lee_merrill

Well, just pick up any history book, are you saying they are all wrong? "No real evidence" would also be overstating your case!

From this source: "Ignatius was arrested by the authorities and transported to Rome under trying conditions: 'From Syria even to Rome I fight with wild beasts, by land and sea, by night and by day, being bound amidst ten leopards, even a company of soldiers, who only grow worse when they are kindly treated. —Ignatius to the Romans, 5.'"

"He died as a martyr in the arena. The Roman authorities hoped to make an example of him and thus discourage Christianity from spreading. Instead, he met with and encouraged Christians who flocked to meet him all along his route, and he wrote six letters to the churches in the region and one to a fellow bishop."

This corresponds with what I have seen in the history books I have read.

You have perhaps not read the gospels, nor Ignatius, nor Paul, nor...

"For myself, I am convinced and believe that even after the resurrection he was in the flesh. Indeed, when he came to Peter and his friends, he said to them, 'Take hold of me, touch me and see that I am not a bodiless ghost.' And they at once touched him and were convinced, clutching his body and his very breath. For this reason they despised death itself, and proved its victors. Moreover, after the resurrection he ate and drank with them as a real human being, although in spirit he was united with the Father." (Ignatius, Smyr. 3:1-2)

Actually this was an incorrect point in the program. Paul says the body (note, body) will have a different form. That would be physical resurrection.

In which Jesus says he is not a ghost, cooks breakfast, eats broiled fish.

But your view would be, what, that the associates of Jesus thought him a fine person, until (when? the 3rd century?) someone like Constantine declared his divinity?

Let's have your view on the table, please.

Ted Koppel called the person who found it, and this person said it was blank, and knew where it was (in Boston, as I recall). You are saying a qualified archaeologist cataloging ossuaries would not see a faint inscription, and miss an ornament on it, and not think to brush off some dirt?

And I did think this show was making an argument based on probability...

Iznomneak

Yes, I found both shows very entertaining. Jacobovici has created an interesting case and I hope someone funds further serious scientific study since the evidence is nowhere near conclusive (IMO). I think the next step would be to examine the tomb for more clues. It would be interesting if they could link the tomb to Joseph of Arimathea. I didn't like the part about calculating probability since there are too many unknown variables to determine an accurate estimate.

In the Ted Koppel encore, Jacobovici was explicit that his role was as a journalist and that his hope was that this docu-drama would encorage further scientific investigation. I have to agree with the 2 skeptics (sorry, I don't recall their names) that the show was more dramatization than serious methodical scientific investigation.

The three theists at the end of the show offered no valuable input. One basically said that even if the evidence were to show that these were indeed the bones of Jesus, it would not shake his faith, which I interpreted to mean: if the facts disagree with the bible, they must be disposed of.

For anyone interested, an overview can be found here: (click "enter the tomb")
dsc.discovery.com/convergence/tomb/explore/explore.html

aa5874

And by the the way, which Jesus are they expecting to find the one in the book called Matthew or the one in the book called Luke. Or it doesn't matter?

According to the NT, there was only linen, not bones, left in the tomb. Jesus was resurrected with his body intact, except for some type of scar at his side.

There is also the problem of prophecy, according to the book called Matthew 24:5, "For many shall come in my name, saying I am Christ; and shall deceive many".

These may be the bones of a deceiver.

Diogenes the Cynic

What historian claims there is any evidence that the earliest followers of jesus were martyred for their beliefs or that they believed in a physical resurrection?
Ignatius was not a direct follower of Jesus. he was not a primary or secondary witness, and his epistles are of dubious authenticity anyway.
The Gospels do not provide primary or secondary testimony of Jesus. Inatius has already been dealt with. paul does not claim that Jesus was physically resurrected, nor does he say that the apostles ever claimed it.
Actually, the person who argued this interpretation on the show was talking oout of his ass. Paul clearly draws a distinction between the physical and spiritual bodies. he says that what goes into the ground rots and is not raised. He uses the analogy of a seed turning into a plant and says that physical bodies are REPLACED by spiritual bodies.
Where does PAUL say any of that?
I don't have a theory. I have no idea when and by whom the idea of a physical resurrection was first formulated. It might have been Mark, but we don't have enough data to know. What we do know is that there is no suggestion of such a belief in Christian literature until at least 40 years after the crucifixion. If you put a gun to my head and told me I had to guess, I would guess that the first "appearances" by Jesus to Cephas et al were simply visionary experiences similar to Paul's.
The archaeologist in question was speaking from a 27 year old memory, and according to Jacobovici, he did oversaw the excavation but did not do detailed examinations of inscriptions. I do not believe it's impossible that he might miss a faint enough inscription if he made only a cursory examination in situ. I would not attempt to argue that this must be the case or even that it's the most probable scenario, only that it's not impossible. The patina evidence, if it holds up, would bolster the case for the james ossuary's provenance in the Talpiot tomb considerably.
Agreed. The thing that intrigues me is not that I think the probability is necessarily very great but only that, so far, I can't say it's ZERO.

Malachi151

Paul:

ElectEngr

I went over to the Discovery Channels forum on the show and found a thread about "eyewitnesses"

http://community.discovery.com/eve/f...8/m/9341953378

My Head hurts now...

They need help there, real help. I'd help, but I'm no Bible scholar.

Later,
ElectEngr

MHF

These two assumptions:

(1) Jesus never existed (so the Gospels are 100% fictional).
(2) Most of the Gospel stories are fictional, however, Jesus did exist.

are not equivalent. There are a number of puzzles that can be explained
more easily with assumption (1) than with assumption (2). One such puzzle
is why St. Paul writes almost nothing about the life of Jesus, while a few
decades later, the Gospel writers suddenly know lots of details. That is
what one would expect under assumption (1) (this puzzle does not contradict
assumption (2) though).

However, finding a grave site with names of Jesus' family members
is a puzzle under assumption (1) but not under assumption (2).

I could of course argue that there are serious problems with this new
research and then ignore this work. Still, I'd have to ask myself, am I really
sure that assumption (1) is still more probable than assumption (2)?
The answer to that is, no, I'm not sure at all. While it is possible that this
new information is false, the same can be said about any other information
on Jesus. Unless some major flaw is found, for now I'll have to assume
that (2) is more likely than (1).

Steven Carr

I can't help notice that in one ossuary mentioning Jesus, the authenticity is challenged by a police force, and in another ossuary mentioning Jesus, the authenticity is challenged by Ben Witherington.

That is quite a drastic difference in credibility!

Malachi151

My comments on Witherington's comments:

http://www.rationalrevolution.net/bl...try_id=1651011

Chris Weimer

Did you even read the reports? They did find an ossuary named "Jesus", and they didn't find an ossuary named "Mary, mother of Jesus". I've laid out the tombs for you to see here. I implore you to actually read it to figure out what's going on.