They’re only 7 millimeters wide, but these coins appear to be a big find.

The Temple Mount Sifting Project recently discovered five rare coins dating from the 4th century B.C. This doubles the number unearthed so far and provides some of the earliest evidence of Jewish coin minting in Israel.

According to The Times of Israel, the coins come from around the period of time described in Ezra and Nehemiah.

The two biblical books record the Jewish people returning to Jerusalem and beginning the construction of the Second Temple by the decree of Cyrus the Great, the king of Persia.

The coins were minted when the Jews were allowed semiautonomous rule of a province called Yehud Medinata with Jerusalem as its capital under the Persian Empire.

“These were the first coins ever minted by Jews,” Zachi Dvira, co-director of the Temple Mount Sifting Project, told YNet. “They express the people’s return to their land after the Babylonian exile and their ability to hold and maintain diplomatic ties with the ruling empire.”

Three of the coins have visible markings, but two others have become too worn to read. The marked coins point to a Jewish culture heavily influenced by outside forces.

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Source: Baptist Press

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A knife-wielding prison inmate on a 48-hour leave stabbed two police officers Tuesday in the Belgian city of Liege, seized their service weapons and shot them and a bystander to death before being mowed down by a group of officers, setting off a major terror investigation into the country’s most savage assault since 2016 suicide attacks.

Prime Minister Charles Michel acknowledged the assailant, who had a lengthy criminal record that included theft, assault and drug offenses, had appeared in three reports on radicalism but was still allowed to take a leave from prison.

“Is our system working when we see that these kind of people are running free?” asked vice premier Alexander De Croo, echoing the thoughts of many in a nation where armed police and gun-toting soldiers still patrol the streets in the wake of the March 2016 attacks that left 32 people dead at the Brussels airport and subway system

Tuesday’s attack happened outside a cafe in the eastern city of Liege when the assailant crept up on the two female officers from behind and stabbed them repeatedly.

“He then took their weapons. He used the weapons on the officers, who died,” the Liege prosecutor’s spokesman, Philippe Dulieu, told reporters.

Dulieu said the attacker then shot and killed a 22-year-old teacher in a vehicle that was leaving a parking lot outside a nearby high school. He then took two women hostage inside the school before confronting police massed outside.

“He came out firing at police, wounding a number of them, notably in the legs. He was shot dead,” the spokesman said, adding that the…

A homeless Jesus statue came to the rescue on Monday by stopping a barreling truck from plowing into other cars and pedestrians as the driver was unable to bring the vehicle to a stop at a red light.

Police in Hamilton, Ontario, are crediting the statue of a Homeless Jesus sleeping on a bench with a blanket wrapped around him for preventing what looked to be a tragedy waiting to happen.

According to Hamilton Police Service, the driver of a junk-removal truck was approaching a red light at the intersection of Victoria Avenue and South King Street when he realized that his truck was not stopping.

To avoid barging into oncoming traffic or striking pedestrians, the driver frantically steered the truck east and then mounted a curb in front of St. Patrick’s Roman Catholic Church.

Officials say that the truck finally came to a halt when it slammed into a bench that featured the sleeping Jesus statue.

“If the truck continued in its path it would have headed into oncoming westbound vehicular traffic and pedestrians on King Street,” a press release posted by media relations officer Jerome Stewart explains.

But because of the bench and Jesus statue, the out-of-control truck was stopped from inflicting any further damage and injuries.

“Hey #HamOnt this afternoon a statue of sleeping Jesus at St. Patrick’s Church stopped a truck from hitting other vehicles and pedestrians in the area,” a tweet from the police department reads.

St. Patrick’s shared a photo of the aftermath, showing the Jesus statue and bench knocked over on the ground.

“Thank you to the kind folks who helped us…