Print

By Tyson Thorne

August 15, 2018
 

BiM08 Large

"Media" used to mean "print media" like books and newspapers, but the world has grown. Today media can also mean radio, television and movies delivered to personal computers, tablets and cell phones. As the world's best selling book of all time the Bible continues to make headlines, both good and bad, across all forms of media. This week in the Bible and Media: Legal restrictions in Israel are keeping one American and all of Israel wondering if the Temple vessels from the Second Temple have been located, and a new account of President Trumps inauguration day creates an interesting mythology.

The story began in 2006 when when Jim Barfield, an Army veteran and retired arson investigator for the Oklahoma fire department, took a special interest in the Dead Sea Scrolls and their impact on Bible study. This line of inquiry brought him to to Vendyl Jones, a Texas preacher-turned-Biblical-archaeologist who was engrossed with only one scroll from the Qumran Dead Sea Scroll cache: the Copper Scroll. His enthusiasm was contagious and a year later Barfield was on his way to Israel to test his theory and perhaps unearth a wealth of gold and silver treasure.

Found in cave 3, the Copper Scroll was unlike any other ever found. Rather than being made of leather or parchment it was made of copper. Rather than a literary document, it lists 66 locations where treasure may be found. Many archaeologists believe that it is not just any treasure, however, but is an inventory of the contents of the Second Temple. Since it was written in code, and since the physical landscape has changed so much over the centuries, all attempts to locate the treasure have failed.

Yet from his home in the US, Barfield used his helicopter pilot training and aerial maps of the Qumran area to find man-made features that could give him a fix on a starting point. Find them he did. Shortly after finding the markers, he found something else - someone who was able to help him in his quest. In 2007 at a Christian conference in Texas Barfield would meet Shelley Neese, vice president of the Jerusalem Connection magazine. Together, the two would travel to Israel to verify his work.

They first met with Israel Antiquities Authority director Shuka Dorfman. While it took some convincing, Dorfman would introduce the pair to Yuval Peleg, an archaeologist. Later, Barfield, Neese and Peleg were digging test holes in Qumran — but not for long. An hour after getting started Peleg received a phone call. The conversation was short, but evidently compelling as immediately after hanging up Peleg shut down the dig. He gave no explanation for his actions. Upon their return to Jerusalem the couple tried meeting with various bureaucrats and government employees, but was stonewalled each time. Barfield returned home, not only empty handed but completely unable to verify his theories.

For six years Barfield lived in disappointment. Then, in 2013, while in New York he met Moshe Feiglin. A strong advocate for the Temple, Feiglin offered to accompany Barfield on a tour of the site, and few weeks later they met up in Israel. Barfield had secured a specialized metal detector, one capable of scanning through 40 feet of earth and differentiating gold and silver from steel, aluminum, iron and other non-precious metals. Taking the detector to five locations Barfield had previously identified as treasure deposits, they got to work. Thrillingly, every location was a hit, with one in particular being significant.

"It showed up on the metal detector like Fort Knox,” Neese said.

With strong evidence in hand, Barfield once more approached the IAA and the Israel government, only to be turned away again. The problem, they explained, is that the land where the find was made is disputed. If they were to escavate and perhaps even find the temple treasure, lawyers from Jordan and the Palestinian Authority would come knocking and claiming ownership. The treasure could be tied up in international courts for decades — or worse — Israel could lose its case and never see the temple implements again. So for now, the Copper Scroll treasures continue to remain hidden.

In other news, a new book dripping with gossip and unverifiable stories about Donald Trump and working at the White House was released yesterday and it has some people talking about the Bible. In the book Unhinged: An Insider Account of the Trump White House author Omarosa Manigault Newman claims that Donald Trump considered using his own best-selling book, The Art of the Deal, to place his hand upon during the presidential swearing in ceremony. "He asked me, ‘Omarosa, what do you think about me getting sworn in on The Art of the Deal?’ " She recalls in the book. Unfortunately there is no else to corroborate the story, and — due to the fact that she broke the law by secretly recording conversations in the Situation Room, violating a Non Disclosure Agreement she signed when working for the White House, and having been fired from her position there — most people would like corroboration.

We'll likely never know if that conversation had taken place, and it doesn't really matter. There is no law stating a President must be sworn in with his hand on a Bible. When Roosevelt was first sworn in there was no Bible at hand, so he laid his hand upon nothing at all. If Trump had wanted to swear with his hand upon a book of his own words and philosophy, it would have been perfectly legal. But he didn't. What he did do was swear upon a stack of Bible's — not one, but two Bibles. The one on top had belonged to Abraham Lincoln, and the one beneath his own, a ninth year birthday gift from his mother.