Layman

Is that a "yes" that you have read the article?

Who holds these beliefs? Is Lemaire even a Christian? Are you saying that H. Shanks is lying to promote his Christian beliefs? Is M. McCarty a Christian? How about J. Dominic Crossan, who finds the find "very likely credible"?

[ October 29, 2002: Message edited by: Layman ]</p>

leonarde

I was just wondering that myself: how does Vorkosigan know what the personal theologies are of Andre Lemaire and the other persons who have weighed in on this subject?
Cheers!

Layman

I am most curious about learing when Shank converted to Christianity.

When did that occur Lemaire?

CX

Dom Crossan is a practicing Catholic who used to teach at a Jesuit University in Chicago. Though I ahve no idea what possible relevance this has to the discussion at hand. Hershel Shanks, it should be commonly known, is Jewish.

Jayhawker Soule

While there is much I dislike about Intensity's comments, proliferating threads is not, in my opinion, particularly useful. I suspect that the ossuary will generate a number of claims, counter claims, and other developments over the coming months, and it seems to me highly useful to have them consolidated into a single thread. Neither this thread, nor the one by Steven Carr, seems useful in that regard.

[ October 29, 2002: Message edited by: ReasonableDoubt ]</p>

Layman

Claiming that Crossan would place his "faith" over his scholarship is particularly misleading. One might even say "lying," if one was of Volk's bent. Crossan is well-known as a critic of the historicy of much of the gospels, even denying that Jesus was buried, much less that there was an empty tomb or an actual resurrection.

Layman

Are you a Moderator?

leonarde

On Crossan's religious outlook I came upon this
URL:
<a href="http://www.westarinstitute.org/Periodicals/4R_Articles/Crossan_bio/crossan_bio.html" target="_blank">http://www.westarinstitute.org/Periodicals/4R_Articles/Crossan_bio/crossan_bio.html</a>

The last 3 or 4 paragraphs seem the most to-the-
point: apparently he is most frequently attacked
for (alleged) NON-orthodoxy in a RC sense.

Cheers!

[ October 29, 2002: Message edited by: leonarde ]</p>

Apikorus

My BAR came yesterday. Several comments:

• The close-up picture of the inscription on pp. 26-27 is excellent. It is absolutely clear that the letters were incised (contra Altman). The reading )XWYDY#W( (akhui d'yeshua) seems quite likely. (yaaqob bar yosep is perfectly clear).
  
  The sketch by Ada Yardeni seems misleading; one might well read )XWW instead of )XWY based on the sketch alone. But the second vertical stroke seems clearly shorter in the photograph itself - a yod rather than a waw. Also the leading yod in Y#W( seems at least as long as the character in question. Also, I can't see any way of reading the next character (the provisional daleth) as an ayin (contra Altman). The left side of the letter is at much to shallow an angle. And there are two other ayins in the inscription to compare this to. Granted, it is a sloppy daleth, but again in the Rahmani catalog there comparable examples. The leading aleph in akhui is also sloppy, but this can't be anything but an aleph.
• The accompanying letter from the Israeli Geological Survey states, "We observed that the patina on the surface of the ossuary has a gray to beige color. The same gray patina is also found within some of the letters, although the inscription was cleaned and the patina is therefore absent from several letters." Unfortunately, the letter did not indicate in which letters the patina was present.
• The IGS letter confirms that the limestone of the ossuary is from the Menuha formation of the Mount Scopus group. This is associated with an area "around Jerusalem", but apparently there's no way to be more precise. The soil attached to the ossuary was analyzed and found to be consistent with the origin of the limestone.
• The final paragraph of the letter states, "It is worth mentioning that the patina does not contain any modern elements (such as modern pigments) and it adheres firmly to the stone. No signs of the use of a modern tool or instrument was found. No evidence that might detract from the authenticity of the patina and the inscription was found."
• Based on what is known about Jewish ossuaries (see Rahmani), the James ossuary probably dates from between 20 BCE and 135 CE. Lemaire narrows this window down quite a bit based on epigraphic analysis: "...this type of bone box is generally dated between 20 BCE and 70 CE. The classical shape of the letters of the inscription also fits this approximate date... Moreover, the cursive shape of three of the letters (daleth, yod, and aleph) indicates an even narrower span of time: the last decades before the Roman destruction of Jerusalem in 70 CE - the exact period when James, the brother of Jesus, would have died."
• I'm no expert in epigraphy and palaeography, but I am skeptical of Lemaire's rather precise dating - more or less to within a generation. Frank Moore Cross, another famous epigrapher/palaeographer, was famously accurate in his palaeographic dating various Qumran scrolls. When the multiple radiocarbon analyses were done, it was found that Cross generally had his dates correct, but "generally" in this context means perhaps a 50 year time window, and in some cases he was off by a century or more.
• Concerning the frequency of names, the ossuarial data themselves are inadequate to meaningfully say much about the onomasticon during the period in question. As Layman mentioned, Hachlili's analysis went beyond ossuaries; she also included tombs, sarcophagi, ostraca from Masada, and documentary evidence from Josephus, the New Testament, and the bar Kokhba letters. (Lemaire misleads slightly when he states that "Rachel Hachlili has studied names used at this time in all types of inscriptions" - much of Hachlili's data is taken from documents.) Looking at Hachlili's data, it is clear that the statistical distributions of names from her various sources differ considerably. For example, the relative frequency of shimon and y(eh)osef differs considerably depending on whether one is considering ossuarial data or data from Masada. More to the point, the incidence of yaaqob is relatively small in the ossuarial inscriptions (about 2.5%), but considerable when one looks at the New Testament (about 12%).
• Lemaire's statistical analysis is primitive, based on naive multiplication of probabilities, and assuming the James in question could be pinned down (on the basis of epigraphy) to within two generations.
• Lemaire cautions, "On the other hand, nothing in this ossuary inscription clearly confirms the identification. James is not called "James the Just" (or "James the Righteous", as he was known in Christian tradition). Jesus is not called "Jesus of Nazareth" or "Jesus the Messiah"."
• After reading the article, I'm more convinced that the ossuary and the inscription are genuine. I'm skeptical about the precise dating based on epigraphy, and the statistical analysis is crude and I think overly hopeful. However, the mention of a brother is exceedingly rare in ossuary inscriptions; this would be the second such example. So I see nothing overly fanciful in thinking it plausible, or even likely, that this ossuary once contained the bones of the brother of Jesus of Nazareth. What I find troubling, though, is the lack of an identifier (e.g. meshikha ) for Jesus. Of the 233 inscribed ossuaries in the Rahmani catalog, several list nicknames (e.g. "the amputee", "the builder"). In this sense, the inscriptions were not unswervingly conservative. Given the popularity of the name ye(ho)shua at the time, I'd expect someone of the importance of Jesus of Nazareth to be more clearly identified. I suppose we'll never really know for sure which yaaqob in this ossuary, and who his important (or wealthy?) brother yeshua was.
  

[ October 29, 2002: Message edited by: Apikorus ]</p>

Layman

Thanks so much for the insight. I am quickly losing patience waiting for it to hit the newsstands.

Sounds like the 'stastical evidence' will be the subjet of much, hopefully more in-depth, future analysis.