Monday, July 09, 2012

“our father was crucified?”

A VERY ODD STORY from Arutz Sheva:
Shocking ‘Land of Israel' Exam Shows Christian Crosses
High school “Land of Israel” exam features Christian crosses. Is the Education Ministry trying to undermine students with Christianity?


By Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu
First Publish: 7/8/2012, 8:58 AM

High school students last week were shocked by a matriculation exam in “Land of Israel Studies and Archaeology” that showed Christian crosses and referred to a place where “our father was crucified.”

[...]
Any exam with that title ought to include some questions on Christian, Islamic, and pagan archaeology, although obviously this should be done with sympathy for cultural sensitivities all around, which does not seem to have been the case here. But I'm really scratching my head over this:
The exam included a quote from a Christian pilgrim who visited Jerusalem and wrote in a dairy about "the little hill of Golgotha ​​where our father was crucified.”
It would be very unusual for a Christian pilgrim, or any other kind of Christian, to refer to Jesus as "our father." Either this pilgrim had some confused ideas about the Trinity or Arutz Sheva has made a mistake. I would like to know more about the source of this quotation.

UPDATE (12 July): Roger Pearse has located the quotation: Hunting the wild misquotation – “our Father was crucified”. Guess what? It was the journalist's mistake, not the pilgrim's. Also, barring an unusual mental picture for the pilgrim's writing workspace, the journalist needs to learn how to spell "diary."