Thirty years ago there were 50,000 Christians in south-eastern Turkey speaking a dialect of Aramaic – the language of Christ. Now there are 2,500. Talking to one of them, the BBC’s Jeremy Bristow learned that instead of Three Kings, there might actually have been 12.

Fresh out of his farm clothes, Habib the mayor now sits at his table in a crisply ironed shirt. He’s a gentle, almost diffident man in his early 50s, but he can form his letters with a calm assurance. He’s the custodian of a dying language.

Dipping his pen into the inkwell, he momentarily pauses, then starts to write. The broad nib moves right to left in neat black flicks and dashes, some vertical, some slanted, some horizontal, often with a deft flourish at the end. Sometimes Habib fashions a triangle, sometimes a circle, sometimes he adorns the shapes with a dot, indicating a vowel.

The script that is emerging before me looks like Arabic. It’s not… or not quite. It’s Syriac, a dialect of ancient Aramaic.

“Look, let me show you,” he says. “This letter is Olaf in our script, Alef in Arabic. See here, this letter is Lomad, it resembles Lam in Arabic. And He is Ha. Written together, they spell Aloho in Aramaic, the equivalent of Allah in Arabic. So many words from the Koran come from Aramaic.”

For 1,000 years, Aramaic was written and spoken right across Middle East. It was the language spoken by Jesus and his followers. The Jewish holy book, the Talmud, was written in Aramaic, and scholars say Arabic script is derived from it. But now, if Aramaic was an animal species, it would be declared critically endangered.

Habib, a Syriac Christian, is one of just 2,500 Syriacs who still live in this remote part of south-east Turkey. They call this region, their homeland, Tur Abdin. In Aramaic this means the Mount of the Servants of God.

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How many Kings / Magi / Wise men?

• The Biblical source of the story of the wise men is the gospel of Matthew – Matthew doesn’t say how many there were, he just says they brought three gifts: gold, frankincense and myrrh
• St Jacob refers to 12 kings
• Michael the Syrian (St Michael the Great) names 11 kings: Dahdandur, son of Artaban; Shuf, son of Gudfar; Arshak, son of Mahduq; Zarwand, son of Warwadud; Aryo, son of Kasro; Artahshasht, son of Hamit; Ashtanbuzan, son of Shishron; Mahduq, son of Hoham; Ahshiresh, son of Sahban; Sardanh, son of Baldan; Marduk, son of Bel
• Melchior, Balthasar and Caspar belong to a different tradition
• All of the stories are thought likely to be legends

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Once upon a time there was a flourishing Christian civilisation here. The landscape boasts hundreds of monasteries and churches – many now in ruins, many surmounted by mosques.

Take for example, Habib’s village of Hah, where he’s mayor, or Anitli as it is known in Turkish. A mere 20 Syriac families now live among the ruins of what was once a cathedral city with thousands of houses. Their homes are built among the remains of great buildings. Crumbling walls and giant archways loom above them.

Six hundred years ago Hah was sacked by the armies of Timur the Lame, better known in English history as Tamberlaine. This was just one catastrophe in a long history of intermittent persecutions and occasional acts of terror that religious minorities like the Syriacs have had to endure in this part of the Middle East.

Habib’s family have survived by holding out in their fortress-like farmhouse that still stands above the village. Five other related families also live within this bastion, towering walls on the outside, farmyards within.

Habib says his family, the Beth Henno, have been here since records began. But so many Syriac Christians have left for Istanbul, for Sweden, Germany, Australia. In the last three decades they’ve been caught up in the brutal war between the Turkish state and the Kurdish Workers Party, the PKK. They’ve been threatened and driven out by both sides. In the 1980s 50,000 lived in Tur Abdin, now less than 5% of that number remain.

Habib and his wife, Leman, are doing their best to boost the numbers, raising seven children on their farm.

We walk down through the village, in the shadow of crumbling towers and gaping vaults, entering the courtyard of the Church of the Yoldath Aloho, the Mother of God. As I enter the nave I know I am standing in history. Is that the smell of ancient cement, or is it rotting plaster?

The walls and niches are covered in a riot of carved decorations covering arches that support a soaring octagonal dome. It’s here that Habib and the villagers still come to chant the hymns of Saint Ephraim, as their ancestors have done since the Church was built, nearly 1,500 years ago.

They will be here at Christmas. Habib tells me a local legend. Just over 2,000 years ago an auspicious star appeared in the night sky. Twelve kings from the East gathered here at Hah. A select three went on to Bethlehem bearing gifts to greet the newborn Christ. A grateful Mary, mother of God, gave them a piece of the baby’s swaddling clothes. When the three kings returned to Hah, the holy baby-wrap turned to gold. Awed by this miracle, the Kings founded this church.

As we walk back in to the courtyard, I hear the village children reciting, Aramaic in class. I ask Habib, what the future is for the Syriac community here in Tur Abdin, the Mount of the worshipers of God. “We won’t give up,” he says. “But I fear, in the end, we are too few.”

Full story is at BBC News 

Archaeology Illuminates & Affirms a Key Fact in the Christmas Story

By all counts, Luke’s gospel is a wealth of historical information.

He opens it this way:

Inasmuch as many have taken in hand to set in order a narrative of those things which have been fulfilled among us… it seemed good to me also, having had a perfect understanding of all things from the very first, to write to you an orderly account, most excellent Theophilus, that you might know the certainty of those things in which you were instructed.(Luke 1:1;3-4)

Luke’s primary concern is order and accuracy, so that the recipient of the document (a certain Theophilus), “might know the certainty of those things in which he was instructed (v. 4).”

Not only is Luke’s account orderly, but it is also an excellent record of what truly happened that no-so-silent night, two thousand years ago.

The great classical archaeologist Sir William Ramsay, said that Luke was a “first-rate historian…”

One who writes “…historical works of the highest order, in which a writer commands excellent means of knowledge, either through personal acquaintance or through access to original authorities, and brings to the treatment of his subject genius, literary skill, and sympathetic historical insight into human character and the movement of events. Such an author seizes the critical events, concentrates the reader’s attention on them by giving them fuller treatment…”[1]

One such event to which Luke draws attention is a government census which took place during the reign of Augustus before Christ was born. This event is a pivotal event in the Christmas story and is often looked at with skepticism by some.

At the very beginning of Luke’s Christmas narrative in Luke 2:1-5 we are told that a census took place in the entire Roman world. The words are very familiar during Christmas as they are read aloud in so many sermons, plays, musicals and Christmas celebrations.

And it came to pass in those days that a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be registered. This census first took place while Quirinius was governing Syria. So all went to be registered, everyone to his own city. Joseph also went up from Galilee, out of the city of Nazareth into Judea, to the city of David, which is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and lineage of David, to be registered, to Mary, his betrothed wife, who was with child (Luke 2:1-5).

For many years, historians and scholars have pointed to the passage above mentioning the decree by Quirinius, as problematic if not completely inaccurate. Did a census really take place in the entire Roman world during that time, and did Mary & Joseph actually go up to Bethlehem to be registered, as Luke Gospel says?

New Testament scholar Dr. Harold W. Hoehner has summarized some of the top challenges faced by those who hold to the historical accuracy of Luke’s account.

He writes:

“[Emil] Schurer states that Luke cannot be historically accurate because: (1) nothing is known in history of a general census during the time of Augustus; (2) in a Roman census Joseph would have not had to travel to Bethlehem but would have registered in the principle town of his residence, and Mary would not have had to register at all; (3) no Roman census would have been made in Palestine during Herod’s reign; (4) Josephus records nothing of a Roman census in Palestine in the time of Herod – rather the census of A.D. 6-7 was something new among the Jews; and (5) a census held under Quirinius could not have occurred during Herod’s reign for Quirinius was not governor until after Herod’s death.”[2]

At first glance, these objections to the Roman census during the reigns of emperor [Imperator] Caesar Augustus (Octavius) and governor [legatus] Quirinus may seem insurmountable and quite difficult to answer, but an honest appraisal of the historical and archaeological evidence suggests that they are not.

The objections we will answer here are 1 and 2 – (1) the claim that nothing is known in the history of a general census during the time of Augustus, and (2) that in a Roman census Mary & Joseph would not have had to travel to Bethlehem to register.

Was There Census During the Reign of Augustus in the Roman World?

It is a commonly held assumption that the decree from Caesar Augustus that all the world was to be taxed, was a single census [a single event] in the entire Roman empire. The question is, is this how Luke understood it, or intended it to be understood? Very likely, not.

According to Hoehner, “What is meant is that censuses were taken at different times in different provinces – Augustus being the first one in history to order a census or tax assessment of the whole provincial empire. This is further substantiated by the fact that Luke uses the present tense indicating that Augustus ordered censuses to be taken regularly, rather than only one time.”[3]

New Testament historian Jack Finegan says, “As to the taking of such an enrollment in general, it is known from discoveries among the Egyptian papyri that a Roman census was taken in Egypt, and therefore perhaps also throughout the empire regularly, every fourteen years. Many actual census returns have been found, and they use the very same word (ἀπογράφω) which Luke 2:2 uses for the “enrollment.”[4]

The specific census which Luke mentions (Lk. 2:2), is that it “first took place while Quirinius was governing Syria.”

Apart from Luke, we have two other historical sources concerning Quirinius – the Roman historian, Tacitus (Annals 3.48) and the Jewish/Roman historian, Flavius Josephus (Antiquities of the Jews18.1-2).

According to Tacitus (Annals 3.48), P. Sulpicius Quirinius died in A.D. 21.

Josephus’s reference to Quirinius in Antiquities of the Jews (18, I,1.) poses somewhat of a problem, because he informs us that the “taxings conducted by Quirinius while governing Syria were made in the thirty-seventh year of Caesar’s victory over [Marc] Anthony at Actium in 31 B.C. This would place the census in about A.D. 6/7, a date which is too late to be brought into alignment with the birth of Christ which was likely in the winter 5/4 B.C.[5]

In Luke’s account in Luke 2:2, he speaks of a census which “first” took place when Quirinius was governing Syria, so it is not out of the question that the census to which Josephus is referring was the second one, while Luke mentions the “first” one [i.e the earlier one].

Gleason Archer also notes that Luke, “was therefore well aware of the second census, taken by Quirinius in A.D. 7, which Josephus alludes to… We know this because Luke (who lived much closer to the time that Josephus did) also quotes Gamaliel as alluding to the insurrection of Judas of Galilee “in the days of census taking” (Acts 5:37).[6]

Additional evidence also seems to suggest that Quirinius served as governor twice which would then put him in an official position over Syria to enact the census of Luke 2:2. In 1784, a Latin inscription was discovered near Tivoli, located about twenty miles east of Rome. It is known as the Lapis Tiburtinus inscription, and according to Jack Finegan it, “…contains the statement of a high Roman official that when he became governor of Syria he entered the office for the second time (Latin, iterum). It has even been thought that this personage might have been Quirinius…”[7]

Whatever the identity is of the Roman official mentioned in the inscription, at minimum shows that it was not uncommon for Roman procurators to have served twice, and maximally it may eventually reveal that it was Quirinius himself, through further research.

Is it Plausible that Mary & Joseph Traveled to Bethlehem for the Census?

Luke 2:4-5 states: And Joseph also went up from Galilee, from the town of Nazareth to Judea, to the city of David, which is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and lineage of David, to be registered with Mary, his betrothed, who was with child.

Objection 2 listed above states, that in a Roman census Joseph would have not had to travel to Bethlehem, but would have registered in the principle town of his residence, and Mary would not have had to register at all.

It was generally understood that Roman law instructed property owners to register for taxation in the district where they owned land. However, “…a papyrus dated to A.D. 104, records an Egyptian prefect who ordered Egyptians to return to their ancestral homes so that a census could be taken. In the first century Rome, since the Jews’ property was linked to their fathers (i.e. patriarchal), the Romans would certainly have allowed them the custom of laying claim to their family estate for taxation.”[8]

Since every person needed to appear in his ancestral homeland and since Mary was betrothed to Joseph, and pregnant with child, the two traveled to Bethlehem together. Surely Mary & Joseph would have understood the Scriptures, and the prophecies concerning Israel’s Messiah – that He must be born in Bethlehem (Micah 5:2). It must have been truly amazing from their perspective, to see pieces of the Messianic puzzle fall in place – even if the pieces were official decrees from the Roman empire!

Once again, when Scripture is placed under the scrutiny of historical and archaeological research, it stands the test in amazing ways.

This is but one small example of where archaeology and history corroborate the Scripture to the finest detail. Luke’s gospel is just the first part of a two-volume set in which Acts is the second. Colin Hemer’s massive study, The Book of Acts in the Setting of Hellenistic History details at least 84 facts in the last 16 chapters of Acts that have been confirmed by either historical or archeological research.

Truly Luke is indeed a remarkable historian. Like Theophilus, we can know the certainty of the things in which we have been instructed (the Gospel of Jesus Christ).

Jesus Came In the Fullness of Time

In Galatians 4:4 the Apostle Paul wrote: But when the fullness of timehad come, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, that we might receive the adoption as sons.

When Jesus the Messiah arrived, His timing was perfect! From the appearing of the star to the wise men to the taking of the census by Rome, it was not too soon, and not too late. His first coming was not only perfect chronologically and historically, it was perfect in God’s providential time.

If Christ’s first coming is any indication of what the Second coming will be like – we can rest assured that the timing of His Second Coming (Revelation 19:11-21) will be right on God’s perfect divine time, once again.

[1] William Ramsay, Saint Paul: The Traveler and Roman Citizen (Grand Rapids: Kregel Publications, 2001 reprint), 16.

[2] Harold W. Hoehner, Chronological Aspects of the Life of Christ (Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House, 1977), 14.

[3] Ibid., 15

[4] Jack Finegan, Light from the Ancient Past: The Archaeological Background of the Hebrew-Christian Religion, Volume II (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1969), 258.

[5] See Finegan, Ibid., 259, See also Hoehner’s work on this date which goes into much more detail in the original sources; Chronological Aspects of the Life of Christ (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1977), especially Chapter 1, ‘The Date of Christ’s Birth,’ pp. 29-44.

[6] Gleason L. Archer, Jr., New International Encyclopedia of Bible Difficulties (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1982),

[7] See, Jack Finegan, Handbook of Biblical Chronology: Principles of Time Reckoning in the Ancient World and Problems of Chronology in the Bible, Revised Edition (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 1998), p. 304. A view also held by William Ramsay, Bearing of Recent Discoveries on the Trustworthiness of the New Testament, 4^th Ed., London, 1920, pp. 275-300.

[8] See, Harold Hoehner, p.15

https://crossexamined.org/really-census-time-caesar-augustus/

Could anyone other than Jesus have been the Messiah? Did Jesue fulfil the Old Testament prophecies? What is the mathematical probability that Jesus was really the Messiah?

Was the birth, ministry and death of the Messiah really predicted hundreds of years before Jesus?

Read the compelling evidence here:

What are the seventy sevens in Daniel 9:24-27?

Question: “What are the seventy sevens in Daniel 9:24-27?”

Answer:

Daniel 9:24-27 is a key biblical passage. It is the only Old Testament passage which refers to the Messiah as “Messiah.” Elsewhere He is called “Shiloh” (Genesis 49:10), the “Root of Jesse” (Isaiah 11:10), the “Righteous Branch” (Jeremiah 23:5), the “Prince of Peace” (Isaiah 9:6), etc. But the name by which He is known best, “Messiah,” appears in only one passage: Daniel 9:24-27. Here is an excerpt from that passage:

“Seventy sevens have been decreed for your people. . . . So you are to know and discern that from the issuing of a decree to restore and rebuild Jerusalem until Messiah the Prince there will be seven sevens and sixty-two sevens; it will be built again, with plaza and moat, even in times of distress. Then after the sixty-two sevens the Messiah will be cut off and have nothing, and the people of the prince who is to come will destroy the city and the sanctuary.”

Exactly what is meant by “seventy sevens”? The phrase by itself is ambiguous, but taken in context the meaning is clear. Daniel’s prayer in verses 3-19 of the chapter refers to the fulfillment of a specific seventy-year period, the seventy years of the Babylonian captivity (as prophesied by Jeremiah). Daniel received the seventy sevens prophecy in response to his prayer. The prophecy foretold a period of seven times seventy yet to come, or seventy seven-year periods. Seventy seven-year periods equals 490 years.

The prophecy goes on to say that “from the issuing of a decree to restore and rebuild Jerusalem until Messiah the Prince there will be seven sevens (49) and sixty-two sevens (434). . . . Then after the sixty-two sevens the Messiah will be cut off and have nothing.”

Nebuchadnezzar had Jerusalem dismantled around 587 BC after having to put down two rebellions there in less than 10 years. At the time this prophecy was given, Jerusalem still lay in ruins. According to the prophecy, from the decree to rebuild Jerusalem there would be seven seven-year periods and sixty-two more seven-year periods—or 483 years—until the Messiah would show up. After the culmination of the 62 seven-year periods, or after 483rd year, the Messiah would be cut off.

Both the ancient Hebrews to whom Daniel was writing and the ancient Babylonians to whom he was subservient (the Book of Daniel having been written in Babylon during the latter half of the 6th century BC) used a 360-day year.

So, 483 years x 360 days = 173,880 days. This is the equivalent of 476 years and 25 days, using our modern Gregorian calendar’s 365-day year.

As for our starting point, the Persian emperor Artaxerxes Longimanus (who ruled from 464-424 BC) issued the edict to rebuild Jerusalem sometime during the Hebrew month of Nisan in the 20th year of his reign, or c. 445 BC (Nehemiah 2:1-8). From c. 445 BC, 173,880 days brings us to c. AD 30.

According to this prophecy, the Messiah would show up, present Himself as Messiah to the nation and then be “cut off” some time near AD 30. This was fulfilled as Jesus Christ presented Himself to the nation of Israel on Palm Sunday, was crucified on Preparation Day (the annual day on which the Passover Lamb was slain), and rose from the dead on Sunday.

The prophecy then goes on to say that, subsequent to the Messiah’s being killed, “the people of the prince who is to come will destroy the city and the sanctuary.” Within one generation of Christ’s crucifixion, Titus razed Jerusalem and destroyed the temple.

There is some debate about the exact date of the decree that began the 483 years. There is also debate as to whether the days should be counted on our modern 365-day calendars or the 360-day lunar calendar. Regardless, Daniel’s prophecy lays out an amazingly accurate time line. If we knew all the exact dates of Daniel’s prophecy and timing, we would find it predicted the very day of Christ’s death—over 600 years before it occurred.

https://www.gotquestions.org/seventy-sevens.html

Thanks for joining me! Here I will be posting various articles and evidence to help us understand and examine the real historical evidence for the life, ministry, death and resurrection of Jesus.

“I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” John 14: 6