From the Toronto Globe and Mail, 11 May, 1999:
Finding Sodom's textile industry
Archaeologists unearth evidence of skilled weaving near the Dead Sea
by BYRON SPICE, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
The people of Sodom and Gomorrah were so wicked, the Bible says, that God rained fire and brimstone to destroy the ancient Palestinian "cities of the plain." Evil and corrupt as they may have been, the residents may also have been industrious textile makers.
Archaeologists sifting through two desolate sites in southern Jordan have found the earliest evidence of mass production of textiles in the Near East. The sites may be the remains of Sodom and Gomorrah. Burial houses at the two sites, called Bab edh-Dhra and Numeira, have yielded thousands of loom-woven textiles, most in bits no bigger than postage stamps. Most are linen cloth made from flax fibres.
The artifacts date in the early Bronze Age, beginning about 3150 B.C. But James Adovasio and his colleagues at the Mercyhurst Archaeological Institute in Erie, Pa., say the quality and style of the earliest linens are markedly different from others dating from 3000 to 2300 B.C. These later textiles reflect greater standardization, Prof. Adovasio said, suggesting that textiles were being mass-produced during this period. And mass production, he said, suggests that people were developing a complex political and social system, with centralized political control and emerging socialo and economic classes. This likely was a phenomenon seen in city-states throughout the region, from Egypt in the south to the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers in the north. Pittsburg archaeologist R. Thomas Schaub, who has directed the expedition to the Dead Sea plain for the past quarter-century, makes no claims that Bab edh-Dhra is Sodom or that the smaller Numeira might be Gomorrah. Located at the southeast end of the dead Sea, the sites are in the vicinity of where biblical tradition says the cities were situated. But there is no direct evidence linking either site to the infamous cities, he emphasized. Others have suggested that the ruined cities lie under the Dead Sea near the Lisan Peninsula.
But Prof. Schaub, an emeritus professor of philosophy and religious science at Indiana University of Pennsylvania, understands how people could look at the setting of Bab edh-Dhra and Numeira and see connections to the biblical cities. This bleak area of the south-eastern Dead Sea Plain is covered by a soft white limestone soil that supports little plant life, but reflects the harsh sun. The area gets less than 7.5 centimetres of rain annually, and afternoon temperatures often reach 50 Celsius this time of year. As Prof. Schaub has noted, both ancient and modern writers have described this region "as a veritable hell, condemned by nature and even by God." Most of the textiles from the Jordanian sites were linens found in burial houses. Bodies would be placed in these charnel houses and, once they decayed to bones, pushed back to make room for additiional corpses, Prof. Schaub said. Whatever the reason - whether a religious rite or the work of marauders - the destruction of the burial houses at Bab edh-Dhra and Numeira led to the preservation of the linens in which people were buried. Normally, such materials would deteriorate over time, but the combination of heat from the decaying bodies and being sealed underneath the rubble and debris caused the textiles to carbonize, Prof. Adovasio said. "It wasn't the searing finger of God that did this," he said.
One thing was apparent: samples dated later than 3000 B.C. were noticeably more standardized, with less variation in the warps and wefts of the fabrics, than earlier fabrics. All of the linens, both before and after 3000 B.C., were woven on looms. But the home-made quality of the earliest fabrics gives way to what appears to be organized, highly efficient production - mass production. The linens were made with yarn spun from flax. Prof. Schaub said analyses of seeds found at the sites show that flax was domesticated and cultivated at these sites. Flax would have been valuable both for its fibres and for flaxseed oil. At Numeira, workers found an open work area that might have been the site of one of these early factories. Prof. Schaub said a large number of bone weaving instruments and looms were found there. The shift from individuals making their fabrics, basketry and other woven items for their own use to groups of workers producing large quantities for sale or barter suggests that city-states of the Bronze Age had advanced beyond chiefdoms. Some sort of central authority would be necessary to organize production, enforce a market economy and deal with people who resisted this "proto-capitalism," Prof. Adovasio said. Some houses are bigger than others, suggesting that some people did better economically than others and perhaps signifying the emergence of a ruling class. Bab edh-Dhra had a population of perhaps 1,500 to 2,000, Prof. Schaub said; more people probably lived outside its walls. While the climate was once a bit more humid than it is now, the amount of precipitation had dropped off to modern levels by the middle of the third millennium B.C., Prof. Schaub said. But then, as now, water would run off from the neighbouring highlands, about 1,000 metres above sea level, down into the valley, 365 metres below sea level, in flash floods along ravines called wadis. People of the plain could capture this water and use it to irrigate their fields. Just what happened that led to the destruction of these cities is not known, Prof. Schaub said. Three bodies found trapped under a collapsed tower in Numeira fuelled speculation that earthquakes might have ravaged the area. Whatever the cause, both Numeira and Bab edh-Dhra were destroyed and abandoned about the same time. Little human activity is apparent in the area between 2000 B.C. and at least 1000 B.C. Given the biblical stories of divine destruction, "that adds to the legend of the area," he admitted.

From The Weekly Telegraph, No. 407, May 12-18, 1999:
BC and AD not PC
BROADCASTERS should drop references to BC and AD in the approach to the Milllennium, according to a study carried out for the Broadcasting Standards Commission. It recommends that they should be replaced by the more general descriptions Before Chrisitian Era and Christian Era to avoid offence to other religions.
COMMENT: Apparently it is of no consequence that Christians might be offended by the move! Contemplating the probable attitude of Jesus Christ, Himself, we are reminded of the comment of Queen Victoria, upon seeing an imitation of herself by the Honorable Alexander Grantham Yorke, Groom-in-Waiting to the Queen - "We are not amused"!

From The Weekly Telegraph, No. 407, May 12-18, 1999:
CHRISTIANS AND THE CROSS
For their fourth report on threats to Christianity, W.F. Deedes and Victoria Combe visit China, where 20 years after the Cultural Revolution, believers now outnumber party members.
KEEPING FAITH IN THE RESURRECTION
Under this headline, the writers describe conditions experienced by the Christian communities, both Roman Catholic and Protestant, in China today. This article is too long to reproduce here, but it forms an on-going part of a series of articles by these Weekly Telegraph writers designed to introduce, and attract attention to, a series of six 32-page magazines on the subject by that newspaper, which describe the state of Christianity through the last 2000 years of history.

From The Weekly Telegraph, No. 408, May 19-25, 1999:
Witching hour on US bases
THE UNITED STATES army has recognized white witchcraft as a religion and has appointed chaplains to oversee pagan ceremonies on at least five bases. A Pentagon spokesman said that there were believed to be at least 100 witches attending covens at Fort Hood, Texas.
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From the Toronto Globe and Mail, 18 May, 1999:
Where am I most likely to find a witch in the U.S. army?
Although the Wiccan religion is recognized at U.S. bases around the world, Fort Hood in Texas is the pre-eminent spot; there are about 300 adherents among its 42,000 soldiers. Fort Hood is so popular among Wiccans that some want reassurances from recruiters that they will be stationed at the post.
COMMENT: King Saul lost a battle and his life when he consulted the Witch of Endor. Are today's U.S. troops to be led by army superiors with a similar tendency? May a vision of the Prophet Samuel give warning, as reported in I Samuel 28:1-25!

From The Weekly Telegraph, No. 408, May 19-25, 1999:
Christians agree on Pope's Authority
THE POPE has been recognized as the overall authority in the Christian world by an Anglican and Roman Catholic commission which described him as a "gift to be received by all churches". writes Oliver Poole.
Disagreement about the extent of the Popes authority was one of the main causes of the English Reformation in the 16th century, and has been a constant stumbling block to the two Churches reuniting. However, the statement, released at Lambeth Palace - which is not binding - accepted that if a new united Church was created it would be the Bishop of Rome who would exercise a universal primacy. The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. George Carey, admitted that the text would be controversial but called for a debate in both the Anglican and Roman Catholic Churches on its findings. "In a world torn apart by violence and division, Christians need urgently to be able to speak with a common voice," he said. The 43-page document, The Gift of Authority, has been produced by the 18-member Anglican-Roman Catholic International Commission, after five years of debate. The Commission concluded that the Bishop of Rome had a "specific ministry concerning the discernment of truth" and accepted that only the Pope had the moral authority to unite the various Christian denominations. However, it did not go as far as to confirm the Popes infallibility. Instead, it said: "This form of authoritative teaching has no stronger guarantee from the Holy Spirit than have the solemn definitions of ecumenical councils." The document does not specifically address the issues that divide the two Churches, such as the place of the Virgin Mary and women's ministry. In the new united Church decisions would be made by consensus through councils. The proposals are expected to shock many Anglicans, particularly on the evangelical wing of the Church.
COMMENT: Simply one question - "Did the martyrs of the centuries die for this?"

From The Weekly Telegraph, No. 408, May 19-25, 1999:
The fifth and last of the series of reports by W F Deedes and Victoria Combe on threats to Christianity, in the same issue presents a focus on the Orthodox Christian Church in Russia.

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