Tall tales
Since writing the previous page, I have been informed that one of these individuals now claims to have discovered the Ten Commandments. Allegedly the pieces were carefully gathered up by one of the Israelites, handed down through the generations until the Exile but then, unaccountably, left behind in Mesopotamia when the Jews returned to Palestine. No doubt he also found a clay tablet giving the name of the tidy individual who gathered up the fragments, together with his e-mail address and bank acount details.
You can just see it, can't you! Fierce Babylonian soldiers at the door, herding the family out for the long trek into exile and the desperate family loading themselves down with a collection of broken stones rather than food, clothing or money. Any sensible refugee in those circumstances would bury the stones in the backyard where they could be retrieved at a future date. I really don't know whether to laugh or cry at the thought that there are people who believe this stuff! Certainly no one has found so many holy sites so easily since St Helena visited the Holy Land in the fourth century AD.
