yummyfur

I don't think the symbol is likely to be real, But there is evidence for a tripod base for the menorah, though I've never seen it represented by a triangle, but a flat or slightly sloping base with three(or some) legs. It is vaguely possible that the tripod(if it was, it might have had more legs) had a triangle as the shape of it's flatish base, and the drawing with the triangle was meant to symbolize this tripod, but this seems far fetched to me, but I guess it's just vaguely possible.

The bigger problem would be that to star of David is not an anceint Jewish symbol. Though one could argue that they were combining the Menorrah of Judaism, with the Fish of Christ(though I agree with Toto, this doesn't look much like the christian fish) and maybe neo-platonic symbolism in the hexagram. That is the best that I can do in trying to argue for possible authenticy, which is to say pretty poor argumentation, and would probably be later than 1st century.

It's also a problem that the orginal link references a Fr. Emanuel Testa who found a sliver plate in 1963, that had supposedly similar words to this artifact, and similar to the passage in James. Yet no images of this plate are given and we have no provenance other than Judean desert.

Emmanuele Testa is a priest at Studium Biblicum Franciscanum, and often worked with Bellarmino Bagatti. I could find nothing on this particular find of his so far, or where specifically it came from.

The link calls Ludwig Schneider editor of Isreal Update, he is not, he is editor of Israel Today, a publication of " Messianic Jewish believers". So he has an obvious bias for "discovering" this type of artifact without a true verifiable provenance.

http://www.israeltoday.co.il/

Another site pushing this story, says Tech Otecus is the name of the Greek Orthodox monk who found the artifacts. This is the monk that stole them, and secreted them away for years(thus removing verifiable provenance), telling no one but some non Greek Orthodox person, Ludwig Schneider, all making a highly unbelievable story. All references to this name are just to the same crap as the original link. It should be possible to find out if there is such a monk.

Jackalope

Actually, this sets off the bullshit detector as well:
How was it determined that the cave was really the baptismal grotto used by the early church (nevermind the "Nazarene" bit)? And that treasure trove hidden in there...any archeological context the pieces might have had are destroyed now. Conveniently. Plus the fact that any time you find a trove, you really must consider the idea that the pieces were gathered up from the places they were actually used and deposited in the cache. So the cave may have no connection with the pieces at all other than as a convenient hiding place. But we'll never know now, since the evidence has been destroyed.

Where are the rest of those "about 60 in all" pieces anyway?

Combined with the dark hints that the isreali authorities don't want the pieces on display lest the "truth" come out, and the babbling about a Qumran-like Essene community (excuse me: HAHahahHAHAhaHAh), I'd say it's a fake.

andrewcriddle

One query I have is about this passage Emmanuel Testa was a genuine mainstream scholar but I have been unable to confirm from reliable sources either on the web or in books that he made such a discovery.

My guess would be that the claim about Testa is genuine but I would like some confirmation.

Andrew Criddle

yummyfur

I had the same question, and also why the site doesn't show the artifact, since they are aware of it. I have two sepculative hypothesis on why they don't give more info.

1.) They copied the text of the inscription from this lamina and showing it, would expose that theirs was a copy.

2.) The lamina is dated to sometime after the 1st century.