Toto

<a href="http://www.ibiblio.org/bgreek/test-archives/html4/1999-03/30198.html" target="_blank">Some think he's a crackpot</a>. He is evidently in Greece and is the only speaker of modern Greek some of them know. (No idea if the charge is justified.)

[ December 10, 2002: Message edited by: Toto ]</p>

Jayhawker Soule

Perhaps you're referring to Father Joseph Fitzmyer? He's referenced, for example, on page 33 of the current BAR issue.

Layman

I continue to maintain that the posting of Holding's home phone number, home address, wife's name, and wife's place of emplyment, were invasions of privacy. If you don't like that term, then you don't have to use it. It was objectionable and should not have been posted.

And I was not "mistaken." The II Adminstrators seemed to have taken my point seriously. After my posts on the subject they removed the information I complained about. A number of your fellow skeptics also voiced their objections to Till's tactics, or at the very least, discomfort, with the posting of such private information in an attack piece.

As for my objecting to the posting of the Holding's home phone number, home address, wife's name, and wife's place of employment, being some form of "defense" of Holding, you have provided yet another example of why I find it impossible to have a productive discussion with you. I made no attempt to defend any of Holding's actions, posts, or statements. In fact, I agreed with another poster that if what he represented to me was true, then Holding has also acted out of bounds.

My only concern was the posting of someone's home contact information on a site filled with people hostile to him. I would have done the same if it was William L. Craig, Anthony Flew, or The-Poster-Known-As-Sauron.

So, obviously, I was not defending Turkel, I was objecting to the abuse of his private information.

As for the rest of your post, I haven't kept up with the Ossuary discussion enough to participate at this point. From what I can see, some people are objecting, some are accepting, and many are waiting to see how it turns out. And yes, I do look forward to reading Witherington's book. He is a fine, respected scholar and has been involved with the discovery longer than most other New Testament scholars.

Artemus

I made the mistake of assuming that BAR must be a peer reviewed publication based on the hoopla made over this, even going to my unversity library to see if it was available. After I was corrected I found a copy at the local Barnes and Noble.

Overall, I have to say that I am astounded by the reaction of the scholarly community to an article that appeared in the popular press. Usually when the legitimate peer-reviewed literature is passed over to make an announcement of "the greatest discovery of our time" in the popular press, the appropriate scholarly communitity approaches it with great caution. And for very good reason (cold fusion comes to mind). In this case, however, people whom it would seem should know much better jumped on the bandwagon immediately. Are the scholars in this area so biased by their faith that they lose all impartiality?

I should say that I also get the same impression when reading through the links that Peter Kirby has provided on the earlychristianwritings.com pages. The leaps that are taken from tiny pieces of evidence are, in many cases, shocking, at least to me. Perhaps I have been spoiled by participating in what may be best termed as a "hard science", where everything claimed can be independently tested.

Any comments for a newbie here? (I've been lurking here only for a couple weeks before making this first post.)

[ December 10, 2002: Message edited by: Artemus ]</p>

Toto

Welcome to the boards. You are right about the state of the evidence. What is your hard scientific background?

Artemus

Applied electromagnetics research. My degree is in electrical engineering, but my community is pretty evenly split between EEs and applied physicists.

godfry n. glad

Toto did opine:

Nah, I don't think in terms of "conspiracy" on this. More like a curious congruence of scholastic opinion with a certain dogma. I don't know that anyone has any inkling of Dr. Altman's ethnic background or confessional interests, and I don't think that you can assume that she's Jewish on the basis of name alone. Do you have other sources?

I also sincerely doubt that Dr. Altman is a "tool", but think more along the lines of the church supporting a vocal advocate of appropriate scholastic standing when her opinion is congruent with church dogma. Having found and encouraged an advocate of their position, it matters not that that particular advocate is a member of their organization, just that the advocacy advances their objectives. Then, keep in mind that at least one of those whom she chose to advise her _is_ unquestionably a "tool" of the Roman Catholic Church.

Then, there's the question of why she feels it necessary to cloak her personal scholastic opinion in attempts at authority like calling it an "Official Report" and claiming that the folks she listed at the end of her report (see above list, including Lupia) constituted a "peer-review". Since when do her list cronies qualify as a "peer review committee"? When asked about either of these, she launches into entirely uncharacteristic and unscholastic knee-jerk overdefensiveness... Why do you think that is? I think something is amiss...

Influenced or not, Dr. Altman's critique certainly invites commentary and discussion, particularly from those in disagreement. Where is that discussion? Has anyone responded point by point to her cogent critique? The only one I've seen is an attempt from a Bryan Cox out of Plano, Texas, and I have no idea of his standing or expertise.

I shall be interested to see what transpires once it comes time to ship the ossuary back to Israel. There have already been public rumblings and rumours about it being "too fragile" to be reshipped back. Gosh, if it has to stay here, then I guess Dr. Rahmani will never get to see it unless he, or his colleagues, come to Toronto.

By the by, the assessment by the IGS was not particularly helpful in assessing the veracity of the inscription or determining the age of the ossuary. That could have been done with a great deal more accuracy by the IAA, which was not consulted, or even contacted, by those who "found" the item, those who owned the item, or those who sponsored the item being shipped and shown in a museum half a world away. Now, considering the world's leading expert on such things was right there in Jerusalem, when and where the object was "found", don't you find it curious that it was hustled out of the country of origin without such a consultation?

We shall see...We shall see.

godfry n. glad

And, Toto, if you're going to use my handle, please get it right. I'm a case-sensitive kinda guy....

[ December 11, 2002: Message edited by: godfry n. glad ]

[ December 11, 2002: Message edited by: godfry n. glad ]</p>

Toto

godfry - sorry about mistyping your handle. I went back and corrected it.

I see no evidence that Rochelle Altman has any confessional interests at all. She is an academic with research interests in the area. But she does have a Jewish name, lives in Israel, and published an article in Jewsweek - not the profile of a believing Catholic who would distort the evidence to support the claim of Mary's perpetual virginity. But I could be wrong.

Sauron

I objected to the term "revealed" because it has implications that are not substantiated by the facts.

I also objected to you strenuously defending Turkel, and then pretending that you weren't doing so.


You were mistaken in assuming the information was private, or that Turkel considered it private. In fact, you were presented with correspondence from Turkel clearly stating that he didn't care if the information was public or not.

Moreover you are well aware that information already in the public domain cannot, by definition, be considered private. All the information under discussion here was in the public domain and not protected.


The fact that I am persistent in holding you accountable for your comments troubles you.

Yet the vast majority of your arguments presented here, regardless of topic, pivot on precisely what a given word means. Indeed, you excel at it. You tried valiantly to split hairs here:

Accountability for your words is not something you enjoy. And thus we see the real reason why you avoid discussions.

Which nevertheless presented no threat, and you consistently failed to provide any such examples. Neither has Turkel.

"Your only concern" - rather dubious, that. After a long hiatus, you stop by here only to comment on this one point? Layman, the staunch defender of personal rights and privacy? With liberty and justice for all?

I find it far more likely that you just thought this would be a cheap score for you, and are now discovering it to be much more difficult than first imagined.



To summarize: your objection here was just a drive-by whine, done for no particular reason. Similar to your objection to the Paul Wellstone memorial ceremony.

The response I expected.

[ December 11, 2002: Message edited by: Sauron ]</p>

Jayhawker Soule

Which, in my opinion, makes posting it no less inappropriate. In any event, my preference would be to have you move generic let's-play-with-Layman dialogue to its own thread.