Sauron

This discussion was started earlier between myself and Layman, before the migration of the BBS system. I am re-posting it here, so that it does not get lost.

Your comment about "Fitzmyer not backing off from his claim of authenticity" is confusing. Are you familiar with Fitzmyer's position? Fitzmyer does not take the position of strong authenticity that you seem to think he does:

http://report.ca/archive/report/2002...5i021118f.html

Not unexpectedly, however, some Catholic scholars have voiced opposition to even this tentative conclusion. For example, the Catholic University of America's Father Joseph Fitzmeyer told the Associated Press that, although he agrees with the soundness of Prof. Lemaire's investigation, "the big problem is, you have to show me the Jesus in this text is the Jesus of Nazareth, and nobody can show that."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp...t21¬Found=true

So far the ossuary has withstood scrutiny, but even those who have studied it, such as the Rev. Joseph Fitzmyer, an emeritus professor of biblical studies and an Aramaic expert at Catholic University, concede "it will always be controversial."

"The problem is how do you determine that the people involved are the people in the New Testament?" Fitzmyer said. "It's certainly possible that they are, but I can't see going beyond that."

Indeed, given Fitzmyer's stance as a Roman Catholic, one might expect that he would *not* be taking a position of hard authencity:

http://www.anglicanmedia.com.au/old/2002/400.htm
Joseph Fitzmyer, the eminent Roman catholic scholar, is cautious about this discovery noting that the names James, Jesus and Joseph were fairly common. As well, the spurious Shroud of Turin is doubtless well-remembered. At the same time, to call James the “brother of Jesus” tends to undercut the Roman Catholic dogma of the “perpetual virginity of Mary.”

http://www.baptiststandard.com/2002/.../artifact.html

Joseph Fitzmyer, a professor of biblical studies at Catholic University, acknowledged the box's potential impact for Catholic teaching. "It all centers on the meaning of the word 'brother,'" he said. "If you take it to mean a blood brother, then yes, it would (disqualify) the Roman Catholic position."

Now regardless of whatever you or I might think of the Catholic position on perpetual virginity, I think that one thing is clear: Fitzmyer is not a strong advocate for authenticity. He is somewhat neutral and cautious, with some slight optimism.

Sauron

Update on this.

Layman claims to have provided us all with a Fitzmyer quotation showing an affirmative belief in the ossuary's authenticity. However, he protested that he "didn't have time" to find the post in the earlier discussion thread.

An exhaustive search of the active BC&A Forum as well as the BC&A Archives produced *zero* posts where he provided any such quote from Fitzmyer. The two places he *did* quote Fitzmyer actually demonstrate that he misunderstood Fitzmyer.

First, the Washington Post article he quoted; but unfortunately Fitzmyer plainly says:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/w...1¬Found=true

So far the ossuary has withstood scrutiny, but even those who have studied it concede it cannot be fully authenticated: "It will always be controversial," said Aramaic scholar Rev. Joseph Fitzmyer, an emeritus Biblical Studies expert at The Catholic University who studied the inscription.

"The problem is how do you determine that the people involved are the people in the New Testament?" he said. "It's certainly possible that they are, but I can't see going beyond that."

Layman also quoted a beliefnet.com article, which echoed the same sentiment of caution:

http://www.beliefnet.com/frameset.a...l&boardID=47141

The Rev. Joseph Fitzmyer, a Bible professor at Catholic University who studied photos of the box, agrees with Lemaire that the writing style ``fits perfectly'' with other first century examples. The joint appearance of these three famous names is ``striking,'' he said.

``But the big problem is, you have to show me the Jesus in this text is Jesus of Nazareth, and nobody can show that,'' Fitzmyer said.

So Layman's sweeping claim of Oct 30th likewise stands unsupported:

Of course, what really impresses me is that so many respected scholars, like Lemaire and McCardy and Fitzmyer have passed their judgment and found it utterly convincing.

At least for Fitzmyer, this is not supported whatsoever by the evidence.

Layman

Here is another example of why it is of no use to try and Discuss issues with you, Suaron.

If you did an "exhaustive" search as you claim, then you would have noticed that I never said that I was convinced that the Ossuary's inscription referred to Jesus.

In fact, while I said I did believe the find was authentic, I expressly said I would have to wait and see what the academics said about whether it referred to Jesus of Nazareth.

Along those same lines, I never claimed that Fitzymer had concluded that the Ossuary's inscription referred to Jesus of Nazareth. I simply said he found it to be authentic--meaning quite clearly that it was not a forgery.

Sauron

And here is why discussions with you involve too much of your ego.

I never claimed that was your personal position. I wasn't even discussing what you might think on the ossuary, nor did I make any claims in that direction.

We are talking about Fitzmyer's personal position, and whether or not you accurately described his viewpoint. You claimed that Fitzmyer fell into the "affirmative" camp on the question of the ossuary's authenticity.

You're postulating an archaeologically authentic ossuary (i.e., not a 20th century or 3rd century forgery)? But one whose inscription might still refer to someone else besides Jesus Christ?

You're defining that as "authentic"?

In the context of the ossuary and the world-class claims that are being made about it (i.e., that it is the only 1st century [physical evidence of Christ), the term "authenticity" includes validating the subject names mentioned in the burial inscription.

Layman

Yes, exactly. As I said in previous discussions. It is authentic because it is not forged. I quite clearly said I was not yet convinced by the statistical evidence offered and would have to see how the Academics responded to Lemaire's claims.

It is not for you to tell me what I meant by authentic. My usage of the term was consistent with the context of the immediate discusison and my previous comments on this topic, as well as my use of Fitzmyer.

You misunderstood.

Sauron

OK, I can see how this happened. Everyone else is running around using the term "authentic" in the context of "does it actually refer to Jesus?" - after all, that is the only REAL question that anyone wants to know the answer to here - but you were only interested in a more narrow definition.

That's fine, Layman. I'll practice what I preach here and apologize for misunderstanding your position.

Cheers.

Layman

During your "exhaustive" search of my comments on this issue, I guess you missed this post by me to Toto:

Since I have time and again said that I'm reserving judgment on the statistical evidence I guess you are once again just dropping little jabs. By "authentic" I mean what it obviously sounds like: the ossuary and the inscription are authentic. They were not faked. They really come from the first century, etc.

October 30, 2002 02:16 AM

http://www.iidb.org/vbb/showthread.p...5&pagenumber=3

Note that I was careful to explicitly exclude from my definition of "authentic" any implication that the ossuary's inscription referred to Jesus of Nazareth.

In many other posts I expressed caution ont he issue of whether the inscription referred to Jesus of Nazareth. I pointed out why Lemaire had come to that conclusion. But also indicated that I was not convinced myself and wanted to see how the Academy community would respond to his arguments.

Line in this post to Carr:

There is much more reason to suspect the recent find refers to the New Testament James. Of course, I'm reserving my final judgment on this until after I read the article and see responses to it from the scholarly community. It sounds good, but I always like to see statistical analysis for myself.

October 23, 2002 08:03 PM

http://www.iidb.org/vbb/showthread.p...threadid=34199

And this post to Apikorus:

I'm not "reading" more into it than what many respected scholars are discussing. And I've
said before that we should wait to see ho[w] this plays out in the scholarly community....

October 22, 2002 07:24 PM

http://www.iidb.org/vbb/showthread.p...5&pagenumber=6

And this post to Apikorus:

First, I also want to see the full article and think the key here is the statistical evidence.

Second, as I understand it Hachilli did not just look at inscriptions on ossuaries, but many different kinds of inscriptions.

And I am curious to see how this plays out over time. I don't think its a done deal. And as you have seen my previous posts have focused on the idea that this was a fake.

October 22, 2002 08:28 PM

http://www.iidb.org/vbb/showthread.p...5&pagenumber=6

Sauron

Layman, you are the only one (on these boards, anyhow) who is using this particular definition of "authentic". Indeed, this comment from Toto in that same exchange, shows that no one else is using your version of "authentic":

You yourself are overstating the case when you say that "other specialists have verified that the inscription is authentic." If by authentic, you mean that it refers to James the Just, the brother of Jesus, no one has verified that it is authentic. The best anyone can do is find a lack of evidence for it being a modern forgery.

Now, if you want to define "authentic" more narrowly, that's fine, because the depth of discussion around here sometimes creates precise definitions that are unique to a single person.

But --news flash-- when everyone else uses "authentic" in the context of this ossuary, they're only talking about one thing: is the ossuary evidence of Christ, or isn't it?

I mean, after all - nobody cares about this ossuary, if it merely rises to your definition of 'authentic', and nothing more than that. In that case, it's just one more 1st century ossuary (out of thousands) and will wind up on some collector's shelf, with an interesting footnote about its 15 minutes of fame.

So given that context, I'm not especially embarrassed that I didn't keep track of your private definition of this word. But I did apologize for misunderstanding your position. If I were you, I'd take the apology at face value, instead of trying to get more mileage out of it.

Layman

No. Toto's statement just shows that Toto too misunderstood what I meant by "authentic".

It is not what I "want" to do. It is how I used the word in previous discussions. To me, when you ask if an object or a document is "authentic", you are speaking of the integrity of the object, not the correctness of ideas others might have about that objection.

So far, "everyone else" only means you and Toto.

There are several questions about this artifact and lumping them into one is misleading. Is the ossuary authentic? Is the inscription authentic? Is the first part of the inscription authentic but the second not?

Actually, a simple misunderstanding would have been undersstandable--despite your attempts to claim that my definition of "authentic" is somehow unreasonable. But that is not what you did. You have hounded me on other threads about this issue--while offering nothing of any relevance. You claimed that you "exhastively" reviewed my posts on this issue but conventiently "overlooked" several posts where I made my position clear that I was withholding judgment on whether the ossuary referred to Jesus of Nazareth, as well as "overlooking" another post where I specifically explained what I mean by "authentic."

This was just another one of your attempts to waste my time and be a personal annoyance.

Sauron

No, he (and everyone else in the world) is operating with the same definition. And it doesn't match your private version.

Had that not been the case, he would not have made his comment in the first place. He made the comment precisely because he assumed (as we all did) that you were using the same definitions as the rest of us. That wasn't the case.

He didn't "misunderstand" what you meant; he simply needed to be told that you were operating with a different definition than everyone else was. As soon as he found that out, everything was fine.

Of course you "want" to do it. You're creating a private definition of the word, that is nowhere near the common understanding. A quick examination of the literature on the ossuary shows that the topic of authenticity is pivoted on the question of whether it is actually a 1st century evidence to Christ - and not on your definition. If you think that anyone else is using your extremely narrow definition of "authentic", then you're free to point them out. So far you've been unable to do so.

That's right - to you. To Layman, with his private definition of "authentic".



Nonsense. To date, you're the only one with your definition. Every news article to date discusses authenticity in respect to this being evidence of Christ. A simple google.com search is evidence of this:

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&i...ossuary+Christ

You're being obtuse, Layman. For no good reason.



I didn't say that your definition was contrived or unreasonable - it's just not the one that everyone else is using at the moment, when discussing this ossuary. You've failed to provide any evidence to the contrary, BTW.

But in looking through the thread, it was obvious that you had staked out your definition earlier, and warned everyone that you had a more narrow view of what constituted "authentic". I admitted as much already, and I allowed that such a narrow, precise definition was a common scenario when discussing such technical matters. Sheesh.

On the contrary. There were several pieces of unfinished business on the ossuary, which you have (finally, just today) decided to address. The fact that they were all contained in the same post was just for convenience's sake, all your paranoid protestations notwithstanding.