First Knights Templar are discovered

[IChing]

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 Saladin, the feared Muslim leader who captured the fortress.

"Never before has it been possible to trace their remains to such an exact time in history,' Mr Asbridge said. "This discovery is the equivalent of the Holy Grail to archaeologists and historians. It is unparalleled."
>>>>snip
http://www.dailytelegraph.news.com.au/story/0,20281,18761160-5001027,00.html

Somebody ought to write a book about these guys,
wink, wink, nod, nod.

[Connie_Corleone]

1. Good timing. nt

[DanCa]

3. My thoughts exactly. (nt)

[bemildred]

8. Quite a coincidence. Really.

:rofl::rofl:

[file83]

2. Strange how a lot of these kinds of important "discoveries" are being

made as of late. Just a few days ago I read about that manuscript about Judas was found and how it challenges dogmatic beleifs about Judas.

Strange times we are living in.

[hedgehog]

4. Maybe someone will make a movie about it.

[closeupready]

6. Or write a book.

:D

[hedgehog]

7. Or make a movie about this guy who's writing a book about the

Templars, see, and then he finds this manuscript signed by the apostle Bartholomew, and it leads him to a crypt in Ireland, but a secret group of druids starts to chase him because on the back of the manuscript is the map to Avondale and...

[closeupready]

10. ... then, the religious authorities attempt to quash the Sacred Feminine

using fake scriptures which reject the SF and ignoring true ones which support it.

Ahem, sorry, got carried away there. :D

[hedgehog]

11. I'm suing

I wrote that book three years ago.

[Bridget Burke]

22. Which shows another "Weak Link" in Dan Brown's theory....

The Knights Templar never showed any interest in the Sacred Feminine.

Or any kind of feminine. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

[bmbmd]

12. And would it star

Roger Moore?

[msu2ba]

16. A Saintly Role n/t

[hootinholler]

26. Sean Connery

[TankLV]

35. Sean Connery and Antonio BanDARass!

[Retrograde]

25. and then in the sequel

he discovers the remaining Templars became Freemasons and in their copious free time, what with being secret masters of the universe and all, take a side trip to North America and dig the NYC subway system so they can hide their treasure, leaving abundant clues that only our hero, who looks uncannily like Nicholas Cage, can decipher and....

real historical fact: Ben Franklin named one of his grandkids Temple: of course this was just a clue to let everybody know that he knew this really big secret. What I want to know is, if all this Temple stuff was supposed to be top secret, why did people go about leaving clues that anybody could find all over the place?

[WinkyDink]

31. Did YOU know the "clues"? It's their "Purloined Letter", as it were.

[reprobate]

33. It just wouldn't be a mystery unless someone left clues to it, right?

[skooooo]

15. If the arctic keeps melting...

....no telling what they will find.

[Uncle Joe]

23. Bush's integrity, I hear it died a long time ago. n/t

[geniph]

27. Bush had integrity once?

Jeez, blink and you miss it!

[Uncle Joe]

30. Well, now that you mention, technically speaking, it was only integ,

it never evolved to full blown integrity, before it died out.

[TechBear_Seattle]

18. No dogmatic beliefs about Judas have been challenged

1. Fragments of the Gospel of Judas have been studied for decades. The recent find is only the first complete copy, which fills in the 40% or so that had not already been known.

2. The Gospel of Judas is a gnostic text, with almost nothing at all in common with traditional Christianity. It will have as little effect on Christian doctrine as the Gospel of Thomas, the Gospel of Mary or any other gnostic text.

3. The idea that Judas was doing God's will and should be classed as a saint has appeared on and off in Christian tradition almost from the very beginning. It cropped up in theological discussions of the late Empire, was condemed by several synods during the first millennium, was discussed in the early Scholastic movement (12th and 13th century) and was soundly condemned by Thomas Aquinas and other theologians in the late Scholastic movement. During the Inquisition, the allegation of honoring Judas was one of the charges leveled against Cathars and related "heretical" sects. Some early Protestant writings proposed the idea that Judas was a loving servant who did what was asked of him to bring salvation into the world, an idea that was firmly rejected as literalism became a thread in Protestant theology.

In short, this is not a new teaching by any stretch. Christendom has fought against it for centuries. The only thing that has changed is the discovery of a complete ancient text that supports a long rejected doctrine.

[KittyWampus]

5. Strange Really, how the past speaks to us and the dead tell their tales

[lovuian]

9. Whoah!!! How Awesome!!! The first templars were

very devout and their leader was quite crazy... They were respected and so was Saladin

it was an amazing time in history...

those wars were fought with swords and now we fight with nukes

is this man's achievement in all these years is the ability to destroy the Earth...

:nuke:

[Javaman]

20. The more things change the more they stay the same. nt

[Orrin_73]

13. Wasn't the Knights Templar betrayed by the pope

and their order destroyed.

[Bridget Burke]

14. The King of France wanted their money & the Pope supported him.

Most of the French Templars were executed or fled. Templars in other countries fared better, althought he power of the Order was destroyed. They were absorbed by other Orders or escaped to places where the Pope's influence was weaker.

The Knights Templar were excellent businessmen, but many of their riches were never discovered.

[Orrin_73]

17. The teutonic order first went to transylvania

from there they moved to prussia and in early 16th century they converted to protestantism. The founders of the prussian state were actually teutonic knight, you can say that the order survived until 1918 when the german empire was dissolved.

[kineneb]

21. Masonic Temple claims decent from Templars

Hence the reason their youth organization is called "De Molay", after Jaques De Molay, the last Grand Master of the Knights Templar, who was executed in 1314.

Full title of the original order: Poor Kights of the Temple of Solomon


At the fall of Acre in 1291, most of the Templars were killed. Those who survived returned to Europe and the Templar estates there. Philip IV of France wanted their wealth and convinced Pope Clement V (the first Avignon pope) to dissolve the order. The Templars confessed to heresy after extreme torture by the Inquisition, and the order was abolished by the Council of Vienne in 1311-12.

-info from "A Distant Mirror"(Barbara Tuchman), and "The Knight in History"(Frances Gies)

medieval history geek /off

[fedsron2us]

29. Their leader Jacques de Molay

is supposed to have cursed the French crown with his dying breath as he was burned at the stake.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacques_de_Molay


My local parish church here in the UK was once owned by the Templars and you can still see the rough crosses carved in the walls by the south door that are supposed to have been made by by the knights returning from the Holy Land. It is a relatively humble ecclessiastical building dating from Anglo Saxon times but it has a very unusual layout including a large high internal arch which was obviously added during the Templar period. It completely out of scale with the rest of the structure and looks like it was made to accommodate tall banners carried in some form of ritual procession.

http://www.earlybritishkingdoms.com/adversaries/archaeology/sompting02.html

The village kids all start their education at the Templars First School so the name of the Order still lives on locally.

[stop the bleeding]

19. this will be good for the movie's business - timing is ironic n/t

[AnneD]

24. Drink up Shriner's...

:beer:

[Joanne98]

28. The Templars started the first global banking system....

They fled from France into the Alps. I guess they're the Swiss banks now.

[NewJeffCT]

32. I though the Templars were before that?

Didn't the Knights Templar go on the first crusade, while Saladin in 1179 was 70-80 years later? At least if I recall.

[steely]

34. I'd sure like to see another source than the Daily Telegraph.

Maybe I didn't search hard enough, but their being dated to the exact day makes me slightly suspicious of this report.
(on edit: spelling)