Tag Archives: The Talpiot Tomb

A Comparison of the First Replica

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I’ve taken the time to further illustrate the First Replica next to the Second as well as what I’ve been able to trace from the photographs of the genuine ossuary. Click to enlarge to see the notes.

The first replica does well at reproducing some very strong visual elements of the original ossuary that are very prominent without knowledge of the alleged script. These are features that anyone would notice at a glance, simply because of the pattern the lines make: The prominent “V” shape between the “he” and the “nun” as well as the prominent “lens” shape between the “yod” and the “waw” as well as the “tav tail” on the “he.”

The second replica destroys and filters these features, instead leaning towards forms that better express “Jonah” with little ambiguity.

Additionally, on the first replica, the supposed “nun” is so very widely broken that there is no way to read it as one scratch. It also has some of the “minor” scratches that were prominent.

Thoughts?

Peace,
-Steve

Unfaithful Representation: The Second Replica

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Among additional interesting note is that “Jonah” is not as easily read on the first replica, but the first replica has fish in the margins where the second replica has an easy-to-read “Jonah” but no fish in the margins.
It seems as if the props Jacobovici uses change to suit the mood. 🙂
To read more about this messy issue, be sure to check out my previous post here.
IMPORTANT NOTE: “Original Photos” refers to the actual ossuary, not the first replica. Image updated to version 1.1 with less ambiguous language.
UPDATE Sep 18:
Second replica in red, James Tabor’s “yellow inked” outline in yellow.
As pointed out by several others, an examination of the “yellow-lined” version of “Jonah” offered up by James Tabor is not identical to the form found on the second replica, however it does share some interesting features.
  1. The serifed, disconnected “yod.”
  2. The oddly double-curved “waw.”
  3. The connected & exaggerated “Nun.”
  4. The “broken” “he.”
Curious, the similarities, including lines that aren’t there.
Peace,
-Steve

Robert Cargill, The Enforcer

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“Acting like an enforcer, Professor Cargill has assured us that by next week Puech will recant everything.”
– Simcha Jacobovici
So yes, Simcha Jacobovici is once again crying foul after bamboozling a scholar to seemingly endorse his ridiculous theories, when in truth they did not and is trying to lay the blame squarely upon the shoulders of Professor Robert Cargill.
Since I am content in my little bit of satire of Simcha’s overly-dramatic sweeping declarations, apparently elevating Bob to the status of Dirty Harry, I will simply link to the pertinent exposition and critical commentary:

UPDATE: Mark Goodacre over on the NT Blog has brought to light that the “Museum Quality Replica” of the so-called “Jonah Ossuary” has been given a facelift in light of criticism and the shifting claims of Simcha Jacobovici and James Tabor. Strangely enough in Replica 2 the inscription that supposedly says “Jonah” is almost too clear compared to the order of scratches on the first replica (which don’t connect certain “letters”), and more importantly the mess of scratches in the actual photographs of the genuine ossuary.

(This second replica’s all-too-clean inscription, by the way, was what Professor Puech was apparently basing his reading off of.)

Curiouser and curiouser. I wonder what Jacobovici has to say about this?

I have to say that I am disgusted.

It’s all fun and games to have a replica made to show off to the press. Seriously. People enjoy that kind of thing. *I* enjoy that kind of thing.

However, it’s another issue entirely to call something a “replica” that’s demonstrably not faithful or accurate to the original, revise it without noting the changes after criticism has mounted so that it looks more like what you’re trying to prove, and then use that altered representation to apparently deceive someone prominent like Puech.

It’s even a further ethical failure, in my opinion, to then turn around and use that person’s opinion (which one can assume has been misinformed due to the altered inscription; think GIGO) as propaganda for one’s own “crackpot” theories.

I’m with Mark on this one. I believe that Simcha owes not just Prof. Puech, but everyone involved thus far an overdue apology for these tactics.

Peace,
-Steve

The Talpiot Tomb Names: A Metaphor For Mark Goodacre’s Contention

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This is what Goodacre contends Tabor is insisting upon.
Err.. read on, it’ll make sense in a bit.  Promise.
Bear with me. 🙂

So for those of you who have been following the latest on the Talpiot Tombs stuff, James Tabor has expressed what he feels is a problem with a common response to the claim that “the names in the Tomb are common” when he believes that they are, in fact, not.

Among those he mentioned who espouse this view is none other than Mark Goodacre, who himself wrote a response challenging Tabor’s list of names as untenable to begin with as a pastiche constructed from the Biblical accounts as well as from extra-Biblical documents.

Confused yet?

Wondering why there are bears at the top of this article?

Well, besides the fact that I like bears, allow me to explain both Tabor’s problem as well as Goodacre’s rebuttal with a metaphor about the Nativity. I’m not poking fun at Tabor or Goodacre (in fact if I’m poking fun at anyone, it is you, kind reader). I am simply trying to explain things in an easier way to understand them. With that in mind:

There we go. Here’s one that’s more bearable…
.. er I mean *less* bear–.. Nevermind.
You get the idea.

The Nativity is something that nearly everyone in the western world should be familiar with. It is a vignette of the birth of Christ in the manger with his earthly parents Mary and Joseph, heralded by Angels, given adoration by Shepherds and gifts from the Three Magi: Melchior, Caspar, and Balthazar.

If anyone were to come across these elements together, they would immediately say, “It’s a nativity scene” as that’s simply what’s in one, and this arrangement of elements is more or less unique. One can’t simply say “these elements are common” and that it’s by chance they all fall into the same place as the odds would very well be against them.

This is Tabor’s argument.

But then one asks: Does the Nativity scene actually represent what is in the Bible? All Nativities are actually a combination of the accounts about Jesus’ birth found only in Matthew and Luke. For example, Luke mentions Angels and Shepherds, Matthew does not. Matthew, on the other hand, mentions the Magi, and Luke does not. Some of the details from the scene don’t even occur in the Bible. To pick on the Magi again their traditional number and names are found nowhere in the Biblical account at all. There are also other traditional elements in the Nativity that do not seem to correlate with anything.

Melchior, Caspar, and Balthazar.
These Three Kings of Orient are Mariamēnē. 
In Tabor’s argument.
In the Nativity metaphor.
If this is confusing at this point it’s only because you’ve only been skimming the pictures.

Because this set of elements does not faithfully describe the Biblical account (as to come at this set of elements requires some selective picking and choosing from the Bible as well as picking and choosing from some late sources well outside of the Bible), the actual set, itself is meaningless for historical comparison.

This is Goodacre’s argument.
In summary: Where Tabor wishes to call what looks like it could be a Nativity a Nativity, Goodacre doubts that the Nativity represents the Biblical account in the first place.
I hope this clears things up. 🙂
Peace,
-Steve

A Post Mortem Of The Resurrection Tomb Live Blogging

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Where I was rather ill (blasted cold…), Bob Cargill, Mark Goodacre and Tom Verenna were having lots of fun live-blogging through The Resurrection Tomb Mystery last night.

Here are some of the highlights!

Bob’s comments:

“CGI is well done. Simcha’s CGI folks get an A+ (especially since we see so much of it in the documentary. And the press. And the book. And the website.)”


NOW THEY’RE GLOWING! SHOW THE ACTUAL PHOTOGRAPH!!!!

We kept being told, “Just wait for the documentary. You’ll see the actual pictures.” But there were none. There were better pictures on the website. The documentary kept showing a rotated vessel and inked circles to make them look like ‘fish’. And you now see why they rotated the fish from the catacombs scene. It’s a visual trick to prime the brain to see similar fish.

In the words of Gerald Ford, let us hope “our long national nightmare is over.” 🙂

Mark’s comments:

They are pressing on after making progress.  But the cable has snapped and they’ve hit a problem, a problem of the kind that in documentaries requires an . . .

. . . . ad break!

10.55: My wife has fallen asleep.

11.00: the documentary is over.  No real surprises.  One big disappointment for me was not seeing more of the ossuaries and the tomb itself.  I was surprised to see just how often they mentioned Joseph of Arimathea and just how weak the attempts to link the tomb to Jesus appeared. 

“Debate is just beginning”  Well, it’s been going on for six weeks or so and I’m afraid we are not persuaded.  Sorry, Simcha.  Sorry, James.

Tom’s comments:

That isn’t a skull, it’s a pelvis.

This rosette ossuary is the same filmed in the 2007 doc.

OMG!  Did they just TILT the orientation to make it look like a fish?!  Wow, talk about forcing the data to fit a conclusion here.

They keep using the CGI’d image, not actual photos.

Whew…that was brutally painful to watch.

Peace,
-Steve