Toto

I would almost prefer that this be a joke, but it was on a news site.

The Shanks-Witherington Book Tour

Autonemesis

And what does this have to do with Cold Fusion?

Toto

Beats me. Grand theory of pseudoscience?

Will anyone take this ossuary seriously after reading this?

Layman

What exactly does this have to do with the authenticity of the ossuary?

Kosh

Wrong, it would only show that the two were brothers, and that the two artifacts were faked by the same con artist....

Toto

It has to do with the credibility of the people promoting it.

Unless you want to argue that Shanks and Witherington were just pandering to a conservative Texas congregation.

DNA from the shroud????

Remember that internet hoax of a few years back - cloning Jesus?

Layman

How so? They may be promoting it, but the heavily lifting scholarly work was done by others.

I never thought much of Witherington or Shank's expertise in biology or forensic science. Neither of which has anything to do with the ossuary.

Just another attempt to "poison the well." Of course, you've got the wrong well and no poison.

Toto

Heavy lifting scholarly work? You mean running the ossuary by a few experts to get a superficial ok, rushing to the newspapers before a full examination by the scholarly community?

Layman

I mean letting leading experts examine the ossuary and having the Israel Geological Survey conduct additional tests. And there is nothing wrong with going to the press with what you believe is a huges story.

But as usual you have completely changed the subject. The fact is that neither Shanks nor Witherington are the leading scholars who have promoted the authenticy of the ossuary. They have publicized it, but that says nothing about the authenticity of the ossuary.

Nor would a horrible understanding of forensic science be very relevant to an expert in a completely foreign field.

godfry n. glad

Correction: _Is_ being done. We still await the "heavy lifting scholarly work" from the two IAA commissions.

If the IGS did any scholarly work, either they, or the numbskulls at BAR, butchered it and arrived at, or alluded to, some unwarrented conclusions before it got into print. It had to be corrected and clarified by those outside the IGS. So far as I know, those corrections have never made it into print journal format.

Quote:

I never thought much of Witherington or Shank's expertise in biology or forensic science. Neither of which has anything to do with the ossuary.

Well... That's heartening.

Quote:

Just another attempt to "poison the well." Of course, you've got the wrong well and no poison.

"Poisoning the well"? What _are_ you on about? The OP just noted that Shanks and Witherington were engaged in some rather dubious "scholarly" undertakings with regards to the ossuary. Is posting factual information on those actions of self-styled "experts" (and ones that others have rubbed in our faces as being definitive scholars on the historic Jesus, which is laughable in the case of Shanks) considered "poisoning the well"?

I'm _still_ waiting to hear why my comment that both Raymond Brown and John P. Meier are/were invested and practicing Roman Catholic priests was "poisoning the well". Perhaps you could explain that for me, too?

godfry n. glad