Haran

Wow! This lady is unbelievable!

If anyone actually read those posts on the JM list, you will know that she is bringing up the same stuff again. Nowhere did I ever call my response to her a "rebuttal". It was posted on the websites of those who asked permission and I requested that each of them provide a link back to my own official website. This "title" was unofficially given to it by one of those websites. I asked them to replace it with "response" and they said they would. Apparently, they did not... Peter can confirm that I called my article a "response" from the beginning from the title of the email in which I sent him the html on 11/7/02 - the subject line was "Response to Dr. Altman".

Thank you, Peter, for recognizing that I did not resort to ad hominem in my response. In fact, as anyone can see from the JM list and from her latest article posted above, she does resort to ad hominem rather than truly address my ad rem points.

The "slippery-slope" that she mentions in her new article appears to be a logic error on her part, not mine. There is nothing wrong with the logic of this particular part in my article. I tried to explain this to her on the JM list, but she obviously seems not to have understand.

Dr. Altman should rather be congratulating me on knowing what she meant about the "frame" and helping to explain it (when no-one else seemed to get it on Xtalk and elsewhere). Lo and behold, my explanation must have been correct because it appears to be the same as the clarification in her final report and even this new article! I am glad that she finally elaborated a little more on how one can actually find/see this supposed frame, but she is right in that I still do not see it.

I believe she is still incorrect in this new article, especially with respect to the "dalet" which she supposes to be an "upsilon" (I just find this suggestion absolutely unbelievable - why would one greek letter be smack dab in the middle of this inscription??) or an "ayin" (which at least a hair more reasonable). If there was a forger able to pull off something like this, surely he would have had the sense to carve an "ayin" that looked like the other two ayins in the inscription. Good grief... Oh yes, and I did find an example of this kind of "dalet" in one of Ada Yardeni's books. I just wish I wrote down the page number. I'll have to go back to the library and get it when I have the time.

I also noticed a remark that I found kind of funny in her new article about a sigma (I can't for the life of me figure out why she is mentioning this...). Apparently only scholars who really know their Greek scripts know that a sigma can look like a "c". I guess I really know my stuff, then, as well as others here who have looked at ancient papyri. Just out of curiousity, how is it that a person whose curriculum vitae states that their doctorate is in Medieval English and that they have had "addition courses" in paleography and calligraphy comes to be known as an "expert" in ancient semitic writing (and apparently ancient Greek too in light of her comments)?

Finally, I have only spent a small amount of time glancing through this article, but I think she mentions somewhere in there some conclusions of the IAA that I have no idea how she would know (I don't think they were in the reports we have seen in the media), so it seems that she may either have the official report or that she may have been in contact with committee members in some way (she lives in Israel, right?). If the latter is the case, then I am becoming even more sceptical of their conclusions about the ossuary.

I have seen several places now where the IAA has been accused of ignoring the conclusions of ROM and IGS. The report in Archaeology even mentions something about the tests that ROM performed being pretty exhaustive. So, it is beginning to sound like the IAA had much the same data to work with and only interpreted it in a different way. Perhaps it was interpreted in the direction of the committee members who seemed to be so vocal in bashing the ossuary, I believe before the committee was even formed (btw, I have seen it referred to as a committe elsewhere...).

I am thinking of a brief response to Dr. Altman's own ad hominems against me, but I'm just not sure it's worth it. Judging by the response my article has gotten from scholars and by her strong condemnation of it, I would say that the excellent questions of this "complete novice" must have really annoyed her.

Whatever...

Haran

The "official" version of my article is on my website:

James Ossuary Inscription

Haran

Altman:
"....who only showed interest in "biblical paleography" once the Interim Report was issued"

Would you who know me here say this is so??

In fact, I have been interested in "biblical paleography" for quite some time. The "James Ossuary" was merely a channel for me to express that interest (i.e. it was the first major discovery to unfold in such a way and at such a time that I could follow, understand, and participate in the arguments).

Haran

The story continues.... Here are some interesting articles that I found links to from the ANE list:

http://www.bib-arch.org/bswbbreakingkeall.html

http://www.archaeology.org/magazine....ne/news/patina

http://www.bib-arch.org/bswbbreakingVII.html

Vorkosigan

Haran, Altman explains how the upsilon got on there. The forger was working from templates, and doesn't know any Greek.

As for the rest of it, the ROM is doing a quick CYA.

First, it admits that the inscription was altered. Read between the lines:

"Our examination showed that part of the inscription had been recently cleaned, a little too vigorously, with a sharp tool. And for some reason whoever did it cleaned the beginning of the inscription, but not the end. The cleaning had removed some of the surface encrustation from down inside the letters, but not all of it. Those letters on which a sharp tool had been used may even be judged to be slightly "enhanced"¡Xthey look sharper than those of the other part of the inscription. The end of the inscription (on the left) looks softer and less angular¡Xmore like a cursive script, and therefore of more recent date. But the soft look is due to the survival of the encrustation on the part that had not been cleaned."

"The last two words in the inscription (the left-hand part) have not been touched. On the Internet there has been some discussion as to what appears to some as a difference in the length of the letters at the two ends of the inscription. They may appear to be different, but the reality is that some of the letters were tampered with inadvertently."

"....But in either event it is clear that the inscription is not a modern forgery."

The ROM is doing a CYA. Not a word here about the patina over the inscription as the IAA found it. The microfossils prove the thing is a forgery. The ROM has done nothing that would disprove that. In fact, it has confirmed Altman's position over the IAA's.

It's over, Haran. Really. Time to give up the Ossuary, turn out the lights, and move on. The only questions left now are whether the forger is going to confess, and how deeply Lemaire is involved.

Vorkosigan

Vorkosigan

If there was a forger able to pull off something like this, surely he would have had the sense to carve an "ayin" that looked like the other two ayins in the inscription. Good grief...

You'd think that if someone were going to do a forgery, they'd do a little research, but they never do. In the Hitler Diaries, the forger never read any bio of Hitler, and so Hitler never noted the major assassination attempt of July 20, 1944, in his "diary." Lots of experts shook their heads over that one, too.

Forgers are criminals and criminals are dumb, Haran. They count on the willingness of the victim to believe, and the ability of the victim to manufacture excuses rather than face facts. If you our I were to go into forgery, we wouldn't produce crap. But we're sane. The forger is not. Forgers are sociopaths, Haran.

Please, please stop, Haran. The ROM isn't going to be able to save this object from the scrap heap of history. In fact, it is behaving in a highly unethical manner by struggling to make a case for it.

Vorkosigan

Vorkosigan

I also noticed a remark that I found kind of funny in her new article about a sigma (I can't for the life of me figure out why she is mentioning this...). Apparently only scholars who really know their Greek scripts know that a sigma can look like a "c". I guess I really know my stuff, then, as well as others here who have looked at ancient papyri.

Haran, Altman has been inside the police investigation from day one. I believe, based on remarks she made in some of her published documents, that she knows this forger personally. I suspect that many of her puzzling and personal asides are digs aimed at him. That may explain a remark like this, and the remarkable knowledge she shows sometimes.

l-bow

Vorkosigan,


You mentioned Lemaire's name. In you opinion, will this case cause others to re-examine the Moabite Inscription which Lemaire discovered in 1994?

Vorkosigan

The Moabite stone was brought to light in 1868. People might question Lemaire's translation, but I don't see why -- yet.

Vorkosigan

l-bow

Vorkosigan,


I apologise for the mistake. I actually had the Tel Dan Inscription in mind.