Layman

That was part of what I was relying on. That and the type of stone used.

At this point, we have no reason -- none -- to believe it did not come from that area. If it turns out that it probably came from somewhere else, then of course that would be significant. Do you have such evidence?

Feel free to quote out anyone you want out of a concern for completeness. I am most concerned with whether there is any reason to doubt the first century date that has been assigned to the artifact. So far no one has come up with anything.

MortalWombat

According to <a href="http://www.beaverhome.com/flooring/jstone/" target="_blank">this website</a>, And <a href="http://www.red-heifer.com/" target="_blank">this site</a> says: According to <a href="http://www.acj.org/Daily%20News/January%20'02/Jan_23.htm" target="_blank">this website</a>:

Sauron

It's the capital city. It has the largest number of tourists, visitors, museums, universities, students and researchers of Christianity, - the target market for such an artifact.

I don't know why you ask if it is the only market for artifacts. My comment was that it was the BEST market, not the only market. Another straw man from you, Layman?


Utter nonsense. I am pointing out that this is always a risk with archaeological artifacts, the more so because the artifact in question has high emotional and religious value. To dismiss it as you do evidences strong emotional bias on your part, rendering your views suspect on the entire topic. Which isn't a news flash to anyone, I'm afraid.

And in the second place, I did not say that it was worth more merely because the claim is that it was from near the Mt of Olives, as compared to some other place. I merely said that placing it there would be a smart move, for someone who wanted to stay consistent with previous ossuary finds and also to stay consistent with what tradition says about James, and where he died. Does that have financial value? Probably.

And just how do you know that? Perhaps to the Arab dealer of the artifact, that $200 represented a year's wages.

Furthermore, who said that the ossuary was fabricated? Perhaps the ossuary is real, but its actual discovery location was somewhere inconsistent with the James story - such as Ashkelon (wild example)? There are multiple points that have to be confirmed here, Layman. NOt just the artifact, but also its discovery location.

Because an article that had some reputed christological value but was discovered in, say, Ashkelon - well, that wouldn't be worth nearly as much as the same article discovered near the Mt. of Olives. And, as I said, the possibility of lying about the article's origin doesn't hinge on the Mt of Olives location.

Money is itself the incentive.

Where did I claim that?

Hint: I did not. That's your second strawman so far in this post, Layman.

Wrong, for the reasons I listed above.

But the fact that they are feasibly found there does not mean that this one was found there.

Amen-Moses already responded to you on this same topic, on Oct 23rd:

The nearest you can possibly pin down a rock geographically speaking would be to an area the size of England. Unless the Limestone outcrop in Jerusalem is a tiny remnant and the rest has been eroded away it is just as likely that the stone could have been quarried anywhere within a hundred mile circle or so.

Amen-Moses has a degree in geology. Do you?


You're vastly overstating what the Geological Institute said.

In the first place, their evidence was from paleography - not geology.

In the second place, from a geological standpoint, all they said is that they found no evidence of tampering. That doesn't substantiate your claim that it came from Jerusalem. From the NYT article on the topic:

Fraud cannot be ruled out, they said, though the cursive style of the script and a microscopic examination of the etched surface seemed to diminish suspicions. An investigation by the Geological Survey of Israel found no evidence of modern pigments, scratches by modern cutting tools or other signs of tampering.
Radiocarbon dating was impossible because no organic material was found with the inscription. But the words were carved on a 20-inch-long limestone burial box, similar to ones the Jews used only in the first centuries B.C. and A.D. More specifically, the scholar said, the style of the script and the forms of certain words placed the date of the inscription to the last decades before the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 A.D.


Hogwash and energetic handwaving again. And as for your "good reason to think it came from Jerusalem":

The Arab dealer - Anyone who wanted to fence such an object would not only bring it to Jerusalem because of the market, but also claim that he/she found it there, because of the value. Selling artifacts of a kind that has frequent frauds, under circumstances where the item cannot be examined in its original location, where the owner is anonymous, etc. Nosiree, no motivation for lying there.

The geology - doesn't substantiate what you think it does, as evidenced above.


Stretching? Towards what, Layman? Nobody here is drawing conclusions - we're simply pointing out the issues of authenticity that you are failing to honestly confront. For some reason (which I think we all know), you are skipping the verification process and leaping to your desired conclusion. If we were talking about something totally different such as a newly-discovered Shakespeare manuscript, the verification process would be the same.

This is just the christian double-standard at work again: everything is fair game for verification, except items associated with your faith.

<img src="graemlins/boohoo.gif" border="0" alt="[Boo Hoo]" />

[ October 24, 2002: Message edited by: Sauron ]

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Layman

I'll look at your references, but according to the BAR Article:

<a href="http://www.bib-arch.org/bswb_BAR/bswbbar2806f1.html" target="_blank">http://www.bib-arch.org/bswb_BAR/bswbbar2806f1.html</a>

If you want to doubt this so much, perhaps you should read the article or contact the Geological Survey of Israel and discuss their methods with them?

leonarde

While I agree that caution is called for in evaluating the significance of the find, that caution goes both ways: here I have in mind the
declaration of one person in these pages that it's
a 'phoney' or a 'fake' and in addition the allegation that the seller in question would necessarily make up an alternate site of discovery
to garner more money. If this find proves out, the
ossuary will be one of the most valuable of archaeological finds ever but that isn't based primarily on the (alleged)location of the find. It
is based on the type of inscription (ie a dating of the lettering), the names used (Jesus, Joseph,
James), and the nature of the relationships
between the three. Since lots of obscure people
were interred near Jerusalem, the physical location alone would seem to be of little interest
to someone who couldn't read the inscription to begin with.

Cheers!

Layman

Which country is Jerusalem the capital of?

Your "verification process" is ad-hoc. There is no indication this artifact came from anywhere but Jerusalem. It surfaced in Jerusalem. The finder reported finding it near Jerusalem in a place where many such artifacts have been found. And the Geological Institute of Israel is reported to have confirmed it came from the Jerusalem Area.

If evidence does arise that it is not where the dealer said it was from, then that would, of course, change the analsis. But until then you are 'stretching' to avoid what the evidence tells us: it came from Jerusalem.

Layman

No evidence here that it is a fake. Just a general comment that such is a possibility.

If you are imagning an intentional hoax, then I said you are correct that its possible that an intentional hoaxer might make up a story. But as you know that is not what we were discussing. We were discussing where it came from if it was a legitimate artifact.

If it is a fraud, its a very sophisticated one. One that would most likely cost much more than $200 to make. And which is likely beyond the abilities of someone making less than that in a year's wage.

The only information we have is that the persons who discovered this had no idea it was worth anything or archeologically significant. It sat around for a few years and only came to light after a respected leader in his field happened to check it out.

If evidence comes forth that it was found somewhere inconsistent with James, that would certainly impact the analysis, but just because you can imagine such a thing does not affect the analysis.

If you are back to the intentional hoax theory then you might have a point. But as you know we were not discussing such a theory. Moreover, if you are going to argue that the incentive to claim it was from the Jerusalem area, you have to rebut all the evidence that this was not an intentional hoax first. You have not done so.

This "it's not from Jerusalem" gambit is a bid to negate the stastitical analysis based on Jerusalem's male population. If you are going to claim its an intentional hoax, you have a whole lot of informationt to get to first.

This is no strawman, as you yourself have confirmed. Twice (at least) in your post you argued the "fraud" theory to back up the incentive to claim it was from Jerusalem.

Which included claiming it was a hoax.

It corrobarates the report that it was found there. The ONLY report available as to its origins.

I have no reason to think Amen-Mose is a specialist in Israeli geography.

I am? Have you seen their report?

Here is what the BAR article reports:

Laboratory tests performed by the Geological Survey of Israel confirm that the box’s limestone comes from the Jerusalem area.

<a href="http://www.bib-arch.org/bswb_BAR/bswbbar2806f1.html" target="_blank">http://www.bib-arch.org/bswb_BAR/bswbbar2806f1.html</a>

[URL=http://www.bib-arch.org/bswb_BAR/bswbbar2806f

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MortalWombat

What does that mean in terms of square miles? And how far away was this type of limestone exported to for such purposes? How can one come up with some statistical calculation as to the number of people that the ossuary can belong to unless one knows the size of the population? Until these things are cleared up (if they ever will be), I think it is pretty meaningless to wave around numbers like "20 people out of 40,000." These are some of the things I hope are addressed in the near future.

Sauron

Israel. And Jerusalem is the center for biblical (or syro-palestinian) archaeology. Games, Layman?


On the contrary. Verifying that a given artifact isn't a fraud takes several stages. Two of those steps are examining the seller and the background of its discovery. This is anything BUT ad hoc.

As I indicated earlier: it isn't up to us to show that it came from some other place, as long as the affirmative case for being from Jerusalem is still so weak.

The burden of proof is on the claimant here, Layman.

Which proves nothing about its authenticity, or its original location.

Surfacing in Jerusalem would be expected, if a forger wanted to fence an object to the highest bidder, in the largest market for such an artifact.

Or, which would be expected, if a merchant had a valid artifact, but was from the wrong area. If he wanted to 'boost' the value of the artifact and simultaneously raise the suggestion that it had christological value.

Moreover, the NYT article has this to say:

How the ossuary was discovered is part of the problem, scholars said. It somehow fell into the hands of looters, who then turned a profit selling it on the antiquities market. Hershel Shanks, editor of Biblical Archaeology Review, said the ossuary was now owned by an unidentified collector in Jerusalem.

Because the ossuary did not come from a controlled excavation, where archaeologists plot every detail and possible clue to a discovery's context, scholars said they despaired of ever knowing the inscription's meaning beyond doubt.

"This could be something genuinely important, but we can never know for certain," said Dr. P. Kyle McCarter Jr., a professor of biblical and Near Eastern studies at Johns Hopkins University. "Not knowing the context of where the ossuary was found compromises anything we might say, and so doubts are going to persist."


Which is all 15 year old hearsay, from someone who could easily have a motive to lie. Especially if they were involved in looting.


According to the NYT article, they did not confirm that. They merely confirmed that there was no scratching or modern pigments:

Fraud cannot be ruled out, they said, though the cursive style of the script and a microscopic examination of the etched surface seemed to diminish suspicions. An investigation by the Geological Survey of Israel found no evidence of modern pigments, scratches by modern cutting tools or other signs of tampering.

Radiocarbon dating was impossible because no organic material was found with the inscription. But the words were carved on a 20-inch-long limestone burial box, similar to ones the Jews used only in the first centuries B.C. and A.D. More specifically, the scholar said, the style of the script and the forms of certain words placed the date of the inscription to the last decades before the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 A.D.


And again, you're engaged in pitiful and desperate hand-waving. There are more than enough reasons to be suspicious about this article. And, considering that many experts carry that same suspicion, your acceptance of its origin is naive. You, are far too eager to accept things at face value, even when you know that the origins of the artifact are shady and untestable, and the particular class of artifact is of a kind that makes it especially susceptible to fraud and/or fakery.

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Layman

You're right about the capital thing. My mistake. I was thinking Tel Aviv.

So you are talking about it being a fraud?

None of the above is evidence that the dealer lied about where it was found. And as I noted before, it is not unusual that the origins of such artifacts remain shrouded in uncertainty.

We have at the very least a prima facia case that it is from Jerusalem. There is, however, NO evidence that it came from elsewhere.

It is speculative to conclude he is lying. And why would his having been involved in looting mean he would lie about finding it in the Jerusalem Area?

The NYT's article does not confirm or deny all the kinds of tests that were conduted. And BAR is the publication that is the most knowledgeable about what was done, as it is their article and the discoverer is publishing in their publication. You are stretching again.

According to the most knowledgeable publication on what tests were done:

So where does the NYT's claim that no such testing was done? And what is their source? The AP article? And what was its source? Perhaps the BAR people or the author of the article?

Which scholars have questioned that the ossuary came from the Jerusalem area?

Glittering generalities. The evidence suggests and confirms that this ossuary comes from the Jerusalem area. You have nothing to indicate otherwise.

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