Tag Archives: ossuary

Miriam daughter of Yeshua son of Caiaphas, priest of Maaziah from Beth Imri

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(HT to Joel and Jim West who has the press release.)

“Israeli scholars say they have confirmed the authenticity of a 2,000-year-old burial box bearing the name of a relative of the high priest Caiaphas of the New Testament. The ossuary bears an inscription with the name “Miriam daughter of Yeshua son of Caiaphas, priest of Maaziah from Beth Imri.” An ossuary is a stone chest used to store bones. Caiaphas was a temple priest and an adversary of Jesus who played a key role in his crucifixion. The Israel Antiquities Authority says the ossuary was seized from tomb robbers three years ago and has since been undergoing analysis. Forgery is common in the world of biblical artifacts. The IAA says in Wednesday’s statement that microscopic tests have confirmed the inscription is “genuine and ancient.””

Now the image that was released is tricky to pull anything off of due to its resolution, but I can see enough of the inscription to tentatively say it matches what they say it does. But let me see what I can do…

UPDATE: Here’s what I was able to pull off at first glance:


(Note: Please excuse the typo. Where the illustration is correct, the transliteration should read ישוע not יושע. I’ll post an updated image later. Image updated.)

Of course, this is a bit of “reading into” the inscription on a low-res photo. Once higher-resolution photos are available, I could be completely wrong in portions.

UPDATE: Antonio Lombatti seems to agree with my reading here:

Recita:

מרים ברת ישוע בר קיפא כהן דמעזיה דבית עמרי

Maria, figlia di Gesù figlio di Caifa sacerdote di Maaziah di Bet ‘Imri

UPDATE: Robert Cargill has a higher-resolution image of the inscription that is much clearer than the image I had to work from and he managed a much better job sketching the text out. 🙂

(click on it to expand)

Peace
-Steve

“The Talpiot ‘Jesus’ Tomb: An Impressive New Website”

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Via James Tabor’s blog:

There is a most impressive new website just up dealing with the Talpiot “Jesus” tomb in all of its aspects at talpiottomb.com. It is sponsored by JTERP (Jesus Tomb Education and Research Project), headed by Jerry Lutgen who works in the informatics health care field. You can read more of him as well as JTERP, its history and its purposes here. Some of my readers might remember Mr. Lutgen from his published article “The Talpiot Tomb: What are the Odds?” published at Bible & Interpretaton, that dealt with why the various studies using statistics differ so wildly in their conclusions. Lutgen also has a most interesting new study titled “Did the Set of Names from the Talpiot Tomb Arise by Chance,” which you can download at this new website.

Although I haven’t had time, myself, to look over it yet, I noticed that right at the top of the page it uses my reconstruction of the inscription on the “‘Jesus’ son of Joseph” ossuary.

I’m always surprised at how far that image has gone, both across the Internet and in various ‘popular’ publications. 🙂

Peace,
-Steve

PS: Huzzah! Post 150 🙂