Freethought & Rationalism Archive

stephan huller · 03-31-2011, 10:29 PM

Surprise, surprise. Release of the images are pending a book and a movie deal for Elkington it would seem:

http://www.csmonitor.com/Science/201...d-but-cautious

stephan huller · 03-31-2011, 10:41 PM

Someone asked about the "I will walk uprightly" business. I can't see a connection with Revelations unless they mean Rev. 3.4 which is a stretch and might demonstrate the kind of desperate logic we are dealing with here. Christ promises that the remnant in Sardis who remain pure "will walk with me, dressed in white for they are worthy." I don't see a real connection. The text is probably Jewish and the money making machine around the discovery is trying to connect it with one billion Christians rather than 10 million Jews.

I think 'uprightly' is probably the Hebrew tamym which also means 'perfect' or 'unblemished.' It appears in Psalm 15:2 "LORD, who shall sojourn in Thy tabernacle? Who shall dwell upon Thy holy mountain?. He that walks uprightly" - הוֹלֵךְ תָּמִים ... and then a list of other characteristics and then "He that doeth these things shall never be moved." It's like the ending of Stairway to Heaven - to be a rock and not to roll.

Rabbinic exegesis of the passage suggests that David here has reduced the 613 commandments established by Moses down to 11. "He that walketh uprightly" is taken to mean Abraham, to whom such an expression was said in Gen. 17. 1 "walk before Me, and be thou perfect" - הִתְהַלֵּךְ לְפָנַי, וֶהְיֵה תָמִים

For what it's worth - sorry for being so predictable - but if tamym is the word here it has a value of 490 which is 70 x 7, a concept at the core of Daniel's messianic prophesy.

Marqe (Mark) the founder of the Samaritan religion takes an active interest in the word tamym. There are so many 'codes' seen in the word, I can't remember everything he says. From memory, there is something about the yod being placed between two mems which is symbolic of some messianic principle. He also takes special interest in the third and fourth verses of Deuteronomy 32:

I will proclaim the name of the LORD, [I will] praise the greatness of our God! He is the Rock (tsur), his works are perfect, and all his ways are just,” to show that at the end of time humanity itself would become transformed by a power referred to in the Torah as “the glory.”

The Rock, or tsur, is equated with the very concept of tamym po’olo [Deut 32:4] and tsur is taken not in its Hebrew meaning 'rock' but its Aramaic meaning 'image.' So the tamym po'olo is the one who will come, "the Rock" and the very "perfect work” of God much like “the rock was Christ” (1 Corinthians 10:4).

Getting back to more familiar interpretation of the material, I think the reference to Abraham walking blamelessly before God with the promise to David and his successors favor if they walked before him (1 Kings 8:25; 9:4; 2 Chron 6:16; 7:17; see also 2 Kings 20:3; Is 38:3). The rabbinic tradition usually connects Gen 17.1 the 'walking blamelessly' business with circumcision from what I remember. Abraham was uncircumcised before and then circumcised after the command.

For what it is worth in Hebrew Gen 17.1 is read as a double imperative 'Walk before me and be perfect' I am not sure that people get this sense with the English translation.

The bottom line again is that I don't think the object is Christian and we should take everything that comes out of the spin-factory related to this product with a grain of salt.

Toto · 04-01-2011, 12:35 AM

On the lead codices starts to trace the forgery.

Quote:

The text on your bronze tablet, therefore, makes no sense in its own right, but has been extracted unintelligently from another longer text (as if it were inscribed with the words: ‘t to be that is the question wheth’). The longer text from which it derives is a perfectly ordinary tombstone from Madaba in Jordan which happens to have been on display in the Amman museum for the past fifty years or so. The text on your bronze tablet is repeated, in part, in three different places, meaningless in each case.

The only possible explanation is that the text on the bronze tablet was copied directly from the inscription in the museum at Amman by someone who did not understand the meaning of the text of the inscription, but was simply looking for a plausible-looking sequence of Greek letters to copy. He copied that sequence three times, in each case mixing up the letters alpha and lambda.

Summary from Tom Verenna

gurugeorge · 04-01-2011, 06:39 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Toto

On the lead codices starts to trace the forgery.

Quote:

The text on your bronze tablet, therefore, makes no sense in its own right, but has been extracted unintelligently from another longer text (as if it were inscribed with the words: ‘t to be that is the question wheth’). The longer text from which it derives is a perfectly ordinary tombstone from Madaba in Jordan which happens to have been on display in the Amman museum for the past fifty years or so. The text on your bronze tablet is repeated, in part, in three different places, meaningless in each case.

The only possible explanation is that the text on the bronze tablet was copied directly from the inscription in the museum at Amman by someone who did not understand the meaning of the text of the inscription, but was simply looking for a plausible-looking sequence of Greek letters to copy. He copied that sequence three times, in each case mixing up the letters alpha and lambda.

Summary from Tom Verenna

Ooops. Not looking good.

OTOH, one might reasonably expect a forger to make more effort to find some plausible and interesting text, especially if they've gone to all that metallurgical and metalworking effort.

Which consideration would then point more in the direction of D C Hindley's observations - some kind of 300 CE tourist souvenir (garbled text carelessly chosen to look vaguely right - but that would have to be either coincidental with the tombstone text mentioned, or it would have to be the case that that bit of tombstone text was something more widely available and copyable in the past).

Toto · 04-01-2011, 07:59 AM

Eisenbrauns jumps on the wagon (or use this link: http://www.eisenbrauns.com/pages/04012011 )

Quote:

Christian heavy metal predates Stryper by nearly 2000 years, says researcher.

Toto · 04-01-2011, 02:49 PM

Skeptical observers have pronounced theses plates - FAKE.

Kinderhook plates

Quote:

The Kinderhook Plates were concocted by a few citizens of Kinderhook, Illinois, to demonstrate that the Mormon leader Joseph Smith was not able to read ancient plates like those he claimed to have read in the production of the Book of Mormon.

Toto · 04-01-2011, 03:35 PM

Paleobabble: lead codices looking like a hoax

Quote:

How was the professor able to establish fakery so quickly? Simple. Once texts like this are released (that is the key — letting experts see them), it is a simple matter to do what professor Thonemann did: transcribe them and then look up the words in concordances (digital or otherwise). In this case, there were a number of known words (specific forms) and they all happened to occur in the same text(s) — in order (!) once those source texts are checked. This required experimenting a bit with the alpha and lambda letters since they are similar in form (and that was bungled by the forger). Once at this point, you know you have LINES from known texts. The next step is to find where those texts were published through a simple database source. Publications usually note the provenance of a text (where it was found) and where it is now held, in the case of a manuscript or archaeological artifact. Voila!

For any ancient astronaut theorists or cult archaeologists out there — this is *precisely* why the people you blindly follow do *not* submit their work to peer review. It is too easy to be exposed by real experts. It is also precisely why I continually ask people who promote such nonsense, “show me the texts — the specific lines cited.” That demand is never met, which hardly surprises me. When selling snake oil, you don’t hand the recipe to a chemist.

Also Archaeology Presstitution

DCHindley · 04-01-2011, 07:37 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Toto

On the lead codices starts to trace the forgery.

Quote:

The text on your bronze tablet, therefore, makes no sense in its own right, but has been extracted unintelligently from another longer text (as if it were inscribed with the words: ‘t to be that is the question wheth’). The longer text from which it derives is a perfectly ordinary tombstone from Madaba in Jordan which happens to have been on display in the Amman museum for the past fifty years or so. The text on your bronze tablet is repeated, in part, in three different places, meaningless in each case.

The only possible explanation is that the text on the bronze tablet was copied directly from the inscription in the museum at Amman by someone who did not understand the meaning of the text of the inscription, but was simply looking for a plausible-looking sequence of Greek letters to copy. He copied that sequence three times, in each case mixing up the letters alpha and lambda.

Summary from Tom Verenna

Well, that cinches things. I guessed curse texts, maybe even just something meant to pass for them sold to folk by charlatan magicians in antiquity. But the bronze plate, with exactly the same symbols (tree, 'stars" etc) as the lead codices, plus fragments of a Greek text that was copied from a tombstone displayed in a museum, used without much if any understanding of what it said, says "fake" loud and clear.

I think what we have here was a factory with a furnace that melted lead and bronze to produce fake antiquities to sell to tourists and naive collectors in recent times. Since the bronze plaque must have been produced after the tombstone went on display 50 years ago (ca 1961), I'd now guess that the enterprise was abandoned before any got on the market. I suggest the 1967 Arab-Israeli war was the reason. So there they sat, piled in a corner of that cave, where folks possibly lived or Bedouin camped for decades, getting all beat up and corroded, before someone sees an opportunity to make a buck from them.

I'm amazed that Elkington, even after being informed that he had a fake bronze plaque, went on the promote lead codices that have exactly the same type of artwork, only now in gibberish Hebrew. By this point he must have known he was working with fake antiquities! Didn't he think the inquiries he had made to experts would leak out? Or did he think they were wrong and shopped experts until he found one or more who were willing to entertain their antiquity?

DCH

Cege · 04-01-2011, 10:00 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by stephan huller

Someone asked about the "I will walk uprightly" business. I can't see a connection with Revelations unless they mean Rev. 3.4 which is a stretch and might demonstrate the kind of desperate logic we are dealing with here. Christ promises that the remnant in Sardis who remain pure "will walk with me, dressed in white for they are worthy." I don't see a real connection. The text is probably Jewish and the money making machine around the discovery is trying to connect it with one billion Christians rather than 10 million Jews. ...

I had asked about the media report that "I will walk uprightly" appears as a sentence in Revelation identical to a sentence on these lead texts.

Thus far, it appears that such a claim is innacurate, at best. There doesn't seem to be such a sentence in Revelation, despite what has been referenced in media reports about the lead codices.

And that leads me to seriously doubt that 'a Roman cross outside a city wall' clearly appears on one of the lead sheets.

Toto · 04-02-2011, 10:25 AM

Jordan Lead Books Discovery Greater Than Dead Sea Scrolls? Or Just Heavier? - a metalurgist view

Christianity Today: Scholars Doubtful About Metal Plate Documents' Authenticity

Margaret Barker

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03-31-2011, 10:29 PM	#101
stephan huller Veteran Member Join Date: Jun 2010 Location: seattle, wa Posts: 9,337	Surprise, surprise. Release of the images are pending a book and a movie deal for Elkington it would seem: http://www.csmonitor.com/Science/201...d-but-cautious

03-31-2011, 10:41 PM	#102
stephan huller Veteran Member Join Date: Jun 2010 Location: seattle, wa Posts: 9,337	Someone asked about the "I will walk uprightly" business. I can't see a connection with Revelations unless they mean Rev. 3.4 which is a stretch and might demonstrate the kind of desperate logic we are dealing with here. Christ promises that the remnant in Sardis who remain pure "will walk with me, dressed in white for they are worthy." I don't see a real connection. The text is probably Jewish and the money making machine around the discovery is trying to connect it with one billion Christians rather than 10 million Jews. I think 'uprightly' is probably the Hebrew tamym which also means 'perfect' or 'unblemished.' It appears in Psalm 15:2 "LORD, who shall sojourn in Thy tabernacle? Who shall dwell upon Thy holy mountain?. He that walks uprightly" - הוֹלֵךְ תָּמִים ... and then a list of other characteristics and then "He that doeth these things shall never be moved." It's like the ending of Stairway to Heaven - to be a rock and not to roll. Rabbinic exegesis of the passage suggests that David here has reduced the 613 commandments established by Moses down to 11. "He that walketh uprightly" is taken to mean Abraham, to whom such an expression was said in Gen. 17. 1 "walk before Me, and be thou perfect" - הִתְהַלֵּךְ לְפָנַי, וֶהְיֵה תָמִים For what it's worth - sorry for being so predictable - but if tamym is the word here it has a value of 490 which is 70 x 7, a concept at the core of Daniel's messianic prophesy. Marqe (Mark) the founder of the Samaritan religion takes an active interest in the word tamym. There are so many 'codes' seen in the word, I can't remember everything he says. From memory, there is something about the yod being placed between two mems which is symbolic of some messianic principle. He also takes special interest in the third and fourth verses of Deuteronomy 32: I will proclaim the name of the LORD, [I will] praise the greatness of our God! He is the Rock (tsur), his works are perfect, and all his ways are just,” to show that at the end of time humanity itself would become transformed by a power referred to in the Torah as “the glory.” The Rock, or tsur, is equated with the very concept of tamym po’olo [Deut 32:4] and tsur is taken not in its Hebrew meaning 'rock' but its Aramaic meaning 'image.' So the tamym po'olo is the one who will come, "the Rock" and the very "perfect work” of God much like “the rock was Christ” (1 Corinthians 10:4). Getting back to more familiar interpretation of the material, I think the reference to Abraham walking blamelessly before God with the promise to David and his successors favor if they walked before him (1 Kings 8:25; 9:4; 2 Chron 6:16; 7:17; see also 2 Kings 20:3; Is 38:3). The rabbinic tradition usually connects Gen 17.1 the 'walking blamelessly' business with circumcision from what I remember. Abraham was uncircumcised before and then circumcised after the command. For what it is worth in Hebrew Gen 17.1 is read as a double imperative 'Walk before me and be perfect' I am not sure that people get this sense with the English translation. The bottom line again is that I don't think the object is Christian and we should take everything that comes out of the spin-factory related to this product with a grain of salt.

04-02-2011, 10:25 AM	#110
Toto Contributor Join Date: Jun 2000 Location: Los Angeles area Posts: 40,549	Jordan Lead Books Discovery Greater Than Dead Sea Scrolls? Or Just Heavier? - a metalurgist view Christianity Today: Scholars Doubtful About Metal Plate Documents' Authenticity Margaret Barker

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