Mary Magdalene and the Synagogue Where Jesus May Have Preached: New Excavation Most Important in Half a Century

A Catholic priest and archaeologists in Israel are excavating an ancient synagogue and a site that may have been the home of Mary Magdalene, who has been called Jesus' most beloved disciple. Archaeologists say Jesus could have preached in the temple as he is said in the Gospels to have preached at synagogues in the Galilee and no other synagogue from his lifetime has been found.

Six years ago Juan Solana, a Catholic priest, bought some property in the ancient town of Magdala and was required to do exploratory excavations under Israeli law. By chance he found the ruins of a 1st century AD synagogue.

“Historians believe Jesus may have once walked the cobbled streets,” says a CNN story that was published on WDAM.com “This may have been home to one of the most important figures of the Bible, Mary Magdalene. The first recorded witness of the resurrection. 'This is a holy site. I am sure of that,' said Father Juan Solana.”

Smithsonian.com says that for centuries Mary Magdalene was “the most obsessively revered of saints, this woman became the embodiment of Christian devotion, which was defined as repentance.” The article says it is almost certainly untrue that she was a repentant prostitute. St. Gregory the Great in the 6th century AD was the first to call Mary Magdalene a sinner, according to the book All Saints by Robert Ellsberg. She is identified in the gospels of Mark and Luke as “a woman from whom seven demons had gone out.” Ellsberg writes that the statement about the demons can be interpreted variously.

In the dramatic 20th chapter of the Gospel of John, Mary encounters Jesus after his resurrection on Easter Sunday morning but does not recognize him at first:

He asked her, “Woman, why are you crying? Who is it you are looking for?”

Thinking he was the gardener, she said, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have put him, and I will get him.”

Jesus said to her, “Mary.”

She turned toward him and cried out in Aramaic, “Rabboni!” (which means “Teacher”).

Jesus said, “Do not hold on to me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father. Go instead to my brothers and tell them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’”

Mary Magdalene went to the disciples with the news: “I have seen the Lord!” And she told them that he had said these things to her.

Because Mary Magdalene was the first to tell the Apostles about Jesus' resurrection, she has been called the Apostle to the Apostles.

Solana bought the land in Magdala to build a Christian retreat. The synagogue dates to the first century AD. The New Testament says Jesus preached in synagogues in the Galilee, and this is the only one that dates to Jesus' lifetime that has been excavated in the area.

The synagogue is ornate with frescoes and mosaic floors. It has an altar, called a bimah in Hebrew, in the center. People call this the Magdala stone. It has on it a rare menorah carved into the stone.

"It is not for me. This is for millions of people that will come see this will enjoy this as I did and hopefully will be able to discover our common roots,” Solana said.

Archaeologists say that the synagogue in Magdala is one of the more important discoveries in Israel in 50 years:

http://www.ancient-origins.net/history-archaeology/archaeologists-excavate-possible-home-mary-magdalene-and-synagogue-020472

May Day's 2015 San Diego UFO's Light Up the Evening / Morning Sky

""Southwest of San Diego on Tuesday night, the sky was lit up by several flashing multiple-colored lights, which left a number of baffled residents scratching their heads and thinking, “UFO.”

According to NBC 7, one of their viewers, Larry Fox, sent them several pictures of the multicolored object, which he’d captured from his backyard in Del Cerro.

Fox, along with other witnesses, said the lights seemed to be red, blue, and green and kept flashing and changing colors.

“It looked like a strobe light,” said Fox.

Fox also added that he wasn’t convinced the flashing lights were from a plane or a drone as the object did not move and remained stationary in the night sky.

“It was a series of flashing lights,” he said. “If it was a plane, it would have moved.”

The mysterious hovering lights were said to be southwest of the San Diego-Coronado Bridge. NBC 7 reports that numerous witnesses had called into the news station to inform them of the strange sighting.""

http://www.inquisitr.com/2056667/mysterious-flashing-lights-spotted-hovering-over-downtown-san-diego-video/

Singing Stars May Be a Reality in the Universe

Scientists may have discovered the "sound" of stars by observing fluid in motion.

""A team of researchers observed the reaction of an ultra-intense laser with a plasma target, theUniversity of York reported. They noticed that a trillionth of a second after the laser strikes, plasma flowed from regions of high density to those of lower density. This event caused plasma to build up at the interface between high and low density areas, generating a sound wave.

The sound was of a frequency of more than a trillion hertz, which is six million times higher than what can be heard by any mammal.

"One of the few locations in nature where we believe this effect would occur is at the surface of stars. When they are accumulating new material stars could generate sound in a very similar manner to that which we observed in the laboratory - so the stars might be singing - but, since sound cannot propagate through the vacuum of space, no-one can hear them," said John Pasley, of the York Plasma Institute in the Department of Physics at York.

The technique used to observe this sound wave works similarly to a police speeding camera, allowing the researchers to analyze how the fluid moved when struck by the laser on a timescale of less than a trillionth of a second.

"It was initially hard to determine the origin of the acoustic signals, but our model produced results that compared [favorably] with the wavelength shifts observed in the experiment. This showed that we had discovered a new way of generating sound from fluid flows. Similar situations could occur in plasma flowing around stars," said Alex Robinson from the Plasma Physics Group at STFC's Central Laser Facility.""

http://www.hngn.com/articles/79515/20150323/stars-sing-a-song-but-its-too-high-for-even-bats-to-hear.htm