Jerusalem – The recent discovery of a collection of ancient New Testament scrolls near the southeast Israeli city of Amrosif contains a version, likely St. John’s original copy, of the Book of Revelation “with intriguing additional verses” according to Dr. Stanley Bolsson, head of the archeological team who discovered the scrolls while investigating a dig site on the outskirts of the city last month. “It took us awhile, first to confirm their authenticity and then to decipher the ancient Greek on them. The handwriting was poor. But we found a prophetic verse amongst them that weirdly and specifically seems to reference the small Catholic liberal arts school Wyoming Catholic College.”
Nestled right in the middle of what’s now divided out as Chapter 21 of the Book of Revelation was the insertion of two sentences according to Bolsson that reference the school’s dining hall, Frassati Hall.
“Behold I will give to you a new heavens and a new Frassati” sayeth the Lord. The former heavens and the former Frassati will pass away and the dishpit will be no more.”
“Frassati Hall is often a place people at WCC complain about,” says Bolsson, who is also a professor of philosophy and mathematics at the school in addition to his archeological work. “But to find it in the Bible, should make haters stop and at least think for a moment. What place do we have in the story of Salvation, if somehow, unknowingly, even to me I admit. I don’t really know what it means. But if somehow this building is in the story of Salvation we have to ponder what place we have ourselves in that same story. ”
No other interpretation really makes sense, although several have been proposed as to the meaning of this phrase. “I also don’t know why it was taken out of every other copy of the Book of Revelations that we have,” Bolsson comments, “But maybe editors just dropped it because they couldn’t understand it or it seemed out of context to mention a “dishpit” in the Bible. Whatever it is though, it’s more than just cool. To students at WCC it’s a sign of the working of Divine Providence into care for the smallest details. It’s a sign of hope to and for those students there who for some weird and unknown reason seem to hate that place.”
No one, not even Bolsson himself, has offered an exact interpretation of the newly discovered passage but the “general gist should be pretty clear,” he added.
Wyoming Catholic College has not yet commented on this discovery and the apparent connection the discoverer has made back to the school. Presently they have plans to renovate and expand Frassati Hall and perhaps even expand it with the addition of a second floor. But “maybe this will make them stop and take a moment to see what the will of God, as expressed to and through Divine Revelation actually is. Maybe it will make them see that it’s God’s will that the place be torn and replaced,” comments WCC sophomore Jacinta Rioux ,who has personally spend a lot of time in the building.
IIT is investigating a report from an anonymous school administration figure, however, that the discovered scrolls are actually accidental forgeries produced by students practicing calligraphy on scroll-like paper in Gymnopoetics. As one report that reached us discussed, scraps from their practice could have included students practicing parts of the Bible and selections of their own composition. If one of these papers was accidentally discarded in Israel by mistake near an archeological dig, Dr. Bolsson, who gets a little excited a little too quickly may have somehow thought they were actual Biblical scrolls, causing this to be all a misunderstanding. A carbon dating report on the scrolls is forthcoming and should conform either Bolsson’s comments or this report by the end of July.