Christian Scroll 14

Ancient Christian scroll from time of persecution on display in Yokohama The piece depicts 15 scenes from the lives of Jesus Christ and the Virgin Mary, including the Annunciation and the Passion. It also includes descriptions in Japanese of Latin prayers. People in the painting wear traditional  hakama  clothing, with some carrying what appear to be swords. It was apparently based on a western religious painting and used as a devotional item by Japanese Christians of that time. Japanese characters written at the end of the painting suggest it was created by a believer in 1592. By using radiocarbon technology to date the washi, the research institute found that the paper was made between 1556 and 1633. “[T]his is one of the oldest Christian paintings in Japan,” said Osamu Inoue, deputy head of the Yokohama museum. Yukihiro Ohashi, a professor in the history of Christianity in Japan at Waseda University, said the painting shows how people around the time devoted them

The SawadaMiki Kinenkan museum in the town of Oiso, Kanagawa Prefecture, believes that the picture is valuable to understand how early Japanese Christians practiced their faith at the time. The picture scroll, measuring 22 centimeters high by 320 centimeters long, is a painting in Japanese ink. It depicts 15 scenes of Jesus Christ and Virgin Mary's lifetime with some of Latin prayers written in Japanese phonetic characters. The pictures contain Japanese elements, such as people wearing hakama, Japanese traditional pants. There is also a writing saying "1592 years since His birth," implying that the artwork was created in 1592. A radiocarbon age measurement of the paper used in the scroll indicated that it was created sometime before 1633, said a museum at the press conference at the Hiratsuka Municipal Government. "There is no reason to deny that it was created during the Azuchi-Momoyama period," an official at the museum said. Only a few of such pictur

What the Dead Sea scrolls mean to the Christian faith When this lost library was unearthed it gave rise to some fascinating — and disturbing—questions: would these 2,000-year-old writings contradict the Bible? Would they challenge or diminish the importance of Christ? Here, after ten years’ study, are some of the answers ERIC HUTTON By next year scholars and sightseers in Montreal may be admitted to part of the world’s oldest and most controversial sacred library, housed permanently in a hall that has been airconditioned. not for human comfort but because a special climate is needed to preserve these most fragile of books—the Dead Sea scrolls. Canada’s share of the scrolls, which has been described with dramatic simplicity as “most of the contents of Qumran Cave IV,” was not acquired by so prosaic a means as purchase. Rather it was ransomed from Arab cave pirates for twenty thousand dollars put up by the John Henry Birks Foundation on behalf of McGill University. The Dead