Tag Archives: Lead Codices?

Lead Codices – The “Retraction” From BBC

News

I know that there’s been a heck of a lot of Aramaic-related stuff that I haven’t blogged about as of late from Syriac question marks and printing presses, the SBL Aramaic Studies session, etc. etc.. This is mostly because I’ve been devoting most of my “free” (hah..) time to The Biblioblog Reference Library, but since the Lead Codices malarkey has hit the press again I somehow feel obligated to comment. 🙂

So here’s my comment about this latest development:

The Lead Codices have proven, beyond a shadow of a doubt, to be one of the biggest embarrassments to the press pertaining to antiquities that comes to recent memory. This latest article from the BBC, given the entire debacle as it unfolded, is “too little too late.” Regardless of that, I seriously commend Kevin Connolly for writing it and only wish he did so sooner after the initial media blitz.

Peace,
-Steve

The Jordinian Lead Codices… Again…

News

(Kudos to Jim West for the photos.)

I have been holding back on commenting because I am getting a bit more than irked about this story and the gross oversights by both the press and the “authorities” who are handling it. Now the Jordinian Department of Antiquities has announced that, via carbon dating, they believe that the codices they have date back to the early 1st century.

Here’s quick list of prominent voices over the Biblioblogosphere:

  1. Jim Davila
  2. Jim West (x2)
  3. Mike Heiser
  4. Tom Verenna (x2)

And here’s my two cents, some of which I repeat and endorse from other Bloggers, and some of my own observations:

Obviously they weren’t dating the plates, themselves, as you cannot carbon date lead. Why did they not use lead isotope dating? The plates are made of lead. Lead isotope dating is perfect for dating lead. Where is the disconnect?

Secondly, the more images I see of the script on the plates, the more I am convinced that it is not Hebrew or Aramaic. I’m still waiting to hear back from a few scholars who study Coptic. Perhaps now is the time to give them a poke.

UPDATE: Tom Verena has done a character chart of his own on the new images as well as analyzed the coin iconography.

Peace,
-Steve

The Lead Codices: Coptic Characters?

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So, there’s been a new development concerning the Lead Codices where the Jordinian Government apparently has seized several of them.

In the article that announced this, the Jordinian Department of Antiquities Director Ziad Saad, is quoted saying,

“There has been a debate all over the net – some think they are fakes, some think they are very genuine – but we have yet to have a definitive conclusion based on a scientific approach.”

Overall, Saad’s words surprise me. There really hasn’t been anyone who thinks they are “very genuine.” The consensus among scholars and expert bloggers has been that they’re fakes from the very beginning.

Jim Davila has already voiced his opinions about this latest development as well as a lengthy list of the evidences against it. Looking over everything, Saad’s declaration of this consensus as “premature” is (in my opinion) refusing to call a spade a spade. The only shred of hope, at this point, for anything truly genuine is to investigate the pieces that haven’t been photographed yet.

So here’s where I’d like to share a funny thing I’ve been mulling over. I’ve come across a couple of characters on one of the plates which are certainly not Aramaic or Hebrew.

The only thing that it seems it could match would be Coptic, and if parts of this are in Coptic it would suggest that the initial claims by Elkington about their source were true (i.e. that they came from Egypt, and not Jordan).

Which would make the Jordinian Government seizing them look very, very silly.

However, since Coptic is a bit beyond my expertise, I’d love to hear some more learned opinions on this matter. 🙂

Peace,
-Steve

UPDATE May 2nd: I, showing how much I actually know about Coptic, didn’t get the dates right. 🙂

UPDATE May 2nd #2: I’ve contacted a few Coptic scholars about this and I’m waiting to hear back.