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4th Israel Solidarity Event

Message of Rev. Helmut Loeffler to the participants of the 4th Israel Solidarity Event

Monday, January 26, 2009


Dear Friends of Israel,

We send special greetings from Jerusalem to all of you who are assembled this afternoon in the Makati Park and Gardens to show solidarity with the people and land of Israel.

It was our vision in the early nineties to kindle a flame in the hearts of the Filipino Christians to remind them of their Jewish roots and heritage. From the crowd here today, it appears that Mount Zion Center together with other Israel-oriented organizations were successful.

Israel today is becoming more and more isolated from all the other nations in the world. Therefore, we who are followers of Yeshua must identify and associate with the people and land of Israel stronger than ever.

Paul in the letter to the Romans reminded us, the followers of Yeshua, that because we have received so many spiritual things from the Jews, we now are debtors to them and are to help them also in material things.

In the letter to the Ephesians, Paul reminds us, the followers of Yeshua, that through Yeshua we are part of the Commonwealth of Israel and therefore must dutifully exercise our rights and privileges as citizens. And that’s exactly what you are doing today by being part of this solidarity rally.

We urge you to continue to express your solidarity as you meet with your neighbors and friends in the coming days, weeks, months and years.

Shalom from Jerusalem!

Revs. Helmut & Erika Loeffler
Mount Zion Center
Jerusalem

Esther Jungreis in Manila

Esther Jungreis

Olivet Discourse

Roger Walkwitz, Founder of the Asia-Pacific Messianic Fellowship will be in Metro Manila On December 7, 2008. Catch him in this Second Matthew Study Series focusing on the Discourse of Yeshua in the Mount of Olives. Mount Zion Center have hosted the first entitled Sermon on the Mount last August and will continue to help in facilitating in coordination with APMF and Metro Strata Torah Community.

In the meantime, the Petah Tikvah Asia-Pacific Edition is now available. Just Contact Mount Zion Center or APMF to reserve copies.

Wendy Lipton's Donation of Books

Dear Wendy,

Thank you very much for sharing your precious books to the Mount Zion Center library. Your passion towards the Land of Israel, your people, your Torah and your Messiah have reached even the farthest isles through your wonderful books that we will share with our people.

This Shabbat we will pray and toast for your good health, and for Hashem's abiding protection and Shalom!

Mount Zion Center Manila

Dear Mike, Jun & MZCI Family,

Shalom with love from Zion! By Abba's grace, HE has touched a "daughter of Zion", Wendy Lipton, an American Jew who made aliyah here in Jerusalem, to donate all her collection of books, preaching dvd's and musical tapes to our MZCI Library. Baruch haShem Adonai! You get all the best inventories, esp. Bibles and those "All about Israel." Wendy is a dear sister. She has accummulated a lot of books and preaching tapes throughout the years and her flat-mate, Shira, recommended to Wendy to just donate all her inventories to our library, to bless more readers in our land. Baruch haShem Adonai for causing a true-blooded "daughter of Zion" from Jerusalem - to be our third library donor! We always remember you in our Shabbat and personal prayers, esp. for Abba's anointing and favor upon your "HaYesod seminar". Blessings and love to our MZCI and Torah family!

Only by Abba's grace,

Ate Cez

Oldest Hebrew Inscription Unearthed

AP
Friday, October 31, 2008

HIRBET QEIYAFA, Israel — An Israeli archaeologist digging at a hilltop south of Jerusalem believes a ceramic shard found in the ruins of an ancient town bears the oldest Hebrew inscription ever discovered, a find that could provide an important glimpse into the culture and language of the Holy Land at the time of the Bible.

The five lines of faded characters written 3,000 years ago, and the ruins of the fortified settlement where they were found, are indications that a powerful Israelite kingdom existed at the time of the Old Testament's King David, says Yossi Garfinkel, the Hebrew University archaeologist in charge of the new dig at Hirbet Qeiyafa.

Other scholars are hesitant to embrace Garfinkel's interpretation of the finds, made public on Thursday.

The discoveries are already being wielded in a vigorous and ongoing argument over whether the Bible's account of events and geography is meant to be taken literally.

Hirbet Qeiyafa sits near the modern Israeli city of Beit Shemesh in the Judean foothills, an area that was once the frontier between the hill-dwelling Israelites and their enemies, the coastal Philistines.

The site overlooks the Elah Valley, said to be the scene of the slingshot showdown between David and the Philistine giant Goliath, and lies near the ruins of Goliath's hometown in the Philistine metropolis of Gath.

A teenage volunteer found the curved pottery shard, 6 inches by 6 inches (15 centimeters by 15 centimeters), in July near the stairs and stone washtub of an excavated home.

It was later discovered to bear five lines of characters known as proto-Canaanite, a precursor of the Hebrew alphabet.

Carbon-14 analysis of burnt olive pits found in the same layer of the site dated them to between 1,000 and 975 B.C., the same time as the Biblical golden age of David's rule in Jerusalem.

Scholars have identified other, smaller Hebrew fragments from the 10th century B.C., but the script, which Garfinkel suggests might be part of a letter, predates the next significant Hebrew inscription by between 100 and 200 years.

History's best-known Hebrew texts, the Dead Sea scrolls, were penned on parchment beginning 850 years later.

The shard is now kept in a university safe while philologists translate it, a task expected to take months.

But several words have already been tentatively identified, including ones meaning "judge," "slave" and "king."

The Israelites were not the only ones using proto-Canaanite characters, and other scholars suggest it is difficult — perhaps impossible — to conclude the text is Hebrew and not a related tongue spoken in the area at the time.

Garfinkel bases his identification on a three-letter verb from the inscription meaning "to do," a word he said existed only in Hebrew.

"That leads us to believe that this is Hebrew, and that this is the oldest Hebrew inscription that has been found," he said.

Other prominent Biblical archaeologists warned against jumping to conclusions.

Hebrew University archaeologist Amihai Mazar said the inscription was "very important," as it is the longest proto-Canaanite text ever found. But he suggested that calling the text Hebrew might be going too far.

"It's proto-Canaanite," he said. "The differentiation between the scripts, and between the languages themselves in that period, remains unclear."

Some scholars and archeologists argue that the Bible's account of David's time inflates his importance and that of his kingdom, and is essentially myth, perhaps rooted in a shred of fact.

But if Garfinkel's claim is borne out, it would bolster the case for the Bible's accuracy by indicating the Israelites could record events as they happened, transmitting the history that was later written down in the Old Testament several hundred years later.

It also would mean that the settlement — a fortified town with a 30-foot-wide (10-meter-wide) monumental gate, a central fortress and a wall running 770 yards (700 meters) in circumference — was probably inhabited by Israelites.

The finds have not yet established who the residents were, says Aren Maier, a Bar Ilan University archaeologist who is digging at nearby Gath.

It will become more clear if, for example, evidence of the local diet is found, he said: Excavations have shown that Philistines ate dogs and pigs, while Israelites did not.

The nature of the ceramic shards found at the site suggest residents might have been neither Israelites nor Philistines but members of a third, forgotten people, he said.

If the inscription is Hebrew, it would indicate a connection to the Israelites and make the text "one of the most important texts, without a doubt, in the corpus of Hebrew inscriptions," Maier said.

But it has great importance whatever the language turns out to be, he added.

Saar Ganor, an Israel Antiquities Authority ranger, noticed the unusual scale of the walls while patrolling the area in 2003.

Three years later he interested Garfinkel, and after a preliminary dig they began work in earnest this summer. They have excavated only 4 percent of the six-acre settlement so far.

Archaeology has turned up only scant finds from David's time in the early 10th century B.C., leading some scholars to suggest his kingdom may have been little more than a small chiefdom or that he might not have existed at all.

Garfinkel believes building fortifications like those at Hirbet Qeiyafa could not have been a local initiative: The walls would have required moving 200,000 tons of stone, a task too big for the 500 or so people who lived there. Instead, it would have required an organized kingdom like the one the Bible says David ruled.

Modern Zionism has traditionally seen archaeology as a way of strengthening the Jewish claim to Israel and regarded David's kingdom as the glorious ancestor of the new Jewish state. So finding evidence of his rule has importance beyond its interest to scholars.

The dig is partially funded by Foundation Stone, a Jewish educational organization, which hopes to bring volunteers to work there as a way of teaching them a national and historical lesson.

"When I stand here, I understand that I'm on the front lines of the battle between the Israelites and the Philistines," said Rabbi Barnea Levi Selavan, the group's director. "I open my Bible and read about David and Goliath, and I understand that I'm in the Biblical context."

While the site could be useful to scholars, archaeologist Israel Finkelstein of Tel Aviv University urged adhering to the strict boundaries of science.

Finkelstein, who has not visited the dig but attended a presentation of the findings, warned against what he said was a "revival in the belief that what's written in the Bible is accurate like a newspaper."

That style of archaeology was favored by 19th century European diggers who trolled the Holy Land for physical traces of Biblical stories, their motivation and methods more romantic than scientific.

"This can be seen as part of this phenomenon," Finkelstein said.

Shemini Atzeret