Who Here Has Read "The Jesus Family Tomb"? Your Comments.

[David Zephyr]

Like many others, I watched the Discovery televised documentary recently. I have now read the fascinating book by Simcha Jacobovici and Charles Pellegrino and wonder how many here have read the book and, if so, what your comments might be after having read the book.

I must say that the argument that I keep hearing from people that haven't read the book themselves is the same one being repeated now perfunctorily by many in the Christian clergy which is "well...those are all common names from the 1st Century".

One can argue that they actually were not "all common names" in Jerusalem at that time and, still, both Simcha Jacobovici and Charles Pellegrino clearly state over and over in the text that it is not the individual names themselves that prove or disprove anything, rather it that "the cluster" of those particular names all together in a single tomb that become statistically informing and quite remarkable.

I must say that it seems that I am still always naively surprised by people who comment on the accuracy of a book when they have never read it themselves. Regardless of how you feel about the "discovery" of the tomb and the ossuaries, if you haven't read the book, please keep your comments to yourself. Maybe no one here has read the book, but if so, I'd really like to hear from them and their comments.

What do you think? I am curious.

[Imperialism Inc.]

1. I admit, I haven't read the book.

I did see the documentary however and it summarized the book. It ends up that the holes are so glaring that details of the book are not even necessary. We can dispense with the whole theory at a very basic level.

First of all I do want to agree with you on one point. "They were common names" is an incredibly weak objection. That is the entire point of the statistics. Saying they were common names doesn't make the statistics wrong. If the assumptions are correct and the math has been applied correctly then 1 in 600 is the chance that the tomb is some other family with the same names as the Jesus family. If one disagrees then one has to show why the assumptions in the math are not acceptable. There may indeed be such objections but none of them will be that he ignored the fact that the names were common.

OK. Now back to the debunking. Turns out even the basic scholarship such as what the ossuaries actually say is in question. That is how bad the "scholarship" is.

http://www.uhl.ac/MariameAndMartha/
SUMMARY POINTS OF DISCUSSION:

*The original transcription of the inscription was incorrect.

*The inscription does not read “Mariamene the Master”nor does the name Mariamene or Mariamne appear on the ossuary at all.

*The inscription reflects the writing of two distinct scribes who wrote in different forms of the Greek script.

*The correct reading of the inscription is “Mariame and Mara,” based on parallels from contemporary inscriptions and documents.

*The ossuary thus contained the bones of at least two different women, interred at two separate times, one named Mariame and the other Mara.

*No support exists for ascribing the ossuary to Mary Magdalene.
(more at link)

For more discussion on short comings this article is pretty good.

http://neonostalgia.com/weblog/?p=196
(snip)
One part that bothered me in the documentary was the way it treated the saying of Jesus on the cross in John, “Woman, behold thy son” (John 19.27). They said that it possibly referred to Jesus telling his wife, Mary Magdalene, to watch over their son, presumed to be Judah. It does raise interesting questions.

The whole passage, 26-27 is “26 ἰησοῦς οὗν ἰδὼν τὴν μητέρα καὶ τὸν μαθητὴν παρεστῶτα ὃν ἠγάπα, λέγει τῇ μητρί, γύναι, ἴδε ὁ υἱός σου. 27 εἶτα λέγει τῶ μαθητῇ, ἴδε ἡ μήτηρ σου. καὶ ἀπ᾽ ἐκείνης τῆς ὥρας ἔλαβεν ὁ μαθητὴς αὐτὴν εἰς τὰ ἴδια.”

This translates to, “Thus Jesus, looking at his mother and the disciple standing by whom he loved, says to his mother, “Look (at) your son.” Then he says to the disciple, “Look (at) your mother. And from that hour, the disciple took her to own .”

The passage makes it clear that Jesus is talking to his mother the first time, both by the Greek itself, and in conjunction with the second thing he said, and the disciples actions.
(snip)

[David Zephyr]

2. If you had read the book, then you wouldn't be asserting things that the book doesn't claim.

This is precisely why I asked for only those who had actually read the book to comment in this thread and which you apparently ignored. Start your own thread and stay out of this one.

If you had read the book, you would know that the authors do NOT claim or assert that Jesus from the text of John Chapter 19 was speaking to Mary Magdalene as you falsely say they do. They give both the traditional consensus that he was speaking to Maria and offer ONLY for consideration the one that you claim that they make as an assertion.

How do you KNOW that the "ossuary thus contained the bones of at least two different women". How can you KNOW what the authors' write when you haven't even read their words?

You already have a conclusion that fits you and you refuse to look at other alternatives that contradict what you want to believe. Not very scientific. Newton would say, "tsk, tsk".

Also, if you had read the book you would know that the 1 in 600 statistic was prior to the objective conclusion that the ossuary that was inscribed "James the Brother of Jesus" was made.

In any event, in a community of around 100,000 people living within a short, defined period of space/time fabric (that being, very specifically, Jerusalem in the 1st Century) the finding of a tomb "in situ" that held a cluster of ossuaries with all those particular names is certainly worth looking into to those interested in the life of either the historical or mystical or spiritual man called Jesus. Instead, the tomb has been closed up since the 1980's allowing 1/4 of a century of further damage to potential scientific inquiry, the ossuary of "James the Brother of Jesus" had been stolen and who knows how much forensic information was lost because of it, a condominium project was built all around the site with bulldozers pounding the soil, and more.

I am troubled that on a so-called progressive and enlightened website as the DemocraticUnderground, that a humble scientific endeavor that is reported in a book is met with immediate, caustic attacks by those who won't even read the report.

Since your mind is already made up, there's no point in continuing any dialog with you. I won't reply to anything you write. If you feel the need to get "the last word" in within my thread that clearly asked you not to participate unless you'd read their book, I can't stop you.

When you read the book, I would enjoy hearing back from you...but not before.

[Imperialism Inc.]

4. Whatever.

I certainly did not jump to any conclusions. In fact I had another person on these forums get upset because I refused to draw any conclusions before even the documentary had come out.

If you had read the book, you would know that the authors do NOT claim or assert that Jesus from the text of John Chapter 19 was speaking to Mary Magdalene as you falsely say they do. They give both the traditional consensus that he was speaking to Maria and offer ONLY for consideration the one that you claim that they make as an assertion.

I said up front that I had not read the book. The documentary most certainly does make that assertion as if it were a fact.
On Edit: It just occurred to me... why are they even offering an alternative when it cannot possibly mean that? See that is the the exact kind of thing that I am talking about. If the Greek makes it sparkling clear then there is no need to offer an alternative. Are they claiming the text has been changed?

How do you KNOW that the "ossuary thus contained the bones of at least two different women". How can you KNOW what the authors' write when you haven't even read their words?

Because the writing tells us so! Did you read the article that I linked to? There are 2 different styles of script present. One semi-cursive (the second half) one not. The semi-cursive looks just like other extant semi-cursive script. Once that is realized (by scientific inquiry and examination of the script) It becomes clear that the text does not say what the people who wrote the book said it did.

You already have a conclusion that fits you and you refuse to look at other alternatives that contradict what you want to believe. Not very scientific. Newton would say, "tsk, tsk"

What are you babbling about? As I pointed out above, I made no pre conceived conclusions. In fact I really could not care either way. I am not a Christian and a Jesus who never ascended would be a boon to my point of view. I waited until the peer review process started in order to see what other experts had to say. Of course, the book writer and documentary maker completely skipped that pesky peer review part, making their work completely and wholly unscientific.

Also, if you had read the book you would know that the 1 in 600 statistic was prior to the objective conclusion that the ossuary that was inscribed "James the Brother of Jesus" was made.

I'm not sure what that non-sequitur is even supposed to mean. Did I mention something about the James box?

I somewhat share in your surprise in that there were people on here who immediately , and without any information at all "knew" it was a hoax. In particular there was one person who was quite upset and I suspect it was because he is beholden to a mythical beginning for Christianity. I , however, was not one of those people. I watched the documentary, I read articles, I listened to a few podcasts with expert guests, and I read some more articles once they became available. Then I came to a preliminary opinion. Which was basically agnosticism leaning toward it being incorrect. When the article about the mis translation of one of the scripts came to my attention (through a podcast I listen to) it led me to my current conclusion. That the whole thing was a bunch of shoddy scholarship and with a bunch of hype mixed in for good measure.

Let's get one thing clear though. What these people did was NOT science. They skipped the most important part and that is peer review. If they had bothered to go through that process they would have discovered what the expert I linked to did. That the "mariamne mara" ossuary did not say what the original archaeologists thought it said.

I won't be reading the book. There is enough information out there at this point to show pretty clearly it is a shoddy piece of garbage "scholarship". There is no need to waste time on something I have put in enough effort to know is simply bad work.

[David Zephyr]

5. It was a non-sequitur...

Sorry, you are correct: I should have finished my sentence. LOL.

Also, if you had read the book you would know that the 1 in 600 statistic was prior to the objective conclusion that the ossuary that was inscribed "James the Brother of Jesus" was...demonstrated to be the missing ossuary (in fit, form and function and with patina testing) this Jesus family tomb.

I am not a believer either so we have that much in common. I am also not an atheist. I hope that I live my life until I die as the committed agnostic I am on these matters as I do not "know" and agree with the saying attributed to Socrates that "the beginning of wisdom is the confession of ignorance".

And yet, still the finding of this tomb with this particular and statistically odd cluster of ossuaries is striking.

It's one hundred little pages. Read it.

[Imperialism Inc.]

6. OK. I might lol.

Read it that is. However it should be noted that the original archaeologist has gone on record saying the 10th box was blank and is not missing. They put it in a courtyard because that was where they sometimes put the blank ones. If it had an inscription it would not have gone there. This is disputed by some due to the original report being written only 16 years after the fact (due to the death of the original head guy). However, I think we have to view the claims of the James box being the "missing" box as disputed at best. Here is an article from the Jerusalem Post.

http://tinyurl.com/2y53cd
(snip)
Kloner said the IAA had been "very foolish" to agree to the loan. "The left hand there doesn't know what the right hand is doing," he said.

The Daily Telegraph reported this weekend that the 10 ossuaries removed from the tomb when it was first excavated "were taken initially to the Rockefeller Archaeological Museum outside the Old City of Jerusalem. Nine were catalogued and stored but the tenth was left outside in a courtyard. That ossuary has subsequently gone missing."

But Kloner said the IAA routinely left ossuaries in the courtyard if they were not inscribed and were unremarkable, since it had no room for them all "under our roofs." He added: "Nothing has disappeared."


(snip)

[malikstein]

3. For the definitive reply

to this bullshit, see my thread

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=214x116365

In all due modesty, of course.

[okasha]

7. Don't you mean

for the definitive bullshit? ;)

Really, you have nothing to go on but speculation--there's no sign you've read the book--and the pretentious but shoddy pseudoscholarship of a crank.

And your faith in same, of course.

[malikstein]

8. Unicorns don't have skeletons.

You'll have to do better than insult and inuendo. Can you provide refutations of my findings and Doherty's research? Go ahead. Show me that the evidence that I didn't find in the Epistles is actually there and that I missed it. Unless you can do that, you owe me an apology.

There is no need to read a book that claims to have discovered physical traces of someone who never existed. You know a priori that it's bullshit.