約旦戰鬥去重獲'無價'的基督教聖物
Jordan battles to regain 'priceless' Christian relics
By Robert Pigott
29 March 2011
BBC News religious affairs correspondent
他們可能是最早生存的基督教寫作，在約旦的一個洞穴倖存幾近2000年。他們可能，祇是可能，改變我們對耶穌如何被釘十字架和復活、以及基督教如何誕生的了解。
A group of 70 or so "books", each with between five and 15 lead leaves bound by lead rings, was apparently discovered in a remote arid valley in northern Jordan somewhere between 2005 and 2007.
A flash flood had exposed two niches inside the cave, one of them marked with a menorah or candlestick, the ancient Jewish religious symbol.
A Jordanian Bedouin opened these plugs, and what he found inside might constitute extremely rare relics of early Christianity.
That is certainly the view of the Jordanian government, which claims they were smuggled into Israel by another Bedouin.
The Israeli Bedouin who currently holds the books has denied smuggling them out of Jordan, and claims they have been in his family for 100 years.
Jordan says it will "exert all efforts at every level" to get the relics repatriated.
令人難以置信的宣稱
Incredible claims
The director of the Jordan's Department of Antiquities, Ziad al-Saad, says the books might have been made by followers of Jesus in the few decades immediately following his crucifixion.
"They will really match, and perhaps be more significant than, the Dead Sea Scrolls," says Mr Saad.
"Maybe it will lead to further interpretation and authenticity checks of the material, but the initial information is very encouraging, and it seems that we are looking at a very important and significant discovery, maybe the most important discovery in the history of archaeology."
They seem almost incredible claims - so what is the evidence?
The books, or "codices", were apparently cast in lead, before being bound by lead rings.
Their leaves - which are mostly about the size of a credit card - contain text in Ancient Hebrew, most of which is in code.
文本可能被寫於耶穌受難後幾十年
If the relics are of early Christian origin rather than Jewish, then they are of huge significance.
One of the few people to see the collection is David Elkington, a scholar of ancient religious archaeology who is heading a British team trying to get the lead books safely into a Jordanian museum.
He says they could be "the major discovery of Christian history", adding: "It's a breathtaking thought that we have held these objects that might have been held by the early saints of the Church."
He believes the most telling evidence for an early Christian origin lies in the images decorating the covers of the books and some of the pages of those which have so far been opened.
Mr Elkington says the relics feature signs that early Christians would have interpreted as indicating Jesus, shown side-by-side with others they would have regarded as representing the presence of God.
"It's talking about the coming of the messiah," he says.
"In the upper square [of one of the book covers] we have the seven-branch menorah, which Jews were utterly forbidden to represent because it resided in the holiest place in the Temple in the presence of God.
"So we have the coming of the messiah to approach the holy of holies, in other words to get legitimacy from God."
位置線索
Location clues
Philip Davies, Emeritus Professor of Old Testament Studies at Sheffield University, says the most powerful evidence for a Christian origin lies in plates cast into a picture map of the holy city of Jerusalem.
"As soon as I saw that, I was dumbstruck. That struck me as so obviously a Christian image," he says.
"There is a cross in the foreground, and behind it is what has to be the tomb [of Jesus], a small building with an opening, and behind that the walls of the city. There are walls depicted on other pages of these books too and they almost certainly refer to Jerusalem."
It is the cross that is the most telling feature, in the shape of a capital T, as the crosses used by Romans for crucifixion were.
"It is a Christian crucifixion taking place outside the city walls," says Mr Davies.
Margaret Barker, an authority on New Testament history, points to the location of the reported discovery as evidence of Christian, rather than purely Jewish, origin.
"We do know that on two occasions groups of refugees from the troubles in Jerusalem fled east, they crossed the Jordan near Jericho and then they fled east to very approximately where these books were said to have been found," she says.
書本都以鉛環綁住
"[Another] one of the things that is most likely pointing towards a Christian provenance, is that these are not scrolls but books. The Christians were particularly associated with writing in a book form rather than scroll form, and sealed books in particular as part of the secret tradition of early Christianity."
The Book of Revelation refers to such sealed texts.
Another potential link with the Bible is contained in one of the few fragments of text from the collection to have been translated.
It appears with the image of the menorah and reads "I shall walk uprightly", a sentence that also appears in the Book of Revelation.
While it could be simply a sentiment common in Judaism, it could here be designed to refer to the resurrection.
It is by no means certain that all of the artefacts in the collection are from the same period.
But tests by metallurgists on the badly corroded lead suggest that the books were not made recently.
The archaeology of early Christianity is particularly sparse.
Little is known of the movement after Jesus' crucifixion until the letters of Paul several decades later, and they illuminate the westward spread of Christianity outside the Jewish world.
Never has there been a discovery of relics on this scale from the early Christian movement, in its homeland and so early in its history.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-12888421
70金屬書約旦出土 疑隱藏基督密碼
(明報)2011年3月31日 星期四 05:05
【明報專訊】約旦 偏遠地區一個洞穴70本金屬書籍出土，上面有符號、圖形和文字等，可能是基督教早期文獻。學者相信，倘這批金屬書籍是真品，其重要性可與1947年發現的「死海古卷」（The Dead Sea Scrolls）相媲美。
多頁封存 學者臆測是古代戒律
這70本矚目古書的書頁只有信用卡大小，用鉛或銅製，再用金屬線串連。書內都是圖像、符號，以及用希伯來和古希臘 文書寫，看來隱藏著「彌賽亞」、「釘死於十字架」、「復活」等信息，而由於很多書頁都是封存的，使學者不禁懷疑它們是《聖經 啟示錄》中提到的失落的古代戒律。
曾檢視這批金屬書的英國 埃及 古物學者埃爾金頓（David Elkington）稱，這是加利利一名貝都因人於2005至07年間，從約旦一個偏僻洞穴裏撿獲，其後落入一名同族農夫手中。發現書籍的洞穴正是公元70年耶路撒冷陷落後基督徒避難的地方，從前亦曾在那兒發現過公元1世紀的文獻。
檢測顯示鏽蝕不似偽造
鑑定顯示，與金屬書一同發現的皮革有2000年歷史，初步檢測也顯示一部分金屬書的年代可追溯到公元1世紀，而且鏽蝕不像偽造。不過，涉事農夫把那宣稱百年家傳的古籍，交予一名以色列 籍同族人偷運到以色列。
儘管以色列考古學家懷疑那是假貨，但約旦政府則想盡辦法奪回古物。約旦古文部的薩亞德說﹕「我們在研究一項非常重要和重大的發現，也許還是考古史上的最重要發現」。
每日郵報/每日電訊報/中新社
http://hk.news.yahoo.com/article/110330/4/njka.html
約旦洞穴發現70本鐵書或為早期基督教文獻
2011年04月04日09:11
北京時間4月3日消息，據國外媒體報道，考古學家5年前在約旦偏遠地區的一個洞穴裡發現的70本鐵書，書頁用鐵絲固定，它們可能是早期基督教文獻。
學術界對這些發現的真實性有爭議，但是如果得到証實，它們的重要性將能與1947年發現的死海古卷相媲美。鐵書的書頁大小跟信用卡差不多，上面的圖形、符號和文字顯然涉及到救世主，甚至是耶穌被釘在十字架上和耶穌復活。更令人吃驚的是，很多書是封存的，研究人員不禁懷疑它們就是《聖經啟示錄》裡提到的丟失的法律文獻。發現鐵書的地方，公元70年耶路撒冷淪陷后，曾有基督徒在此逃難。此前在這裡也發現過同一時期的重要文獻。
最初的冶金學檢測顯示，其中一些書也許可上溯到公元1世紀。這種推測是根據鐵書上的鏽跡得出的，專家認為人為制造出這種痕跡的可能性不大。如果這一推斷得到証實，這些鐵書將成為最早的基督教文獻之一，可能比聖保羅的著作還要早。這些書可能包含耶穌最后幾年同代人對其生活的記載，對此學者感到非常激動，盡管以前他們也曾被手段高明的贗品愚弄過。
英國古代史和考古學家、研究這些鐵書的為數不多的幾個人之一大衛·埃爾金頓表示，它們可能是“基督教史的重大發現”。他說：“我們做出大膽設想：我們現在拿的這些鐵書，可能是早期教堂裡的基督教徒使用的東西。”但是隱藏在原始古籍裡的謎並不是這些鐵書唯一難以破解的謎題。現在它們的下落也是一個謎團。一名約旦貝多因人發現這些鐵書后，一位以色列貝多因人擁有了它們，據說這個人是通過邊境非法走私來的。然而，目前約旦政府正在遣返和保護這些藏品。英國謝菲爾德大學聖經研究名譽教授菲利普·戴維斯表示，有可靠証據可以証明這些書具有基督教起源。
戴維斯說：“我剛看到它們時吃了一驚。書頁上顯然是一個基督教圖案。前面是一個十字架，后面是(耶穌)的墳墓，再后面是城牆。這些書的其他頁面也描繪了城牆圖案，它們確實提到了耶路撒冷。一名基督徒正在城牆外面遭受磨難。”獲得這一發現的英國科研組擔心，現在的以色列“保管人”可能會把其中一些買給黑市，或者毀掉它們。但是擁有這些鐵書的人否認了這一說法，並稱他家擁有這些東西已經長達100年了。
舊約研究協會前任總裁瑪格麗特·巴克博士說：“《聖經啟示錄》上說，隻有救世主才能開啟這些封存的書籍。同一時期的其他文獻上說，這些封存的書是耶穌傳給他最親信的門徒的，內容包括大智慧和秘密教義。”戴維斯說：“書上的圖案暗示它們可能出自希伯來基督徒之手，如果事實果真如此，這些法典或許有助於我們更好地了解早期基督教發展史。”埃爾金頓是努力把這些書歸還約旦的一名英國人，他說：“完好無損地重新獲得這種東西，把它們保存在最佳環境中，這很關鍵，這對它的主人和潛在的國際熱心聽眾都有好處。” (秋凌)
來源：新浪科技
http://scitech.people.com.cn/BIG5/14312603.html
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