The Lost Tomb of Jesus

[detch01]

The guy behind the Jesus Family Tomb did a series called "the Naked Archaeologist" supposedly finding archaeological evidence for biblical events. His science is right up there with von Daniken IMO: ask a question, posit a possible and seemingly feasible answer and carry on with other things. When you're audience has their mind on something else treat the seemingly feasible answer as if it was proven fact. The guy may have an academic background but his science is fraudulent.


asw

[john9001]

with the "father, son and holy ghost", virgin mary, apostles, saints, arc angels,etc. The christians have more gods to pray to than the old pagans.

[Kieran]

Originally posted by SirLoin
That's about what i would expect from a religious rag called "Y-Jesus" .Where to start de-bunking..Hmmm.

Must have some pork & eggs first.

Can you dispute the argument, or only the source? Be honest. If you'd like, I'll try harder to find a source you'd like. Wanna give me something that would satisfy you? Seriously.

You don't seem to have a problem with James Cameron and an orthodox Jew disputing the resurrection, that is, that source seems "untainted" to you.

How about the BBC?

How about Time?

Pick your source.

[Skuzzy]

Ok, this has all manner of bad news written all over it.  You folks wish to discuss this, then fine.

But the first person to get abusive and/or derogatory will get this thread closed and said person will be banned from the board.

Keep it respectful is all anyone can ask.

[VWE]

IN

[Skuzzy]

No IN required.  It is a perfectly fine topic to discuss, but one that is controversial.  I find those types of topics to be ones which cannot be discussed on this board due to people not being able to maintain a modicum level of respect towards the posters.

I just decided to strike first and let people know what to expect if they decide to bad mouth others.

My guess is, this thread will die because there are not enough people available to be able to have a discussion on this topic without resorting to treating others negatively.

[VWE]

Move along, nothing to see...

[Shuckins]

The middle east is simply awash in religious "relics" of all kinds....and has been since the first century a.d.  A few, a very few, are authentic.  A large number are manufactured fakes.

Relics of all kinds were sold by the thousands to Christian pilgrims visiting the middle east during the medieval era.  Enough wooden slivers of the "true cross" were sold to build a mansion worthy of Barbara Streisand.

It wasn't so long ago that writings surfaced purporting to show that Jesus was married to Mary Magdalene, even tho most scholars believe that particular belief is unsupported by any other evidence, and was originally the doctrine of a "sect" within the Christian movement.

Also, an ossuary that had supposedly contained the bones of Jesus' brother was "discovered" in an antiquities shop in Israel.  Many archaeologists had examined it and declared it to be authentic.  Chemical testing for ageing later proved it to be a twentieth century fraud.

As we all know, there is a current trendy movement, fueled by a best-selling book "The DaVinci Code," that is searching for any proof that would overturn long-held religious beliefs.  It only stands to reason that relics doing just that would "surface" at this particular point in time.

Jesus was a very common name in the first century.  Fully a third of all women born in Israel during that time were named Mary, or Miriam.  Joseph was also a very common name.  It would be a miracle of Biblical proportions if an ossuary with all three of those names on it was NOT discovered.

[Hawco]

How anyone can not belive in the divinity of Jesus is beyond me to be honest.
Fair enough is that yer gig, but I just find it hard to belive that anyone could doubt his divinity.

[SirLoin]

Originally posted by Kieran


You don't seem to have a problem with James Cameron and an orthodox Jew disputing the resurrection, that is, that source seems "untainted" to you.

How about the BBC?

How about Time?

Pick your source.

I read the links(btw..did u notice the sponsered links for the Time magazine article were all Christian/Bible thumper sites?)..There's your donation $$(tax exempt) being put to good use.

A couple of pieces of evidence from both sites were left out.

1:The bone box of joseph(brother of Jesus)..It turned up in Austrailia and was discounted as being from the same family...Until they did a sample of the grit layer to see the makeup of sediment for comparison.It was an exact match on the spectrograph(other samples from similar tombs were used as each cave would have it's own "sediment fingerprint").None of the others were even close.

2:The spelling of Joseph's name on the bone-box was (going from memory here) something like Jospha...A very rare name indeed(it is mentioned in the Bible)..This bumped up the probability of all the names coinciding with the Jesus family to 60,000:1(up from 600:1)


This is very compelling evidence to me(an Athiest) that Jesus was just a man with a message(there was no resurrection body & soul to heaven) and was put to death by the Romans because he was going around saying he was the son of God.I believe he was another false prophet(Alexander The Great/Achilles...both were acclaimed to be son's of Zeus...among others) with a good message(compared to some other religions).

The last point in the Time article said something to the effect "Why would his followers say they saw the resurrection if it didn't happen?"

He became a martyr and they made that up so people would buy into his divinity(like countless other prophets/religions)...

[Shuckins]

SirLoin...you had better read Kieran's link, which pretty well debunks the claims made by the two men espousing this tomb as authentic.

I had read similar facts in a similar article (cant recall where at the moment) calling into question the conclusions these two came to in their film.

They did NOT submit their study and its conclusions to review by a panel of their peers....they went straight to the media.  That alone should make the red flags go up.

The spelling of the name on the tomb that they interpreted as being "Mary Magdalene" has also been called into question, because that particular spelling wasn't used until a century and a half after Christ's death.

The dna from the tomb which was tested was not from actual bones but from residue within the ossuary.  It was tested only for a match of the mitochondrial dna, and indicated only that the two individuals identified did not share the same mother.  Instead of testing it to see if the individuals shared the same father, the "researchers" jumped to the conclusion that the two were "married."

In addition, other archaeologists who visited the site said that it's evidence had been contaminated.  That means that any "evidence" collected cannot be relied upon.

Finally, Kieran's link contains statements made by several archaeologists that openly question the conclusions and authenticity of the study.  In, fact, most prominent archaeologists wrote off the authenticity of this tomb years ago.

[SirLoin]

Originally posted by Shuckins
"They did NOT submit their study and its conclusions to review by a panel of their peers....they went straight to the media."



Is there a better way to provoke discussion amongst peers?




"The spelling of the name on the tomb that they interpreted as being "Mary Magdalene" has also been called into question, because that particular spelling wasn't used until a century and a half after Christ's death."




Good point..Will look into that some more.(Btw,you mean not used or rarely used?..The spelling of Joseph's name(on the bone-box) was rarely used at the time.




"The dna from the tomb which was tested was not from actual bones but from residue within the ossuary.  It was tested only for a match of the mitochondrial dna, and indicated only that the two individuals identified did not share the same mother.  Instead of testing it to see if the individuals shared the same father, the "researchers" jumped to the conclusion that the two were "married."




That's called "rational interpretation of evidence"..The basis of science.




"In addition, other archaeologists who visited the site said that it's evidence had been contaminated.  That means that any "evidence" collected cannot be relied upon."




I haven't heard of that one...but if it was contaminated,why was the bone-box analysis an exact match?



"Finally, Kieran's link contains statements made by several archaeologists that openly question the conclusions and authenticity of the study."



That's good..Let the rational discussion begin!



"In, fact, most prominent archaeologists wrote off the authenticity of this tomb years ago. "



That was years ago.Recent DNA/Spectrographic testing has severely discounted their conclusions

[Elfie]

Sirloin where is the dna  evidence coming from? Christ didn't leave any descendants for us to compare dna samples with. So wouldn't it be hard to prove the bones in this tomb are in fact Jesus Christ's?

[SirLoin]

Originally posted by Elfie
Sirloin where is the dna  evidence coming from? Christ didn't leave any descendants for us to compare dna samples with. So wouldn't it be hard to prove the bones in this tomb are in fact Jesus Christ's?

I don't think there were any bones in the tomb.

[Seagoon]

Hi Sirloin,

I'll write a separate post examining the individual claims in detail, but let me first simply state that It's not just Christians debunking the so-called lost tomb, it's the secular Jewish Archaeologists who did the original excavations as well. In fact the almost unanimous consensus outside of the out to make a fast buck and the we'll promote anything that debunks the bible cadre of the scholarly community is that this has no scientific merit whatsoever.

 Joe Zias, who excavated the tomb with Amos Kloner has stated definitively that the last ossuary was not the so-called "Joseph" Ossuary but was in fact blank. Zias, who is neither Christian nor Religious, but simply a secular Israeli archaeologist has a great web page entitled a Viewers Guide to Understanding the Talpiot Tomb ‘documentary'

To quote an article from Newsblaze on the story:

"Amos Kloner, the first archaeologist to examine the site, said the idea fails to hold up by archaeological standards but makes for profitable television. Kloner said that of 900 burial caves found within four kilometers (two and a half miles) of Jerusalem's Old City and from the same era, the name Jesus or Yeshua was found 71 times, and that "Jesus son of Joseph" had also been found."

Please believe me that as someone who loves both history and archaeology, I would freely admit to it if I had any serious concerns that the "Lost Tomb" had even the slightest possibility of being authentic. As I said elsewhere, I'm not a fideist, I would not for a moment continue to pastor if this really was the "lost tomb of Jesus."

As Zias points out, this is simply yet another attempt to make a fast buck using the name of Jesus.

- SEAGOON