And should he be. As much as some like Tabor, many people he is following a conman, er, conperson in Simcha (I’m not using the dollar sign because Simcha said it was an attack against his Jewish ethnicity. I don’t want to be accused of that, because that’s not my goal. I just think Simcha is out to make money, regardless of truth).
Anyway, read something of Jim’s thoughts here.
These legendary stories from Greco-Roman culture may well have contributed to accounts of Jesus’ miraculous birth in Matthew and Luke but I would suggest an alternative. I am convinced that the idea of Jesus’ birth from a virgin–without a human father–implicitly goes back to the apostle Paul. Paul’s letters date several decades before our New Testament gospels and it is Paul’s understanding of Jesus as the pre-existent, divine, Son of God, that lays the conceptual groundwork for our Christmas stories.
via James D. Tabor: Did Paul Invent the Virgin Birth?.
I’m not completely convinced Paul believed in a pre-existent son in the Platonic sense, although I think he would have in the ideal sense — the Jewish sense as expressed in the Psalms of Solomon.
There is not much I over all disagree with, don’t get me wrong, with the article, except for Paul’s pre-existent son and his invention of the virgin birth. It is possible that such a tradition existed early on, although we find nothing of it in the Gospel of Mark, nor do we find it in Mark’s literary sequel, John.
Anyway, read the article. Good stuff.
I just thought with the pseudos popping up, this was funny:
We analyze the Talpiot tomb, which has been alleged to be the family tomb of Jesus of Nazareth. Using Bayes’ Theorem, we derive a simple function that estimates the probability that the tomb houses the remains of Jesus and his family. Unfortunately, this function cannot be evaluated exactly, because several of the key parameters are unknown. By using random variables with reasonable probability distributions, we examine the mean behavior and range of the function under a variety of conditions. We conclude that the probability is low (on the order of 2% or less) that the Talpiot tomb is the family tomb of Jesus of Nazareth. (pdf)
Wonder where Carrier got his idea of Bayem’s theorem at?
I’d say yes.
Maybe it’s me, but I’m funny about words.
In terms of your work, April, on Early Christology you state: “Once the link had been forged between Jesus’ exaltation and the investiture of the Divine Name, there was no turing back” (How We Talk About Christology Matters page 6). In this tomb, there is an inscription asking “Jehova” to “rise up”, i.e. an “exaltation”. No Jew, then or now, would write the Tetragrammaton on a box full of bones i.e. “Tuma”, or impurity. So whoever wrote this name may not have meant it in the usual way. Given that this inscription appears 60 meters from a “Jesus, son of Joseph” and inches from an ossuary that breaks the commandment concerning graven images, can it be that the Tetragrammaton here is referring to Jesus? Can it be that the combination of the inscription and the Jonah image demonstrates that, from the very beginning, Jesus’ followers parted company from normative Judaism?
Jehovah? Really? Beyond that, this series of questions have already been answered,
“Regarding the reading of line two, I wish to emphasize that I do not consider the reading “Yahweh” (i.e., the Greek form of it) to be convincing at all. Simply put, this reading is wrong. To be sure, the tetragrammaton is attested in ancient Greek (with various spellings) and Iaio can be considered a viable Greek spelling of the tetragrammaton.
Also, see here. I think* Simcha may be wrong about the whole ossuary thing. See here as well. And here. And here. And really, here.
because he can photoshop really well!
and….
This is a rather silly attack and shows that the current meltdown at Associated Producers, LTD
Skeptics are calling the new claim “Rorschach test archaeology.” Steve Caruso, a professional translator who analyzes inscriptions on ancient artifacts for antiquity dealers, said Charlesworth’s interpretation of the inscription is “more of an exercise in reading tea leaves.”
Robert Cargill, assistant professor of classics and religious studies at the University of Iowa, concurs. “One must do some rather strenuous mental gymnastics to arrive at the letters for the name of Jonah in this image, including ignoring lines that are clearly present but do not fit the desired inscription, joining together lines that are clearly not conjoined, reshaping letters, and eliminating any semblance of linear alignment,” Cargill says on his blog.
If all those adjustments are permissible when interpreting ancient text, the lines in the inscription can be made to spell out anything from “Jesus” to “Yo Yo Ma,” the scholars note.
This is a rebuttal of a previous piece written today and posted on MSNBC.com.
Poor thing… Simcha forgot that this was the internet age.
I dvr’d the Nightline News program and watched it first thing this morning. (Reactions here, here, here, here, here and here.)
One of the things that stood out to me was Simcha and Tabor’s insistence that anything during the time period which has in anyway a connection to the belief of a/the Resurrection must be “Christian.”
Resurrection entered Jewish belief long before Christ and was, for several sects, a central part.
We see this in the Maccabees and even, somewhat, in Tobit. It’s in the Wisdom of Solomon and at Qumran.
While the fish is a vase, and other lies persist, the must striking thing to me is the glaring and self-serving theological lunacy which allows these authors to think that just because they read something on an ossuary (a frakin ossuary… a bone box which looked to a resurrection) regarding an upward direction that suddenly there is proof of Christianity… and what’s more, that they have a right to sell this trash to the public.
But whom I really have disgust in are those people who just believe it.
“He’s seeing things that simply aren’t there,” Goodacre said. “His head is so full of ‘DaVinci Code.’”
via ‘Jesus Tomb’ Controversy Rages as Archaeologists Explore Another 2,000-Year-Old Tomb – ABC News.
He says this in relation to Simcha’s constant search to find the Holy Grail…
I’m DVRing the show which is on at 11:30 tonight.
Dr. Cargill is also quoted. Surely, they will include both find scholars on the program.
Here… Here he points out that if someone would just give him sound correction, he’d listen, but since so many people have spent so much money on him, and he hasn’t heard any valid correction offered, then he must be right:
HT DM again on Facebook
For all the correction one needs.. see here and here and a few others sites.
Guess what….
From the youtube page…
While looking for the Jesus family tomb, movie maker Simcha Jacobovici tells us how his team stumbled on a second tomb under the patio of an apartment. Will this be the source of inspiration for his next movie? What else could this discovery reveal about the secrets of the Jesus family tomb?
See the movie on Discovery Channel and Vision TV. The Lost Tomb of Jesus takes you on a journey through time back to the life of Jesus, Mary Mother of Jesus and Mary Magdalene. Join Simcha Jacobovici as he unravels one of the oldest mysteries of the Christian religion, the quest for the tomb of Jesus. A tomb is found but with other bone boxes inside. Once deciphered, we learn that this might be the tomb of the Holy Family. With compelling scientific proof and tests, the mystery is solved — but with monumental discoveries that could change Christianity.
This captivating movie is produced by award-winning documentary filmmaker Simcha Jacobovici and co-produced by James Cameron. The book, The Jesus Family Tomb, is co-written by Simcha Jacobovici and Charles Pellegrino. It is published by HarperCollins. The book and the movie will be interesting to those who love the bible, spirituality, religious symbols, archaeology, history, the da vinci code, the Holy Land and, above all, a good adventure!
HT to David Meadows via Facebook
Dr. Cargill and others have been buys debunking the latest pre-Easter hype from Simcha and Associates (Archeologists and Photoshoppers, Inc). Anyway, the venerable Simcha has posted on Dr. Cargill’s blog,
….The fact is that a handful of scholars are suffering from what Prof. Yosef Garfinkel calls “paradigm-collapse trauma.” That is, literary compellations of groundless arguments, masquerading as scientific writing through footnotes, references and publication in professional journals (BAR, May/June 2011, p. 47)….
Dr. Cargill later responds,
Agreed. And your life has apparently taken you to discover the real route of the historical Exodus (“The Exodus Decoded”), the actual tomb of Jesus (“The Lost Tomb of Jesus”), the very nails of the cross of Jesus (“The Nails of the Cross”), and now the Jonah and the Whale ossuary, the “the earliest archaeological record of Christians ever found” (“The Jesus Discovery“), despite being “neither an archaeologist, nor an academic” (-Simcha Jacobovici, “The Nails of the Cross: A Response to the Criticisms of the Film,” jamestabor.com, June 22, 2011, p. 45.).
You must admit, that’s pretty spectacular! Life has either led you to become the most prolific archaeologist of all time, or your archaeological career is based upon pure speculation…
I’m going to with pure speculation…
Anyway, make sure you read the entire post.
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