Layman

Well, according to Catholics there really is no word for half-brother.

I agree that a christological title would strengthen the case. But that does not mean that the case as it stands cannot be strong enough to conclude this was the ossuary of James of the New Testament.

Apikorus

Layman, regarding Carr's "misrepresentation", let's not get too haughty. You yourself had several times uncritically passed along erroneous information that an overwhelming majority of the ossuary inscriptions were in Greek, when in fact almost twice as many are in Hebrew/Aramaic. Apparently you did not have sufficient historical knowledge to prompt you to question what you had uncritically accepted based on newspaper reports. As a professional scientist who has had to deal with the press on more than one occasion, I'm astounded when they manage to get the story right. Anyway, don't believe everything you read in the papers (or in BAR for that matter). Also a bit more circumspection over the significance of these statistical claims would be in order. The "rarity" of the name Jacob (yaakov), with a frequency of 2% according to your sources, would put it on a par with the name Richard in contemprary America (frequency 1.7%).

Toto

Carr's error was not significant for the point that he was making. There was not one ossuary with the names Jesus, Joseph, and Mary on it, (although there was one with Jesus son of Joseph) but those names were associated in a common tomb. In that case, Christians were quick to point out how common the names were - and rightly so.

Vorkosigan

No Layman, I'm not missing the point. You're using "prominent" in two different ways and blurring the distinction. The "high priest" on the other ossuary is someone anyone could consider prominent. Jesus of Nazereth was not. Either he was prominent (known at large), and thus worthy of being placed on a tomb in his own right, or he was significant only for the Church and thus not worthy of being placed on a tomb.

In any case, we do not know why the title was used on the one other ossuary, so generalizing is rather tricky, unless you are an NT scholar, in which case, as we saw on XTALK, they were already discussing why the ossuary had such a low Christology. It had no low christology -- it had no christology at all! But that won't stop NT scholars....lack of evidence never does.

Vorkosigan

Steven Carr

I did make an error, but it was a family tomb with Jesus, Joseph and 2 Marys (There are two Marys in John). This is more than the new find.

The inscriptions are in Hebrew (which Layman has ignored so far)

Wright asks 'If it was the family tomb , where is James?' A) Does he expect family tombs to contain all the family members and remain intact over 2000 years? B) Obviously, the new find is the one Wright complains was missing :-)

SO we have proof of an ossuary of Jesus!

Steven Carr

I would love to see that analysis!

For example, how do they know the average number of brothers that people had?

Assuming , eg, Jesus occurs 14% of the time, somebody , who had 4 brothers , would have a 68% chance of having a brother called Jesus.

A little crude, but I don't see how a statistical analysis could be made.

MortalWombat

Again, as I have pointed out in the other thread, since it was not found in situ, we have no way of knowing the population base that should have been used. One would have to estimate the total population of Jews in the entire region that would have made ossuaries in this manner.

Radorth

Yes Vork, Carr seems to have considerable comprehension skills himself, of which you not only fail to take note, but appear to defend. Are you sure you aren't biased in your thinking?

Let me see if I can grasp the latest theory. The ossuary is now presumed to be a fake since it came form a tomb with Mary's name on it, we have no unbroken pedigree, GThomas said James was not really Jesus' brother, and a 5th century relic faker could easily have carved pre 70 AD Aramic writing on a first century ossuary, and given it to the Arabs instead of the local monastery where all other relics went.

Quite a story, that.

Rad

[ October 24, 2002: Message edited by: Radorth ]</p>

Ted Hoffman

Radorth
This is incorrect.
And in case you are alluding to what I wrote earlier, it is still incorrect.
Read and understand.

Sauron

What is your source for this?