felix hominum

Chora Mosaic - the wedding at Cana

Mount Sinai, early morning

Over the wine dark sea...

And some one shall some day say
even of men that are yet to be,
as he saileth in his many-benched ship
over the wine-dark sea:
'This is a barrow of a man that died in olden days,
whom on a time, in the midst of his prowess
glorious Hector slew.’

So shall some man say,
and my glory shall never die."

Iliad VII. 54

Coast, near ancient Troy

Schliemann's Trench

near Ephesus, Kushadasi harbour

Deputy Mayor sorry about burning New Testaments...

The burning of hundreds of New Testaments by yeshiva students in Or Yehuda last week was regrettable and unplanned, the city's deputy mayor, the man who spurred the students to act, told The Jerusalem Post on Tuesday.

Deputy Mayor Uzi Aharon of Shas used the opportunity of speaking to the Post, which publishes a monthly Christian Edition, to apologize to Christians worldwide, saying he hoped the incident would not inflame tensions between Jews and Christians.

Following the publication of the story on Tuesday, however, many messianic Jewish and other Christian groups expressed grave concern over the increasingly violent nature of anti-missionary activity in Israel.

Aharon had a very busy Tuesday. In the morning, Ma'ariv ran a story on how he organized to retrieve and burn hundreds of New Testaments given to Ethiopian Jews in his city by local messianic Jews. By 9 a.m. he was on an Army Radio news-talk show defending his actions, which he called "purging the evil among us."

At 10:30 he was on Channel 2's morning news show saying that Ethiopian immigrants in Or Yehuda were being encouraged to go against Judaism by messianic Jews. "We need to stop being ashamed of our Jewishness and to fight those who are breaking the law by missionizing against us," he said.

But by the early afternoon he had already been interviewed by Russian, Italian and French TV, explaining to their highly offended audiences back home how he had not meant for the Bibles to be burned, and trying to undo the damage caused by the news [and photographs] of Jews burning New Testaments.

But then he also told The Associated Press that he didn't condemn the Bible burning, calling it a "commandment."

from the Jerusalem Post

I saw this article a while ago, and have been interested in the various responses to this incident.  As numerous voices have said, this is an ironic picture, to say the least.

 

near St John's Church, ancient Ephesus

I have become like a pelican in the wilderness... Psalm 102:6

minaret, Blue Mosque, Istanbul

Theotokos; Hagia Sophia; may 2008

the philosophers' pavillion, I forget where, I'll look it up

column laying in field, west of Iconium