Steven Carr

It is remarkable that the Ossuary was broken in transit, with the crack being right in the inscription.

By another of those amazing coincidences the Joash Tablet was accidentally broken during shipment to an Israeli police station, even though it was protected by two layers of bubble wrap and placed inside a box.

Let me see. One Golan forgery was broken in transit. The ossuary was also broken in transit.

The whole thing just reeks of forgery.

Haran

"Reeks of"? Perhaps so. As long as those incidents aren't being spun for all they're worth. If you remember when the crack went through the ossuary, many jumped on it and said it went "right through the controversial part of the inscription!" What controversial part? The whole thing has been controversial! Had the crack gone smack dab through the middle of the inscription dividing it into its supposed halves, the same thing would have been said. The reporting on the James Ossuary also "reeks".

Anyways, this is not the topic.

Steven Carr

And some have a very short memory. You said Altman was the only one to reject the thing and nearly everyone jumped on it. A couple of paragraphs later, you say that it was after other 'questionable scholars' is when people jumped on it.

There is a thread called 'Experts Question Authenticity of Bone Box for `Brother of Jesus'' at
http://www.iidb.org/vbb/showthread.p...threadid=34291
Altman plays a minor role in that thread, having her integrity questioned by sceptics.

It was written about her :-
'Since when do her list cronies qualify as a "peer review committee"? When asked about either of these, she launches into entirely uncharacteristic and unscholastic knee-jerk overdefensiveness....'

Her dating of the inscription ot Herodioan (apparently following Cross and Fitzmyer in their dating) was also reported. Do Cross and Fitzmeyer date the thing as Herodian?

Yet Haran says everybody jumped on the Altman bandwagon. Not everybody did, as the records show.


http://www.globeandmail.com/servlet/...0021106/UOSSUM

'However, John Lupia, editor of the Roman Catholic News and a scholar with degrees in art history, biblical studies and archeology, told The Globe and Mail yesterday that he "immediately knew the inscription was a fake without giving a paleographic analysis [inscription interpretation] for two reasons: biovermiculation and patina'

Yet Haran says Altman was 'the only one to reject the thing in the beginning.'

spin

Of the eleven letters of the first part of the inscription, there are six possible letters for serifs, five of them have them, and the PE has a horn which is in keeping with the script. There is a clear cohesion of script type. There is no change over the first part. The second part is just plain irregular.

A mix that divides nicely in the middle.

Re: two hands in the second part you wrote: "I definitely have not read this. Where?"

Somewhere here.

Stop the rhetoric. Read the article.

It's good to see that you can see clear differences between the two halves.


Given that we are dealing with a scribe cutting stone he doesn't have as much control as he would on parchment. The two BETs are quite similar. The differences can be explained by the medium.

This is incredible to me. You still seem to be stonewalling. The similarities between the first set of letters is quite stunning. Circles are hard to cut in stone (see the QAF and the SAMEK) but along with the serifs the scribe could cut a horn on top of the PE.

I talked about the horns of the HET and you said:

Horns are at the top, Haran. Legs are at the bottom. The way they are usually done in the style of the script of the first half is with a short upward movement before the vertical down. This is not the case with the HET in this inscription.

They clearly tend to be straight in respect to the vertical axis, with the exception of the second BET and we see the scribe has compensated. There is no straightness in the second half. The difference in care in that alone is plain.

Just two letters earlier the scribe could get the basic idea. There is no sign of this sort of problem in the first half. Admit it.

This is the job. You have to analyse the letters. See how they were made. This is palaeography.

First you either look at the forest or the trees, then you change scale. Look at what Yardeni does in her book on the letters. She shows just how each is formed including the number of strokes and in which direction. But you have to look at both the forest and the trees. You shouldn't ignore either, should you?

One? You don't mind that the letters are all over the place. You can happily explain the last YOD in isolation and ignore the YOD two letters back and in the first half. You didn't even comment on the highly strange ALEF. You didn't understand the problem of the horns of the HET. The only real problem?

It's a different style of letter. It hardly even looks like a DALET. Sheesh.

You keep repeating "mixed". It definitely is not mixed. It has two clear halves. You ignore the similarities between the first set of letters (squareness, straightness, serifs) and the lack of similarity between any of the letters in the second half. Why do you do that?

Nobody took any notice of it. The geologists didn't.


spin

Haran

There you go again only picking on wording. Why do you do this, just so you can try to win debating points? I'm not interested in playing games.

My statements are not mutually exclusive. I perhaps stated the first one too strong. But I seem to remember her being the first "scholar" to come out very publicly for part of the inscription being fake (which for some reason in an exchange she said she had never said it was fake...). Somewhere around that time, shortly thereafter, I think, other scholars like Eisenman and a few others made statements.

I doubt this was the first thread on the ossuary (is the search function fixed yet??). This thread started looks to have been started in December. Altman's article came out earlier. The comments in that thread show the bias against the ossuary from the outset, though, before the IAA. Thanks.

I don't remember if she said this. It wouldn't be an particularly hard paleographic detail to get right.

I'm not sure I said everybody. If I did I was wrong. I believe I said many or most everybody.

Lupia came after Altman, so I was right.

*sigh*

Steven Carr

Well, don't write things like :- 'Because her claims are used on many websites and do not seem to have ever been questioned, only accepted. '

I then showed a thread where her claims were questioned, and you respond that I am 'picking on wording', and 'trying to win debating points.'

I find Haran astonishing sometimes. He writes sweeping generalisations like 'do not seem to have ever been questioned', and complains that people 'pick on wording', when they try to introduce some balance into his statements.

The man is so sensitive about any mild disagreement with his statements (I can't even disagree with statements that he himself says were wrong, without being abused for my pains!) , while he thinks nothing of making sweeping generalisations about whole groups of people on this forum, like 'some have a very selective memory' and 'Had the crack gone smack dab through the middle of the inscription dividing it into its supposed halves, the same thing would have been said..'

Haran

Please point out the horn on the PE. I see a normal PE. The left stroke is the appropriate downward stroke as it should be.

I would if you'd provide a decent link. I'm not going to rummage through a bunch of articles trying to find something that is obviously bunk. If you provide it, I'll read it. One simply cannot divide this script up into three hands, it is over-analysis and that is not rhetoric.

Cute. Glad to amuse. To be more precise then rather than using terms I don't agree with anyway...the part I'm talking about really starts at the PE and possible slightly before. The PE is nearly as worn as the rest of the letters in the inscription. Perhaps they should be considered possibly original and the other part a fraud. Didn't someone on the IAA committee see things this way?

Oh sure. When this is mentioned as a reason for the nature of some of the letters that are supposed to be fake, it is immediately dismissed by some. I don't buy it. If the scribe carved so carefully and precisely, he could have made the two bets more similar rather than one rounded off and the other squared (I saw a scholar who actually referred to this in a report I read. Wish I could remember if he used it as proof against the ossuary.). The PE could have been kept at the same level as the rest of the inscription preceding. Did the scribe get a little carried away on the resh? Was the scribe starting to hurry his job when he wrote the resh too high and chipped it, wrote the yod and waw lower and spaced too closely, wrote the samekh higher again, and finally dropped the PE way down? There are more differences in the first part of the script than you seem to want to admit.

If the initial letters are so formal, then where are the wedges on the waws? The samekh does not even seem very formal to me.

What horn on the PE? Please point out in precise detail where this horn is. It would also help if you would point to Cross' analysis in establishing this horn. I'm not seeing it.

I'm not stonewalling. I see a continuously changing script from beginning to end. It looks like a hurried scribe. As you say, the change could be due to the material. But I see the change as beginning before the supposed "second half".

Ok, I deserve that so I'll let it slip, even though I'm not sure how much you really know about paleography. If you refer to Ada Yardeni's book on paleography. You'll see that the letter was usually written as I described. There is nothing unusual about this HET. In a page from her book that I have sitting right in front of me, Ada shows the leftmost and rightmost strokes as downstrokes with a horizonatl bar drawn from left to right near the top. I don't understand how you can honestly say this is an unusual HET.

There are plenty of problems, the biggest of which is the PE and uneven spacing. You admit it.

This is the job. And from your analysis so far, I the information I have seen does not look credible. If you've looked at Yardeni's book, you should know how the HET is formed. Are you sure you weren't looking at the HE instead?

You don't appear to understand the HET. It is not unusual. I think you are looking at a different script style for the HET you are trying to describe. This HET is not an unusual HET. The Aleph is a cursive aleph of the time period and is not without examples.

This is about the only one I can agree is extremely rare. As I stated before, I remember seeing at least one similar example in Yardeni.

The script changes gradually from right to left.

Haran

Because "many websites" means "many websites", not "all websites", Steven. Grumble... You can't, therefore, pick some website and use it like you have.

And as for you not writing things like that, hah!

Remember the Do Christians understand what they're talking about? you started and titled among other similarly titled thread?

Like that wasn't a generalization of a similar flavor...can you also admit it or should I hound you with this, posting it over and over again until you admit that you also make generalizations?

Some of my statements have been too bold, I'm sure. I tend, unfortunately, to argue more extrememly (and at times unreasonably) with those who are also being unreasonable.

However, from what you said above, this is why I feel that you 'pick on wording' and not substance. And the tone of your own posts is definitely no better than you seem to think mine are. Even though Spin and Vork can be confrontational as well, I feel that they've done a somewhat better job of addressing details (even if off-topic like yours).

And you still think that this odd way of addressing people as if they aren't there is somehow less confrontational. If you're going to address me, then address me! It is not so much your disagreement as your tone and that you continue to post the same material over and over again when you think you've won some point. That is what bothers me, Steven. You're probably a nice guy and hiding behind the internet does this kind of thing to us, but I don't like your current style much.

spin

The top of the PE slightly reverse curves upward to the point (given the scribe's natural problem with curves).

Forget it then. You aren't interested.

The only curves are in the first half and the scribe had difficulties, but these were because cutting circles in stone isn't a normal task for a scribe. The PE with its flourish incidentally is reflective of final letters in inscriptions.

There is no sign of compensation in the second part. The cutting process tends to cause straight lines, but the second BET has compensation to bring it back to a more acceptable form.

THE MEDIUM IS NOT PERFECT.

You're just not showing signs of contemplating the scribe's problems and how he deals with them. There is no compensation in the second part. Look at the downward stroke of the QOF.

The usual photo is actually at an angle. Draw a line through the bases of the BETs and the SAMEK to see the direction of the letters in the first part.

YODs can have the extra stroke, WAWs don't usually.

The PE doesn't round downwards on the right but goes to a point. This point is the normal horn of the PE.

The best you can do is complain about the height of the PE and the horizontal stroke of the RESH. The RESH is still the same script as the rest of the first half.

I don't have access to any books. I can only work on memory. I remember Yardeni showing the tracing of movement on the HET which includes first an upward movement before the downstroke, giving each vertical stroke a little cap.

This was not a particularly coherent response. You have pointed out the low PE. (Do I remember correctly that Altman reads the movement in the heights of letters in the first half as indicating intonation??) You also for some reason think the YOD and the WAW are too close together. When they appear in texts together they are almost invariably close. Still you have a low PE and nothing else.

Are you looking at a formal script with serifs, wedges, horns, etc.? Or are you assuming that there is simply a change from formal to informal after the PE?

I've seen enough HETs in my life. But you take it that it must be an informal HET, which is fair enough if you don't mind that the change to informal is an indicator of a different scribe.

Used by a scribe who wrote BETs and RESHs like those in the first half? Certainly not.

Repeating it again without supplying any argument.

You still seem to be stonewalling.


spin

Vorkosigan

Ha-ha. A signature of that forger is a crack. There's one in every Golan product, often through the key word. I think he just missed YHWH on the Temple Ostracon. I suspect he was inspired by Tel Dan -- if he didn't do Tel Dan himself. I would give ten years of my life to know Golan's whereabouts during that excavation. I would bet ancient shekels everyone will be astonished to find out in the end that he visited the dig site.

You know, the Widow's Plea and Temple Ostracon are both Oded "finds":
http://www.bib-arch.org/bswb_BAR/bswbba2905f1.html

"Foremost among these other artifacts is the “Three Shekel” ostracon (a pottery sherd used as a kind of notepaper) that purports to record a three-shekel donation to the Solomonic (First) Temple. Another similar ostracon is known as the “Widow’s Plea” ostracon.# Both were sold by Golan (through Tel Aviv antiquities dealer Robert Deutsch) to Shlomo Moussaieff, one of the world’s leading collectors of antiquities related to the Bible and the ancient Near East."

Pretty scary. Altman has stated publicly that the Temple Ostracon is a forgery.

The case has other clear earmarks of forgery. If you read the BAR article, you'll find:

"On paleographic grounds, the inscription is dated to sometime before 600 B.C.E. The decanter, about 7.5 inches tall, is very well preserved and its inscription is easily read. The only decoration is three concentric circles around the neck of the vessel. The decanter apparently holds a quarter of a certain measure; just which measure, scholars do not know. Mattanyahu, a common name meaning “gift of Yahweh,” may have been a Temple priest.

Apparently, the IAA thinks the decanter, too, may be a modern forgery. It was reportedly sold to Moussaieff by Golan. It was published in Forty New Ancient West Semitic Inscriptions, by Robert Deutsch, an antiquities dealer who has been closely involved with Golan and Moussaieff (he is editing a festschrift for Moussaieff) and by Deutsch’s Ph.D. adviser, Professor Michael Heltzer of Haifa University."

Playing a single mark is vintage forger behavior. Konrad Kujau, the Hitler Diaries forger, sold lots of his Hitler paintings to a rich Texan millionaire. Moussaieff has been a purchaser of several Golan products. I suspect that many of the seals and other items inside his collection are going to turn out to forgeries, and that he is going to fight like hell to keep the authorities away. And anything that made it out of his collection into a museum ought to be suspect too.

Vorkosigan