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Archaeologists find 'proof' major biblical event happened at Armageddon site

Daily Mirror

3 days ago

Entertainment
Daily Mirror

Archaeologists find 'proof' major biblical event happened at Armageddon site

The term Armageddon has been synonymous with the 'end of times' for many years as it is where the final battle between good and evil is said to take place The concept of Armageddon, widely recognised as the ultimate showdown between good and evil in the 'end times', has been further etched into public consciousness by the 1998 blockbuster starring Bruce Willis. The film depicted a catastrophic asteroid on a collision course with Earth. ‌ For centuries there has been talk of an epic battle involving Judaean King Josiah, who some say was a descendant of Jesus and met his end fighting the forces of Egyptian Pharaoh Necho II at a site called Megiddo. ‌ While this historic clash is referenced in the Bible, concrete evidence had eluded historians until now. A new study in the Scandinavian Journal of the Old Testament presents findings that suggest Ancient Egyptians were indeed present at Tel Megiddo in Northern Israel. Dr Assaf Kleiman, an archaeologist and co-author of the study, revealed: "We have found high quantities of crude and straw-tempered pottery vessels imported from Egypt, as well as a few East Greek vessels." He, along with Dr Israel Finkelstein of the University of Haifa and Tel Aviv University, suggests that these Greek pots indicate the presence of mercenaries from that region in the Egyptian military. ‌ "This scenario may be linked to the biblical account about the killing of King Josiah of Judah by Pharaoh Necho at Megiddo in 609 BC," Finkelstein remarked. "The Bible recounts the death of Josiah at Megiddo in two places.", reports the Mirror US. "He's killed by Necho during an encounter at Megiddo in the Book of Kings, and killed in a battle with the Egyptians in the Book of Chronicles. On this background, the new evidence for an Egyptian garrison, possibly with Greek mercenaries, at Megiddo in the late seventh century BC, may provide the background to the event." ‌ Lad Bible reports that the term Armageddon is mentioned in the Book of Revelation as follows: "And they (demons) gathered the kings and armies of the world together at the place which in Hebrew is called Har-Magedon (Armageddon)." An early Greek Bible translation reveals 'Har-Magedon' as the site where King Josiah is believed to have met his end. His demise is also recorded in the preceding Book of Kings, and over time, Armageddon has become synonymous with cataclysmic battles in common parlance. The clash and subsequent death of King Josiah were monumental at the time and could explain why Tel Megiddo is shrouded in apocalyptic lore. Finkelstein asserted to LiveScience that Josiah was viewed as a devout leader and the notion of an Armageddon event only emerged posthumously. The scientist posits that this naturally progressed into a belief in a climactic showdown between good and evil at the site where the king met his end at the hands of the Egyptians.

What the death of my Arab student revealed about Israel

Mint

05-07-2025

Politics
Mint

What the death of my Arab student revealed about Israel

On the night of June 13, Israel launched a surprise attack on Iranian nuclear and military sites. Iran responded by firing hundreds of ballistic missiles at Israel, many aimed at civilian targets. Israel's defense systems blunted the barrage, but many missiles still got through, striking homes and killing 24 civilians. One of the victims was my student Shada Khatib, a smart, accomplished, 20-year-old Palestinian-Israeli. She died on June 15 alongside her 13-year-old sister Hala, their mother Manar and their aunt Manal, in the Arab town of Tamra in northern Israel. Last year Shada took my class on the history of political thought, which is mandatory for law students at the University of Haifa. She had applied to work as my teaching assistant next year, and I was supposed to interview her this week. Shada 'was the youngest among the students and the most prominent presence," her academic adviser, human rights attorney Abeer Baker, told me in a private message, 'with her smile, tenderness and endless courage to participate in the discussions despite all the challenges Palestinian students face in Israeli universities." She was an outstanding student at the law faculty's legal clinic for human rights, which has litigated dozens of court cases on behalf of underprivileged populations, with notable success in cases of housing rights and asylum seekers' right to education. Another of her law professors, Itamar Mann, wrote on his Facebook page that Shada 'surprised me with her clear and quick answers, to the point that I asked with a smile if she would like to teach in my place. Her quick answer: 'Yes, maybe in a few years.'" His commemorative post went viral. The pain of Shada's death has reached far beyond the town of Tamra and the University of Haifa. The Khatib family's funeral was attended by hundreds of mourners—Jewish and Arab, neighbors and academics, lawyers and political activists. Shada's mother, Manar, was a teacher; her bereaved father, Raja, is a prominent real estate lawyer in northern Israel and deputy chair of the Haifa District Bar Association. Raja's brother Ihab, who lost his wife Manal to the same Iranian missile, is a member of the bar's ethics commission. Few people outside Israel are aware of its flourishing Arab middle class, especially in Haifa and the Galilee. At the University of Haifa, around 40% of the students are Arab Israeli citizens—or Palestinian-Israeli, as many prefer to identify themselves. In the law faculty, where I teach, around 25% of students are members of the Arab and Druze minorities, and over 50% of those students are women. The academic head of the university, the neurobiologist Mouna Maroun, is the first Arab woman to be appointed rector of an Israeli university. For many years, liberal Israelis like myself have taken pride in these signs of rising equality between Jews and Arabs. But Shada Khatib's death is also a reminder of how much inequality remains. The Khatib home had an operative safe room, which the four victims couldn't reach in time. But Tamra, like many Arab residential areas in Israel, has almost no government-funded air raid shelters. According to a recent report from the Israeli Democracy Institute, 46% of Israel's Arab population lives in buildings that do not have certified air raid shelters, as opposed to 26% of the population as a whole. The attack also exposed the unbridled racism against Arab citizens that has erupted among a small but shrill minority of Israelis in the wake of the Oct. 7 massacre, the Israel-Hamas war and the Israel-Iran war. Soon after the missile hit Tamra, an anonymous video was posted on social media that showed young Jewish men celebrating. They danced and chanted 'May your village burn!", a song by a DJ named Yehuda Mor that has become an anthem for the extreme right and fans of the Beitar Jerusalem soccer club. It was originally written to taunt a rival Arab soccer team: 'Listen well, you Arabs, we don't do reconciliations, may your village burn!" Recently the song has been directed not only against Palestinians but also against liberal and leftist Jews, including demonstrators demanding the release of Israeli hostages and an end to the war in Gaza. The normalization of hate speech isn't just a consequence of Israelis' collective trauma. It is fueled and encouraged by several openly racist government ministers and parliamentarians, notably Bezalel Smotrich, Itamar Ben-Gvir and Almog Cohen. The latter, for example, said of Arab Knesset members that they 'are not even worthy of being sheep, they are not human." For the majority of Haifa residents and Israeli liberals, the killing of Shada Khatib and her relatives is a private calamity embedded in a public one. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu attacked Iranian nuclear and military sites to defend the country—rightly, in my view. But the current Israeli government has failed in multiple ways to defend its citizens, both Jewish and Arab. The greatest failure, of course, was Hamas's surprise attack. Another is the rise of anti-Arab and anti-liberal political actors with tremendous legislative power and media impact. The Netanyahu government has been trying for more than two years to limit the authority of the Israeli Supreme Court, which is committed to defending the rights of minorities. This week, a Knesset committee voted to oust Ayman Odeh, a veteran Arab Israeli politician, from his seat in the legislature, because he made public statements including the words 'Gaza has won, and Gaza will win." Unpleasant as they are to Jewish Israeli ears, his statements were well within the legal definition of freedom of speech. Odeh has always been deeply critical of Israeli policy but fully committed to the rule of law. He is himself a Haifa-born lawyer, from the same milieu as the Khatib family. The government's majority in the Knesset means that the move against him will pass, but the Supreme Court is likely to block it. Had Shada been alive, she would have followed the process with anger—and, I would like to think, some hope. The Khatib family was killed by Iran, and they represent the exact opposite of the ayatollahs' regime. They are democrats, moderates—crucial partners in any future Israeli society that might emerge from the current ruins and smoke. In an interview with the Associated Press, Raja Khatib said he believed his family's tragedy showed that Jews and Arabs 'have a common future. We need to understand that we have a common destiny." Moderate Zionist Jews like me may have political disagreements with Arab Israelis like the Khatibs, but I would much rather have them as my neighbors and fellow citizens than many a Jewish Israeli ultranationalist. May the memory of Shada and the other members of her family be a blessing. Fania Oz-Salzberger is professor emerita at the University of Haifa's Law School and the co-author, with Amos Oz, of 'Jews and Words."

[Lim Woong] Watching Korea's education go off track

Korea Herald

23-06-2025

Politics
Korea Herald

[Lim Woong] Watching Korea's education go off track

The rapid rise of artificial intelligence and digital technology is forcing countries everywhere to rethink how we educate. South Korea, with a new president at the helm, sits at a moment when major education reforms could actually happen. But instead of looking forward, most conversations still revolve around the same old issues — brutal competition for top university spots, higher education as a credentialing system for the job market, and the endless obsession with medicine and law. Is Korea's education stuck in a cycle of tests, stress and empty victories? And if there's hope for change, what should that even look like? To get a fresh perspective, let's talk about two ways of thinking about learning: the acquisition metaphor and the participation metaphor. These aren't just theories; they help us see education as more than just taking in facts — it's about thinking, growing and becoming part of something meaningful. The acquisition metaphor sees learning as stockpiling knowledge — like collecting baseball cards. You memorize, store and repeat information. The teacher pours knowledge into students, who are treated like empty vessels waiting to be filled. This is where lectures, rote learning and endless standardized tests dominate. Naturally, it feeds into a ranking system where test scores rule. In extreme cases, it drives kids into cutthroat competition, fuels private tutoring markets and even encourages cheating — all in the name of 'getting ahead.' The participation metaphor, on the other hand, sees learning as joining a community. You don't just collect knowledge — you live it. You start on the sidelines and gradually move in by doing, practicing and working with others. Think of an apprentice chef learning in a real kitchen instead of just reading recipes. Or a grad student who starts by following the professor's lead but eventually runs the lab. This idea comes from Jean Lave, emeritus professor at UC Berkeley, and her colleagues' Situated Learning Theory — basically, that learning always happens in context, not isolation. When education follows this participation approach, you get internships, project-based learning, practicums, concerts for music majors, art exhibits for art students — real experiences that integrate knowledge, skills and social engagement into a profession. To be clear, these two approaches aren't enemies. They're two sides of the same coin. Leaning too hard on acquisition leaves students full of disconnected facts, with little idea how to apply them and no sense of purpose in sitting through long lectures. But going all-in on participation without solid foundations leaves gaps in basic knowledge. It's also difficult to create authentic communities of practice in K-12 settings. Good education needs both: a solid grasp of content, plus opportunities to apply, question and grow in real-world contexts. Education scholar Anna Sfard at the University of Haifa explains this balance well. The Acquisition model provides clear, organized ways to deliver information, but risks becoming too rigid and detached from real life. Participation brings in the messy, rich aspects of learning — relationships, identity, growth — but can be harder to structure into neat curricula. Sfard argues that participation-based approaches may feel less tidy, but they better reflect individual needs and help students grow together, not just compete, which seems much more aligned with today's world. One of my graduate students put it better than I could, 'Before this class, I never even thought about this participation thing. But it hit me how much our schools treat knowledge like something you collect just for yourself, like a private stash (used) to beat others. I get why we need to learn stuff, but I also see now that what's missing is real practice with people. You can ace tests but still be totally lost when you start working.' She added, 'You know how people say school smarts aren't the same as work smarts? It's true. You can get good grades, but once you start a job, it's all about teamwork, problem-solving, dealing with people you don't like — stuff we barely practice in school. But employers still look at GPA and certificates because that's the easiest thing to measure.' Her words capture the real crisis. We're obsessed with what's easy to measure — test scores, grades, credentials — while ignoring what actually matters after graduation: flexibility, communication, character, collaboration, creativity, and a sense of humor. The scary part? We're stuffing students with dead facts and test-taking skills that serve almost no purpose once they step into the real world. We're preparing them for a world that doesn't exist. If we're serious about giving students meaningful lives in a messy, unpredictable world, we need to balance both models. Yes, build knowledge. But also build people — capable of working with others, solving real problems and earning trust and merit not with test scores, but through actions and real contributions. That should be the real measure of merit. The students we train today will shape tomorrow's society. If we fail to change course, we risk raising yet another generation that's great at passing tests but lost at living.

The Star

04-06-2025

General
The Star

3 generations of dolphins spotted off Israeli coast in rare sighting

JERUSALEM, June 4 (Xinhua) -- Israeli marine researchers have documented a rare sighting of three generations of bottlenose dolphins swimming together in the Mediterranean Sea off the coast of Tel Aviv, the University of Haifa said in a statement on Wednesday. The group included a grandmother, her daughter, and a newborn calf -- all belonging to the Tursiops truncatus species, commonly known as the bottlenose dolphin. The sighting was captured during a routine weekly marine survey, part of a long-running study by the university's Mediterranean research station in partnership with Delphis, a non-profit organization focused on marine mammal conservation. According to the researchers, it is the first time in 25 years of ongoing observation that a three-generation dolphin family has been photographed together in Israeli waters. The common bottlenose dolphin is the most frequently sighted species along Israel's coastline, with a local population estimated at around 360. While not classified as endangered, researchers say consistent monitoring remains critical. The grandmother dolphin, already familiar to the team, was previously recorded with calves in 2018 and 2021, underscoring the continuity of reproductive behavior in this small coastal population. Researchers noted that relatively few calves are identified after separating from their mothers, making the latest sighting a rare and valuable contribution to the long-term dataset.

Bible story where Jesus' ancestor was slain by pharaoh could be true

Telegraph

06-04-2025

General
Telegraph

Bible story where Jesus' ancestor was slain by pharaoh could be true

A Bible story about Jesus' ancestor Josiah, 'the last good king of Judah', could be true, according to a study. In the Book of Revelation, the apocalyptic final clash between good and evil takes place at Armageddon before a new world is born. Today known as Tel Megiddo, located in current-day northern Israel, the site is believed to be where the ancestor of Jesus, King Josiah, was killed by the Egyptian pharaoh Necho II, according to the Bible. Now, excavations reveal that there was an Egyptian presence at the site during Josiah's time, the first archaeological evidence to support the Biblical tale. Assaf Kleiman of Ben Gurion University in Beersheba, Israel, who co-authored a study about the discoveries, said the findings were a 'big surprise' for archaeologists. He said: 'Our recent excavations near the administrative quarter of Megiddo revealed the remains of a large structure dated to the late seventh century BC. 'Within this building, we have found high quantities of crude and straw-tempered pottery vessels imported from Egypt, as well as a few East Greek vessels. 'The exposure of these findings was a big surprise for our team, as these were not unearthed thus far at Megiddo.' The Greek vessels are considered to 'represent Greek mercenaries' who may have worked in the Egyptian army, according to the study's co-author, Prof Israel Finkelstein of the University of Haifa and Tel Aviv University He said: 'The Greek pottery is usually considered as representing Greek mercenaries. From sources such as Herodotus and the Assyrian King, Ashurbanipal, we know that Greeks from Anatolia served as mercenaries in the Egyptian army. 'This scenario may be linked to the biblical account about the killing of King Josiah of Judah by Pharaoh Necho at Megiddo in 609 BC.' Josiah is described in the Bible as a religious reformer who ended the worship of any god but Yahweh (the Hebrew name for God). He is also listed as a paternal ancestor of Jesus in the Gospel of Matthew. But the Old Testament gives varied accounts of his death. Dr Finkelstein said: 'The Bible recounts the death of Josiah at Megiddo in two places. He's killed by Necho during an encounter at Megiddo in the Book of Kings, and killed in a battle with the Egyptians in the Book of Chronicles. 'Kings gives close to 'real time' evidence while Chronicles represents centuries-later thoughts. 'On this background, the new evidence for an Egyptian garrison, possibly with Greek mercenaries, at Megiddo in the late seventh century BC, may provide the background to the event. 'Moreover, in two places in prophetic works, Ezekiel and Jeremiah, the Bible hints that west Anatolians – Lydians – were involved in the killing of Josiah.' The site's Hebrew name, Har Megiddo – meaning Mount Megiddo – was rendered as Harmagedon in Greek, leading to the modern name, Armageddon. There is debate amongst experts as to why Josiah was killed there. Some believe that his army blocked the path of the pharaoh, who was en route to Syria with his troops. Others think he might have been summoned as a vassal and was executed for failing to pay sufficient tribute to Egypt. It's also been suggested Josiah's death there created its apocalyptic reputation. 'It would make sense to place the [final] battle out there due to Israel's history of that location,' Hope Bolinger said at