Sauron

You are paranoid, Layman. There's only so much text in the title, and I wasn't going to spend a lot of time trying to find a short-hand text for the title that described all the points covered in the post.


1. Because we discussed the fact that Jerusalem had an industry in producing these ossuaries, and then selling them in other places? To be buried in other places, such as Jericho?

2. Because we discussed, at length, the possibility that it could have been moved from Jericho (the original burial site) to Jerusalem, where it might fetch a higher price on the antiquities market? That was the famous exchange where you assumed I didn't know the capital of Israel - remember?

3. Because mentioning the listings in the Rahmani catalog that showed ossuaries that were constructed in one place, but utilized somewhere else, etc.

I mean, *really*, Layman. You were present and a participant in all those exchanges. Are you saying you now do not remember the discussion?


Do you always seek to blame others for your own failings?

Instead of blaming your mistaken memory on me, why not just admit that you forgot the context of the conversation?

Typical.

Layman

Nah. My suspicions are not generalized, they are specific. I believe you -- for some reason -- attempt to waste my time with semantical arguments and by dragging irrelevant topics into other threads while never even commenting on the topic at issue therein.

This would only really make since if there was an industry in Jericho for burial in Jersualem.

I think you are missing the point. All the geological studies could have told us is where the stone came from. The only reason I would suggest that the geological evidence favored a burial in Jerusalem is if it was constructed of stone from there. So when I say that the IGS study does not gaurantee that the ossuary was made from stone from a Jerusalem quarry, I'm admitting there is no geological evidence that it was buried in Jersualem--as opposed to Jericho or other areas where the stone was quarried from.

Again, this is irrelevant to your argument that I had some difference in mind when I said "buried" and "constructed".

Unless we are undergoing yet another shift in the discussion, those discussion are not relevant to my usage of "constructed" and "buried."


Nope. I was not blaming any "mistake" on you. I was complaining about this:

I grow weary of jumping from thread to thread and through hoop to hoop for you.

That's just a fact. You are excellent at wasting time on irrelevant topics. Personal, edgy, irrelevant. That's your speciality.

Sauron

One might believe that, except that you make the same claims about other people as well - Toto, etc. You are paranoid.


Huh? Nonsense.

Perhaps people in Jericho wanted to buy ossuaries, and felt that the best ones came from Jerusalem quarries. Or, perhaps they were cheaper from Jerusalem. Whatever. Neither implies that the dead bones of Jericho-ites would be transported to Jerusalem for burial, instead of in Jericho (where the family lived, and the purchaser of the ossuary lived).

Since we already know that ossuaries from Jerusalem were found in burial chambers in Jericho and elsewhere, your petulant little point here is refuted.


If you believe that, then why did you claim that the IGS had definitively localized the (1) quarry and (2) burial to Jerusalem? When in point of fact, they had done neither?

You are describing something more like circumstantial evidence, especially since we know that Jerusalem-quarried ossuaries were used all over Israel. There is no geological evidence that links the ossuary to a burial in Jerusalem. That was the point of the IGS quotation I provided.



Buried is a far, far cry from "constructed", Layman. You did have a difference in mind, and you are lying about it now, in order to avoid admitting your earlier mistake.

Layman

I think Toto is an ineffectual poster. I do not think he has it out for me.

Let me explain. That would only make a different to the issue at hand.

I'm not looking to reargue yet another point that is mooted for the moment by the IGS's clarification.

Which actually demonstrates why I wasn't trying to "pull" anything over by using construction once and burial another time.


Because I think that we would have extrapoloated an increased probability of burial in Jerusalem if we had demonstrated construction in Jerusalem.

The reason that the IGS clarification shows that they offered no geological evidence that the ossuary was buried in Jerusalem was because they offered had no geological evidence that the stone came from a quarry in Jerusalem. The two are linked. One is not necessary for the other. But one is necessary if you want to extrapolate to the point.

I'm certainly not lying. I used "constructed" because it got closer to the issue -- the fact that the stone cannot be linked to a Jerusalem area quarry means that there is no geological evidence that it was "constructed" in Jerusalem. Therefore, there is no basis to extrapolate that because it was "constructed" in Jersualem the story of its discovery as being "buried" in Jersualem had more merit.

More wasted time. Thanks.

Sauron

Sure. Whatever.

Yes.....so what? I'm hoping that everything we're discussing makes a difference on the issue at hand.

Real easy:
1. You admitted that the IGS did not tak a definitive position on where the ossuary was buried. That is NOT the same as saying that the IGS wasn't definite on where the ossuary was quarried. Even though the IGS didn't have a definite position on *either* question, that doesn't invalidate the fact that the two questions really are not the same.

2. We know for a fact that ossuaries quarried in Jerusalem found there way all over Israel, for use in burials. So the distinction between quarry location and burial location is a valid and non-trivial one.

Are we on the same page so far?

If so, then your statement:

This would only really make since if there was an industry in Jericho for burial in Jersualem.

is false.

Unless you forgot about that, and are now attempting to recover.



No. Bullshit. You claimed that the IGS had definitively localized this. There was no talk of "extrapolation" or "probability", Layman. Amen-Moses, Apikorus and myself showed you exhaustive information that concluded that it was impossible to prove either a localized quarrying of the stone, or even that the particular type of limestone in question (Senonian chalk, Menuha formation).


No. They are not linked, and your evaluation is not correct. The IGS clarification serves to answer the first question only: where the stone was quarried, and what kind of stone it was, and whether the patina, etc. is consistent with the claims made about it.

As for the 2nd question, where it was used in a burial, the IGS evaluation was never intended to answer that. In fact, the IGS evaluation is totally orthagonal and unrelated to the question of where the ossuary was originally used for a burial.

No, you used 'constructed,' because you wanted to avoid "quarry" and "burial". Otherwise, you would have to admit your earlier mistake.

Again, the two issues are not linked. Claiming that it was buried in Jerusalem would make it consistent with church teachings about James. Finding the ossuary in Jericho would invalidate that.


Not wasted. You were educated on your mistakes.

Layman

What is your point? We agree that the initial IGS letter -- based on their clarification -- provides no geological support for the idea that the ossuary was buried in Jerusalem? The first question -- where it was buried -- only found support if the second question -- where it was quarried -- was answered by "Jerusalem."

Not really. I have no idea what you are trying to prove here? We agree that the IGS clarification letter removes any geological evidence for where the ossuary was buried--which is really the only question at issue here.

Please provide the context. Perhaps I misunderstood your point.

I admitted my error when I saw the IGS clarification letter. Do we really need a thread of you just gloating over and over again?

They were linked in my argument. I realize you never agreed with it. But my argument is mooted by the IGS letters.

More gloating?

Which earlier mistake?

We are all educated by our mistakes. Like your mistake about my meaning of "authentic." Or your mistake that I was the only one in the world using "authentic" in that way. Or your mistake that Herod did not take military action against the Nabateans around 10-9 BCE. Or that Ceasear was not displeased with Herod because of that military action.

We all make mistakes. And I admitted mine in my first post in this thread. So all your posts after that were doing nothing to "educate" anything. Just simple gloating.

Jayhawker Soule

Sauron Contra Layman is getting a little old - maybe it belongs ~~Elsewhere~~.

Sauron

Not merely where it was buried. But also where it was quarried. They are different. The IGS letter, based on the clarification, cannot say where the ossuary was:

1. originally quarried (i.e., cut from a limestone deposit, and taken out of the earth where it was formed millions of years ago);
NOR
2. where the ossuary was used in a burial.

You *do* understand that #1 and #2 are different, right? The IGS could have taken a firm position on 1, without taking a position on 2? And because ossuaries were quarried in several places in Israel, there's no guarantee that the quarry location would be the same as the burial usage location?

Yet, based on their clarification, the IGS cannot take a definitive position on either #1 or #2, above.


No. They are not linked. You cannot say "we know the ossuary was used in Jerusalem for burial. Therefore, it must have been quarried in Jerusalem."

Ossuaries quarried in Jerusalem do not necessarily get used in Jerusalem. Ossuaries quarried outside of Jerusalem might also wind up being used in Jerusalem. There is no reliable linkage here.


It isn't the only question. You had previously stated, without reservation, that the ossuary came from Jerusalem based upon the properties of the stone itself. Your Oct 22nd reply to Kosh:

Also, the limestone from which the box was made indisputable came from a quarry in Jerusalem.

There appears to be no good reason to question the Jerusalem origins of the ossuary.

The point of my post to you is that the IGS statement does not say what you just said, above. Their clarification makes it obvious that they are making an assumption here about the quarry location. Furthermore, they admit that there are no physical properties or characteristics that would permit such a precise localization of a given piece of limestone to Jerusalem:

To your specific question, we cannot say for sure that the ossuary was produced in the Jerusalem area, because this Senonian chalk is exposed in many places in Israel and the vicinity. To the present knowledge, there are no specific characteristic signs of that chalk to specific site.

So when you admit that the IGS statement removes geological evidence for burial in Jerusalem, you're only seeing half of what the IGS is saying here. The other half of what they're saying is that they also cannot definitively say that the ossuary was even *quarried* in Jerusalem.

They don't know where it was quarried.
They don't know where it was buried.

They can't say anything definitively about the ossuary, on those two points.

Are we on the same page yet?

Again: the error you admitted above - - that is only half of what the IGS is saying. The other half (which you have not admitted yet) is that the IGS cannot even say for certain that the ossuary was quarried in Jerusalem, much less where it was used for burial.

I am editing out the rest of this response, in hopes that we have arrived at the point of your confusion, above.

Layman

I completely agree.

leonarde

I'd like to note as someone who enjoys reading the
BC&A forum that Sauron's hounding of Layman really
drags things down: how many times (on how many threads?) does Layman have to explain that the expertise of an aerospace engineer in evaluating metallic surfaces MAY NOT be directly transferable
to the archaeological evaluation of a (putative)
ancient inscription on ROCK, or that "genuine"
or "authentic" when applied to an ossuary may simply mean "really being from the time and place that it appears to be", or that he (Layman) has indeed backtracked when he has found himself in error?
All of Sauron's efforts seem geared to annoying and/or angering Layman. If "successful" he will merely drive Layman from II and we shall all be the poorer for it.