My great-aunts Daisy and Clara were convinced that humans never went to the moon.
I asked them about the television broadcast we all watched; they claimed it was filmed by Hollywood actors on sand dunes in Arizona. I asked them about the testimony of Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin that they had been to the moon; they said the astronauts had been paid to lie. I asked them about the moon rocks they brought back; they asked me, “How do you know they’re from the moon?”
Historian Arthur Schlesinger Jr. identified the moon landing as the most significant event of the twentieth century. More than 530 million people watched the broadcast of the moon landing on television. It is estimated that 93 percent of all the televisions in the US were tuned into the event.
Where humans go, faith seems to follow. It’s no less true of NASA’s first manned mission to land on the moon, when astronauts Neil Armstrong, Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin and Michael Collins made their way farther into the heavens than anyone had gone before.
Fifty years ago this Saturday, at 1:46 p.m., astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin separated the lunar landing craft from the Apollo 11 command module. As they moved toward the moon, astronaut Michael Collins stayed behind. He was 250,000 miles from earth.
A 1,700-year-old letter written by one Christian to another has been unveiled by researchers from the University of Basil, which is calling it the oldest Christian letter outside of copies of the New Testament.
Israeli officials unveiled a stairway, known as “Pilgrim’s Road,” that which provides further windows into biblical history. The road, which Jesus likely walked,” served as a pathway to ancient Jerusalem for those who traveled there three times a year to offer sacrifices.
A team of Israeli archeologists has announced the discovery of an ancient Biblical city. The Israeli Antiquities Authority, Hebrew University in Jerusalem and Macquarie University of Sydney, Australia issued a joint statement saying that they had uncovered the city of Ziklag, which was mentioned multiple times in the Bible.
New DNA research indicating the biblical Philistines originated from Europe bolsters the case that the land of Israel belongs to the Jewish people, says Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
In “The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,” 18th-century historian Edward Gibbon blames Rome’s demise, at least in part, on Christianity. He wrote, “The clergy successfully preached the doctrines of patience and pusillanimity; the active virtues of society were discouraged, and the last remains of military spirit were buried in the cloister [and] a large portion of public and private wealth was consecrated to the specious demands of charity and devotion...”
Palestinian officials believe they have discovered a new baptismal font in the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem.
