Java. Cup of Joe. My reason for living. These are all euphemisms for that most delicious of things- a cup of coffee. But how did coffee become the popular pick me up it is today? There is a legend that coffee was first discovered by an Ethiopian goat herder named Kaldi around 850. While out […]
Category: Middle East
The James Ossuary
Today I have chosen to discuss the “James Ossuary”. The infamous bone box was obtained by an antiquities collector in the 1970’s from an unknown source in Jerusalem, and left in a cellar for nearly 30 years, until the owner asked a renowned expert to decipher the inscription on the ends. The inscription translated to […]
The Lost Tribes of Israel
Africa, Ancient (pre BCE), ER, Middle East, Rest of the World
Jacob had twelve sons, and the descendants of those sons became the twelve tribes of Israel. They settled in the promised land, then divided into to two kingdoms. Everyone was living happily, more or less, until the conquest of the northern kingdom. The Bible discusses the lost tribes of Israel in 2 Kings 17:6: “In […]
The Wandering Jew
I tend to write a lot of stuff that walks the line between fact and fiction on this site. Sure, some folks would argue that “hauntings” is pure fiction, but we get far enough into our past and those lines blur significantly. As previously noted, I am a skeptic, but I do enjoy entertaining possibilities. […]
JESUS OF NAZARETH
This article is going to be controversial, and I fully accept that, but I want to establish that this article is meant to engender conversation not provoke an Internet Holy Flame War. What I write here comes from an educated place. I have done an in depth study of several versions of the Bible (NIV, […]