Sauron

That's not a fair trade.

The Jews got Dever. The Christians get Golan.

Someone should check what the exchange rate on these cross-religious conversions is.

Sauron

This is priceless:

So according to this hack Jacobovici, archaeologists and scientists are supposed to determine if an item is authentic, by taking in consideration how "important it is to billions of people"? The authenticity of something is not related to how highly people regard it. Moreover, that presupposes the conclusion that it *is* authentic in the first place.

Sauron

Bumping this. I see that Layman is back, defending some ideas about a bodily resurrection. Wonder if he'll get around to justifying his original position -- and his "compliation [sic] of relevant information" original post:

http://www.iidb.org/vbb/showthread.p...hlight=ossuary

Clutch

My comment to the CTV about this story:

Ah, the "James Ossuary". The first panel of real experts to examine it with no vested interest calls it a forgery, on the basis of evidence about (among other things) a chalk patina containing the wrong sort of micro-fossils. That patina could not have happened naturally; the inscription is a fake. Its originator, Oded Golan, has now been found to have stenciling and engraving equipment in his workshop. His lame excuse? Hey, it's not mine -- I'm holding that stuff for a friend.

The ROM, of course, hardly counts as disinterested, having made a great pile of dollars by showing the ossuary.

Now CTV reports Toronto filmmaker Jacobovici attacking "the motives of the IAA panel, asking why there were no Christians or New Testament scholars on the panel. "

Jacobovici charges the expert panel: "You are so determined for your own little reasons to disqualify it, you were not sensitive to the fact that it is very important to so many billions of people."

Little reasons? Like, that the inscription is coated with the wrong sort of chalk? Someone knew it was supposed to be a chalk patina, but used commercial stuff. The engraving equipment? The common origin of more glaring forgeries in Golan's workshop? Quite the "little reasons".

Apparently Jacobovici thinks that if something is "important to billions of people", you shouldn't tell the truth about it. Between him and the ROM, Toronto is surfacing regularly in this story, and always linked to opportunism and willful ignorance.