BruceWane

Perhaps the texts that form the christian bible are stories that are only very loosely based on reality, embellished by word-of-mouth methods of transmission; people at the heart of christianity were unaware of the tall tales their lives would inspire.

It seems most reasonable to think that Jesus was not entirely mythical. He was probably a sort of spiritual leader with a small following, and after his death, over time, his persona and teachings were deified.

It's kinda like Ronald Reagan


Ummm......doesn't christianity claim that Jesus was placed in a tomb after his crucifiction? Do you question this as well?

I didn't catch the exact details, but the statitician said that he multiplied certain elements of the calculations in order to maintain a pretty wide margin of error - in other words, if the statitician had stuck strictly to the known occurence of names, a family with a father named Joseph, a mother named Mary, a son named Jesus, etc., etc., all consistent with biblical descriptions of Jesus's family, but that family NOT being the biblical Jesus's family, would have been like 1,000,000 to one against. It would calculate out to be even MORE likely that this was the family of Jesus - THE Jesus.

"Rounding up" the occurence of the name "Jesus" from 0.526% to 4% actually makes the odds of this being the biblical Jesus' family worse, not better.

Yeah, the other boxes didn't appear to have much in them, so they weren't given priority in testing. And in light of the results from the "easy" tests, they say they should persue these more difficult tests. Makes sense to me.

No idea who might have cleaned out the other boxes, or why. If the point is to imply conspiracy, you could also ask why the boxes of Jesus and one of the Mary's were not cleaned out.

For that matter, the entire thing could be a 21st century forgery committed by the Evil Atheist Conspiracy.

Or if you believe in supernatural entities, it could be the work of Satan, couldn't it?

Couldn't everything counter-indicative of christainity be the work of Satan? :Cheeky:

boneyard bill

Who says the people at the heart of Christianity were the ones in charge of the burial? And even if they were, what did Christians believe in the immediate aftermath of the crucifixion? The Annunciation doesn't even occur, I don't think, until the Gospel of Luke. And the virgin birth doesn't appear until Matthew. Those are both at least late first century.

Presumably Joseph of Aramathea was a rich man who donated the tomb.

I won't attempt to get into the statistics.

The DNA is what the researchers had done. As the director of the movie pointed out. He didn't do any research. He only reported what researchers were finding out. One would like to know why more extensive DNA wasn't done, but the actual researchers weren't interviewed after the documentary.

It could be a forgery, but where is there any evidence to that effect? There are a lot of unanswered questions. Indeed, it seems to me that there are a lot of unasked questions. How accurate is the dating? What do paleographers say about the inscription? How accurate is our data about the % of ancient Israelis named James or Jesus?

I seriously doubt these claims, but I don't think they are shot down that easily either.

Steven Avery

Diogenes, surprisingly, most of this I would agree with. Although there are a number of other anomalies and difficulties touched on in recent days by Jodi Magness, Ben Witherington and others which (as you point out) were instead put in the lesser hands of Reed and Dever (who was mostly interested in his turf). Koppel gets a B+ for effort but the subject was too much for him and he was stuck with Reed and Dever.

The biggest lack in the whole thing was nobody blowing the whistle on bogus probability analysis. Post facto probability calculation is a squirrelly field at best. (Skeptics should know this especially well because they offer good answers to the 1 in a quadrillion arguments of Josh and friends.)

Even the following article really only scratches the surface of the probability issues.. it would be nice if someone would do a more solid job.

http://ntgateway.com/weblog/2007/03/...dr-andrey.html
The correct interpretation of Dr. Andrey Feuerverger's 1:600 odds calculation - Joe D'Mello

Maybe I'll ask some folks I know in combinatorial mathematics. We saw how Gil Kalai and the others successfully showed probabilistic flaws in Bible Code claims .. the problem is that few people write cogently about what is the structure and propriety and use and limitations and parameters of post facto probability (PFP).

Incidentally, I am not saying that PFP is necessarily wrong. It has some application here. It had some application in figuring out the likelihood of Hillary making 100G through 'luck' with the particular set of circumstances in her futures trading.

However you don't just pick and choose your preferred inclusive sets and multiply the individual units one on another. That is a methodology of manipulation, not probability calculation.

One sidenote: James Tabor, with his own chameleon approach on these issues over the years, showed clearly his own views when he slipped in a reference to the resurrection understanding of the body of the Lord Jesus Christ (the empty tomb) as 'magic', in a desultory dustoff.

Shalom,
Steven Avery
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Messianic_Apologetic

TedM

I missed the first 20 minutes or so, but saw the rest. It has piqued my curiosity more than I expected. 3 things that really stand out for me:

1. The low probability of finding the name Jose on an ossuary. This is the only ossuary ever found with the name Jose on it. Jose was the name of one of Jesus' brothers in GMark.

2. The low probability of finding the name alleged to be that of Mary Magdaline, which matches the name given to her as early as the 2nd century.

3. The interesting series of consistent data with the James ossuary:
1. also says, "son of Joseph"
2. is the exact correct dimension
3. can explain the missing 10th ossuary (10 were found, only 9 now accounted for in the storage area)
4. has consistent patina with the others.


It would help if they can get DNA from the Joseph and the Maria ossuaries, and it shows that 1. Joseph and Maria aren't related and 2. Maria was Jesus' mother. Further it would help if DNA can be retrieved from the James ossuary to show a linkage to Jesus.

IF these 3 things can be done I'd consider this to be overwhelming evidence for the hypothesis. While, James, Joseph, Maria, and Jesus were all common names, the grouping of them all and the inclusion of the unusual names (Jose and the one alleged to be 'Mary Magdalene') that can be closely tied to Jesus would be statistically very unlikely.

ted

BruceWane

The funny thing is, if ossuaries were found that were labeled, "Joseph", "Mary, mother of Jesus", etc., etc. - all of Jesus's family, but not Jesus himself - the vast majority of christians would be all over it as valid archaeological proof of their fantasies.

This show, and the discussions in its wake, are the perfect illustration of selection bias.

Woulda been really cool to see how things went if this guy had presented only the family members, not Jesus, in this show, let the christians embrace the evidence and methods, then have an unannounced "part two" a week or so later presenting the ossuary of Jesus.

ApostateAbe

That would be beautiful, but then that would prove that he is a bait-and-switch activist.

Chris Weimer

So much has been covered already around the blogosphere, but I added my 2c anyway. See here.

If I could sum up those three hours with one word, it would be: underwhelming.

lee_merrill

Hi everyone,

Oh, I don’t know, a movie producer / journalist by the name of Jacobovichi?

“If you think you have such a case, then make it. But waving your hands around and tossing what-ifs into the air like confetti will not suffice.” (Sauron)

Certainly, but it was a borrowed tomb. But if you’re going to take the Biblical account, then we should look for a large rock that sealed it, and a groove for the rock to move in, which rock it seems was missing. You can’t just pick and choose parts you want.

It seems we have a consensus! So apparently you can pick and choose the parts you want? So then we have the followers of Jesus dying for an obvious fraud. We have the bones of Jesus apparently in the family tomb, and the skeptics can’t think to point out the bones when the claim is made of resurrection, and walking about, and eating fish with the disciples. We were speaking of probabilities?

Now people do die for false causes, but not for statements they do not believe in, not to the man, in scattered places.

Well, I’m saying archaeologists generally keep and sift through even dust grains, every bit nowadays is considered important.

Because they were archaeologists, and wanted to preserve evidence?

Good point, however, we are told someone added to the inscription on the “missing ossuary”. Now this might be recent, or not, but in any case, it does indicate a willingness to fabricate with ossuaries by some.

But Ted Koppel said a person he called knew where this ossuary was, and it was blank, without an inscription. I was surprised this point was not examined more.

I also note that the professor from Dallas Seminary was wrong about statistics, even some big “ifs”, if they must occur in combination, can result in a low probability.

Regards,
Lee

Chris Weimer

Yes. Everyone does it all the time. Unless, of course, you think Vespasian cured a blind man with his spit, as both Suetonius and Tacitus claim.

No, we have them dying for a cause, which later Christians changed.

Malachi151

Agreed, and good post. I may link to it from my post if there are more critical posts from secular perspectives that I can find. I'm trying to talk Richard Carrier and Earl Doherty to commenting on this issue, and I hope they will.