Who’s Telling the Truth? Charlesworth or Tabor?

Mark Goodacre sets their ‘accounts’ of the ‘discovery’ of the ‘Jonah ossuary’ side by side (and be sure to read his entire post).  You decide which is telling the historical truth and which has fashioned an account based on wishful thinking:

Charlesworth

Tabor and Jacobovici

I was moved when I looked through a camera on the end of a robotic arm into a pre-70 Jewish tomb. There in the darkness below my feet was an ancient tomb with bone boxes (ossuaries) clearly made before the massive revolt against Rome in 66 CE. As the camera turned, I saw a door that sealed the tomb in antiquity. Then the camera moved silently past ossuaries. A shout was heard by colleagues near me as an inscription came into view. Then, not much later the robotic arm moved again, being directed by a scientist. None of us could believe our eyes. We were all riveted to a drawing that ostensibly broke the second commandment. What was it? What was depicted? What did the early Jew intend to symbolize?

The following day we called in Professor James Charlesworth, an expert in Greek and early Christianity, who was in Jerusalem doing research on the Dead Sea Scrolls. After reinserting the robotic arm and swinging the camera once again over to the third niche, we showed him what we had discovered: first the inscription, then the image. He immediately and independently offered the same interpretation we had come to the day before. He excitedly sight-read the inscription. “The Divine Jehovah raises up from [the dead].” He also offered without hesitation the same interpretation of the fish. What we are looking at, he said, appears to be the earliest representation from Jesus’ followers of their faith in his resurrection of the dead. A quiet shudder went through the room as the implications of his conclusion sunk in.

Related articles

• Buy the Book, Watch the Movie, Suit Yourself: But Know the Truth Before you Do (zwingliusredivivus.wordpress.com)

Snyder Sees a Stroke

Responding to Chris Rollston’s reading of the Talpiot inscription, H.G. Snyder opines

In spite of Rollstons’ obvious expertise and in spite of his assurances as to what is possible or not possible where letter forms are concerned I cannot help but see a stroke on the bottom of the “tau” (or “iota”) in this picture (this photo and those that follow are from Associate Producers, Ltd.). There are indeed scuff marks of various kinds on the box. It is true that the top bar is incised more deeply than the stroke on the bottom, but it just seems to me there’s a stroke there, not just a scuff. Others may disagree.

Snyder confesses that he has been privy to the project for quite a while, but remains unconvinced that Tabor has the issue correct:

For the record, Bauckham and I were not given the so-called Jonah image until later, when the people at the Discovery Channel forwarded an advance copy of the film for our scholarly comment. At that time, I expressed the opinion that the figure on that ossuary represents an amphora or a vessel of some kind, however non-standard, and cannot be taken as an image of Jonah, and nothing has occurred to dissuade me from that judgment. I say this to make it clear that in nearly all matters of consequence, I do not share the conclusions presented in the book or the film.

He concludes, after presenting his reading of several questionable letters-

I wish to make two main points, with which I conclude

1) Our chances of getting the reading correct increase as we take more photos from different angles into consideration, and

2) Pace Rollston’s position, I would argue that the initial iota in line two, however anomalous in its form, is not ruled out, nor is the “epsilon” in that same line, to be regarded as firmly established.

So what we have isn’t a disagreement over substance (both Rollston and Snyder don’t believe Tabor is correct), but over a minor discrepancy in readings.

Related articles

• Rollston’s Summary of the Inscription from Talpiot (zwingliusredivivus.wordpress.com)

Robert Cargill Exposes Digital Manipulation and Sins of Commission and Omission in the Case of the ‘Jesus Discovery’

Robert has a massive, masterfully written, majestically illustrated, carefully documented post in which he exposes the digital manipulation that has been done to images of the so called ‘Jonah Ossuary’ in the much discussed ‘Jesus Discovery’ story.

Excerpting it is impossible.  You’ll simply have to go to his blog and read it in its fullness.  It should, and I say should because we all know it won’t, but it should put to rest the claims that have been made by Tabor et al.

And lest you doubt that Robert is the most appropriate person to examine digital evidence I would simply remind you that he is probably (no, he is most certainly) the leading expert in the field of digital materials and biblical scholarship.  If he says something isn’t right with an image, you can take it to the bank.

Related articles

• Talpiot and the Manipulation of Evidence to Suit a Claim (zwingliusredivivus.wordpress.com)
• Lombatti on Tabor and Jacobovici’s Fishy Claim (zwingliusredivivus.wordpress.com)

Rollston: Once More on the ‘Jesus Discovery’

Christopher has an issue with Tabor’s reading of the inscription on the ‘Jonah ossuary’-

There is much that I like about Bauckham’s discussion in general, and I am very pleased by his basic conclusions.

Palaeographers, however, would note a rather serious problem for Tabor and Bauckham’s reading of line two…namely, the dramatic difference in the morphology of the iota, as a viewing of Tabor’s own drawings (p. 91, _The Jesus Discovery_) demonstrates. Thus, Tabor and Bauckham read an iotaat the beginning of line two, but one with very long horizontal crossbars (a palaeographic problem I shall soon discuss in a long palaeographic and philological post here, replete with all of my readings and a full translation). However, the next grapheme they read as an iota is a straight vertical (with no horizontals).

There’s some before that and some after.  Enjoy.

Related articles

• Richard Bauckham: The Talpiot Tomb Inscription (zwingliusredivivus.wordpress.com)

More Archaeological Exaggeration: Finds ‘Verify’ Life at the Time of Jonah…

From the Ministry of Foreign Affairs–

At Giv’at Yonah (the Hill of Jonah) in Ashdod, which according to various traditions is identified with the burial place of the prophet Jonah, archaeological finds were exposed that verify the existence of life there during the First Temple period, at the time of Jonah.  In a trial archaeological excavation the Israel Antiquities Authority carried out on Giv’at Yonah in Ashdod prior to development work by Hofit – Ashdod Development & Tourism Company, Ltd. remains of massive walls more than 1 m wide were found that are dated to the late 8th century and early 7th century BCE.

What?  These finds verify that there was life at the Tell in the First Temple Period and somehow that ‘verifies’ Life at the Time of Jonah????  Bible in one hand, spade in the other, much, MFA?

In the estimation of the excavation director, Dmitri Egorov, of the Israel Antiquities Authority, these walls constituted the base of a large building from the First Temple period, the time when Jonah the prophet was active, who lived in the eighth century BCE and was famous for having been swallowed by a fish after he refused to “go to Nineveh… and proclaim against it.” (Jonah1:2).

Oh my….  Oh my….  Here we go.  Next, a Discovery Channel movie touting the find as proof of Jonah!

Jonah and Environmentalism?

I’ll take ‘things that don’t belong together for 200, Alex’.

Last year a gray whale was spotted off the coast of Herzliya in Israel. As in the days of Jonah. Actually, we need to turn the clock back a little further. According to Arthur Max of the Associated Press, the gray whale was hunted to extinction in the Atlantic already in the eighteenth century. This whale, therefore, had to travel north of Canada from the Pacific Ocean through channels that are normally frozen. Global warming has opened these pas … Read More

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