mountainman

HistoryHuntersInternational/LeadCodices/FlashAlbum from here

Minimalist

Yeah - which is fairly amusing as the DSS don't say shit about xtianity.

Sheshbazzar

Anybody interested in buying a bottle of genuwine old-fashiond snake oil?

Toto

It looks like these are those same lead codices

Experts examining 'old Christian' discoveries to determine authenticity

eta: skeptical comments here

Toto

Could it be . . Coptic?

Toto

Once again, I caught David Elkington on Coast to Coast while driving home.

He's not backing down. The host asked him about Peter Thonemann's analysis of the Greek, and Elkington claimed that Thonemann violated his pledge of secrecy, and you have to understand, that's how the Bedouin operate. When they have a good find, they will produce lots of fake copies to make as much money as possible, but you have to keep after them to get to the good stuff.

Elkington also claimed that there were sealed caves in the area, and that they would be doing more excavations.

But his basic thesis was somewhat incredible. He claimed that the lead codices are written in a dialect, Hasmonean Hebrew, which was not used after the fall of the Temple.

He also made the claim, tailored to the late night radio audience, that these codices had a message that would unite the world. But the message seemed to be tied into the idea that Jesus was really Jewish, and Christianity before 70 CE had centered around the Temple, and that after clensing the Temple, Jesus had gone into the holiest part of the Temple where YHWH lived, and had met him. It's not clear how this will unite the world.

Elkington also claimed that there was a picture of Jesus that could be identified as Jesus, with a beard, because it looked like all the early portraits of Jesus.

It is rather disconcerting how well Elkington comes across with this nonsensical thesis.

mountainman

Hey, everyone on the planet needs a good laugh.



We dont have any old Imperial WANTED posters for Jesus.
All the early portaits of Jesus look like Emperor Constantine.
I wonder why.



disconcerting ? no ... Elkington is just working the crowd like the rest of them.

And Shesh as usual is spot on the money with their modus operandi of business:

DCHindley

It's not as though we can't understand the Jordanian Dept of Antiquity's wish to have another sensational discovery on the level with the DSS (many of which they have control of). The trend seems to either be wave them away as intentional forgeries or assume their complete authenticity. There is plenty of room in between for the reality.

There are methods to estimate the age of lead:

One, that measures the electrical conductivity of lead samples when supercooled, is here

A field guide giving the affect of various environments on various materials (including lead) is here.

Stained glass makers have a variety of techniques to create or imitate a natural black patina.

I still say these "codices" were likely "fakes" created for sale to tourists in the bazaars of Old Jerusalem, but never made it to market. They sat in the abandoned factory (cave with a crude furnace) where they were produced, until someone found them and decided they could be marketed.

If "forgeries", maybe they were at some point treated with corrosive chemicals to create a patina.

I'll take a stroll at the old industrial ruins in Youngstown to see what examples of corrosion I can find, and take some photos.

DCH

Roger Pearse

Elkington has to produce something which is verifiably genuine. If he can't -- and so far, all his stuff has been obviously fake -- then there is no story.

Apparently ancient lead is readily available in Britain, and therefore probably in Palestine also.

I'd love to think that some genuine material has been discovered. But if so ... there is so far no sign of it.

stephan huller

For what it's worth I looked at Caruso's identification of strange letters in the lead book:



and sent it to one of my friends who happens to be an expert in Semitic languages at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia and he agreed with the possibility that the letters might be Coptic. I think the texts are still probably fakes but it is interesting to figure out why these strange characters appear in the document. I don't think that the material is a copy of something. Is it just random characters developed by some hack? Probably or at least that seems to be where the evidence is leading. But still the Coptic characters might point to a more direct involvement of Elkington (because he claims to be an Egyptologist) or something we haven't yet considered.

The potential for Coptic characters changes the forgery scenario from one in which a bunch of Bedouins just took a trip to the museum to copy something. I think it points to the presence of an outsider or something outside a circle of local Bedouins.