Hassan Saida, resident of Arab village Umm al-Ghanim, owns a cache of booklets with perhaps the earliest rendering of Jesus Christ, UK-based
Mail Online reported Sunday. Bible historians claim that the vague portrait of a young man with curly hair bearing the crown of thorns could be the first-ever portrait of Christ.
The portrait is contained among a hoard of at least 70 booklets that were found in a cave in the hills overlooking Lake Kinneret, and contain on them ancient Hebrew script. One booklet, reportedly, bears the words "Savior of Israel."
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console.log("catid body is "+catID);if(catID==120){document.getElementsByClassName("divConnatix")[0].style.display ="none";var script = document.createElement('script'); script.src = 'https://player.anyclip.com/anyclip-widget/lre-widget/prod/v1/src/lre.js'; script.setAttribute('pubname','jpostcom'); script.setAttribute('widgetname','0011r00001lcD1i_12258'); document.getElementsByClassName('divAnyClip')[0].appendChild(script);}else if(catID!=69 && catID!=2){ document.getElementsByClassName("divConnatix")[0].style.display ="none"; var script = document.createElement('script'); script.src = 'https://static.vidazoo.com/basev/vwpt.js'; script.setAttribute('data-widget-id','60fd6becf6393400049e6535'); document.getElementsByClassName('divVidazoo')[0].appendChild(script); }The booklets were discovered originally in Jordanian town Saham, less than 100 miles from Qumran where the Dead Sea scrolls were found. The
Daily Mail reported that according to locals a flash flood revealed the entrance to a long buried cave filled with small niches each containing a different booklet. Unlike the Dead Sea scrolls, these booklets consist of stylized pictures and not text, though some small amount of script in an as-of-yet unidentified Phonecian dialect appears on the codices.
Speculators believe that the booklets were created by an early Messianic sect.
