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The Origin of Nativity Scenes “... Mary gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in swaddling clothes and laid him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the place where travelers lodged.” According to St Luke the Evangelist (2,7) Jesus was born in a stable or at least in a place where animals were kept. In fact the word presepio (Nativity Scene) comes from the Latin verb praesepire (to enclose, to hedge, to fence) and today it means manger or crib. The term is thought to have been used for the first time with...

When HaShem (God) dictated the Torah to Moses, that Written Law, or Torah She'bi-khetav, made God's laws known to His people.  This Truth, in all its glorious revelation, was to provide the Jewish people with instructions for daily living, how to celebrate their holidays, and the ways in which they should worship their Creator.  The Torah is also unambiguous on the behaviors that should be avoided and gives clear directions for atonement for sins committed.  Although the Written Law was considered complete, traditional Jewish teaching is that Moses also received a second set of laws called Torah She'bi-al peh: the...

Without the clergy guiding them, and with religion still a very important factor in the average person's life, their fate rested in their own hands, Simpson said. The rise of fundamentalist interpretations during the English Reformation can be used to understand the global political situation today and the growth of Islamic extremism, Simpson said as an example. "Very definitely, we see the same phenomenon: newly literate people claiming that the sacred text speaks for itself, and legitimates violence and repression," Simpson said, "and the same is also true of Christian fundamentalists."

First Knights Templar are discovered April 10, 2006 LONDON: The first bodies of the Knights Templar, the mysterious religious order at the heart of The Da Vinci Code, have been found by archaeologists near the River Jordan in northern Israel. British historian Tom Asbridge yesterday hailed the find as the first provable example of actual Knights Templar. The remains were found beneath the ruined walls of Jacob's Ford, an overthrown castle dating back to the Crusades, which had been lost for centuries. They can be dated to the exact day -- August 29, 1179 -- that they were killed by...

At a conference in Tel Aviv, an archaeological discovery is unveiled that proves biblical history true. Archaeologists who reject the biblical narrative or who believe the historical account is, at best, grossly exaggerated sometimes point to the wall Nehemiah is said to have built around Jerusalem during the 5th century b.c. and ask why none of its remains have ever been discovered. Now those remains are beginning to turn up. Yesterday, at an archaeological conference at Bar Ilan University near Tel Aviv, Dr. Eilat Mazar told 500 attendees that she had discovered Nehemiah’s wall. The discovery comes, as our regular...

  The Reformation was a political and religious movement in Europe that began in the 1500’s and lasted for roughly 150 years. It is difficult to pinpoint exact starting and ending dates for the Reformation, but we can point to two events that seem to begin and to culminate the Reformation era: 1517 (Martin Luther’s 95 Theses and his protest against the indulgence system of the Roman Catholic Church) and 1648 (The Peace of Westphalia, treaties that ended both the Thirty Years’ War and the Eighty Years’ War and thus put an end to most of the civil disruption caused...

Hello and welcome to another broadcast of the White Horse Inn, and this isn't just any broadcast this is Reformation Sunday, the 490th Anniversary of the Protestant Reformation. In previous programs of this series we've walked through the history of the heresy known as Pelagianism, so we won't belabor the point a lot. Named after the fifth century British monk, Pelagius who locked horns with Church Father Augustine over salvation, Pelagianism denied original sin, that is that we're born into this world dead in trespasses and sins, and so Adam affects us only as a bad example and Christ affects...

Descendants of ‘Holy Grail’ knights demand an apology from the Pope Ruth Gledhill, Religion Correspondent A British order of Templars that claims direct descent from the original Knights Templar is calling on the Pope to apologise after the recent discovery of an ancient Vatican document showing that the knights had been absolved of the charges laid against them seven centuries ago. The accusations of heresy led to the disbandment of the order and the burning at the stake of Jacques de Molay, the order’s grand master. The Vatican will next week publish a 5,900-euro (£3,925) collector’s edition of its documents...

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - The Knights Templar, the medieval Christian military order accused of heresy and sexual misconduct, will soon be partly rehabilitated when the Vatican publishes trial documents it had closely guarded for 700 years. A reproduction of the minutes of trials against the Templars, "'Processus Contra Templarios -- Papal Inquiry into the Trial of the Templars'" is a massive work and much more than a book -- with a 5,900 euros (4,125 pounds) price tag. "This is a milestone because it is the first time that these documents are being released by the Vatican, which gives a stamp...

VATICAN CITY - It's not the Holy Grail, but for fans of "The Da Vinci Code" and its tantalizing story line about the Knights Templar, it could be the next best thing. Ignored for centuries, documents about the heresy trial of the ancient Christian order discovered in the Vatican's secret archives are being published in a limited edition — with an $8,377 price tag. They include a 14th-century parchment showing that Pope Clement V initially absolved the Templar leaders of heresy, though he did find them guilty of immorality and planned to reform the order, according to the Vatican archives...

The Federation of Swiss Protestant Churches has launched an interactive website as part of its celebrations to mark the 500th anniversary in 2009 of the birth of Protestant reformer Jean Calvin. "We want Calvin to come alive for the people of our time through this Web site," the Rev. Clifton Kirkpatrick, president of the World Alliance of Reformed Churches and chairperson of the Web site's committee of patrons, said when the site was launched on 28 September 2007. The website http://www.calvin09.org presents in four languages a calendar of jubilee events worldwide, and information on Calvin's life and teaching. The Reformer...

The Vatican is to publish a book which is expected to shed light on the demise of the Knights Templar, a Christian military order from the Middle Ages. The book is based on a document known as the Chinon parchment, found in the Vatican Secret Archives six years ago after years of being incorrectly filed. The document is a record of the heresy hearings of the Templars before Pope Clement V in the 14th Century. The official who found the paper says it exonerates the knights entirely. Prof Barbara Frale, who stumbled across the parchment by mistake, says that...

By the time Abraham Lincoln won the presidential election in 1860, there had already been several attempts on his life. His anti-slavery stance caused the nation to split within days of his victory. Because his life was in danger, he was hidden in the luggage rack of the train that took him into Washington, D.C., and for the first time in our democracy, a duly elected president had to be sneaked into the White House under the cover of darkness. Decades before Lincoln, Joseph Smith’s progressive announcement that he would run for president on an anti-slavery platform was explosive and...

It was the ruined citadel at Montsegur that got us hooked on the story of the Cathars, a breakaway group of Christians viciously persecuted by the Catholic Church in 12th and 13th century France. Perched on a craggy limestone peak, close to the Pyrenees, this fortress sheltered a group of Cathars besieged by Catholic crusaders for 10 months. Eventually defeated, 220 men and women filed down a steep winding path to be burned en masse in an enclosure on the grassy meadow below the citadel in 1244. Burning was the French Inquisition's nifty way of recreating hell, a concept in...

A hot and fetid June night on the small Mediterranean island of Malta, and a Christian sentry patrolling at the foot of a fort on the Grand Harbour had spotted something drifting in the water. The alarm was raised. More of these strange objects drifted into view, and men waded into the shallows to drag them to the shore. What they found horrified even these battle-weary veterans: wooden crosses pushed out by the enemy to float in the harbour, and crucified on each was the headless body of a Christian knight. This was psychological warfare at its most brutal, a...

Five Hundred Years Since Columbus: Lessons of the Church's History by Fr. John A. Hardon, S.J. Our reflections so far on Christopher Columbus have concentrated on his Catholic discovery of America. Our stress has been on the providential role that Columbus played in initiating the most fruitful conversion to Catholic Christianity since apostolic times. Too much has happened since 1492 and no two evaluations will be the same. However, there are certain aspects of our Catholic history since Columbus that are too obvious to be missed. They are also too important not to learn from the past how God wants...

What one individual would you identify as the virtual founder of America? Would it be George Washington? Thomas Jefferson? Thomas Paine? Benjamin Franklin? I believe that the man history clearly gives this designation to is a humble reformer from Geneva, Switzerland, who died in 1564. His name is John Calvin. The great American historian, George Bancroft, who was far from a Calvinist, calls John Calvin “the father of America.” According to Bancroft, “He who will not honor the memory and respect the influence of Calvin knows but little of the origin of American liberty.” If we are to get back...

worldwide birthday party is being planned to celebrate the life and legacy of John Calvin, one of the founding fathers of the Protestant Reformation. "Protestant theology and Western democracy owe a debt of gratitude to John Calvin," says Peter Lillback, president of Westminster Theological Seminary outside Philadelphia and one of the driving forces behind Calvin 500, a celebration that culminates on July 10, 2009, five centuries after Calvin's birth. "Calvin is maligned or, worse, sometimes forgotten today. But along with his brother in the faith, Martin Luther, Calvin did much for the revival of biblical Christianity," declares Lillback. Calvin was...

[ ] The following article is located at:http://www.christianitytoday.com/history/features/131christians.html This week's Christians everyone should know Buy the book containing these and many other profiles of Christians you should know. New this week: Richard AllenInnocent IIILouis IXErasmusJohn FoxeFrancis BaconJustinian I and Theodora IBonifaceHugh Latimer & Nicholas RidleyJohn SmythJohn DonnePatrick

Picture the following scenario. Crowds of Americans rioting in the streets. Two opposing groups shout loudly, vying to have their messages heard and heeded. The groups meet. Confrontation ensues. Fistfights break out. Church windows are smashed. What are these rioters fighting about? Christmas. One group favors celebrating Christmas, the other opposes all Christmas observances. This isn’t an imaginary event, it is history. It happened in Boston on Christmas day in 1706. In America's increasing love-affair with Christmas (both the Christian and commercial versions), we have forgotten that there was a time when much of European and American Christianity thought that...