Caspari Center Media Review – May 23, 2012
During the week covered by this review, we received 9 articles on the following subjects:
Christian Zionism
Jewish-Christian relations
Bible
Archaeology
Film
This week’s review was a sparse miscellanea.
Christian Zionism
Tzafon 1, May 18; Chadashot Haifa, May 16; Kolbo, May 18, 2012
Under the headline “We are not missionaries,” Peter and Marilyn Drexon, who head Bridges for Peace’s center in Carmiel, explained that “‘Our purpose is not to convert anyone but to educate towards interfaith love.”
According to a brief note in Kolbo (May 18), “Around 50 Christian evangelical supporters of Israel under the leadership of the pastors Larry and Elizabeth Huch, who are contributors to the Bnei Zion Hospital, arrived at the hospital this week for a visit. This will include a tour of the emergency room and the pediatric intensive care unit.” The same story was also run in Chadashot Haifa (May 16).
Jewish-Christian Relations
Jerusalem Post, May 15, 2012
Under a photo, this brief note reported “The president of the World Jewish Congress, Ronald S. Lauder, meets last week with Pope Benedict XVI at the Vatican. The private audience was arranged by the WJC for a delegation of Jewish leaders from 12 Latin American countries.”
Bible
Haaretz, May 18 (Hebrew and English editions), 2012
This piece noted that “For the first time, the Bible and New Testament have been translated to an Inuit language. A group of Inuit Christians in the Canadian territory Nunavut have completed the 34-year translation project this week, translating the holy religious texts into the local Inuktitut. The task wasn’t easy necessitating creative linguistic gymnastics to bridge the 2,000-year temporal divide in addition to the vast distance separating the Arctic peoples and the Middle Easterners, who wrote the holy books. One of the main difficulties the translators faced was the translation of objects that aren’t found in the Arctic such as certain trees that don’t grow in the treeless Arctic. Another example is the translation of shepherd, which appears in the Bible often. In Inuktitut a shepherd tends to children of dogs, not goats and sheep, which aren’t found in Nunavut. Plant and animal names were the biggest difficulty and in many cases general terms such as ‘tree’ were used. In other cases English lone [sic] words were used such as in the case of ‘camel’ … A surprising difficulty the translators faced was the complete absence of a term for ‘peace’ in Inuktitut. In order to circumvent this language gap, the translators had to use complete sentences to the get equivalent ideas across. The translation is not simply an intellectual exercise for an elite few. Some 90 percent of the citizens of Nunavut are Christians and the territory boasts the highest church per capita rate in Canada. The translation project was funded by the Canadian Bible Society and the Anglican Church costing $1.7 million.”
Archaeology
Israel HaYom, May 16, 2112
Israel HaYom (May 16) noted that a 1,400-year-old oil press has been discovered in Modi’in. “Archaeologist Hagit Torgë, who is directing the dig, said yesterday that ‘The old, large press (48 square meters), used to produce industrial quantities of oil for food and light, has been preserved surprisingly intact with all its components.’”
An article in the Jerusalem Post (May 18) reviewed the discoveries in the Cardo in Jerusalem’s Old City.
Film
Yediot Ahronot, May 17, 2012
According to this article, “The main role in a Hollywood film about the life of Mary is to be played by Odeya Rush (15). ‘I was afraid of the script, but it doesn’t have anything against the Jews in it.’” The movie is “Mary Mother of Christ,” and Rush is scheduled to play the part of the Mary at ages 8, 15, and 19. “‘Before I started the role I read the script with a certain amount of apprehension, but I found that it doesn’t the slightest things against the Jews in it,’ says Rush. On the contrary, the movie even emphasizes the suffering the Jews experienced because of the Romans at the time. For me, it’s very moving.’”