Unbelievers, doubters and skeptics continue to attack the truths of Christianity. Handbook of Catholic Apologetics categorizes and summarizes all the major arguments in support of the main Christian beliefs. Also included is a Protestant-friendly treatment of Catholic-Protestant issues. The Catholic answers to Protestant questions show how Catholicism is the fullness of the Christian faith.

Handbook of Catholic Apologetics is full of the wisdom and wit, clarity and insight of philosophers Peter Kreeft and Ronald Tacelli. This is an informative and valuable guidebook for anyone looking for answers to questions of faith and reason. Whether you are asking the questions yourself or want to respond to others who are, here is the resource you have been waiting for.

I’ve read this particular book. And I can tell you a few things about it here. It may impress the “faithful” who need desperately to be reassured that they haven’t wasted their lives on this superstition, but it won’t convince those who live in an evidence-based world. Read on:

Christians recognize the need for a historical Jesus: “Without a historical Christ there is no Christianity.” So say Kreeft and Tacelli in their Handbook of Christian Apologetics.[1] Christians need, after all, as Paul early recognized, the incarnation, death and resurrection of Jesus.[2] At the same time, many Christians (and it would be dangerous here to generalize too much) do not want a historical Jesus or rather, they want a specific historical Jesus. Why? A historical Jesus is a direct challenge to the primacy and inerrancy of scripture, not to mention the literality held so dear by “traditionalists,” or as they are sometimes called, “reconstructionists.” Christians are at times willing to explore the historical background of Jesus but this seldom serves any purpose other than finding proof for what is already accepted as fact. That is, any historical Jesus must match exactly the Jesus of Christian belief, doctrine and dogma (not necessarily the Jesus portrayed in the Gospel accounts, for as we will see, these are not identical). What we end up with is a case of “feel free to research the historical Jesus as long as you use these sources and come up with these conclusions.” We must take to heart the warning of E.P. Sanders, who notes that many New Testament scholars write books about Jesus in which they discover that he corresponds with their own version of Christianity.[3]

Kreeft & Tacelli offer many amusing claims, if you’re interested, including the following:

• that no bliblical claims have been disproved by archaeology.[4] Their own claim is demonstrably untrue, yet they make it all the same and they manage to do it with a straight face. Their faith does not allow them to admit to the lie. They have to believe that archaeology cannot disprove biblical claims.
• against the lack of archaeological or epigraphic evidence for the Exodus is offered the weak protest of Kreeft and Tacelli that the lack of physical remains constitutes only “unanswered questions, not disproofs”[5] Nice try at a save there, but it doesn’t work. Archaeologists apply the same standards to any movement of ancient peoples, and the “Dorian Migrations” once widely believed in have also gone the way of the buffalo, as have the “Sea Peoples”.
• Kreef and Tacelli assert that “Christians accept everything in traditional (biblical) Judaism, and regard it as not only true but divinely revealed.”[6]This is not true. If it were, Christians would be Jews. But they’re not. They’ve superseded Judaism and you cannot supersede Judaism without setting aside its beliefs.[7]

Against Pagan veneration for the old, Christianity brought the new. Kreeft and Tacelli, however, authors of the Handbook of Christian Apologetics, caution against a strictly chronological approach when arguing with non-Christians. “The problem here is telling truth with a clock or calendar, confusing “true” with “new.” By this standard, Marxism is one of the most progressive religions. If, on the other hand, we use a standard other than simply happening later in time to judge evolutionary advancement, this brings us back to a nonrevolutionary criterion.” They do not, however, deny that Christianity is superior to all that came before. Indeed not. It is the very purpose of their handbook to prove just this.[8]

Jonathan Hirsch says: “Nothing in human nature…suggests the inevitability of the notion that there is only one god,”[8] and I agree, whatever logical or philosophical circumlocutions and acrobatics modern day apologists employ to the contrary. Kreeft and Tacelli, offer a prime example of these acrobatics with their “Twenty Arguments for the Existence of God”[9]

In the end, we might turn Mark 8:18 around: “Do you have eyes but fail to see, and ears but fail to hear?” In Christianity, it’s not about seeing and hearing so that you may believe. It’s about believing so that you can see and hear what you’re supposed to see and here. If we rely on seeing and hearing, that belief isn’t going to come. And that’s why Kreef and Tacelli published their book. They want to shore up that belief so that you can keep hearing and seeing the right things – the orthodox things. You can tweak the evidence; you can ignore it; you can put a spin on it. But in the end, you can’t make the evidence go away and no amount of apologia can obscure it for anyone willing to put faith aside long enough to actually examine the evidence.

Notes:

[1] Peter Kreef and Ronald K. Tacelli, Handbook of Christian Apologetics (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1994), 213. Messrs Kreef and Tacelli are professors of philosophy at Boston College.

[2] Paul recounts the consequences of Christ not being resurrected at 1 Cor. 15:12-19. Obviously, if Jesus is not the Christ, things are just as serious.

[3] E. P. Sanders, Jesus and Judaism (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1985), 330, n. 148.

[4] Kreef and Tacelli (1994), 216.

[5] Kreeft and Tacelli (1994), 217.

[6] Kreeft and Tacelli (1994), 357. Full quote: “In comparing Christianity with other religions, the relation between Christianity and Judaism is in a class by itself. For Christians accept everything in traditional (biblical) Judaism, and regard it as not only true but divinely revealed.”

[7] If one is looking for continuity within Judaism it will be difficult to find; if one extends the search to include Christianity, the task becomes well nigh impossible. I would go so far as to assert that as a term Judeo-Christian is not only misleading, it is inaccurate. At the least, as Mark S. Smith points out, the “so-called ‘Judeo Christian tradition’” is “itself a Christian ideological construct of sorts.” See Mark S. Smith, “Ugaritic Studies and Israelite Religion: A Retrospective View,” Near Eastern Archaeology 65 (2002), 19.

[8] Kreeft and Tacelli (1994), 354.

[9] Kreeft and Tacelli (1994), 47-48.