#religious studies

Since the 1880s, the infamous Shapira scroll has been considered a forgery. Then, just last week, biblical scholar Idan Dershowitz caused a sensation by arguing that it might not only be real, but actually the oldest biblical manuscript ever found. We sat down with Idan to talk about the context and implications of his discovery.

In the Middle East, neighbors warned the Christians: ‘after Saturday comes Sunday.’ It means: ‘after we finish off the Saturday people, we will finish you, the Sunday people.’  For the Jews, 850,000 of them – the Saturday people – left their homes in Arab lands years ago for Israel. Now in the days of ISIS it is the turn of the Christians – the Sunday people – to find themselves in mortal jeopardy in Iraq, Syria and adjacent countries. Over the past years, we have opened the newspapers every day to read about increasing attacks on Christians, who were killed and their villages decimated.  Sunday finally may be here.  But the persecution is nothing new.