By Walid Shoebat
One of the oldest Catholic amulets was found when a 1,500-year-old fragment of Greek papyrus with writing that refers to the biblical Last Supper and “manna from heaven”. It was discovered by Dr. Roberta Mazza, a research fellow at the university’s John Rylands Research Institute as part of her studies on thousands of unpublished historical documents in the library’s vaults at the John Rylands Research Institute at the University of Manchester in the United Kingdom. The papyrus was folded into a rectangular packet measuring 3 by 10.5 centimeters (1.2 by 4.1 inches), and either placed into a box at home or worn around a person’s neck as an amulet. Carbon analysis dates the fragment to between 574 and 660.
But the typical attacks on Catholics becomes obvious when Mazza accuses Christians of following “magic” when she said:
“This is an important and unexpected discovery as it’s one of the first recorded documents to use magic in the Christian context and the first charm ever found to refer to the Eucharist — the Last Supper — as the manna of the Old Testament”
Why would any Christian accept Mazza’s assertions that Catholics used “magic” unless of course, they are either anti-Christ or are anti-Catholic? Even for Christians who reject Catholics and accept Mazza’s assertions; they then should accept Mazza’s reference to “Eucharist” as what Christians used to celebrate the Last Supper.
And how could this be magic when she adds: “the text on the papyrus is a mix of passages from Psalm 78:23-24 and Matthew 26:28-30, among others,” said Mazza. “To this day, Christians use passages from the Bible as protective charms so our amulet marks the start of an important trend in Christianity.”
Even the translated text on the papyrus reads nothing like magic:
“Fear you all who rule over the earth.Know you nations and peoples that Christ is our God. For he spoke and they came to being, he commanded and they were created; he put everything under our feet and delivered us from the wish of our enemies. Our God prepared a sacred table in the desert for the people and gave manna of the new covenant to eat, the Lord’s immortal body and the blood of Christ poured for us in remission of sins.”
Yet she says “People of the time believed such passages had magical powers,” Mazza told Live Science.
The discovery, which Mazza presented this week at an international conference on papyri at the university’s research institute, reveals according to this nitwit, that Christians “adopted an ancient Egyptian practice of wearing such charms to ward off danger.”
But then she admits that:
“This practice is not very far from nowadays use to wear necklaces with the cross or images of Jesus, Mary, or the saints, for protection,” Mazza said. “In many Catholic churches nowadays believers are given holy pictures of the saints with a prayer on the back that you can bring along again for protection.”
If any Christian accepts the charge that Catholics were practicing an ancient Egyptian pagan custom, than in the Bible, when God tells the Israelites to practice a similar thing is also “Egyptian” and is “magic”?
And it shall be for a sign for you upon your hand, and for a memorial between your eyes, that the law of the LORD may be in your mouth; for with a strong hand did the LORD bring you out of Egypt.
—Exodus 13:9
And it shall be for a sign upon your hand, and as totafot between your eyes; for with a mighty hand did the LORD bring us forth out of Egypt.—Exodus 13:16
Here, let me take you on a journey from when I was Muslim going to the Israel Museum to refute the Bible. What I saw there was more than what astonished my mind, but was etched so deep into my heart and soul when I saw amulets so tiny, that they almost needed a microscope to read them, etched on silver delicate sheets and wore as amulets by ancient Israelites.
It was a year later after I departed from the holiest land on the globe in Ketef Hinnom (Hebrew: כָּתֵף הִינוֹם) when an archaeological site southwest of the Old City of Jerusalem was found in 1979 near St. Andrew’s Church, now on the grounds of the Menachem Begin Heritage Center were two of these very tiny silver scrolls were found, inscribed with portions of the well-known apotropaic Priestly Blessing from the Book of Numbers used as amulets. The delicate process of unrolling the scrolls took three years and contained what may be the oldest surviving texts from the Hebrew Bible, dating from around 600 BCE.
They speak of the earliest artifacts, like the Catholic, records Jewish liturgy and Priestly Blessing during the reign of King Yoshiyahu (late 7th or early 6th century BCE) predating the Nash papyrus, and the earliest of the Dead Sea Scrolls by four centuries. The three-part blessing, like Catholic priests do in which the Kohanim are instructed to bless the people of Israel in Numbers 6:22-27.
כד יְבָרֶכְךָ יְהוָה וְיִשְׁמְרֶךָ׃
כה יָאֵר יְהוָה פָּנָיו אֵלֶיךָ וִיחֻנֶּךָּ׃
כו יִשָּׂא יְהוָה פָּנָיו אֵלֶיךָ וְיָשֵׂם לְךָ שָׁלוֹם׃
(6:24) May YHVH bless you and protect you!
(6:25) May YHVH shine his face upon you and be gracious towards you!
(6:26) May YHVH lift his face up to you, and give you peace!
Than we have The Shema‘ Yisrael Jewish amulet discovered near Carnuntum, a small gold leaf, inscribed with a Hebrew Shema‘ Yisrael written in Greek letters. And where it was found makes it even more amazing, near the village of Halbturn, Austria, about 60 miles east of Vienna in a the third century grave that belonged to an infant about 18 months old in which he had a small, undecorated silver capsule inside of which was a small rectangular gold leaf—measuring less than an inch on either side—folded and wrapped to form a small scroll.
Yet they say that this is “ancient Jewish magic, the evolution of monotheism and the local Jewish population.”
The same enemies of Catholics are also enemies of Jews and to everything we hold dear.
Such marks is not magic, but the very essence that the Lord our God is on our hearts and foreheads.
Indeed, even the devil marks his own:
Even the true God marks His own, He marks them with a visible mark also right on the foreheads (Revelation 7:3)
Indeed, it will be a physical mark. But the problem today is that there are too many critics who quote Scripture faster than a gymnast and always try to spiritualize everything as if what only counts is “in the heart” and nothing else is necessary. They claim that it is not necessary to have an outward and clear commitment that tells the world and shows that you truly believe in the true God of the Bible.
How could these answer by saying that Baptism can be spiritualized or that the blood on the door posts and the lintels in Moses time were simply invisible?
Even in Old Testament times, God ordered His warriors to place a physical mark of God on the foreheads of the righteous, and to slay the rest:
Go through the midst of the city, through the midst of Jerusalem, and set a mark upon the foreheads of the men that sigh and that cry for all the abominations that be done in the midst thereof. And to the others he said in mine hearing, Go ye after him through the city, and smite: let not your eye spare, neither have ye pity (Ezekiel 9:4-5)
And who today who has the mark of God on their foreheads, but the Orthodox, both Jew and Christian?
Now I will get a litany of comments that Jews are not saved without Jesus.
Indeed, and when Jesus returns He will save the Tribulation Jews.
Patriarch Kiril of Russia, with the sign of God on his crown.
Russian Orthodox priest putting the sign of the Holy Cross on a worshipper’s head
Beware of scoffers: “Above all, you must understand that in the last days scoffers will come, scoffing and following their own evil desires. (2 Peter 3:3)”
P.S, Some thought what I meant by “Orthodox” is the denomination. As someone correctly pointed Ash Wednesday is observed by many Western Christian denominations including Lutherans. What I was pointing to in my article is regarding Catholics using amulets and scapularies. I argue that this is hardly pagan, but historic and biblical. As I am simply trying to ask my non-Catholic fellow Christians to be open minded.
SOURCE
http://news.yahoo.com/last-supper-papyrus-may-one-oldest-christian-charms-142515392.html