An ancient crucifix that could change Danish history

Will Worley, The Independent, March 17, 2016:

An amateur metal detector has made a discovery that experts think could change our understanding of Christianity in Denmark.

Dennis Fabricius Holm was enjoying an afternoon off work when he found a Birka crucifix pendant in a field near the town of Aunslev, Østfyn.

“I got off early on Friday, so I took just a few hours, I went around with my metal detector and then I came suddenly on something,” Mr Holm told DK.

Malene Refshauge Beck, curator and archaeologist at Østfyns Museum, said: “It is an absolutely sensational discovery that is from the first half of the 900s [10th century].”

“There is found an almost identical figure in Sweden, which has been dated to just this period.”

This specimen, however, is in especially good condition and one of the best-preserved Christian artifacts found in Denmark.

Weighing just 13.2 grams and measuring 4.1 centimeters in length, the figure is made of finely articulated goldthreads and tiny filigree pellets.

It is smooth on the reverse side but has a small eye at the top for a chain.

It was probably worn by a Viking woman.

The dating of the crucifix, estimated at being from A.D. 900 to 950, is significant because it would indicate Danes embraced Christianity earlier than previously thought.

At the moment, the Jelling Stones–two large runestones erected in A.D. 965 in Jutland–are thought to be the oldest known representation of Jesus on a cross in Denmark.

The stones, in the town of Jelling, commemorate Harald Bluetooth’s conversion of the Danes to Christianity.

Christian missionaries had been present in the country for about 200 years before then but had failed to convert the Vikings.

But pressures from Christian trade partners to convert, and in particular, influence from the Kingdom of Germany to the south, meant that most Danes were Christian by the end of the Viking period in 1050.

“The figure can therefore help to advance the time when one considers that the Danes really were Christians,” Beck said.

“Simply because one can say that the person who carried it here no doubt embraced the Christian faith.”

The impact of the find is such that the historical record of the country will need to be adjusted.

“This is a subject that certainly will have to appear in the history books in the future,” Beck said.

“In recent years there has been more and more signs that Christianity was widespread earlier than previously thought–and here the clearest evidence so far.”

Dennis Edwards: Bill Cooper's book, After the Flood, which can be found on-line, confirms the above article with his interesting analysis of the ancient European genealogies Of course, modern critics and scholars wanting to discredit the Bible ignore his research. Cooper shows how Christianity was in Britain long before the arrival of Augustine. 

The Welsh had accepted Christianity not long after the first early persecutions in Jerusalem when Christian migrated there and brought with them the "Good News.". Welsh indigenous Christianity was well embedded in Wales before the famous night of the long knives where Welsh governmental, religious and educational leaders were murdered by the Saxon Kings who had agreed to support Augustine's efforts to bring all of the British Isles under the authority of the Pope. 

Modern historians ignore any evidence in historical documents that confirm the Biblical scenario and call them forgeries by the early Christian monks. Hitler said, "Let me write the school books and I will control the future generations." The French Revolutionaries wrote their encyclopedias to  be able to reinterpret history outside a domain of the Catholic Church. In his book 1984 George Orwell calls it the Ministry of Truth. How you interpret the past depends on your belief system and your assumptions. Assumptions are beliefs which you have which you cannot prove to be true, but believe them any way for one reason or another. Like Aldous Huxley so candidly said, 

“I had motives for not wanting the world to have a meaning; and consequently assumed that it had none, and was able without any difficulty to find satisfying reasons for this assumption. The philosopher who finds no meaning in the world is not concerned exclusively with a problem in pure metaphysics. He is also concerned to prove that there is no valid reason why he personally should not do as he wants to do. For myself, as no doubt for most of my friends, the philosophy of meaninglessness was essentially an instrument of liberation from a certain system of morality. We objected to the morality because it interfered with our sexual freedom. The supporters of this system claimed that it embodied the meaning - the Christian meaning, they insisted - of the world. There was one admirably simple method of confuting these people and justifying ourselves in our erotic revolt: we would deny that the world had any meaning whatever.”[1]

What beliefs are you assuming to be true, that have no real justification? Your beliefs need to be justifiable and reasonable or they are irrational. Irrational beliefs are arbitrary and unsubstantiated. You need to dig deeper. Seek and ye shall find, if ye shall seek with all your heart.[2] 

[1]  Aldous Huxley, Ends and Means; http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/465563-i-had-motives-for-not-wanting-the-world-to-have

[2] Matthew 7:7; Jeremiah 29:13