A new discovery of an ancient text fragment was reported in the Associated Press, of all places.

Excerpt:

The charred lump of a 2,000-year-old scroll sat in an Israeli archaeologist’s storeroom for decades, too brittle to open. Now, new imaging technology has revealed what was written inside: the earliest evidence of a biblical text in its standardized form.

The passages from the Book of Leviticus, scholars say, offer the first physical evidence of what has long been believed: that the version of the Hebrew Bible used today goes back 2,000 years.

The discovery, announced in a Science Advances journal article by researchers in Kentucky and Jerusalem on Wednesday, was made using “virtual unwrapping,” a 3D digital analysis of an X-ray scan. Researchers say it is the first time they have been able to read the text of an ancient scroll without having to physically open it.

“You can’t imagine the joy in the lab,” said Pnina Shor of the Israel Antiquities Authority, who participated in the study.

[…]Scholars have believed the Hebrew Bible in its standard form first came about some 2,000 years ago, but never had physical proof, until now, according to the study. Previously the oldest known fragments of the modern biblical text dated back to the 8th century.

The text discovered in the charred Ein Gedi scroll is “100 percent identical” to the version of the Book of Leviticus that has been in use for centuries, said Dead Sea Scroll scholar Emmanuel Tov from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, who participated in the study.

“This is quite amazing for us,” he said. “In 2,000 years, this text has not changed.”

The article mentioned the Dead Scrolls, which were earlier copies of some of the Old Testament books that we have today. In this case, there was a long gap between these early Dead Sea Scrolls documents, and the earliest copy that we had prior to the Dead Sea Scrolls. How much had changed in the period in between?

This article from Probe Ministries explains:

The Dead Sea Scrolls play a crucial role in assessing the accurate preservation of the Old Testament. With its hundreds of manuscripts from every book except Esther, detailed comparisons can be made with more recent texts.

The Old Testament that we use today is translated from what is called the Masoretic Text. The Masoretes were Jewish scholars who between A.D. 500 and 950 gave the Old Testament the form that we use today. Until the Dead Sea Scrolls were found in 1947, the oldest Hebrew text of the Old Testament was the Masoretic Aleppo Codex which dates to A.D. 935.{5}

With the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls, we now had manuscripts that predated the Masoretic Text by about one thousand years. Scholars were anxious to see how the Dead Sea documents would match up with the Masoretic Text. If a significant amount of differences were found, we could conclude that our Old Testament Text had not been well preserved. Critics, along with religious groups such as Muslims and Mormons, often make the claim that the present day Old Testament has been corrupted and is not well preserved. According to these religious groups, this would explain the contradictions between the Old Testament and their religious teachings.

After years of careful study, it has been concluded that the Dead Sea Scrolls give substantial confirmation that our Old Testament has been accurately preserved. The scrolls were found to be almost identical with the Masoretic text. Hebrew Scholar Millar Burrows writes, “It is a matter of wonder that through something like one thousand years the text underwent so little alteration. As I said in my first article on the scroll, ‘Herein lies its chief importance, supporting the fidelity of the Masoretic tradition.’”{6}

A significant comparison study was conducted with the Isaiah Scroll written around 100 B.C. that was found among the Dead Sea documents and the book of Isaiah found in the Masoretic text. After much research, scholars found that the two texts were practically identical. Most variants were minor spelling differences, and none affected the meaning of the text.

One of the most respected Old Testament scholars, the late Gleason Archer, examined the two Isaiah scrolls found in Cave 1 and wrote, “Even though the two copies of Isaiah discovered in Qumran Cave 1 near the Dead Sea in 1947 were a thousand years earlier than the oldest dated manuscript previously known (A.D. 980), they proved to be word for word identical with our standard Hebrew Bible in more than 95 percent of the text. The five percent of variation consisted chiefly of obvious slips of the pen and variations in spelling.”{7}

Despite the thousand year gap, scholars found the Masoretic Text and Dead Sea Scrolls to be nearly identical. The Dead Sea Scrolls provide valuable evidence that the Old Testament had been accurately and carefully preserved.

Now, if you listen to skeptics, agnostics and atheists, you would think that nothing in the Bible is reliable, because the stories were supposedly changed over time, and sometimes intentionally. That’s the message that popularizers like Bart Ehrman sell to a public audience that is hungry to dismiss the Bible. He likes to talk about the supposed distortions that have crept in, because all we have are “copies of copies of copies of copies”. But if you take a look at the hard evidence, rather than Bart’s rhetoric, then you get a very different picture of what really happened.

I think this is an exciting opportunity for people who dismissed the Bible as hopelessly unreliable to think a second time about whether there might be a message in there that tells us who God is, how he has interacted with people in the past, and what he expects from us today. For those who are open to the demands of a two-way relationship with the Creator, the Bible is the place to start.

The Daily Signal reports:

Thirty-seven Republican House members wrote a letter to House leadership this week asking them to use a must-pass spending bill as a vehicle for language that would block federal funding to refugees from Syria, the Middle East, and North Africa until national security officials can guarantee that terrorists cannot infiltrate the screening process.

[…]Ahead of his speech Tuesday to the United Nations General Assembly in New York, Obama submitted his annual refugee report to Congress, outlining his plan to significantly increase the U.S. commitment to resettle refugees for the fiscal year starting Oct. 1.The Obama administration plans to raise the number of refugees admitted to the U.S. to 110,000 in fiscal 2017 from 85,000 this fiscal year, representing a 30 percent increase.

[…]Last month, the administration exceeded its goal of admitting 10,000 Syrian refugees during fiscal 2016, which ends Sept. 30.

More about the Republican legislators pushing back against the open-borders Democrats:

With Congress in control of the funding for refugee resettlement, Republicans say their concerns over vetting procedures for admitting refugees to the U.S. outweigh other concerns, and that they need more assurances the program cannot be infiltrated by Islamic extremists.

In calling for stronger vetting, these critics have pointed to testimony last year to Congress from FBI Director James Comey, in which he said there are challenges to how the U.S. screens refugees, specifically with the limitations in gathering intelligence in war-torn Syria.

Republicans also note recent terrorist attacks in Europe where some of the terrorists involved had posed as refugees.

“We have a new dimension on the national security front that we never faced before,” said Rep. Mark Meadows, R-N.C., in an interview with The Daily Signal.

“Where in the past refugees have come to the U.S. as a place of rescue and safety, now we have credible evidence that suggests that ISIS and other terror groups are trying to take advantage of our generosity and compassion. So that does necessitate a change in not only our priorities, but also the funding we allocate to this particular issue.”

Democrats are (of course) opposed to tougher screening of refugees:

Last year, the House, with the support of 47 Democrats—enough to have a veto-proof majority—passed a bill requiring tougher screening of refugees from Syria and Iraq. Senate Democrats blocked the bill from advancing, however, with only two voting to support it.

Very important to understand that this rhetoric from Democrats dismissing all concern about crime as “racism” and terrorism as “Islamophobia” really does get innocent Americans killed. This is the Democrat platform: they favor criminals and terrorists above taxpayers. This is not an exaggeration at all, for those who pay attention to their votes.

As usual, conservative senator Ted Cruz finds himself leading the fight to protect American taxpayers.

The Washington Free Beacon reports:

Sen. Ted Cruz (R., Texas) is calling for an end to the Obama administration’s Middle East refugee program following a series of weekend attacks that appear to be acts of terrorism, according to a statement provided to the Washington Free Beacon.

Cruz, a vocal critic of administration efforts to bring tens-of-thousands of refugees from Middle Eastern countries into the United States, is calling on Congress “to prevent Americans who have traveled abroad for training from returning here, and to stop the flow of refugees from hotbeds of terrorism in the Middle East,” according to comments provided to the Free Beacon.

“Congress should act to prevent Americans who have traveled abroad for training from returning here, and to stop the flow of refugees from hotbeds of terrorism in the Middle East that President Obama is determined to bring to our country,” Cruz said. “We can’t overcome our enemies by pretending they don’t exist, and undermining our first line of defenders. Only together, clear-eyed and determined, can we defeat this foe.”

Cruz’s comments come on the heels of multiple weekend attacks that have wounded dozens of U.S. citizens. Elements of the Islamic State terror group have already claimed credit for some of the attacks.

It’s worth remembering why we have a refugee crisis in the first place. We have a refugee crisis because the majority of Americans voted to elect a President who withdrew from the Middle East in defeat. As a result, Islamic State (ISIS) formed in the power gap that our retreat created. Democrats created this crisis because Democrats wanted free condoms for all more than they wanted peace in the Middle East. They are just not good at national security or foreign policy.

An interesting article from the far left Minneapolis Star Tribune gives some details about the recent terrorist attack at a Minnesota mall:

Isaiah Mordal had just finished a long day at the Pretzelmaker shop in the Crossroads Center mall. He was supposed to get off work at 5 o’clock but stayed until 8 to fill in for a sick co-worker.

When his shift finally ended, Mordal walked outside with his girlfriend, Johanna Bohnenkamp, who is nearly nine months pregnant. As he did, a man in a security guard’s uniform walked past, approached a woman nearby and stabbed her. Then he stabbed her companion.

And then he turned to face Mordal.

“I was in complete shock,” Mordal said Monday of the knife attacks at the St. Cloud mall on Saturday night that left 10 people injured. “He had me trapped in a corner. He stood about 10 feet away with his knife in the air.”

Mordal begged for his life.

“I said, ‘Don’t do this! My girlfriend is pregnant!’ At that point it seemed like it was going extremely fast, but at the same time, it seemed like it took forever,” he said.

Mordal’s girfriend was 9 months pregnant, but the attacker stabbed him in the shoulder, and sliced her neck, anyway.

This story from the Weekly Standard explains the concern that rational people have with unskilled immigrants and refugees from countries with a significant presence of radical Islam, namely that they are easily radicalized.

Excerpt:

This past Saturday’s stabbing rampage by a Somali immigrant in St. Cloud, Minnesota, hits close to home; St. Cloud is about a 45-minute drive from the Twin Cities. Like the Twin Cities, St. Cloud is host to a large and ever-growing population of Somali immigrants and refugees.

The perpetrator of the rampage was one Dahir Adan.

[…]Saturday’s attack not only hit close to home, it also rang a bell. Adan fits a certain profile. Having attended the trial of three “Minnesota men” (first- and second-generation Somalis) in Minneapolis this past May charged with seeking to join ISIS, I found Adan’s story eerily familiar. Adan was born in a Kenyan refugee camp and entered the United States at age two.

Adan was a refugee from Somalia – a country dominated by radical Islam. And now the Obama administration is trying to take in hundreds of thousands of refugees from countries that are dominated by radical Islam.

One of the other defendants is named Omar:

Omar was born in a Kenyan refugee camp. He was roughly three years old when his family moved to the United States. His family emigrated to Kenya as a result of the Somali civil war. His father was shot three times in the conflict and lost his left leg as a result of the injuries. His father is disabled, but his disability gave him preferential immigration treatment by the United States.

Omar’s father has disappeared from the United States. He has left Omar’s mother with a rather large family. Omar has nine sisters and four brothers. They live in housing subsidized by a Section 8 voucher, although that must be the least of it. 

The Weekly Standard mentions this Washington Times article about how much money refugees and unskilled immigrants use up in welfare:

In the fiscal year that ended in September, Minnesota welcomed 1,118 Somali refugees arriving directly from Africa, most of them without family ties to the state, according to State Department statistics. Overall, more than 30,000 Somalis live in the midwestern state comprising the nation’s largest concentration of Somali immigrants, according to U.S. Census data.

[…]Minnesota’s state demographer’s office reports that only 41 percent of Somali men are working and 54 percent of Somali women are employed, meaning many may rely on the state’s handouts to survive, and are more susceptible to extremists pull.

“It seems safe to assume that if they’re not working, then they’re likely receiving public welfare benefits,” said Peter Nelson, director of public policy at the Center of the American Experiment. “More problematic, the Somali men not working are clearly not integrating as well as they could with society, which could feed into them being radicalized and recruited to fight with” the Islamic State.

The Weekly Standard article noted that the Democrat governor of Minnesota likes to spend taxpayer money on refugees who overwhelmingly vote Democrat. It works well for him because he gets to brag about his generosity, he gets to spend money that isn’t his, and he gets to buy votes of people who are content with long-term dependency on government. Well, what about when some of his bribed voters commit acts of terrrorism? His response is to warn taxpayers to keep their mouths shut and keep paying up, lest he label them guilty of “Islamophobia”:

In October last year—coincidentally, in St. Cloud—Governor Mark Dayton weirdly instructed “white, B-plus, Minnesota-born citizens” to suppress their qualms about immigrant resettlement in Minnesota. If they can’t, they should “find another state,” he added. Late last year Andrew Luger, the United States Attorney for Minnesota, took to the pages of the Star Tribune to inveigh against “the current wave of Islamophobia.”

If you resent having your taxpayer money used to buy the votes of refugees and unskilled immigrants, then Democrats will call you names. How dare you interfere with their “generosity” with your money?

I think it is important to connect the mass importation of refugees and unskilled immigrants with consequences. Look at Europe, for example. They have an epidemic of gang-rapes and sex-trafficking caused by refugees and unskilled immigrants.  Unskilled Middle East immigrants in the UK and also unskilled South American immigrants in America have both been implicated in sex-trafficking of young women. This is a problem for conservatives like me, but what do progressives think about it?

The Democrat Party’s official stance towards sex-trafficking by refugees and illegal immigrants is to accuse anyone who is concerned about it as “racists”. But 100% of the people who disagree with gang-rapes and sex-trafficking by refugees and unskilled immigrants are in favor of more skilled immigration of English speakers from other countries. My parents were immigrants, and I am non-white myself! Skilled immigrants add value to the country, because they pay more in taxes than they take in. No one cares about the skin color or national origin of people who come here to work hard, follow the laws, and avoid taking welfare dependency. It’s the collecting welfare, crime and terrorism that we are concerned about.