by Shelley Neese The Holy Grail, the Ark of the Covenant, Atlantis, the Philosopher’s stone. Whether the objects of legend or reality, certain ancient mysteries arrest the imaginations of every generation. They are antiquities that refuse to be forgotten—remaining hidden enough to evade discovery but historically prominent enough to leave a smattering of clues. Many…
By SHELLEY NEESE— Driving down Israel’s Highway 90 in a nine passenger rental van, a group of explorers stare silently at the Judean desert outside. They’ve come from Oklahoma and North Texas and their stories leading them here are as varied as their silhouettes against the van windows. They are united in this, they each…
Hi everyone. Its Shelley here, VP of The Jerusalem Connection. For all who have been anxiously keeping up with the news about the Copper Scroll Dig, I am now back from Israel after three weeks covering the first phase of the archeological dig. The explorer, Jim Barfield, the rest of the team and I were…
Jim Barfield, a retired fire marshal from Oklahoma, believes he has cracked the code on The Copper Scroll. Applying his arson investigation skills to the world’s most intriguing antiquities, he has achieved something that for four decades has eluded all other archeological and paleographical experts. After two years of planning, Barfiled is now in Israel…
By Shelley Neese Replacement Theology—the belief that the Christian Church replaced Israel in God’s plan—has found a new home in the work of the Sabeel Center—the Jerusalem-based ecumenical organization for Palestinian Christians. After experiencing decades of decline and total rejection by many denominations, Replacement Theology has resurfaced in the form of Palestinian Liberation Theology (PLT)—a…
By SHELLEY NEESE– The Ark of the Covenant has not been seen since the destruction of Jerusalem by Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar. 2600 years, however, has not been long enough to kill the curiosity or exhaust the imagination of the many who ponder the Ark’s fate. The burning question is how something so holy and central…
by Shelley Neese Jim Barfield, a retired fire marshal from Oklahoma, believes he has cracked the code on The Copper Scroll. Applying his arson investigation skills to the world’s most intriguing antiquities, he has achieved something that for four decades has eluded all other archeological and paleographical experts. Barfield has shown his research to the Israel…
By SHELLEY NEESE— “Shelley, I want you to meet the guy who has cracked the code on the Copper Scroll.” With that intriguing introduction, I shook hands with Jim Barfield. We stood among the kiosks of Israeli goods during a lunch break at a Christian Zionist conference in Forth Worth, Texas. “Congratulations,” I replied, “but…
by Shelley Neese On 14 June 2007, masked gunmen torched and looted the Rosary Sisters School and Latin Church in Gaza City. After bombing the entrance with grenades, the gunmen destroyed every Holy Relic they could find, crushing a statue of the Virgin Mary, burning Bibles, and destroying all Crosses and pictures of Jesus. They…
