Wednesday, February 28, 2007

The Jesus Tomb?


Deja vu... Just when we think Da Vinci Code is all over, here comes another sensationalized story on the supposed marriage of Jesus and Mary Magdalene...
Lose no sleep over the latest buzz on James Cameron's documentary on the Talpiot family tombs (alleged "Jesus Family Tomb") , and make the most of the opportunities to be an informed, winsome and tactful ambassador for Christ...



5 comments:

SATheologies said...

James Tabor, one of the expert behind the film has posted his rejoinder through Jim West here:
http://drjimwest.wordpress.com/2007/02/28/james-tabor-and-michael-stone-on-the-tomb/

Anonymous said...

this is very good:
http://dev.bible.org/bock/node/107

Anonymous said...

This "Lost Tomb of Jesus" film is obviously a hoax, the name "Jesus" is not even legible on the ossuary.

Anyone who reads Hebrew or Aramaic can look at the tracing for the "Jesus son of Yosef" box (it's on the Discovery Channel website) and immediately see that, while the name "son of Yosef" is clearly discernable towards the left, the letters yod, shin, vav and ayin (Yeshua) are only (at best) by remote conjecture to be found in the scrawled writing etched into the stone following the big X-like marking on the right.

Indeed, in the Catalogue of Jewish Ossuaries where the tracing of the inscription was first published, the transcriber carefully puts dots over the letters yod and shin, indicating in standard fashion that his reading is conjectural, and he puts a question-mark after the entire name Yeshua meaning that he is doubtful of that entire part of his transcription. He was clearly groping, because the letters vav and ayin are also not discernable and he should have put dots over that part of the transcription as well. As everyone knows, there is another ossuary with the name Yeshua bar Yosef legibly inscribed on it, and it seems that the transcriber may have been influenced by that one in trying to figure out what this one says.

As for James Tabor, he is the same character at the center of the claim that an "Essene latrine" has been found near the site of Khirbet Qumran, where so-called traditional Qumranologists (including, it would appear, Tabor himself) continue to insist, in the face of mounting contrary evidence, that a sect of Essenes lived. Tabor is also involved in the current biased and misleading exhibits of the Dead Sea Scrolls traveling around the country.

For details, see http://jesus-crypt-fraud.blogspot.com/ and the other postings published by the authors of that blog.

For Tabor's other recent attempt to hoodwink the public, see also the most recent article by N. Golb on the Oriental Institute's website, http://oi.uchicago.edu/research/projects/scr/.

Professor Jim Davila’s blog (March 6, 2007) http://paleojudaica.blogspot.com/ quotes Tabor as asserting to him in an email: “I have never excavated even one tomb, and I am not even an archaeologist and have never claimed to be such.”

Yet Tabor himself, in an article published in the Charlotte Observer, excerpted on the same paleojudaica blog a year ago (February 13, 2006), wrote: “As an archaeologist, I have long observed and experienced the thrill that ancient discoveries cause in all of us. The look on the faces of my students as we uncover ancient ruins from the time of Jesus, or explore one of the caves where the scrolls were found, is unmistakable.”

Tabor's Ph.D. was awarded to him by the University of Chicago’s Department of New Testament and Christian Literature, housed in that institution's Divinity School building. The title of his dissertation was “Things Unalterable: Paul’s Ascent to Paradise”. He clearly has no training as an archaeologist or historian, and we are only left to wonder at the motivations that led him to become involved in these phony scams.

Anonymous said...

Charles Gadda, thanks for the valuable info

Anonymous said...

Thanks to Charles Gadda, but I would like to add that the real name Jesus is not Yushua or Jesus or Hesus, but ESA as testified by the millions and millions of Christian and muslem Arabs ( and even non Arabs) who have the name Jesus in their last or first name as (ESA) ( example is the California Congressman who helped Arnold become Governer Mr ESA ( who is of Lebanese origins).
Plus ESA ( even Yashua) names were very prominent at the time of Jesus. Jesus was not the first person to take this name, Lets remember the Prophet "Jesus ben Zaria" ( refered to in other biblical translations as (ESA ben Zaria) who came hundred of years before Jesus.
So what is the deal here.
And since when graves of pious people in Judea were built in caves or walls. The Bible standard grave is under the ground not above it!?