MHF

The presentation was more convincing than I had anticipated.

Previously, my position was that there is no real evidence that anything
mentioned in the Gospels is in any way related to real history. In my bookcase,
the Gospels would have fitted nicely between Harry Potter on one side, and Lord
of the Rings on the other side.

I feel now compelled to change my position. People may criticize the evidence
presented in the documentary as circumstantial evidence, however, as far as
evidence about Jesus goes, circumstantial evidence is really as good as it gets.
This evidence distinguishes the Gospels from other books of fiction.

Before we all go and quickly dismiss all of this, keep in mind that this is the
only physical evidence of Jesus physical existence here on Earth. That is
a very big deal.

No single piece of evidence gives certainty, we should assign a probability to
each piece of information, and then put the pieces together in a way that
maximizes probability.

With this new information, it seems to me that the probability that Jesus
physically existed is now much higher than it was before.

ApostateAbe

That brings me a sense of relief. The jury is still out on the connection to Jesus of Nazareth (let science do its work), but I was afraid that all of the Jesus mythers would stick to their position and not change their minds in light of new evidence. If atheist activists remain generally Jesus mythers even when the connection becomes scientifically legitimate, then that would be a huge lost opportunity for the truth.

ApostateAbe

I think maybe at least two people are in two different sorts of denial.

Jedi Mind Trick

Yes, and if they existed perhaps they stayed in Jerusalem and were killed by the Romans during the siege and fall of Jerusalem circa 70 CE? Perhaps the first Jewish Christians were closer to the zealots and took up arms against Rome and the subsequent Christianity of Paul tamed the Jesus cult into a peaceful otherworldly Roman friendly messiah cult, per Robert Eisenman?

Ruhan

It would be worth mentioning that Tabor stated in his blog today that he is preparing a formal report on his findings which would be more appropriate for a formal peer review. The same will be done for the DNA, statistical and patina results.

As such a formal peer review will still be conducted and has been welcomed by all those associated with this show. Crossan and Charlesworth have already made some positive comments about the findings and we could possibly see more once the results are reviewed.

douglas

Ben Witherington raises a few charges against the documentary that concern me:

1. The supposedly missing 10th ossuary was documented as not having an inscription, so therefore could not be the James ossuary. This fact was intentionally omitted from the documentary.
2. There is another known ossuary with the inscription "Jesus son of Joseph" and the film implied that there wasn't.
3. As mentioned previously, Prof. Bauckham has provided a solid argument as to the "Mariamenon" not referring to Mary Magdalene.

Has anyone else heard #1 & 2 before? If you remove the James ossuary from the equation, cast serious doubt on the "Mariamenon" referring to Mary Magdalene, and have proof of at least one other "Jesus son of Joseph" ossuary, then I think the story is on life support.

trillian

They really had enough of an interesting story without hyping the drama to the point of dishonesty. Too bad.

Some concerns:
1. The stretch that the Matthew ossuary was a common name in Mary's genealogy (in Luke) that gives it significance. I've always thought that the idea of Mary's genealogy was an apologetic and not historically or culturally accurate for the time.

2. The assertion that 2 unrelated persons would be very rare in a family tomb unless married. AFAIK, there are a multitude of other possibilities that weren't addressed.

3. The seemingly force fitting of the James ossuary, a famous (half)forgery, was a stupid move if they were looking for some credibility.

4. The fact that they wasted time looking at an inscription which they never bothered to decipher inside the tomb. And blathering on about finding the book of Jonah discarded there by a school which had nothing to do with proving their case.

5. The suspicious fact that they seemed to find no dead ends and no conflicting evidence. Just seems weird that each time they went looking for evidence, it somehow managed to fit into a model for being the Jesus family tomb. It's nothing specific really, just my opinion that they seemed quick to jump to their conclusions. Maybe it's because it really is his tomb, but I have some doubt for now.

Even with that, I still enjoyed watching the program- but I could not stay awake for the entire lame-o debate afterwards. The detractors were just awful.

I think the evidence they did provide warrants some further scientific investigation and I hope a proper team can wrap up at least the DNA questions.

Malachi151

Witherington's comments were total crap, even though I agree with this final conclusion.

Koyaanisqatsi

I think you're misunderstanding something here; there are those who don't believe Jesus the man ever existed (i.e., that the Jesus character depicted in the gospels was entirely fictional) and then those who have no problem with an actual man that all the myths were created around.

The common denominator being that nothing supernatural is involved; merely the degree of fictionalization (entirely fictional, or 99% fictional, with the 1% non-fictional part being that a rabbi named Jesus was a local cult leader who was crucified by the Romans and all these myths formed around his martyrdom).

Myths, after all, form around a very small kernal of truth. No myth, however, forms around a kernal of "supernatural" truth, so the mythological part will always be fictional regardless if an actual man named Jesus physically existed or not.

IOW, if you found a tomb marked "King Arthur" and were able to establish that this was "the" King Arthur, that wouldn't mean the stories of Merlin and Arthur and a magical sword Excalibur were all true; it would just mean that this is the guy whose life experiences were fictionalized.

:huh:

Ruhan

Douglas,

Tabor has gone into these at great lengths.

1) Claim came from someone who recorded this find 27 years ago. I find it interesting that he had such a vivid memory...

2) This is a well known ossuary which was discovered in 1927 and it's mentioned in the book which accompanies this film. Everyone involved with this find admits that these names are common but this cluster of names are not.

Tabor has actually responded to most of Witherington's claims which he made before he even saw the show. Witherington believes in the Shroud of Turin. Need I say more?

All the best,

Ruhan