Joyce has been teaching the PIBC community adult ESL class this semester. The class meets on Monday and Friday mornings. Yesterday was "show and tell" and Joyce was encouraging the class to teach us something about their own culture. I visited the class because Joyce thought I would be interested in what one her students, Pastor David Wu, from Taiwan was going to talk about. First he brought some brochures and pictures about the indigenous tribal peoples of Taiwan. He explained to us that there are 12 different tribal cultures in Taiwan, each with their own language, customs and style of dress. Pastor Wu's tribe is the Amis.
Wikipedia has an interesting article about the indigenous peoples of Taiwan.
The 2nd item Pastor Wu had was even more interesting to me.
He showed us a coin (pictured) that his seminary professor in Taiwan had given to him. He said that all he knew about it was that it was a Jewish coin from around the time of Christ. He asked if we could figure out what it said and what it was. The script looked to me like Hebrew but it was hard to read because of the wear on the coin. I could only make out one word on it - Kadosh or "holy." However, we were able to find a
picture of the coin on the internet. On the left (it was really worn and hard to see) the coin has a picture of a branch with three pomegranates. The inscription says "Jerusalem the Holy." On the other side (right) is a picture of a chalice with the inscription "shekel of Israel." According to Wikipedia and the
USC web page this was a coin made during the first Jewish revolt in 68 AD. This is the revolt that led to the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD. The coin date is there above the chalice (shin-gimel meaning Year 3 of the revolt). I have to admit that it was pretty cool to hold in my hand a coin that was circulating when the New Testament was being written.
Joyce has been teaching the PIBC community adult ESL class this semester. The class meets on Monday and Friday mornings. Yesterday was "show and tell" and Joyce was encouraging the class to teach us something about their own culture. I visited the class because Joyce thought I would be interested in what one her students, Pastor David Wu, from Taiwan was going to talk about. First he brought some brochures and pictures about the indigenous tribal peoples of Taiwan. He explained to us that there are 12 different tribal cultures in Taiwan, each with their own language, customs and style of dress. Pastor Wu's tribe is the Amis. Wikipedia has an interesting article about the indigenous peoples of Taiwan.
The 2nd item Pastor Wu had was even more interesting to me. 
He showed us a coin (pictured) that his seminary professor in Taiwan had given to him. He said that all he knew about it was that it was a Jewish coin from around the time of Christ. He asked if we could figure out what it said and what it was. The script looked to me like Hebrew but it was hard to read because of the wear on the coin. I could only make out one word on it - Kadosh or "holy." However, we were able to find a picture of the coin on the internet. On the left (it was really worn and hard to see) the coin has a picture of a branch with three pomegranates. The inscription says "Jerusalem the Holy." On the other side (right) is a picture of a chalice with the inscription "shekel of Israel." According to Wikipedia and the USC web page this was a coin made during the first Jewish revolt in 68 AD. This is the revolt that led to the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD. The coin date is there above the chalice (shin-gimel meaning Year 3 of the revolt). I have to admit that it was pretty cool to hold in my hand a coin that was circulating when the New Testament was being written.
1 comment:
That's so great to have something from the time of Christ. Just to hold it would be fascinating to me.
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