I came across a cool site a couple days ago and love it — Shelfari. On one hand, there are other such library tools on the web, but I really like the graphic look of this one, as well as what you can see when you click through. I’ve put nearly 150 books on my shelf for readers to browse. The titles aren’t paleobabble; they are cures for paleobabble — ancient history, religion, languages, etc. Have a look!
Just so everyone is made aware, Dr. James Tabor just sent me the following note in the comments:
All the photos that Chris and our other consultants have been using are being posted on thejesusdiscovery.org web site just as soon as possible. They show the inscription from all angles, lighting, and various distances so I hope this will help resolve the matter of the disputed iota/zeta or the iota that Chris thinks is an epsilon. I remain convinced that our initial reading of the letters stands. I look forward to hearing from others.
Stay tuned …
I was having some formatting trouble on the blog so I changed the WordPress theme. I like the look better, to be honest.
For those of you interested in epigraphy, especially that of the Talpiot B “disciples’ tomb,” here are two follow-up posts in response to the recent offering of Richard Bauckham. One of the major points of contention in the inscription is whether or not the divine name is present — which hinges on whether the first letter in the relevant line is an “I” (iota). Christopher Rollston, whose post began the discussion, did not (and still does not — see below) see a iota for this letter. His view was based on his assertion that the epigraphic iota does not have a top and bottom line appending the vertical line. Bauckham was able to find some examples to the contrary.
Now Rollston responds in a new post, noting that, while Bauckham did succeed in finding some examples, the real issue is that the “IAIO” (“Yahweh”) spelling has two iotas — and if Bauckham is to be believed, the scribe wrote the two iotas differently in the name (the second iota clearly has no lines at top or bottom). Rollston says this would be utterly unique, and so rejects the idea as completely anomalous (see his post for how he translates the inscription). In addition to Rollston’s new post, H. Gregory Snyder offers his own thoughts in defense of an initial iota (but does not address the anomaly of the scribe writing the same letter in one four-letter name two different ways).
This is a good example of scholarly give-and-take. I’m guessing this won’t be resolved unless new pictures are obtained.
Just a quick note.
I’ve created a Twitter account so that when I post on any of my blogs, notification will appear there. (And it worked on another blog, so it should for this post as well). I needed to post the information here as well.
I don’t know much about Twitter. I think that if you click here you will go to my Twitter page and can decide to follow me or not. It might be a good way to be alerted right away when I post something (at least that’s what I’m thinking — don’t worry, I won’t be alerting you to what I had for breakfast or when I’m taking the dog out). As noted above, we’ll see if it’s working.
In case you’re wondering why I don’t send posts to Facebook, I tried setting up the Plugin and creating the necessary Facebook App for automatically posting notifications, but killed the idea as soon as Facebook wanted my credit card number for account “verification” (hey, how about the fact that I’m in your website, which required a password get there?). It will be a cold day in Sheol before I give the Facebook troll my credit card information. The site would also accept a mobile device but I don’t have one. So that died a quick death.
[UPDATE 3/16/2012: Click here for Prof. James Tabor's response to Robert Cargill's expose, the subject of the original post.]
A busy day for Talpiot-related news!
Not only did we have the verdict of the James ossuary trial, but yesterday Prof. Robert Cargill posted a very lengthy and devastating analysis of the various image alterations of the Talpiot B tomb “fish art” in this most recent tomb (with many images and illustrations). The stench has become truly overwhelming. Some excerpts are worth including here (boldfacing is Cargill’s):
One can clearly see that the image has been drawn to suggest a “Jesus fish” image where there clearly is none. The “Fish in the margins” image contains artificially added, digitally “inked” lines colored to resemble naturally engraved limestone lines, which do not correspond to the engraved lines on the ossuary. The digital “ink” extends well beyond the engraved lines of the actual image, which do NOT overlap. This means that the image was digitally altered to generate the illusion of small “fishes swimming” around the edges of the ossuary, perhaps to support the illusion that the image just beneath them is a “fish” and not some sort of vessel.
The evidence of commission presented above is indisputable. An unacknowledged digital alteration was clearly made to the “Fish in the margins” image to create the illusion that there are fishes swimming around the edges of the ossuary. And again, this digital manipulation is nowhere acknowledged in the image or its caption. This is textbook digital manipulation of a image for the purposes of supporting a particular claim.
And…
Thus, despite the fact that the engraved lines comprising the oval loop handle are as clearly visible at the same angle and in the same light as other engraved lines comprising so-called “fish’s tail,” and despite the fact that the same engraved oval loop and handles are also clearly visible on the so-called “half fish” on a different panel of the same ossuary, for some reason, Mr. Jacobovici and Dr. Tabor chose to omit this evidence from their representations, and chose not to represent the evidence in the heavily Photoshopped “CGI” “computer enhanced” “composite image” they have been offering to the press.
Ouch.
Cargill’s treatment is supplemented by another analysis of the alleged ossuary fish by Juan V. Fernández de la Gala, Forensic Anthropologist and Zooarchaeologist.
A “not guilty” verdict in the seven-year trial of antiquities dealer Oded Golan was announced today. The trial was significant in that it involved the James ossuary (and so, naturally, its inscription, “James, son of Joseph, brother of Jesus”). As I blogged a short time ago (see point #3 at the link), though the ossuary itself is accepted by all as authentic, many scholars consider the inscription to be entirely or partly faked. Since this ossuary is thought by some (namely Jacobovici and Tabor) to have originally been interred in the first Talpiot tomb (the “Jesus family tomb”), the case has been watched closely.
Mark Goodacre has a round-up of scholarly responses to the verdict. Most (Tabor of course is an exception) don’t think a legal verdict means the inscription is authentic, declaring that the scientific evidence against the inscription is a separate issue from who is responsible for it. The response of Eric Meyers of Duke University, whose comments are representative:
“I would therefore emphasize that because the government, in this case, the Israel Antiquities Authority and the Israel Police, failed to prove that the artifacts in question were inauthentic in no way means that they are authentic. The burden of proof that falls on the prosecution in a criminal case must rise to a high level of proof beyond reasonable doubt. The fact that the defendants have been acquitted thus does not end the matter of the quest to decide authenticity. This leaves much opportunity for academic opinion to continue to believe that these artifacts are not authentic and to question their provenance.”
Meyers’ response also includes mention of the fact that “The prosecutor Dan Bahat said the case had been weakened by the refusal of a key witness to travel from Egypt to testify, the same person who had appeared on Sixty Minutes.”
Those of you who have been following the discussion over the Talpiot B “fish symbol” will find this of interest. Kudos to Mark Goodacre for posting Amos Kloner’s 1980 photograph inside this tomb before it was sealed (see Tabor’s report) that is available on the “Jesus Discovery” website (NOTE per Mark Goodacre in the comments: this “fish” is the “half fish” on the side of the ossuary rather than the so called “Jonah fish” on its front facade). The “fish” symbol is visible in the photo. You can go to the post and click on Goodacre’s link to a high resolution image of the “fish” to see the point Goodacre is making — the “fish” has handles. This of course would be no surprise if the “fish” is an unguentarium ( a flask), but it’s not expected (!) for a fish.
I took the liberty of adding lines to the left and right-hand of the image so readers could see the point Goodacre is making (click on the links). While the (larger image) left-hand side has the most visibly clear lines (of a handle)
I think the (larger image) right-hand side does as well:
Looking less like a fish all the time.
And then there’s the issue of photo-shopped images of the fish symbol released to the public, as ably pointed out by Robert Cargill.
If you could see me now, I don’t have a surprised look on my face.
I just read the the lengthy essay by Richard Bauckham entitled, “The Four Line Ossuary Inscription from Talpiyot Tomb B: An Interpretation” posted on the ASOR blog today. It’s fascinating, and exactly what I was hoping would follow the Rollston article. Bauckham comes up with some examples of what Rollston was sure did not exist — the letter iota with top and bottom horizontal strokes — and so the reading IAIO seems secure in my mind. This is what ought to happen in interchanges between scholars; one corrects another, and they collectively lay out the strengths and weaknesses. Unfortunately, for the millions who read only the first headline and its content, framed by whatever archaeo-bungling, headline-seeking journalist who wrote it, articles like this might as well not exist. That headline is now their truth. It’s appalling when that happens, but to deliberately cause it to happen is unconscionable. But I digress.
I would recommend the Bauckham article to all. It’s technical, but worth it even for non-specialists. His conclusion is that the inscription is rare since it couples the divine name, Yahweh, with Zeus. But he allows for another take on it. If Bauckham’s preference (the Zeus reading) is correct, why that coupling may have been done receives considerable attention. Such conceptual linkages were not that unusual. It made me think of how, iconographically, Yahweh is associated with Sol Invictus in certain Jewish synagogues that have zodiac mosaics. Such a linkage need not be seen as an expression of the theological compromise of Yahwism (it certainly wasn’t in a synagogue). What is unusual in the present case is the coupling on an ossuary inscription. Bauckham also concludes that the inscription has nothing to do with Jesus or early Christianity. To date there is nothing in Talpiot B that does. As I noted in a recent reply to James Tabor in the comments, even if the symbol is the sign of Jonah, a Jew could have thought of that story in resurrection terms (and connected it to three days via Hosea 6:2). Frankly, for Jesus’ statement about the sign of Jonah to have any impact (Matt 12:39), it couldn’t have been a Christian symbol at the time of the speaking. He was speaking to JEWS (Matt 12:38) — and so it would have had to mean something to that audience. But I still don’t see a fish spitting out a man. The “man” seems like a blob to me.
I was prodded to write this summary post by Mark Goodacre’s most recent post on Simcha Jacobovici’s apparent obliviousness to the academic criticisms of his work by Mark and others. In a video dated to last year, Jacobovici pretends to be unaware of any mistakes in his work and its presentation.
There are only two explanations for how he “missed” Mark’s list of errors (this weekend will mark four years that they have been online) and those of others: (1) ineptitude; and (2) apathy fueled by self-aggrandizement. I’ll let readers decide which one makes more sense. My money is on the latter.
Mark, of course, good-natured as he is, seems to have assumed that Jacobovici actually cared about the discourse over the past few years and the past few days. I can imagine Mark doing his best to imagine $imcha pouring over the scholarly interaction, fretting here and there about how he could have done a better job of thinking more carefully about the data. Forget it, Mark. That never happened nor will it. After years of blogging on paleobabble and the constant internet trafficking of antiquity-twaddle (and even more years of doing so by email), I can tell you from hard experience that the last thing people like Jacobovici are interested in is pursing truth objectively. They are interested in the “truth” of the agenda they have constructed. I know this comes across as harsh, but it’s just the way the paleo-babbling grist mill works. I’m more jaded than Mark because I’ve seen dozens of other archaeo-hucksters pretend that their work is so paradigm-shifting and intellectually overwhelming that it cannot be answered by mainstream “in-the-box” scholars. It’s PR BS; just part of keeping people interested enough to keep coming back for the next credit card swipe. And Jacobovici is better at it than most.
Consequently, as a refresher of sorts, I thought I’d put together a summary of where all this is really at — what are the main sticking points?
Aside from Mark Goodacre’s listing of errors on Jacobovici’s website presentation of this tomb, what has all the discussion of which Jacobovici feigns ignorance produced? What’s the current situation? Here’s a list of the most crucial points:
The “Jesus Family Tomb”
1. The Names in the Tomb
A. Paucity of Patronyms
Most of the names in the tomb lack patronyms. That is, we have no idea of the relationships between the people in the tomb. This applies to “Jesus son of Joseph” and either of the Marys in the tomb. Jacobovici (and Dan Brown, another scholar) wants people to think that Jesus and one of the Marys (the one whose name allegedly reads “Mariamne,” and alleged reference to Mary Magdalene) as being married.But why not brother and sister? Aunt and nephew? Grandmother and grandson? Second cousins twice removed? No patronyms = guesswork. The same goes for any of the other names lacking patronyms. There is ZERO evidence in any ancient text that Jesus was married to anyone. For example, you can click here to watch some exciting screen capture videos of me searching the Gnostic gospels (in vain) for a Jesus’ marriage. You can see Goodacre’s list of errors in regard to the “Mariamne” red herring as well.
B. The Commonality Issue
Most of the names in the tomb are common. The retort to this is that the assemblage of these names in a single tomb is not common. But how would we know that? Rahmani lists 227 inscribed ossuaries, many of which are from the same tomb, and so few family tombs have actually been discovered. The most reasonable scholarly estimates of the population of first century Jerusalem at no more than 100,000, most of whom were Jews (Samuel Rocca, Herod’s Judaea [Mohr Siebeck, 2008], p. 333). So let’s say 75,000 Jews in first century Jerusalem. Numerically, there would have been many more family tombs than have been discovered, so any estimate of the rarity of any collection of names is based on navigating without instruments. The point: Rarity in terms of the data we have is not the same as rarity in terms of the data that corresponded to a first century Jerusalem reality. Not having the latter gives no warrant to substituting the former and pretending it’s the latter. That’s a little thing I like to call “cheating.”
The statistical likelihood of this being Jesus’ family tomb is also greatly influenced by the name Yoseh. If this name is just a variant of the more common Joseph, the probability that the tomb is truly that of Jesus of Nazareth is 2-3%. If, on the other hand, Yoseh is a rare name, then the probability is 47%. Mark Goodacre has pointed out for years now that Yoseh and Joseph are interchanged in the gospels for the same person:
The difficulty over (1) is that the names Joses and Joseph are clearly regarded as similar or the same in the New Testament. Mark 6.3 calls Jesus’ brother “Joses” while the parallel in Matt. 13.55 calls him “Joseph”. Matthew clearly regards Joseph as an alternative, preferable way of saying “Joses”. Likewise, the character who appears in Mark 15.40 and 15.47 is called Joses in Mark and Joseph the Matthean parallel (Matt. 27.56). Moreover, the fact that this character may be a different character than the brother of Jesus also witnesses against the alleged extraordinary nature of the name. The same Joseph / Joses variation is found in the texts too, and not just here in Matthew but also in Acts 4.36, Joses / Joseph Barnabas.
So, if we go with the data we have for the persons actually in question (Jesus’ family) the name is not rare; it is a variant for “Joseph.”
[UPDATE 3/13/2012: Richard Bauckham was kind enough to add the following note in the comments page regarding this name:
"There is an important point about the name Yoseh which is being missed. People seem to have accepted the claim by Tabor and the others that there are only 9 occurrences. But they get this figure by distinguishing between Yoseh(final he) and what Tabor says is “Yosi” (final yod). These are in fact the same. The latter should be vocalised “Yose” (long e). Yoseh is an Aramaic spelling, Yosey a Hebrew spelling. The combined total occurrences for the two forms is about 40, which means a considerably higher frequency. In this case, Yose is not ‘rare.’ Of course, it is also true, as has been said a number of times in these discussions, that Yose is just a shortened form of Joseph(Yosef or Yehosef), and the same person would often be known by both full and short forms. Matthew has Joseph where Mark has Joses, no doubt because Matthew preferred the formal to the colloquial form. The same could happen on an ossuary inscription or in other places."]
2. Logical Coherence
A. Yoseh and Judas
The above issue with the name Yoseh is important for another reason. On one hand, Jacobovici would have us be breathlessly astonished with how his evidence coincides with the gospels, while on the other hand, we are to ignore where it simply is not. Goodacre succinctly notes this inconsistency in two regards:
(1) They claim that “Yoseh” is significant because it is rare, a claim that does not take the New Testament evidence seriously.
(2) They do not regard “Judas son of Jesus” as contradictory evidence for the identification with the Jesus family.
Honestly, we are supposed to believe Jesus had a son (by Mary Magdalene) and named him JUDAS!? Yes; that is what we are asked to believe.
B. Logic Check
I can’t help asking what to me are some obvious questions:
3. The James Ossuary Debate
Most scholars believe the ossuary is genuine, but that the inscription (“James the son of Joseph, the brother of Jesus/Yeshua”). There are good reasons (here and here and here) to consider either the whole or the second half of the inscription to be faked (i.e., added by a modern hand). This would make the related issue of whether this ossuary was one of the missing ossuaries in the “Jesus Family tomb” moot. Obviously, if if came from that tomb, then the statistics would have to be reworked (but that would not in term affect the Yoseh issue noted above, or the logical coherence issues). And even if it came from the tomb, the inscription could still be a fake (whole or part). Someone could have taken a blank ossuary from that tomb and added the inscription. The official final report of the Israel Antiquities Authority on this ossuary included these epigraphic experts (with their summative thoughts included):
The Ossuary Inscription Committee
Prof. Amos Kloner (Appendix 6E)
It is clear that the engraving on the bone box dates from a different period than its original installation. The inscription appears new. The writer tried giving the letters an ancient appearance by using samples from contemporaneous inscriptions.Dr. Tal Ilan (Appendix 6F)
Even if the ossuary is authentic, there is no reason to assume that the deceased was actually the brother of Jesus. But I am of the opinion that the inscription is a forgery.Prof. Roni Reich (Appendix 6D and 6D1)
The inscription does not exhibit a combination of configurational or substantial effects that would imply forgery. But I was convinced that the inscription is a forgery when presented with the findings by the Materials Committee.Dr. Esther Eshel (Appendix 6G)
From my examination of the inscription and the data I received, it appears to me quite clear that the inscription is not authentic, and was added at a much later date (possible in two stages).
Incidentally, the verdict in the antiquities hoaxing trial that involves this ossuary is set to be announced next Wednesday. Regardless of the verdict, it seems the inscription involved fakery judging by the links noted above. The patina issue as it relates to the inscription seems very suspicious.
The Talpiot B Tomb
My thoughts on this are captured in an earlier post. Basically, we have an inscription reading (for the divine name) that lacks precedent in terms of letter formation and a picture that is supposed to be a fish spitting out a man (Jonah), but the man is a blob. No man; no Jonah, and no fish [insert blurry UFO picture joke here]. I’m going with the unguentarium view of the drawing. It makes the most sense.