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THE Roman emperor Nero, a byword for cruelty and excess, has been falsely blamed for burning down Rome by propagandists covering up for Christian and Jewish saboteurs, according to new research. The fire, which destroyed most of the ancient city in AD64, has traditionally been blamed on a plot by Nero to destroy his opponents. However, Gerhard Baudy, professor of antiquities at Konstanz University in Bavaria, claims the fire was part of a revolt to overthrow the Roman empire by a group who believed they were fulfilling divine prophecies. “It was highly unlikely this fire was an accident,” said Baudy. ...

House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) dismissed the notion Thursday that Congress is unproductive, adding that the House should be repealing more laws, not adding new ones. … “Now listen, we made clear when we took over that we weren’t going to be doing commemorative legislation on the floor—a lot of changes. In addition to that, most Americans think we have too many laws! So, I reject the premise to the question,” he said. “We’ve got a big job to do here, we need to stay focused in on those things that are most important to the American people, and right...

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However, there are at least half a dozen non-Christian (that is to say Roman or Jewish) sources that refer to Christian origins. These are sufficient to provide some confirmation of the historical picture that is painted by the Bible. Some of the most important of these sources are: Tacitus, Pliny the Younger, Suetonius, The Babylonian Talmud, Josephus, and the letter of Mara Bar-Serapion.

The Roman writer Tacitus says that 30,000 Caledonians massed to stop the Roman invasion under Agricola in AD 84. The bloody battle of Mons Graupius may have been fought near Inverness. Now a major site of the period has been uncovered in the area -- complete with two huge residences, a cluster of smaller houses, and the biggest industrial complex ever found in Iron Age Scotland... In June 2005 we began excavating a palisaded enclosure at Culduthel Farm on the southern outskirts of Inverness in advance of a housing development... we uncovered part of an astonishingly wellpreserved Iron Age settlement...

Juvenal's claim was dismissed as poetic exaggeration until archaeological discoveries suggested that the Romans may, after all, have extended their power across the Irish Sea. In 1927 a unique group of burials was unearthed on Lambay, a small island off the coast of County Dublin... Irish archaeologist Barry Raftery plausibly suggests that the burials may represent Britons fleeing reprisals after the Romans crushed a revolt by the Brigantes in the year 74... At Drumanagh in County Dublin, trial explorations have revealed traces of a Roman coastal fort on a promontory jutting into the Irish Sea. The 40-acre site is defended...

Persecution? Posted: October 10, 2003 1:00 a.m. Eastern © 2003 WorldNetDaily.com David Limbaugh has written an amazing book about Christian persecution – not in Sudan, not in China, but right here in the United States. It begins with the story of a judge threatening students in a public high school with arrest and incarceration for six months if they dare mention the name of Jesus. And the horror stories of anti-Christian bias, censorship and official intimidation continue throughout in his best-selling "Persecution." I had the pleasure of interviewing the WorldNetDaily columnist and author on my radio program yesterday. He explained...