Haran

Correction to my longer post above:

I meant P. Kyle McCarter and not Kenneth Kitchen as a good scholar who see two hands in the inscription. However, I do not believe he thinks the second part to necessarily be a forgery.

For some reason, I have seen several people wonder who Kyle McCarter is, so I'll list a few of his books below to give an idea of the kind of work he does:

Ancient Inscriptions - Excellent
Textual Criticism: Recovering the Text of the Hebrew Bible
I Samuel - Anchor Bible
II Samuel - Anchor Bible (Text and in-depth notes)

Among others. These are all excellent scholarly works.

Vorkosigan

Yardeni, McCarter, Altman, Naveh, and a number of others all see two hands. Viklund' site, whatever you may claim, makes that abundantly clear.

Do you honestly believe there is only one hand? Despite everything?

Vorkosigan

Haran

Show me where Yardeni says the inscription is in two hands.

Roger does not say anything about these scholars that I could find.

I think you meant that Roger's website must surely make it clear that the inscription is in two hands. However, this is not the case.

First, the letters were cut out of the inscription. In other words, it gives a good representation of what Roger (and perhaps Rochelle) wanted to see in the inscription. He unintentionally cut out or added small but important details.

Second, the comments are mostly (if not all) those of Dr. Altman. Many of these claims, I have addressed in my article. On some others points, Dr. Altman simply threw out unsubstatiated claims without providing the textual support scholars are supposed to provide so that others can make sure their claims are not pulled from the thin air.

If I could get references for some of her claims (e.g. writing was in sound bites, letters dropped with the voice, extended final-pe as a "end-of-text" marker), then I might be more likely to believe her. As it is, I am beginning to wonder about these claims as well.

Please remember the exchange that Roger links to on JesusMysteries. Dr. Altman was quite rude and accused me and my article of several things that were completely untrue (I proved they were not true. Some of the claims I still can't figure out - I think she thought I wrote the article on the TombOfJesus website or something... I'm not sure she ever really thoroughly read my article because she made erroneous assumptions and never fully addressed it.). She even claimed that she never said the inscription was fake (even though I believe she did and I think she states this in her article on the Joash inscription too). I don't think she ever admitted that she was wrong about the excised text either, she just downplayed it. Hmm...

I do not accept most of her views on the ossuary inscription. I will wait for the analysis of other scholars who have years of experience specifically in Semitic paleography before forming my ultimate conclusions.

At the moment, yes.

Despite what, Vork? Unsubstantiated rumors, what I consider to be some poor scholarship, and a group of good scholars who all seem to be in some disagreement?

Remember, I lean toward one hand because of what I have read in paleography studies like Cross's and Yardeni's works and what a few good scholars like Yardeni (I believe), Cross, Fitzmyer, and Lemaire appear to have said.

Vorkosigan

Ok. Make them clear. You have made this claim twice. Which details and what graphs?

Vorkosigan

vtran31

SLD:I read a few articles on the web, and not one of them talks about Jesus's ossuary. Is this a double standard or what?

well, beleivers would not beleive that for obvious reasons. One being we beleive Christ has risen and thus would most likely not have a bone box. I never heard this before

PS. what makes you all so confident it is a hoax?

Vorkosigan

Read the articles at Bibleinterp.com

http://www.bibleinterp.com

there are a number of articles that give the reasons on both sides, and decide for yourself. There is a big list of them here:

http://www.bibleinterp.com/Archives/...ricalJesus.htm

Vorkosigan

Here are two letters from each side of the inscription.

Haran

A couple of examples would be the "resh" which he has with a "tittle" or "serif" on the right. A "resh" would not have a "tittle". However, there is a roundish chip out of the stone there.

A second examples would be the exclusion of a chip in the right arm of the first "ayin". The angle of this chip strangely coincides with the angle of the right arm of the left "ayin" when overlapped.

Finally, as to your post showing the two ayins, it is amazing to me how similar they actually are when you consider the variation that could have been by looking at books of ancient writing. When their pictures are overlapped, there are only slight differences in angle with the exception of the right arm curving into the bottom. It is interesting to overlap them in a graphics program and note how similar they are. Even the strange angles on the right arm have some similarities. The curve in the bottom of the left "ayin" even seems to curve about where the right "ayin" has its sharp corner. The differences between these two letters don't seem much greater to me than the differences between the sharply angled "bet" on the left compared with the curved "bet" on the right. Are these by two different hands?

Further, the "ayin" and "yod" are really the only letters that can be compared with the supposed "first half". One "yod" looks like those in the "first half", the other does not. Broken tool, hard surface, or hurried scribe? Sounds plausible to me...

Lemaire has already said that three of the letters in the supposed "second half" are cursive. Only three. The hurried scribe may have laxed back into his everyday style of writing.

I am just not buying two hands at the moment. Sorry...

Toto

Latest update in the archeology wars (to take your mind off the real one):

OOPSIES! Israeli Police Break Ancient Tablet