Still, even after the furor over the film faded, the questions it raised about the tomb unearthed in 1980 continued to make waves among archeologists and Biblical scholars. A leading New Testament expert from Princeton Theological Seminary, Prof. James Charlesworth, was intrigued enough to organize a conference in Jerusalem this week, bringing together over 50 archeologists, statisticians and experts in DNA, ceramics and ancient languages, to give evidence as to whether or not the crypt of Christ had been found.
Something is wrong here. War, disease, death, destruction, hunger, filth, poverty, torture, crime, corruption, and the Ice Capades. Something is definitely wrong. This is not good work. If this is the best God can do, I am not impressed.
Something is wrong here. War, disease, death, destruction, hunger, filth, poverty, torture, crime, corruption, and the Ice Capades. Something is definitely wrong. This is not good work. If this is the best God can do, I am not impressed.
Minimalist wrote:The IAA claims that was done in 1980.
The timing fits. The genetic fingerprint matches. The attitude is a clone. They look & act alike.
No doubt: the "IAA" must be the progenitor (daddy) of the RIAA. (Which – easily surpassing daddy's bald-faced arrogance – is about to be getting its ass kicked bigtime in court!).
The widow of the Israeli archeologist who led the excavation of a hugely controversial First-Century burial tomb in Jerusalem's Talpiot neighborhood 28 years ago said on Wednesday that her late husband knew he had found the burial place of Jesus and was afraid the discovery would trigger a wave of anti-Semitism because of the apparent challenge to Christian beliefs.
Ruth Gat unleashed her archeological earthquake when accepting a lifetime achievement award on behalf of her late husband, Yosef Gat of the Department of Antiquities, at the conclusion of a four-day academic conference in Jerusalem, at which leading archaeologists, epigraphers, biblical experts, statisticians and other scholars gathered to evaluate "the Talpiot Tomb in context."
A small-framed, frail-looking lady, Mrs. Gat told the scholars calmly that her husband knew he had found "the burial tomb of Jesus Christ," and that he had "serious concerns and fears" over the consequences of his discovery. She noted that Yosef had been a child in Nazi-occupied Poland, and that with his bitter childhood memories still in mind, he had feared "a wave of anti-Semitism" might erupt as a result of the Talpiot find. She said she was relieved that the world had "changed for the better," and that this feared reaction had not come to pass.
Speaking briefly to The Jerusalem Post after her address, Mrs. Gat said her husband had been "staggered" by the discovery, and that he had discussed it with her "at the kitchen table."
This is not going to help matters. The wife of a deceased archaeologist drops a bomb.
Prof. Amos Kloner oversaw the excavation of the site in the 1980s as the district archeologist of Jerusalem. He later published his findings in a professional archeological publication.
Kloner, currently an archeologist at Bar Ilan University in Tel Aviv, said he did not want to speak about the documentary but he did mention that it is so full of inconsistencies that it will leave viewers with the wrong impression.
"It is not scholarly and not scientific, he said. "It's very amateur," Kloner told Cybercast News Service on Thursday.
Something is wrong here. War, disease, death, destruction, hunger, filth, poverty, torture, crime, corruption, and the Ice Capades. Something is definitely wrong. This is not good work. If this is the best God can do, I am not impressed.
Ultra-Orthodox opposition to the excavation of tombs containing possible Jewish remains is likely to doom a new bid by archeologists and other experts to re-enter a First Century cave in Jerusalem's Talpiot neighborhood and establish whether it was the burial place of Jesus of Nazareth and his family.
A four-day academic conference in Jerusalem ended sensationally on Wednesday when Ruth Gat, the widow of the lead archeologist who excavated the tomb in 1980, told participants that her husband Yosef knew he had found the tomb of Jesus and feared the discovery would threaten Christian doctrine and set off an anti-Semitic backlash.
The gathering of world scholars, which some had expected would conclude by dismissing claims linking the tomb to Jesus, wound up inconclusively, but with wide-ranging agreement that the matter required further investigation.
Once again...religion gets in the way of progress.
Something is wrong here. War, disease, death, destruction, hunger, filth, poverty, torture, crime, corruption, and the Ice Capades. Something is definitely wrong. This is not good work. If this is the best God can do, I am not impressed.
This is actually a series of articles on the Talpiot Tomb. and the authors opinions. It's long but gives some insight as to what went on at the recent conference on this issue.
This puzzle seems likely to be around for a long time.
Tabor was one of the people who was in on it with Jacobovici. He is hardly a disinterested party, here!
Dr. James West, a Baptist but one who seems to "get it" has posted this and the implication is that the whole "press conference" is a creation of Jacobovici's production company.
Something is wrong here. War, disease, death, destruction, hunger, filth, poverty, torture, crime, corruption, and the Ice Capades. Something is definitely wrong. This is not good work. If this is the best God can do, I am not impressed.
In January 2007, the Biblical Archaeology Society convened a conference in Jerusalem of leading scholars from all over the world to assess a number of well-known artifacts that had in recent years been labeled as forgeries. If these artifacts are in fact genuine, they would have a major impact on our knowledge of the Biblical world.
Here is a short article on the Jesus Tomb. However, it has a link to a free download of the conference in Jerusalem, for any who want it.
Talpiot O Talpiot, How Mangled Is Thy Truth
January 21, 2008
And many of the scholars who attended the Conference in Jerusalem which has been so much in the news and so biblio-bloggified have protested in what I would classify an “Open Letter to the Media” (though they don’t call it that; but perhaps only because they don’t have the gift of titularization that I myself gladly possess).
Here it is (via Mark ‘the good’ Goodacre). And do note that Mark has the personal integrity not simply to lift the piece wholesale and plop it on his blog as another well known NT person has done with Rollston’s posting.
The concluding part is to the point indeed:
To conclude, we wish to protest the misrepresentation of the conference proceedings in the media, and make it clear that the majority of scholars in attendance – including all of the archaeologists and epigraphers who presented papers relating to the tomb - either reject the identification of the Talpiot tomb as belonging to Jesus’ family or find this claim highly unlikely.
Sincerely,
Professor Jodi Magness, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Professor Eric M. Meyers, Duke University
Choon-Leon Seow, Princeton Theological Seminary
F.W. Dobbs-Allsopp, Princeton Theological Seminary
Lee McDonald, Princeton Theological Seminary, visiting
Rachel Hachlili, Haifa University
Motti Aviam, University of Rochester
Amos Kloner, Bar Ilan University
Christopher Rollston, Emmanuel School of Religion
Shimon Gibson, University of North Carolina at Charlotte
Joe Zias, Science and Antiquity Group, Jerusalem
Jonathan Price, Tel Aviv University
C.D. Elledge, Gutavus Adolphus College
I would note, though, that it isn’t just the media which is evidently misrepresenting the proceedings. Various media related media hounds and fame-seekers have as well- for their own reasons of course.
Something is wrong here. War, disease, death, destruction, hunger, filth, poverty, torture, crime, corruption, and the Ice Capades. Something is definitely wrong. This is not good work. If this is the best God can do, I am not impressed.
