Albania the Beautiful

We have been watching the series "Treasures of the World" with Bettany Hughes.  I highly recommend it. Fascinating.  She is taking us to places I have never heard of, let alone seen.  And yesterday we watched the one on Albania.

And it is such a beautiful country.  It is so lovely. And, according to Bettany, filled with the friendliest of people.  If we had only been there, I would have started this blog with a Captain B photo of it.  But we haven't.

If my travelling days were not over, I would love to go.

It has a tragic history - but isn't that true of everywhere, given we, the children of Adam, have been living in a tragedy since the loss of Eden?  We are living in the times during which "man has dominated man to his harm".  And the history of Albania speaks of that as much as anywhere else does.

But in its heartbreaking beauty, it also tells us as clearly as if it spoke of its Grand Creator, whose purpose was, and is, that the whole earth will become a paradise of love, peace and beauty.

My only problem with the series so far is that it often tells us that the civilisations it is unearthing - or that are being unearthed - are older than 6,000 years.

Please trust the Bible here.  Because while "the world and its wisdom" is telling us that we evolved, and are evolving, and that we humans have been on the earth for hundreds of thousands of years, Genesis tells us that the first man Adam, was created in 4026 B.C.E.  And he probably first opened his eyes in an Autumn garden, as apparently the earliest calendars start in the Fall.

It tells us that he was a perfect man, perfectly reflecting the qualities of our Grand Creator.  And it also tells us that, far from evolving, we are in a continuing fall from a perfect state.

For centuries Hebrew scribes faithfully transcribed the generations down the ages - the Biblical record of their endeavours being preserved for us to this day.  Jesus has a complete genealogy, going back to Adam.

The Christian Greek Scriptures, or New Testament, explain that he came to the earth because of what Adam did.

1 Corinthians 15:22 tells us that "Just as in Adam all are dying, so also in the Christ all will be made alive."

And Jesus himself tells us that he came to give his life a ransom - a perfect human life for the one that Adam so tragically threw away. - Matthew 20:28

The earth of course is very old - according to Genesis, and scientists would now agree.  But man did not appear on it until 6,000 years ago.   

The world, or much of it, will be celebrating Easter today.  It is a Bank Holiday of course, and reasonably sunny. The beach carpark is full. So I guess the beach is pretty full too.

Captain Butterfly is doing his usual metal detecting weekend, so I hope he does not get caught up in all the queues.  Bank Holiday, especially sunny ones, seem the perfect time to stay at home. 

I never thought about the meaning of the word Easter until I began to study the Bible.  And I would ask this. Is it something Christians should be celebrating?

The Catholic Encyclopedia tells us: “A great many pagan customs, celebrating the return of spring, gravitated to Easter. The egg is the emblem of the germinating life of early spring. . . . The rabbit is a pagan symbol and has always been an emblem of fertility.”—(1913), Vol. V, p. 227.

In the book The Two Babylons, by Alexander Hislop, we read: “What means the term Easter itself? It is not a Christian name. It bears its Chaldean origin on its very forehead. Easter is nothing else than Astarte, one of the titles of Beltis, the queen of heaven, whose name, . . . as found by Layard on the Assyrian monuments, is Ishtar. . . . Such is the history of Easter. The popular observances that still attend the period of its celebration amply confirm the testimony of history as to its Babylonian character. The hot cross buns of Good Friday, and the dyed eggs of Pasch or Easter Sunday, figured in the Chaldean rites just as they do now.”—(New York, 1943), pp. 103, 107, 108; compare Jeremiah 7:18