Middle East

  • Magic Beans-  The History of Coffee

    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 with his flock, he noticed that his goats were eating red cherry-like berries off a plant and afterward they were always frolicking and full of energy.  Kaldi tried the fruit and had a similar reaction.  A local monk observed Kaldi and his goats, and took some of the fruit back to his monastery and shared…

  • 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 say the ossuary belonged to James, son of Joseph, brother of Jesus. The box was then offered to a museum in Canada, for display for a period of time. The owner claimed no knowledge of the context in which the ossuary was obtained at source, nor realisation of the historical and archaeological importance of the…

  • The Lost Tribes of Israel

    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 ninth year of Hoshea, the king of Assyria captured Samaria and deported the Israelites to Assyria. He settled them in Halah, in Gozan on the Habor River and in the towns of the Medes.” The Assyrians conquered all of Israel and destroyed the First Temple. Once in exile, this left only the Tribe of…

  • 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. The magical diad of phrasing that is: “What if...”The tale of the Wandering Jew stems from a specific line from the Bible: Matthew 16:28 – “There b [...]

  • 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, KJV, and a terrible translation of WYC), the Torah, the Koran, the Book of Mormon (Latter Day Saints), as well as many different teachings of Buddhism and Hinduism. A good portion of this is also based around the book “Zealot” by Reza Aslan, a noted and respected historian. Also note – There is SO MUCH…