Some Jerusalem visitors “are suddenly transfixed and transformed, infused with visions and apocalyptic pretensions,” one Jerusalemite notes in The Copper Scroll Project: An Ancient Secret Fuels the Battle for the Temple Mount. Set in Israel and on Jerusalem’s Temple Mount, this recent book by Christian Zionist and longtime Israel resident Shelley Neese weaves an intriguing tale around past and present controversies of piety, politics, faith, fact, and fiction.
Neese notes that “Israel’s health ministry records at least fifty patients a year” suffering from this “Jerusalem Syndrome,” a condition that throws into sharp relief disputes swirling around the Copper Scroll. Discovered in 1952, the scroll is among the Dead Sea Scrolls found in the Qumran caves along the Dead Sea beginning in 1947 that revolutionized studies of the Bible and the ancient world. Inscribed on thin copper sheets, the scroll “text screams buried treasure,” Neese writes.
Retired Oklahoma arson investigator Jim Barfield, leader of the Copper Scroll Project (CSP) since 2006, thinks that his interpretation of the scroll will uncover these treasures. In his understanding, the scroll documents nothing less than items rescued from the first Jewish Temple during its destruction by the Babylonians in 586 BCE. With the CSP’s tantalizing prospect of giving Biblical revelation tangible evidence, Neese’s “faith had experienced a cerebral revival.”
As Neese elaborates, the
Copper Scroll Project bred a contagious hope among Bible enthusiasts—a hope that the Bible would definitively be proven true. A hope that laying eyes on the Temple’s lost treasures would restore the faith of all unbelievers. And a hope that Israel, a nation that has known its share of persecution, would, upon receiving remnants of its glorious past be reassured of God’s fidelity to her exceptional covenant.
Yet as Neese discusses, academics such as Robert Cargill have detailed scathing attacks on Barfield’s “sensationalist archeology.” Cargill, for example, denounced Barfield’s “absurd claim” dating the Copper Scroll to the era of the prophet Jeremiah and the first temple’s destruction; all scholarly analysis places the scroll around the first century CE. Cargill noted in 2009 that Israeli antiquity authorities ultimately cut contacts with Barfield, a man with no academic qualifications in archeology or other pertinent fields.
Other individuals appearing in Neese’s book raise similar concerns, such as one American amateur archeologist who illegally explored caves within an Israeli Defense Forces artillery and tank firing range. Equally dismissed by Cargill, Barfield’s onetime mentor Vendyl Jones suggested before his 2010 death that he was the real-life model for the Indiana Jones movie character. Neese writes that Jones “strongly believed that once he recovered the Copper Scroll treasures, the secular and democratic government of Israel would dissolve, and the Sanhedrin would take its rightful governing place.”
Whatever doubts may surround Barfield, such Christian Zionists take sides in conflicts surrounding Israel that are all too real. Neese notes that he once spoke at the Oklahoma state Senate, where several conservative members “expressed their strong hope that a discovery would neutralize the international political pressures placed on Israel.” Many of these pressures concern Jerusalem’s Temple Mount, the former site of the first and second Jewish Temple, the latter destroyed by the Romans in 70 CE.
Muslims have dominated the Temple Mount for most of the centuries following the Muslim conquest of Jerusalem and the wider Holy Land in 638. Umayyad caliphs built the Dome of the Rock and the Al Aqsa Mosque on the mount in 691 and 705, respectively. The second Temple’s remaining Western retaining wall (Kotel) emerged as a Jewish prayer site in 1546 during Jerusalem’s four centuries of Ottoman rule (1517-1917). Neese notes that often “local Muslims treated the area as a refuse dump in order to humiliate Jewish worshipers.”
Today, Neese observes, the “glinting Dome dominates panoramic views of the Old City. Five times a day the Muslim crier silences the competing prayers of Jerusalem’s Jews and Christians.” This demonstrates the Dome of the Rock’s purpose “to symbolize Islam’s victory over her Christian and Jewish enemies,” as indicated by the anti-Christian Quran verses inscribed in the building. “The structure was built directly atop the area identified with Solomon’s Temple” and “designed to eclipse the nearby Church of the Holy Sepulcher.”
Israelis rejoiced when victory in the 1967 Six Day War brought Jerusalem’s Old City with the Temple Mount under Israeli control after Jordanian forces had cruelly occupied the area beginning in Israel’s 1948 war. Although, Neese writes, “Israel annexed the Western Wall and Old City, they feared the righteous indignation of the whole Arab world if they did the same to the Temple Mount.” Thus the Israelis agreed to retain Jordanian Waqf religious authority control over the Mount and prohibit Jewish prayer there. “Six days after the ceasefire, a quarter of a million euphoric Jews congregated at the Western Wall to celebrate Shavuot. A few ignored the warnings and ascended the Temple Mount.”
Neese describes the current Temple Mount status quo such that the
holiest place in the Jewish religion, regrettably, is a hostile environment for Jewish people. On the best of days, non-Muslims are restricted to a two-hour window in the morning and one hour in the afternoon to visit the site. They can access the holy plateau through only one gate while Muslims choose from ten gates. The Waqf criminalizes non-Muslims for praying, prostrating, dancing, kneeling, or visibly mourning. Torah scrolls or Jewish prayer books are confiscated at the entrance.
Hostility from individual Muslims on the Temple Mount further burdens Jews, Neese adds:
If visitors look overtly Jewish, such as wearing a kippa or menorah necklace, they require an Israeli police escort….If Muslims harass Jews on the Temple Mount, the standard procedure for the patrolling Israeli police is to clear the area of non-Muslim visitors. Their priority is to preserve order and protect public safety, but the consequences are disproportionately shouldered by Jewish worshipers.
While Palestinian authorities and even the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) practice ludicrous “Temple Denial” of any Jewish temple history, Jewish connections to the mount are growing. Despite conflicting rabbinical opinions over whether Jews may enter the Temples’ former area, Neese notes that “Jewish visits nearly doubled from 2009 to 2014” to some 11,000 annually. “A new tradition is developing for Israeli brides and grooms, across the religious spectrum, to visit the holy precinct before their nuptials.”
Accordingly, Neese relates that
Jews are revisiting the debates of 1967 and discussing topics that were once taboo: Is the Temple Mount likely to be transferred to a new Palestinian state in final status negotiations? If the Temple Mount is the preeminent holy site for Jews, why is their worship restricted to one of its retaining walls? Why are Israelis disenfranchised at the site? Since Israel captured the complex in 1967, shouldn’t the state exercise that sovereignty, rather than relinquish it?
These discussions also involve Jewish Temple Mount activists like Yehuda Glick, who have made various proposals to rebuild a Jewish temple despite their explosive implications for Muslims and numerous rabbinical objections. “Rather than emphasizing construction of a Third Temple, a seemingly impossible task,” Neese observes, these activists “are now advocating for a less eschatological cause: unrestricted Jewish access to the Mount and the right to worship.” With these “more peaceable and short-range goals, the call for Jewish civil rights on the Temple Mount is inching toward the mainstream.”
Among the colorful characters and conflicts in Neese’s book, Glick’s beliefs and behaviors are perhaps the least outlandish or outrageous. As one report has noted, Glick is a “gentle and benign man who seems sincerely interested in enabling members of all religions to coexist on the mount” with, for example, Third Temple concepts that would respect existing Muslim structures. Although perhaps nothing less than a miracle can realize his peaceful vision, he tells her in the book that the “Temple Mount will be the source of God’s wisdom to radiate out over all the nations.” Then the Temple Mount “will one day be the ultimate source of peace. Jews, Muslims, and Christians will worship there together…all the nations, even Muslims, will turn to the Jewish people for instruction when they finally realize that God is with us.”
mortimer says
I am a Christian Zionist and I am delighted to hear of this further proof of the connection between the Jews and Israel.
Indeed, my personal study of the frequencies of the words ‘Jerusalem, Salem, City of David, Israel, Israelite, all Israel from Dan to Beersheba, Children of Israel, etc.’ (… together occurring over 2,000 times)lead me to conclude that both Old and New Testaments are deeply Zionist books. There is no reference to Palestine in the New Testament and the geographical term Peleshet is used eight times in the Hebrew Bible and Pelishtim (Philistines) occurs mostly in the Book of Judges.
In contrast there is no mention of Palestine in the Koran… only Israel. Daniel Pipes offered $1 million to anyone who can find “Jerusalem” in the Koran.
mortimer says
Addendum: The names “Palestine” and “Palestina” occur four times in the Old Testament portion of the King James Bible (1611), the most influential English translation in history.
What have ye to do with me, O Tyre, and Sidon,
and all the coasts of Palestine? (Joel 3:4a = 4:4a Heb)
The people shall hear, and be afraid;
sorrow shall take hold of the inhabitants of Palestina.
(Exod 15:14)
Rejoice not thou, whole Palestina … (Isa 14:29a)
Howl, O gate; cry, O city,
thou whole Palestina, art dissolved. (Isa 14:31a)
A few English versions since the KJV occasionally use “Palestine.” But the majority use the term “Philistia.” For example: Exod 15:14; Isa 14:29, 31; Joel 3:4; Ps 60:8; 83:7; 87:4; 108:9. [Note 1]
“Palestine” does not occur in the New Testament. Yeshua was born in “the Land of Judah” (Matt 2:6) or “the Land of Israel” (Matt 2:20), and preached throughout “the Land of the Jews” (Acts 10:39) or in “Judea” (Latin name; Matt 1:2; Mark 1:5; John 4:3). Initially, Paul preached the Gospel “throughout all the region of Judea” and ministered to “the churches of Judea” (Acts 26:20; Gal 1:22).
Whence “Palestine”
The oldest known historical reference to “Palestine” is in the work of Greek historian Herodotus (ca. 484–425). He says Palaistine is “part of Syria” along the Mediterranean coast. [Note 2]
palaistine
Some 500 years later, Jewish historian Josephus (AD/CE 37-100) quotes Herodotus in referring to “Syria of Palaistine” and saids “the Syrians that are in Palaistine are circumcised.” Josephus quickly “corrects” Herodotus by noting that the only “inhabitants of Palaistine [who] are circumcised [are] Jews.” This is a key comment: Jews lived in Palaistine. [Note 3]
The 4th century church historian Eusebius (writing in Greek) twice mentions “Palaistine” in his Ecclesiastical History (2.2.6; 7.15.1). He notes that the Mediterranean coastal city Caesarea is in that region (today: central Israel, north of Tel Aviv).
In the Hebrew Bible there is one word behind the various English renderings Palestine, Palestina, and Philistia. It is Peleshet.
peleshet
Note the consonant link between Hebrew and Greek.
Peleshet [Hebrew]: P-L-SH-T
Palaistine [Greek]: P-L-S-T [there is no “sh” sound in Greek]
The geographical term Peleshet is used eight times in the Hebrew Bible (Exod 15:14; Isa 14:29, 31; Joel 4:4[=3:4 Eng], Pss 60:10[=v.8 Eng], 83:8[7], 87:4, 108:10[9]).
The inhabitants of Peleshet are Pelishtim, a plural noun that occurs 287x in the HB (Gen 10:14; 26:1; Exod 13:17, etc.), mostly in Judges, 1 & 2 Samuel, and 1 Chronicles. Lexicons say the root palash is a verb meaning to roll (in dust or ashes) as an act of mourning (Jer 6:26; Ezek 27:30; Mic 1:10). How that relates to the people (rollers, mourners) is not clear.
peleshet
The Pelishtim
From the time the Israelites first entered Canaan, under Joshua’s leadership, the “Philistines” were perennial enemies. Their center of power was the Pentapolis, a cluster of five cities along the coast of southern Canaan: Ashkelon, Ashdod, Ekron, Gath, and Gaza. [See map below.] Their influence, however, stretched farther north up the coast.
The warrior giant Goliath (from the city of Gath) taunted the timid Jewish battle lines with ethnic bluster: “I am the Philistine” [anokhi ha-Pelishti]” (1 Sam 17:8). Interestingly, the Greek Septuagint renders his boast as: “I Am Foreigner” [ego eimi allophulos].
pelishti
Goliath’s boast fires up teenager David’s famous response: “You come against me with sword and spear and javelin; but I come against you in the name of Yahveh Tzeva’ot, the God of the ranks of Israel, whom you have defied” (1 Sam 17:45).
The three main gods in the Pelishtim pantheon were Dagon (Judg 16:23; 1 Sam 5:1-7), Ashtoreth (Judg 10:6; 1 Sam 31:10), and Baal-Zebub (2 Kgs 1:1-6, 16).
Some 200 years after David, Isaiah condemns his fellow Judeans for forsaking God’s “light” and for being “full [of practices] from the East…[abounding] in customs of the aliens.” These include “soothsaying like the Philistines [Pelishtim]” (Isa 2:5-6).
IN THE Septuagint (Greek) Translation of the Bible … Palesine is translated as “FOREIGNERS”
The Septuagint (LXX) one time renders “Peleshet” as a reference to the people: Phulistiim (Philistines, Exod 15:14).
Everywhere else, “Peleshet” is translated by the Greek hoi Allophuloi, “the Foreigners.” This rendering is also reflected in Isaiah 2:5-6 which refers to “the land of the Allophuloi and many strange [allophuloi] children were born to them.”
peleshet — Isa 14:29, 31; Joel 4:4 [3:4 Eng], Ps 59:10 [60:8 Eng], 82:8 [83:7 Eng], 86:4 [87:4 Eng], and 107:10 [108:9 Eng].
Clearly, the Jewish scholars in Egypt who did the LXX considered the Pelishtim as aliens and strangers. Some might view this as an historical irony, since the Israelites arrived in Canaan after the Pelishtim. But the Biblical perspective is that the Land was an eternal gift from God to the Israelites, alone. Everyone else was a foreigner — in His land.
R Russell says
Since Hebrew is written without vowels, it is perhaps a little dishonest to add a vowel which suits
Watchingtheweasels says
“And he said unto him, If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead.”
Truth. In the end, unbelief is about accountability…specifically, the desire to be free from it. A copper scroll or the discovery of artifacts is not going to change what a resurrection did not.
Kepha says
Israel has a right to exist within its historical patrimony; and it is a great irony that many who are loudest about “indigenous rights” condemn this most prominent re-assertion of indigenous rights.
There should be no doubt that the ancient history of ‘Eretz Yisroel and its people is found in the Tanakh. For too long, every assertion that the Bible is merely “fable” has bumped up against archaeological evidence that shows that the land had writing, “Yahvistic” religion, and sites identifiable from the Hebrew Bible. David and Solomon ruled from Jerusalem; and if Solomon’s Temple did not stand on the site now occupied by the Dome of the Rock, it stood somewhere nearby (some archaeologists have argued that the Temple Mount platform was the site of the Roman camp during Vespasian’s and Titus’ war; and that the actual Temple stood a little closer to the area identified as the city of David–I’ll let the experts hash out that one; either way, the Temple was in Jerusalem).
As for the Copper Scroll, it dates from the first century and seems to be a list of locations where treasures were hid during either the first Jewish Revolt (67-70 A.D.) or the Second (135 A.D.). It may give clues to where people tried to hide treasures from Herod’s Temple; but as little bearing on what may have happened to the treasures from Solomon’s.
For the record, Uncle Kepha believes that the Chosen People of God are not gathered in a strip of Middle Eastern real estate, but around Jesus the Messiah and may be either Jewish or Gentile (according to the Bible’s classification). Whether the modern re-establishment of a Jewish polity in ‘Eretz Yisroel is a harbinger of the end times or not is an open question.
somehistory says
The idea in the very last part of the last sentence in the article is from the Bible.
However, the word “moslim” is not in the bible and therefore, ‘moslims’ will not “go with you people, for we have heard that God is with you people.” Anyone “going with” God’s “people”, will be those abiding by the commands and instructions and Laws written in the Bible, which God’s “people” follow and obey
Obviously, for a moslim to “go with God’s people,’ would mean that person is no longer a moslim.
somehistory says
And, writers and others, should stop equating moslims with a “nation.” moslims are not a nationality, nor race or ethnicity.. The moslim is moslim in mind and heart, learned behavior, learned belief, learned ideas and taught to hate, to engage in violence, in arrogant actions that boast their supposed supremacy.
They don’t wish to be “God’s people.”
Raja says
Somehistory,
Islam / Muslim well defined… Thanks…
nicholas william tesdorf says
“Temple Mount will be the source of God’s wisdom to radiate out over all the nations.” Then the Temple Mount “will one day be the ultimate source of peace. Jews, Muslims, and Christians will worship there together…all the nations, even Muslims, will turn to the Jewish people for instruction when they finally realize that God is with us.”
As long as there are Muslims about, there is zero chance of this happy state of affairs ever coming to pass. Other than the capture of Jerusalem in 637 AD by Arab Armies, there is no factual connection between the Muslims and Jerusalem, which is why the Muslims prosecute their claims so ferociously. Muslims are like foxes in charge of the Hen House.
Lydia Church says
This is also paving the way to the one world religion.
1. A Christian cannot worship with anyone from any other faith. It is not the same God.
2. The temple mount, nor the Jewish people, are the source of wisdom for spiritual things. Christians are, the Bible is, and mostly Jesus is.
3. Unless one comes to Jesus for salvation and acknowledges that He is God the Son, there is no salvation for them outside of that.
4. The New Covenant has made the Old obsolete.
5. The antichrist will negotiate for peace regarding that whole temple mount and Israel issue, and many will follow after him for it… to their destruction.
6. There is a future for Israel in Bible prophecy, however. I will not elaborate on it here and now though.
But I will give a hint:
“O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the one who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing! See! Your house is left to you desolate; for I say to you, you shall see Me no more till you say, ‘Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord!’ ”
Matthew 23; 37-39
7. There is evidence for everything in the Bible. Sooner or later that will be unveiled.
8. But don’t believe every ‘scroll.’ There are fakes also.
9. The ‘generation’ is not the same as when Jesus was speaking, but the one which is present when these things ‘begin to happen,’ so this one… regarding the end times.
10. There was a dual prophecy, (which happens often in fact) regarding Jerusalem. But this prophecy above was fulfilled in 70 A.D. The happy ending in the last verse is yet future.
11. There is still much animosity towards the Lord and His people; the Christians, in Israel and around Jerusalem. I have heard about this from Christian missionaries to the Jewish people there. They will have no peace until they turn to Jesus as Messiah. None.
No Jesus, no peace.
Know Jesus, know peace!
12. The antichrist will usher in a false peace.
“I have come in My Father’s name, and you do not receive Me; if another comes in his own name, you will receive him.” John 5; 43
Jesus is making a comparison between Himself; the Christ, and the false messiah, the antichrist. Those who do not receive Jesus, will receive the imposter.
By the way, when pope francis came to the UN in 2015 he introduced himself as the one ‘who comes in his own name.’ So, there you have it! Now don’t go around calling me crazy!
Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God.
Period.
You can’t have the Father without the Son.
There is no ‘dual covenant.’
“Who is the liar, if it is not the one who denies that Jesus is the Christ? This is the antichrist, who denies the Father and the Son. Whoever denies the Son does not have the Father; whoever confesses the Son has the Father as well.” 1 John 2; 22-23
There it is in a nutshell: NOT the same God!!!
True ‘Judaism’ today is called Christianity!
Janet says
Nailed it Lydia! What a great post. ? Thank you!
Guy Forester says
One of the current concerns that I have come across, but is not really publicized in the MSM is the intentional digging under and within the Temple Mount area by the muslims. They appear to be trying to enlarge or make a new mosque. Also, some Jewish archeologists suspect that the muslims are digging around looking for ancient caves and tunnels that may hold ancient Jewish artifacts with the intent to destroy them. Supposedly the Jewish archeologists have access to certain already existing caves and tunnels, but when they attempt to do any kind of work in there, the muslims find ways to block this, including getting court orders. I suspect that there are some truly important ancient artifacts in those tunnels and caves that would add further credibility to the Biblical account of Jerusalem and its history.
Mark Swan says
Jews have lived in that land continuously from more than 3200 years ago,
until the present day, though Jews were not always in political control of
the land, and Jews were not always the majority of the land’s population.
The State of Israel is not solely Jewish, just over 80% are Jewish.
Around 1/3 of the worlds Jews live in Israel.
About half of all Jews there are Mizrachim, descended from Jews who
have been in the land since ancient times.
Most of the rest are Ashkenazic, descended from Jews who were forced
out of Arab countries after Israel was founded or fled persecution in
Eastern Europe starting in the late 1800s, from Holocaust survivors,
or from other immigrants who came at various times.
Arabs who desire to control the Temple Mount in Jerusalem often
deny that Israelite presence there predates Muslim presence that first
appears about 700 AD…Yet…recent archaeological evidence counters
the Arab claim…A 10-year-old Russian boy… recently made an
extraordinary discovery in Jerusalem…Working as a volunteer in
the Temple Mount Sifting Project…he found a 3,000-year-old seal…
engraved limestone about the size of a thimble…with a hole at one
end so it could be hung from a string…from the time of Israel’s Kings
[about 1000 BC]…The artifact was nestled in the hundreds of tons of
earth and rock that had been illegally excavated from below the Temple
Mount in the late 1990s by the Muslim Waqf…the seal confirms the
ancient Jewish presence in Jerusalem—more than a millennium before
the Muslim Dome of the Rock was built.
Scripture places Israelites on the Temple Mount at the time of the
kings of Israel (see 1 Kings)…This evidence supports this.
jule says
Greeks ruled after invading Yisrael way before Rome and made Greek the official language(as they did all over) Everyone could read some Greek. Palaistine is the Greek word that means the same thing in Greek as Yisrael means in Hebrew. Palaistes is Wrestle/struggle.Yisra is wrestle struggle. After Jacob wrestled the old power of the Region, EL he was called Yisra el. In Greek Palaistine means followers of the one who wrestled/struggled. This was Greeks trying to take over, culturally(as all conquerors do) The Septuagint was translated from Hebrew into Greek. Heroditis was a first historian who wrote in Greek. Rome read Greek and when they conquered, they call all the Levant region they controlled Palaestina, with Latin spelling. Philistine is a GREEK name too. It means Crude or without Culture and referred to the Sea People who invaded Gaza even before the Greeks came. They were not even Semitic but from the Aegean. First they tried to to invade Egypt (who called them PLST) but were all captured and sent to Gaza, freed to help Egypt collect taxes from patches of land Egypt still controlled. And to set up the trade Center famous for slave selling as well. Needless to say,Philistines (Peleshet, PLST) were hated and not Semitic. Philistine is not Palestine as is a common mistake for something so far in the past (unless you know old Greek) Palaistine (Palaestina, Palestine) means Yisrael, or followers of the one who wrested/struggled with EL.
Greek used to be the common Language but today, if you really do not understand something, you say “Its Greek to me”. I am really sad so much of history has been lost.