Book Discussion: "The Jesus Family Tomb"

[mccormack44]

saralestes asked

Is levity inappropriate or disallowed?

No, we often use levity. Since that was your intent, I apologize for reading it in a different mode. If you look at some of my other posts for the past few days, you will see that I am currently "under the weather" with allergy attacks, which may be why I missed the humor here. Again, I do apologize for an unnecessary "scolding."

I just wished to keep serious discussions polite. Please note that I said "polite" not "serious." We do welcome levity, even in serious discussions.
Also, please remember that I was expressing my personal reaction to your post. A personal reaction is always just that; it isn't some order "written on high."

Thank you for your polite response, and again I apologize for misunderstanding you.

Sue

[voralfred]

I still have not read the book but I saw the movie.

Or at least a French adaptation of the movie. It was about 2 hours long so I don't know if there were any cuts, and there were french overvoice commentaries.

So I have a question, precisely, on the french overvoice, if anyone remembers (or has a tapes or DVD where he can check) what was the english original, because something sounded extremely weird to me.

It is about the first sign, to the right (therefore : before, reading from right to left) of the inscription "Yeshua bar Yehoseph".
The sign is a cross, but not a horizontal/vertical cross, as a +, but two obliques, like an X or a "multiply" (or a greek "chi").
This sign is commented, in French, before and after Professor Pellegrino appears in the movie. However, while he does say that, from the analysis of the patina, he can conclude that this sign was written at the same time as the name, I did not hear him commenting on the meaning of this sign. Maybe he did comment, but the french overvoice kept me from hearing it in the only version I have had acccess to.
Now what I do not understand at all is the commentary in french. This commentary wants to relate this sign to the expression "alpha and omega" that appear in the Greek Scriptures, and refer to the first and last letters of the Greek alphabet. In Aramaic that should be "alef" and "tav" respectively (though "tav" is equivalent to the Greek "tau", not "omega" , it is the last letter of the aramaic alphabet, the greek letters from upsilon to omega having no equivalent). However to my surprise, the french commentary repeatedly related the sign to "tav", not "alef". What do they say in the Englsh original? Because to my eyes, if this cross could be interpreted as an "alef", I really cannot see how it could concievably be interpreted as a "tav"! What do they say in English there? "Alef" or "Tav" ? Or is this discussion absent altogether, with only Porfessor Pellegrino's remark about the sign being contemporary with the name?

Thank you in advance for an answer.

Also another question: towards the end of the movie, Simcha Jacobovici finally enters the tomb and find an inscription on a wall, either greek or latin, not hebrew or aramaic. He has to leave the tomb pretty shortly afterwards, but didn't he at least have the time to take a photograph? What did this inscription say? What does it look like? Any reference at all to this inscription on the web? Any website address?


The movie did give an answer to one of my previous questions: the DNA was indeed so old and damaged that nothing could be obtained from the nuclear DNA, only the mitochondrial DNA was usable.

[saralestes]

From what I remember (which is a little hazy due to the passage of time), the movie (in English) said the letter was a tav (the last letter of the Aramaic alphabet), and that this letter was used as a sign of a person having been anointed and/or baptized. There was also a statement that said something about the tav being the Aramaic equivalent to the omega in that both the tav and omega are the last letters in their respective alphabets. Thus Y'shua would have said that he was the aleph and the tav (the beginning and the end), which was later written in the Greek "new testament" as his having said he was the alpha and the omega, signifying the same thing.

There was also the point made that the cross was not used as a symbol in early Christianity until centuries later.

[voralfred]

Thank you for your answer, saralestes.
So in English also they say "tav", not "alef".
But a "tav" does not at all look like that!
I don't understand how they can interpret this sign as a "tav". It does not make any sense!

[saralestes]

If you will look at the second table on the page at http://www.forumancientcoins.com/NumisW ... 20Alphabet , you will see that the tav in Phoenician is very much like the mark on the ossuary.

Looking at the last row of the third table, reading left to right, you can see the evolution from Early Phoenician through Aramaic to Hebrew. It isn't until you get to "Late Aramaic papyrii" that the letter transforms from its cross-like shape and eventually becomes the modern Hebrew tav. Hope that helps!

[voralfred]

Looking at the last row of the third table, reading left to right, you can see the evolution from Early Phoenician through Aramaic to Hebrew. It isn't until you get to "Late Aramaic papyrii" that the letter transforms from its cross-like shape and eventually becomes the modern Hebrew tav. Hope that helps!

Well, if you look carefully at this table you'll notice that just at the transition early aramaic/late aramaic where the "tav" ceases to be a cross-shape
- the yod that looked like a modern "Z" becomes just a line
- the shin that looked like a modern "w" acquires a new shape
- the vav loses the "twiggle" on the left and becomes more or less a straight line
- the ayin that was first a circle opens up; it is only later that it acquires the more modern "y" shape

So all the letters of Yeshua, if written in "Early Aramaic" would look extremely different from the inscription! (I did not even discuss the "bar yehoseph" part).
So unless whoever wrote chose to use a "tav" from a much earlier script than the rest of the inscription (and why??????), no, that still does not make sense to call this a "tav". And if you look at the "alef" you see that it is just at that time that it goes from the old shape, that looked a bit like a modern A but rotated by 90 degrees so the "tip" is on the left rather than above, to the "cross-looking" shape.

So this means that the entire inscription is coherent, it does not mix different scripts within the name itself. Indeed if you look at the letters of "bar Yehoseph" they also correspond to rather late scripts, no incoherence there, and also no anachronism, because a consistent use of "early aramaic' would be internally coherent (so no indication of "foul play") but incompatible with the intended dating. But only if you interpret the first sign, either as a non-meaningful maker's sign (which was the attitude of the original epigrapher, L. Y. Rahmani, who first interpreted the inscritpion as Yeshua bar Yehoseph, in "Herodian", therefore rather late, script), or just possibly, as an "alef". No way to see it as a "tav"!

[Charlie P.]

Like our cat, I saw something shiny, and got distracted.

I've recently been green-lighted for forensic archaeology at Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Meanwhile, the micro-biology and chemistry results from the Jesus ossuary continue to be - cubic millimeter-by-cubic millimeter - perhaps even more fascinating than sitting in a submersible on the decks of the Titanic. Right now, much of this must remain confidential - at least until results are confirmed reproducible. What I can report, when I can report, will appear here. Watch this space.

I've had numerous contacts from fiber experts, Jesuit scholars, and a few other surprising places. I've also learned that the blanket excommunication against all Catholics who either worked on the "Gospel of Judas" or who gave credibility to it (under the same giudelines by which all catholic abortion doctors receive automatic blanket excommunication), has been lifted in my case. I guess "de-excommunication" would mean a lot to me, were I Catholic in the first place.

In any case, you will note that the condemnation levelled against the "Gospel of Judas" last year was never directed officially against this tomb. The Vatican remained curiously silent. I've learned why. There are Jesuit scholars who recognized a few of our findings immediately - and who now insist that the Talpiot Tomb and its contents deserve "much more looking into."

For my own part, emerging results have me walking around in a constant state of amazement.

I note that in recent discussions above, there have been questions about the markings on the aft wall of the tomb's central chamber. I had an opportunity to examine those markings up close. There is, at this writing, some disagreement about their meaning.

(I note that whenever disagreements, theoretical or otherwise, come up - those who approach this tomb with "scientific creationist" style arguments use the existence of debate as if to "prove" that any Talpiot Tomb connection to the Holy Family cannot exist. This is next of kin to arguing that because there is reasoned scientific debate about whether or not the moon accreted from the ejecta of a planetary collision, the Moon does not exist.)

Here is my interpretation of the inscriptions on the wall (noting that Simcha and others debate this, with regard to what I call "the second set"): The first set of "inscriptions" are indeed etched "letters" - however my firsthand examination of them revealed that they were etched through the patina into the bedrock, and that since the time of their etching, no new patina had grown over the markings. I dated these with reasonable certainty to the post-discovery period in which the religious authorities, in 1980, designated the tomb as a permanent grave for damaged religious books, and for any papers of any sort with holy names written upon them. The second set of "inscriptions" had patina encrustations down to their very roots, and were clearly ancient. My impression is that they were consistent with the cross hatching chissel marks on the wall itself - and that any "Greek letters" read from various lighting angles appeared not to be difinitive at all. I believe the letters are analogous to reading the shapes of animals in passing clouds.

The "cross" on the Jesus ossuary is a different matter. The side-ways cross was a Templar symbol, and may go back further. The Acts of Peter and the Apocalypse pf Peter record Christian use of the cross as far back as the third century and even the second century - long before Constantine. In Pompeii's Number 11 House (AD 79) we have, of course, the "prayer to Maria" (just as the Latinized name for the mother of Jesus appears to be represented on an ossuary from our tomb - - critics have said that this specific variation for the name of jesus' mother did not appear until much later). And in the city next door, from the same date, we have the shrine in the House of the Bicentenniary - with its clear, wooden cross above the "altar." Oddly, during those last hours in August of AD 79, the people left precious gold and jewels and major legal documents behind in this mansion - yet pried the religious icon (the cross) from the wall, and fled with it, evidently hoping to save it. The "Constantine was the first cross" advocates still argue that the Herculaneum cross was really a book shelf with a cross-shaped bracket above the altar - and that's what the people pried away and fled with. This argument requires us to believe that the object above the shrine's "holy of holies" was not a religious icon and that the people of Justa's House wanted to die with their book shelf.

We are also learning from Herculaneum (infinately better preserved than its more famous sister city, Pompeii) that the majority of the population could read and write. So to, must it have been through the rest of the empire (and the Jews, especially, were a literate population).

I am coming to the opinion that the Gospels are more ancient than even the Jesuit and Franciscan scholars have told me (early second century - more than 100 years after the events). I suspect they existed in varied early written forms almost in the range of current events. Though edited, much of it must have been written down. That is probably why the Gospels tell contradictory stories. Had they not become sacred very early, surely they would have been edited to tell the same story. But in reading them, and comparing them, one gets the impression familiar to any investigator who interviews witnesses at a crime scene or an accident. Each tells the story from a different perspective, trying to make sense of it in his or her own personal way. It's when everyone tells the same identical story that one begins to suspect the story has been rehearsed. Traditionally, the differences between the Gospels have been used as evidence against them: that the stories went from mouth to mouth and accumulated mutations before finally being committed to writing about a century later. But then, wouldn't Constantine's church edited it all to tell the same, rehearsed story?

I don't know exactly what went on back there; and perhaps no one ever will - however, the evidence seems consistent with the cross having been recognized very early as a symbol turned, somehow by Jesus, from a symbol of torture and humiliation into a symbol of triumph.

One other thing: We have finally identified another first century representation of the symbol found on the antechamber entrance outside of the tomb and outside of the ossuaries of the Mount of Olives: not very far from Pompeii's prayer to Maria - in the shrine of another most incredibly preserved house, with all of its organic furnishings intact. Either by coincidence or by theological inheritance, there is no mistaking the chevron and circle.

See you later,
- - Charlie P.

[voralfred]

The "cross" on the Jesus ossuary is a different matter. The side-ways cross was a Templar symbol, and may go back further.
(...)
(discussion about Pompeii)
And in the city next door, from the same date, we have the shrine in the House of the Bicentenniary - with its clear, wooden cross above the "altar." Oddly, during those last hours in August of AD 79, the people left precious gold and jewels and major legal documents behind in this mansion - yet pried the religious icon (the cross) from the wall, and fled with it, evidently hoping to save it.

As I understand your latest post, you now say that the cross (oblique?) is a much older christian symbol than previously believed, transmitted by the Templars.
I googled {"House of Bicentennary" cross} and obtained this:
http://www.vroma.org/images/mcmanus_images/chest.jpg
This looks like a modern, latin cross (not the equal length Greek cross), not at all like the side-cross of the ossuary. So do you claim that both forms were that old?
And anyway, you apparently give up the "tav" as in "alef/tav" equivalent of "alpha/omega" which was advocated in the French version of the movie, and in the english one also according to saralestes.
My main objection was to that "tav" interpretation. I don't have a personal opinion on the ancientness of the cross as a symbol. I only have very strong reservations on the interpretation of the sign on the ossuary as a "tav" in such a late time. Compared, for instance, to the "tav" on the "Matia" ossuary.

[Mr. Titanic]

This is an exchange from Amazon that Charlie requested I post. I've also included the initial review by Critic F.

I write this review today several months after reading the book and watching the documentary. I purchased the book on the first day it became available and had it read a few days later. Watched the documentary and the post-game show on the History Channel on the first night it was shown.

As I recall, the book was in the Top 10 on release day and dropped very quickly. It received bad reviews from Harvard and NPR -which you would think would be a more sympathetic audience. Many statisticians, Jews, Historians, and Christians have found many contradictions and holes in the premise and research done in the book.

Why would Jesus have a family tomb when such tombs were a practice of the wealthy, which Jesus was not? Why would his tomb be in Jerusalem, and not in his home town of Nazareth as was the cutom? How can the DNA sample be considered valid when we didn't have a Control sample of Jesus to begin with? Why couldn't Mariamne have been married to one of the other males in the tomb? Why was Simcha Jacobovici overly defensive when his worked was critiqued by the panel of experts assembled by Ted Koppel and the History Channel? Why did the book's sales drop like a rock in the market? Why did it disappear from MSN, Yahoo, The Today Show, USA Today, and other media outlets by March 1st?

Bottom line - the book is bad for many reasons. Don't take my word for it, look at the results listed above since it was released. Given a choice of The Lost Tomb of Jesus, The Da Vinci Code, or The Bible, I'll take the Bible any day of the week.

Let me answer first to the claim that the science behind the book is somehow wrong, or that the book is universally distasteful to people of faith: The research into the forensic evidence in the ossuaries (fibers, wood, and other mineral-encased biological residue) continues in at least two laboratories - and no fewer than two Jesuit scholars have come forth from the Vatican revealing connections about which none of us were aware at the time of publication, and suggestng that the Talpiot Tomb is indeed a site in need of much further investigation. A major scientific symposium is also planned, devoted specifically to this tomb.

The DNA investigation into the "Mariamene" and "Jesus" bio-concretions (mineral beds containing shroud fibers and biological residue - and in the case of Mariamene, bone fragments in addition to shroud material) was never meant to "prove" anything. Once the possibility of intact mitochondrial DNA revealed itself, the test was conducted specifically as an intended "DISPROOF." That was my role, and Shimon Gibson's, and James Tabor's role from the start: To go at this tomb as scientific Doubting Thomases, attempting to divorce it completely from the Jesus family. Had the DNA shown that Jesus and Mariamene (the latter, identified by the apostilistic title of a "master" of the congregation, on her ossuary), were mother and son or brother and sister, this would have negated everything we knew from the Gospels (both canonical and apocryphal); and if we were to believe in a measure of historical credibility within the Gospels, then a match would have disproved the tomb and explained the assemblage of new Testament names away - essentially instantly - as merely a highly improbable coincidence, in spite of the cross mark and the star on the Jesus ossuary (seeming to reflect the alpha and omega of Jesus' earthly existence, according to the scriptures). The failure to find a match simply failed to disprove the tomb - and along the way, the mitochondrial DNA suggested that "Jesus son of Joseph" from the Talpiot Tomb, was of Arabic ancestry, with some Greek ancestry, leading back to Africa. An interesting congruence - if indeed this is the mitochondrial signature of a Prophet who preached the one-ness of all humanity.

All of the above is in fact explained in detail, in the book, and should already be apparent to anyone who actually read the text, and paid attention.

During the investigation, I had suggested (and I still suggest) that the most controversial inscription involving a second Judas (possibly Didymos JUDSAS Thomas) from the Last Supper could easily have been the child of a first cousin on "Maria's" side of the family, perhaps married to "Mariamene," and also named Jesus. This would easily have eliminated the controversy; but Jesuit and Franciscan scholars are still telling me that the Gospel of John will not let me take this easy way out. "Read it," they say - "again and again." To my mind, people from the Vatican do speak with a certain level of authority on such matters.

There has been much finger-pointing at the debates among all of us "Tomb scholars" about what exactly the Talpiot tomb does mean or does not mean. Simcha and I certainly do not agree on everything, nor do Andrey Feuverger and Simcha, or Francois Bovon and James Tabor - - but all of this is in the normal nature of scientific debate, based upon the principle of legitimate scientific skepticism. To see myself and others quoted as "back-tracking" or distancing ourselves from Jim and Simcha is simply a dishonest mischaracterization of scientific discourse. In science, no one ever learns anything new from someone who simply agrees with the evidence, and with the theories arising from it. Even when we all agree, the agreement itself is not satisfatory - and someone must volunteer to go at the theory backwards, trying to disprove it. Some media types with an agenda have twisted the existence of debate and disagreement into a claim that the Talpiot Tomb does not exist in the realm of New Testament scholarship, or within the science of archaeology.

I am currently involved in debates that are just as lively - arising from the Cassini/Huygens data collected from Saturn and its moons. There is much disagreement about the source of methane on Saturn's moon Titan - and on the engine for the volcanic vents erupting water on Enceladus. Sometimes the debates have degenerated into name-calling. One scientist was even called a "geo-slut, whoring after the masses by talking about extra-terrestrial life." We appear to be witness to a double standard. No writer has ever claimed that because there is heated debate about the moons of Saturn, that the moons of Saturn have no place in science, or that their existence must be a hoax. The mere existence of scientific debate has been misused against us scientists, to suggest that the Talpiot Tomb has no place in science, and that its artifacts are a hoax.

The above reviewer is not the first to point out the damage done to this book by the campaign against it, and to suggest that the damage incurred was proof that it had no place in science, or was proved a hoax, or was just plain bad. One of Jerry Falwell's people happened to be shouting this same claim at me last May, about an hour before Reverend Falwell died.

Here is how the organized campaign against the book unfolded, progressing even to death threats against my colleagues.

Here is what has happened:

About a month before the film was aired, up to 40 million angry Emails were received by the Discovery Channel (the majority were the same Email, traceable to about 300 people who, using an illegal multiplier program, were able to generate about 10,000 letters from a single sending). Therre were, in addition, approximately a million "real" Emails, most of them demanding equal time from Christian commentators. Amereica never saw the film. In the name of "equal time," an hour was cut out of it and replaced by the Ted Koppel show. I received an Email from archaeologist and biblical scholar James Tabor after the Koppel taping, about five days before the broadcast. Dr. Tabor felt that the two hour program went quite well and that all objections from the panelists (though Tabor was outnumbered three-to-one) had been answered with sound facts and a clearer explanation of the scientific evidence at hand. The day before the March 4th airing, Dr. Tabor informed me that he had just learned an hour from the film was not all that was being cut. An hour from the taping was also deleted - with the result that that what the viewing public saw was someone from the "equal time" side of the argument making a statement, with James Tabor's evidently too well-reasoned response to the statement edited out and replaced by a cut to the next accusation. In addition to projecting a sense that Tabor often had no response to a claim made against him or his work, the Discovery Channel gave the patently false impression that the Ted Koppel "post-film debate" was being broadcast to America and to the world LIVE and unedited, in an immediate and candid response to a first viewing of the film.

As it turned out, the Discovery Channel's bowing to intimidation, by hatcheting a film and then replacing it with an program specifically edited to preserve the most damaging soundbites, trashing its own multi-million dollar, three-year project - all in the name of "equal time," in the hope that it would placate the multiple "millions" of E-mailers threatening to boycott Discovery and its advertisers - turned out to be next of kin to trying to placate Hitler by offering him more territory.

Within twenty-four hours, the Email attack against Discovery Channel intensified to as many as 600 million letters from angry, boycott-threatening Americans. The attacts spread to Toyota and to other prominent advertisers (shifting this way, and then that way, before zeroing in on book-sellers). More than a week of effort was required, to crowbar under some high-ranking executive's cranium that there were fewer than 300 million people actually living in the United States and that multiplier programs were still being used against the network. By then, the death threats had started: and management simply threw in the towel, having finally been frightened into never showing the program again.

After the Reverend Jerry Falwell (on Fox News, March 10) cited the Hoffman II mantra: Had we written about Islam (and I have, without incident) instead of about Jesus, people would have been threatening to burn down our houses - after this, people began threatening to do just that - to burn down Simcha Jakobovici's house with his children inside. (If someone can explain to me just how such threats have anything in the world to do with the teachings of the founding Prophet of Christianity, who on the night of the last supper commanded all humanity to "love one another," I shall be interested to hear it; albeit not on a full stomach.)

Simcha alone received over three hundred death threats and ended up requiring round-the-clock protection for his entire family. James Tabor simultaneously received threats - and indeed, threats of injury and death seemed directed exclusively against the Jewish members of our team. Those of us who were either Christian or Christian-born seemed to be awarded a special dispensation.

After that, people started to get mean.

By April, the man whose talking points Reverend Falwell had been using seemed to lose the last of his control. Mr. burning-down-the-house Hoffman suggested that in Medieval times Jews really did drink the blood of Christian children during their Passover celebrations. For an encore he posted an opinion that perhaps Simcha and I should dig a little deeper below the Talpiot Tomb - where we might find the ballpoint pen that was used to forge Anne Frank's diary, or the 6 million Jews "supposedly" murdered by Hitler. By early May, total heart failure must have begun to resemble, for Jerry Falwell, more and more a good career move. There are very sound reasons why every one of the Republican presidential candidates - including the three who said they did not believe in evolution (I suppose the theory of gravity is next) - shunned Falwell in the end, and did not attend his funeral.

Meanwhile, all plans for a book tour were cancelled. Reportedly, my co-author had received more threats of death than were leveled against Salmon Rushdie over publication of his "Satanic Verses," nearly two decades earlier. No one was willing to entertain thoughts of even a single book signing when there was widespread belief that my co-author might be shot - along with innocent bystanders - by one of America's home-grown religious extremists.

As the threats continued to add up (in Pennsylvania, even against bookstores), the entire second printing was pulled from the shelves, over an approximately two week period, and sent back to the publisher.

This was the first time in the entire history of American publishing, that a book was pulled from distribution while it was still on the New York Times Best Seller List, and that a film was pulled from a network while it was still ranking in the Neilsons as the highest rated show that the network had aired in nearly two years.

And now, a fellow traveler with those who would intimidate publishers and networks, gloats indulgently and suggests in an Amazon posting that because the campaign of intimidation was successful, this must be proof that the thing was in fact bad. It's analogous to smashing a plate against a wall and blaming the plate.

There is a post-script, and a warning: In April 2007, Simcha Jakobovici, my co-author, was recipient of an Edward R. Murrow award - literally as his film and book were being pulled from distribution. He had been chosen months before all of this happened - and it does not get more chillingly ironic than this. In 1953, Sen. Joe McArthy had targeted Murrow for censorship and career destruction. Then, as now, America was involved in a war, overseas. Murrow had commented that in a time when our soldiers were being put at risk of life and limb - actually dying for the most basic human freedoms of people overseas - he believed we had better look a little more inward, and ask ourselves exactly what we were doing, here at home, in America. The times have not changed. Not one damned bit. Not since Edward Murrow. Not since the "ad hoc tribunals" against evolution. Not since Rushdie: Freedom of speech is life itself.

What began as a plea for "equal time," with regard to the March 4 broadcast of "The Lost Tomb of Jesus," should be a lesson to us all. What started out under the pretext of "equal time," once network executives relented, quickly escalated thorough to censorship and total control, and and the monster did not cease even after it had goose-stepped over everybody's rights, on its way to threats of death against children. And it is not too dramatic to say that if if an archaeological question cannot be scientifically probed and reported, then nothing is immune from censorship masquerading originally, and very poorly, as a plea for "only equal time." I do not doubt that what happened at Discovery Channel has been seen by other intimidators as a proving ground, of sorts; and it does not seem to me a mere coincidence that today we hear a call for a bill to be passed through Congress, aimed at muzzling conservatibe talk show hosts like Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity, by a law, requiring, "equal time."

Limbaugh and Hannity - who stood silently while a book and film that were instantly mislabeled "atheistic" and "Hollywood liberal rubbish," were censored almost out of existence - never took pause to suspect that they might be targeted next. They even cheered the censors, and remained utterly silent about the death threats against Simcha and James. Wiser men than I have said, "All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing." And while no conservative media pundit ever lifted a finger to protect a book they judged distasteful (evidently without ever reading it), the fact remains that, as a scientist/author who once fled to America to escape censorship in a foreign land (another crowning irony), I would go to the wall, if requisite, to fight against any attempt against those same media pundirs, to censor with a law disguised as "only" a call for "equal time."

One final note: I cannot thank Amazon and Barnes and Noble more, for having stood behind me and Simcha, and for making sure that both the book and the DVD are readily available. You've got a card-carrying customer for life.

- C.R.P.

PS: This would be a good time for readers to buy the incomparable DVD about Edward R. Murrow's battle against McCarthyism: "good night, and good luck."

[Charlie P.]

I should probably also add that Critic F was wrong on essentially every "fact" he presented about what happened to this book. It was broadcast on the Discovery Channel, not the History Channel. It was never reviewed by anyone at Harvard or NPR. Nor did it disappear from the Today Show or major media outlets by March 1 (even as it disappeared from bookstores - first in Pennsylvania, whence shipments began going back to the California warehouse with bullet holes in the unopened cartons of books).

The March 1 disappearance is a myth. Though "The Jesus Family Tomb" was already impossible to find in bookstores in Pennsylvania and in other parts of the country (except at Barnes and Noble bookstores), it was in its second of three weeks on the New York Times Best Seller list the weekend of March 16. I was on the Today Show Monday, March 19, and interviews continued internationally through April. However, a traveling, multi-city interview tour was scrapped by the publisher about the first week of March (interestingly, gloating Critic F seems to know this). Interviews became restricted to door-to-door pick-up and drop-off by "specialized" drivers, in a very limited number of cities.

One thing the media never did report was how one of Jerry Falwell's talking point lapdogs revealed more than a little bit of holocaust denial and "Hitler-didn't- kill-enough-of-them" sentiment in the Falwellian crusade. Falwell's aides, claimed that he was tired with an oxygen deprived brain at the time; but was brain malfunction his excuse in September 2001? For years before he died, Falwell spoke of so-called pagans (which he had accused me of being) and gays in the same language with which Hitler and Michael Hoffman II spoke of Jews.

It's perhaps appropriate that I've been nick-named "the Forrest Gump" of archaeology. When I think of how the late Reverend Falwell, up to the last moment of his life, had a history of embracing monsters, I am reminded of what Ma Pellegrino used to say: "Show me the company you keep; and I'll tell you what you are."

The press gave Falwell a pass because he died just before he was about to, finally, become a national disgrace. But history will have its say. Sooner or later, history always has its say.

- C.R.P.

History might also say: Never try to silence a man who writes his books long-hand, and who buys Pilot pens by the case.

One other odd note: Hoffman said that all of us involved in this project deserved to have our careers utterly destroyed and be boycotted out of existence, "so that they shall be allowed neither to buy or sell anything again." Falwell repeaterd this talking point. So did an acquaintence of his (screaming Catholic League man Bill Donahue), who off camera is far more lever-headed than he appears on television, and far, far more intelligent. The phrase about neither buying nor selling had an instantly familiar ring to it. Check it out in the Book of Revelation. They must have known whence that threat was supposed to come - and yet all three of them made the threat anyway. Some of these apocalypse types are really scary. In any case, do not miss the rebroadcast or the DVD if this past Easter's South Park episode about screaming man Donahue and Jesus - the best since the Mel Gibson "Passion of the Jew" episode.

As for the DVD of "The Lost Tomb of Jesus," do not purchase the Discovery Channel version. What they released was the version with almost an hour cut out. The full version - as it was actually prepared for release, in January of 2007 (before the demand for "equal time" overwhelmed Discovery Channel executives), is available, so far, only at Amazon.com, in Barnes and Noble, and Fye.

I should also add that presently the book is an international best seller even in China. Only in America can it be found almost nowhere in the bookstores.

[Charlie P.]

Voralfred: I am coming to the possibility that the cross was a symbol used by some Judeo-Christian sects and by Christian-like Gnostics before AD 70 - 79. The traditional objection to this is that the followers of Jesus would not have used a symbol of torture and humiliation for a Prophet who had been executed in this way. However, the actual findings of an unmistakable cross in Herculaneum, and evidence of widespread literacy, are convincing me that the Gospels were written in one form or another a lot earlier than even the Vatican believes, and that the ancestral Christians believed very early that their founding Prophet had somehow turned a symbol of humiliation into a symbol of triumph. They must have believed, from very near the beginning, that Jesus had triumphed over death. In hindsight - why else would those who knew Jesus be willing to die for a belief that he had appeared to them after the crucifixion and had somehow defeated the cross? And if they really believed this (whether there is a scientific explaination bound in mass hallucination or not), why should they not have adopted the cross as a symbol in their own lifetimes?

- - C.R.P.

[voralfred]

Voralfred: I am coming to the possibility that the cross was a symbol used by some Judeo-Christian sects and by Christian-like Gnostics before AD 70 - 79.
(...)
And if they really believed this (whether there is a scientific explaination bound in mass hallucination or not), why should they not have adopted the cross as a symbol in their own lifetimes?

- - C.R.P.

I am not saying this is impossible. I do not have any personal opinion on the time at which the cross started to be used as a christian symbol. I only try to pinpoint what your position is.
I understand you consider that the Herculanum find shows that the latin cross was used vey early, this is clear from what you claim. Again I am no discussing this claim, I just want to be sure you actually claim it.
Where I am not sure about your position is about the sideways cross: what is your present claim about the sign to the right of "Yeshua bar Yehoseph" at this point?
- a "tav", as I heard said in french in the version of the movie I saw?
- a sideways cross, as a pre-Templar christian symbol as you hinted a few posts above?
- or just a maker's mark as L. Y. Rahmani claims?

I still do not understand why the DNA testing you chose to begin with were not those who could give an immediate DISPROOF of your theory, and if going in the right direction, if not an absolute proof (because a woman and a man having the same mitochondrial DNA does not proves she is his mother rather than his maternal grandmother or aunt, or his sister, or his niece on his sister's side and so on) but a least a very strong argument:
so Yeshua bar Yehoseph compared to Maria
or Mariamenou compared to Yehuda bar Yeshua.

A negative result in either of these would destroy your theory.
A positive result would be a VERY STRONG argument, two positive results almost a perfect proof.

Now there is a third DNA that has been sequenced, that of James.
There is no point comparing it to Mariamenou's DNA, but only to compare it to Yeshua bar Yehoseph's one.
(assuming only mitochondrial DNA is usable in that case also).
This could settle your (internal) discussion with Simha Jacobovici, but has absolutely no incidence on the validity of the main thesis of your team, one way or another:
-if negative, it could vindicate your claim that James was Jesus half-brother but not the son of Mary, but that could just as well be explained by there being no relation whatsoever between the James ossuary and the Talpiot tomb, and of either with the family of Jesus (I distinguish Yeshua bar Yehoseph of the tomb from Jesus, since I am not taking sides, neither claiming you are wrong nor that you are right and provisionally keeping the two distinct).
- if positive, it would indicate that the James ossuary is indeed probably the "lost" ossuary of the Talpiot tomb. However, this would indicate that James bar Yehoseph and Yeshua bar Yehoseph have not only the same father but the same mother. That would be some argument in favor of they being indeed Jesus and his (full!) brother, but against the generally accepted reading of the Gospels, which you share. But it could equally be just any family where a father by the name of Joseph had two sons called Yeshua and James (Yaacov). Unless there is evidence that "Maria" has the same mitochondrial DNA, this is not a very strong evidence.

I am not very convinced by the statistics, to say the least: you are multiplying by the number of ossuaries that have been actually found but I do not see why. The probability of random occurence of these names should be multiplied by the total number of ossuaries expected to have been buried during that historical period, whether they were recovered or not! Instead of 1000, one should multiply by a number of the order of hundreds of thousands, the total number of people who died during a century or so in that general area. Because, assuming there were several families with the same combination of names all over the area, why should the recovered tomb be that of Jesus rather than any of the other ones? So one has to estimate the probablity of existence of such a family, irrespective of the fact that the tomb was actually found. The number of 1000 ossuaries that were actually found is totally irrelevant. The probability would be exactly the same if that tomb had been the only one ever recovered, or if one had found 100.000 or more ossuaries! If the expectation number of families where this combination of names should happen throughout the historical period is statistically X, the probability of it being Jesus family's tomb is 1/(1+X), and that of being a different family X/(1+X).
Unless you add the irrational element that, if a single tomb is found, it cannot be random, it had to be the "good" one - I do not discuss such a position, if you are a believer, of course if two families have the same names, then the preserved tomb should be that of Jesus, and the other family's tomb would be lost like hundreds of thousands of lost ossuaries. I do not discuss such an act of faith. It is highly respectable, and I will never discuss anybody's beliefs.

But one should call it as it is: an act of faith. This is not statistically correct, from a purely mathematical point of view. One has to multiply by the number of families who ever lived at that time, not the number of recovered ossuaries.

[voralfred]

For people who are not familiar with statistics, I will give a simple demonstration.
Imagine you have 10.000 marbles, 9.990 black and ten red. One of the red marbles contains a "treasure". However this treasure is small and light enough that you cannot tell it from the weight of the marble. Until you break it, you cannot tell it from any of the other nine red ones.

Now put all these marbles in a huge bag, mix well and pick some at random.
If you pick just one, the probability of one being red is just 1/1000.
If you pick 10, say, the proebability of all being black is (almost, not exactly but we can ginore the small difference) 99/100, and about 1/100 of one being red, plus a very small probability of having more than one red marbles.
If you pick 1000, then the probability of having one red becomes reasonably large (roughly, 40%, and another 20% of having more than one, and roughly 40% of all being black - those numbers are very rounded, not at all exact, just to give you a feeling)


So in the first case, having one red marble is a very rare event
In the second case still a rather unusual one
In the third case, it is a reasoanbly expected one.

But now the situation is the following: you have actually drawn a givne number of marbles, whether one, or ten or one thousand, and it turns out that you have exactly ONE red one.

What is hte probability of it being the "treasure" marble?
Exactly 1/10th, in all three cases.

Because there are 10 red balls indistinguishable until you break them, and thus having one of them the probability of it being the "treasure ball" is one tenth, in all three cases.

That one red marble came up when only a small number were picked is in itself a rare event, but we know this event happened. We do not have to compute the probability of this event occuring since it already occured. The only porbabilty to compute is, knowing we have one red marble, is it the treasure one or not.


This is the situation we have with the Talpiot tomb. Among all the hundreds of thousands of tombs, of the appropriate period, there might be several with the relevant names (1/600.000 multiplied by hundreds of thousands rather than 1/1000, maybe not a large final number, but more than 1 if no larger than about 10 or so - to which one must add the family of Jesus).
Finding one when only so few tombs were found altogether were found is surprising. Just as picking one red marble among only 10 ones taken out of my bag, in my example. But here it is, we have it.

Now what is the probability that this is Jesus' family tomb is between 1/2 and 1/11 or so, depending on your estimate of the number of tombs with the same names throughout that period in that area of one or ten in addition to the "treasure" one.
This number is totally independent on the number or excavated tombs, just like in my above example: whne we have exactly one red marble, whether it is the only one picked, one of ten or one of one thousand, until you break it you can only sya its probability of being the "treasure one" is 1/10.

Nowhere is were "irrational" enters.
Finding indeed one tomb with the right names is in itself unusual. Just like picking one red marble out of the bag of 10.000 ones with just 10 red, or even having one when you pick only 10.
So if you are already in such an unusual case, this seems significant. You would not have such an unusual situation "for nothing". There must be a reason and the reason is, it is not just any odd red ball but the "treasure one". Well, in the case of my example, this is definitely wrong. Any of the ten marbles could have come out by chance and there is absolutely no reason to think that this red ball is the "treasure one". This treasue could be just a ridiculous detail distinguishng one red marbe from the 9 others, and would not at all affect the outcome. First be sure to convince yourself of that.

Now in the case of the Talpiot tomb, we are not in a rational situation.
The event of finding this combination considering that only 1000 ossuaries were found, is about 1/600. This is the true meaning of the 1/600 probability computed in the movie/book: the probability of finding one such tomb. The analogue of picking one red marble out of the big bag, if only one (probability 1/1000) or just 10 (probability 1/100). But we know that this event, a priori of small probability, has already taken place.

If there are 1 or 10 more tombs with the right names, and it turns out that the unusual event (1/600 probability) that one is found (when only 1000 ossuaries were found out of the hundreds of thousands people who died at that time) and if you are a person of faith, then of course you will conclude that this cannot be the effect of randomness. One will nor find by pure luck the other, or one of the ten other, if one finds one, it has to be the right one. The small 1/600 probability of any tomb at all being found must be significant.

But this is an act of faith! Statistically speaking, even though we are in a situation of small probability 1/600, that such a tomb was found at all, this is already the present situation. Just as having drawn one red marble when drawing just 10 from the bag of my example.
Mathematically the probability of it being the right one is between 1/2 and 1/11 or so, depending on how many people were buried at the time, just like the red ball has exactly 1/10 probability to be the "treasure one".

I hope this explanation is clear enough.

[mccormack44]

I thought it very clear, thank you.

I also appreciated the distinction you made between faith and mathematics (probability).

Unfortunately, I am afraid that many people will feel affronted by that distinction. I HOPE none of them are here. Faith and probability are "apples and sweet potatoes" (MUCH more distinct than apples and oranges). They sit side by side and to not support OR attack each other. They do affect any person's conclusions.

I feel very strongly that a person should know what is affecting that person's conclusions and what the strengths and weaknesses are of that "what."

Thank you for a very clear explanation.

Sue

[Charlie P.]

Just a quick response - more later; but I have to fly: The DNA testing was performed (and is being performed) only on those samples that produce viable DNA, uncontaminated from the centers of bone fragments or (in the case of "Jesus, son of Joseph) from the centers of bio-concretions. Mariamne-Jesus was a vey opportune find because a match would have been an immediate disproof, meaning that the Talpiot tomb with its assemblage of names was a remarkable coincidence.

That they did not match would have indicated a possibility that the two could have been husband and wife - but it would only have left the possibility open without disproving it. Again, it failed to disprove. It did not prove anything. It was merely consistent with all of the other (still gathering) congruences.

The James DNA has little chance of actually proving anything. If there is a match, it will merely indicate that IF this is indeed the Jesus Family Tomb, then the apocryphal scriptures are wrong and the more physically linked blood brother relationship suggestie by the mention that they are brothers (with no further elaboration) in the canonical gospels, would be more correct. This would suggest, then (though it would not prove), that the canonical gospels contain more historical accuracy than the apocryphal scriptures related to James.

What's canonical and what's not is still being debated. As recently as AD 1611, the Book of Machabees was removed from the Christian Bible and declared apocryphal. (The Catholoc Church has declared it canonical - so you will still find it now, as the last book of the Old Testament, in the Vatican approved editions).

As for the ossuaries and statistics: I went along with conservative calculations based on a Jerusalem population of 25,000 people - and on upward of 100,000 people throughout the ossuary culture period.

If we are to base the math on actual ossuaries, the numbers will be much less conservative, and much more favorable toward the JFT hypothesis (I always chose the more conservative path - the road more damaging to the JFT hypothesis - just to see if it could stand up to the punishment). About 3,000 ossuaries are recorded, and only a small fraction of these (fewer than 10%) are from family tombs. Jesuit scholars believe that there was indeed a family tomb - in accordance with the prophecies of Isaiah 53 (which Jesus said he was to fulfill) in which "the pierced messiah" of Jerusalem, would be buried by a rich man.

The ossuary culture was, itself, a minority of the Jerusalem population - and in particular, some of the clearly "not mason's marks" symbols on ossuaries (including chevrons and cross marks with no matching mason's marks on lids), have been interpreted since the time of Sukenik (discoverer of the Dead Sea Scrolls) as early Judeo-Christian symbols.

One of our clearest descriptions of an ossuary tomb comes, in fact, from the Gospels.

All told, though more than 100,000 people must have been buried in the Jerusalem hills during the century of the ossuary culture, barely more than 3000 ossuaries have been found; and probably not much more than twice that number remain to be unearthed. So, given the likelihood that a Jesus family tomb must have existed; and given the probability curve against two tombs bearing this assemblage of names (and other congruences), what are the chances that the Jesus Family Tomb actually has been found?

To as near as anyone can get to a statistical certainty, a second provananced tomb with this same assemblage of names (and I'm not even talking about crosses and stars) will never be found.

- - C.R.P.

[Charlie P.]

Note that on this date, it has been brought to my attention that Amazon has removed, from its site, the above response to "Critic F," dated 22 June, 2007 - along with all sixty reviews and related discussions. This appears to be unique to mine and Simcha's book, and unique in Amazon history.

Under the category of unique along Publisher's Row, in America: Outside of the incomparably supportive Barnes and Noble chain, "The Jesus Family Tomb" can scarcely be found at all - having been removed from Dwaine Reade chains and from airpoirt bookstores during its third week on the NYT Best Sellers list (under threat of massive boycott). Currently the book and film are highly-rated best sellers overseas, in multiple languages: including France, China, Japan, South Korea, and India. Only in America, has it been hidden practically out of existence.

Meanwhile, some Jesuit Vatican-types think this is the most exciting discovery of all time. One has said he always knew that this tomb would be found, and that the sign would be the three skulls and the chevron-circle. (Templars. Why did it have to be Templars?)

Another has said that the prophecy of Isaiah 53 was incomplete when Jesus was buried, and that it would not be completed until his earthly remains ("robe, shroud, DNA and ossuary patina") ended up in a place of murderers and other criminals. I was talking about this with Uncle Dondi and of course the kids were around, and then they brought up the question: "Daddy, where is Jesus' shroud, now?"

"Most of it is still being kept safely in the New York crime lab," I replied.

"So, now he really is with criminals - they solve murders and rapes there, don't they?"

Ashley (age 12) just loved rubbing it in, today - telling me that I had brought about the final piece of the Isaiah 53 prophecy, and guaranteed the "End of Days." (Well, if one believes in that sort of thing... I do hope Jesus had an Irishman's sense of humour.)

Kyle (age 10), has said, "Daddy? Can you go back to the Titanic, now? I think we're getting a little Jesus-ed out, in this family."

Maybe so. Ashley was telling me that she mentioned to her guidance councellor that her father had found Jesus. The councellor said, "That's strange. I just spoke with him last week and he doesn't seem to me like someone who has become really religious recently."

Ashley said, "No. You don't undastand..."

Am I ready to go back to Titanic?

Curse, yes.

See Y'all later,
- - Charlie P.

[voralfred]

"Daddy, where is Jesus' shroud, now?"

"Most of it is still being kept safely in the New York crime lab," I replied.

I'm a little fuzzy, here.

I was under the impression from reading what is on this site and elsewhere on the web, that Dr. Pellegrino considers the Turin Shroud as authentic. But it is not in New York, it is in the Cathedral of Saint John the Baptist in Turin, Italy. Only a few shreds of cloth were found in the Jesus Talpiot tomb, or did I misunderstand? Are these shreds in the New York crime lab now? It still would not be "most of" Jesus' shroud, or anyway, most of what remains today, if the Turin Shroud is authentic. Or is Dr. Pellegrino's opinion that what was found in the tomb is all that is left? Why would he be interested in comparison with DNA on the Turin shroud, in that case?
viewtopic.php?p=1814633#1814633

I'd be happy to have a clearer presentation of exactly what is the position of Dr. Pellegrino on the Turin Shroud, either directly from him, or since he is very busy, from someone who read the book and could explain the exact link between the shreds of cloth that were found in the Talpiot Jesus tomb and the Turin Shroud.
What exactly is in the New York crime lab?

[Charlie P.]

The Turin fibers (though there are samples here in the United States) are not the ones I was referencing, in the letter above. The fibers I am working on are being recovered from bio-concretions in the bottom of the Jesus ossuary. These are of two cloth types - the very simple material described in the book; and a second cloth that has turned out to be consistent with the Shroud of Turin. I stress that this is only consistent - which is a far cry from the constellation of congruences that would be required to turn what may be possible to something that is probable. I approach this possibility with many salty, relativistic grains of doubt.

Before this second cloth discovery was made in the bio-concretions, Jesuit scholars noticed that a chemical (mineral-like) patina that had been scanned with electron microprobe equipment about ten years ago, was consistent with the tomb patina. The problem (insofar as they were concerned) was that the fibers reported from the Jesus ossuary were inconsistent with the Jesus shroud - - but then, we had that second cloth (unknown, at the time, to Jesuits), which was in every way consistent... except for one important point. I can sum that point up in two words: carbon fourteen.

Several explainations have been given to me (including one from a fiber expert who worked on the Turin material) as to why the samples from the "Shroud of Turin" dated from Medieval times. Again, I am highly, highly skeptical. Carbon 14 tests and DNA tests will be required, before I become a believer that the Shroud of Turin was taken from our tomb, by the terra rossa intruders (approximately 900 years ago, give or take).

Another mystery (and I invite anyone to try getting a straight answer from Amazon management): During the past month, the reviews of the book have been coming in from scientists and university-types - far outnumbering the continually protesting fanatics (who have lately accused supporters of the book of "abusing" them [albeit with cold logic and facts, and not with name-calling] - - and even of being me, Jim Cameron, and members of this discussion group pretending to be other people, including pretending to be me. During this past month, the eight loud protesters against the book ended up being out-numbered and out weighed by 52 positive reviews; and the star rating climbed gradually from three to four.

In celebration of Independence Day, it seems, Amazon.com has removed all sixty reviews. The book now has no stars; and all you will find is a statement that the book has not been reviewed, followed by an invitation to be the first one to review it.

This event is without precedant, in Amazon history.

Until this week, Amazon and Barnes and Noble were among the last two outlets still actively defending the sale of and making available for distribution, "The Jesus Family Tomb." I fear that if the trend continues, you will have to travel to France or China to purchase a copy. I hear it has been pulled from many libraries.

C.R.P.

[mccormack44]

Charlie P. wrote:

I hear it has been pulled from many libraries.

I am happy to report that I am nearly finished reading this book, which I got from our local library system. There was a delay in my getting it—a glitch in the computer system—but when I stopped at the reader's service desk and asked, they looked into the situation and the book was delivered to me from the distant branch within 24 hours.

Sue

[Darb]

In celebration of Independence Day, it seems, Amazon.com has removed all sixty reviews. The book now has no stars; and all you will find is a statement that the book has not been reviewed, followed by an invitation to be the first one to review it.

That's terrible !

Clearly, one of the staffers at amazon must have abused their data editing powers in order to play at personal censorship. We have a strict policy against that sort of thing here on our site.

I'd like to encourage people who find such things unacceptible to write to amazon to complain, ask them to look into the editing history of the staffer responsible (to see if a reprimand is applicable), and (if possible) restore all the most recent pro & con reviews from backup.

[Charlie P.]

We're still trying to learn what happened at Amazon, and how. The June 22 letter from me seems to have been the final straw, for someone, insofar as goes judging the mountain of complaints calling me "abusive," added to accusations that James Cameron and Simcha and I are posting letters under such names as "Mr. Titanic." As I pointed out in one of my allegedly "abusive" replies, Amazon could run a check-out and discover exactly who Mr. Titanic really is (he's not me, and he's not James Cameron; but exactly who he says he is). I had added the observation that if anyone really believed Jim and Simcha and I were spending our days pretending to be other people, it would be a wonder that we ever had time to write books, work in the lab, or make films.

And yet, somehow, it seems, only eight one-star screamers were able to strike every discussion in which I had participated, and to silence 52 other reviewers. Yet another example of a growing trend in which the screams of the few outweigh the basic freedoms of the many.

(For a better example of the agendas of some pretty bad people in small numbers ruling over the many, observe how every September, in New York, 300 black-shirts are given licence by the city to gather at the entrance to Ground Zero and shout their mind rot about George Bush "engineering 9-11" and even to go so far as to yell, "Get a life!" at 9-11 family members - complete with the occasional in-your-face Nazi salute [with camcorders rolling on the family members since 2005, for black-shirt lawyers just in case some presumably "paid-off with millions of dollars" 9-11 family member should do what Buzz Aldrin finally [and rightfully] did to a "moon landing hoax" stalker. A result of this, is that thousands of 9-11 family members no longer go to the Ground Zero gravesite on the anniversary - but instead gather at other locations throughout the city, where the FDNY, NYPD, and PAPD [God, if you're there, bless them], now provide lunch and private masses. Interestingly, for two years now, all that the press has reported is how fewer 9-11 family members show up at the crater - and last year, one broadcaster raised the opinion that most of us must be "getting over it," and the rest are simply disgusted with events in Iraq.)

In any case, Brad's site is presently the only location where you can read the discussions. As any reasonable observer will note, all of my discussions with Amazon readers and reviewers have been based on piles of verifyable facts. The June 22 gloater who was very happy about the results of a national campaign against the book, had no response to the facts presented in my reply, reproduced above. None at all. A little more than a week later, my reply disappeared, along with everything else.

As of this morning, seven of the reviews (all dated from February 27) appear to have been replaced - but any discussions in which I have participated remain somewhere in the Phantom Zone of the cyber vapors.

As microbiologist Roy Cullimore observed this morning, "Knowledge is being subverted by belief - which is a very serious malady for which there is no cure."

Those who can, do. Those who can't, censor them.

- - C.R.P.

[Darb]

Charlie,

Please feel perfectly comfortable using our site to maintain a back-up copy of noteworthy offsite posts and rebuttal ... that way, they can be used for re-posting to the off-site places whenever they disappear.

[Charlie P.]

Dear Brad: Thanks. Some of the most interesting ones are already here, thankfully - due to the efforts of you and Mr. Titanic. Soon I have to post some new data and get around to pointing a more prominent link to this site from my website. Getting around to that is high on a very busy list of things to do (build giant robot... Bring home two gallons of milk, a gallon of honey, two spools of duct tape, four cats and a horse... attend Vasmir engine test [primitive]... crash space shuttle simulator... culture the organism that ate the Titanic... turn President Bush into a zombie [nevermind - already done some of those]...) Seriously - my schedule is a little nuts, lately. Hiroshima is where I'm being sent for a little relaxation - to take a break from the Talpiot Tomb and to catch some rays, before Jim C. calls again and asks, "Are you ready to go back to Titanic?"

(Answer: "Let me think about that YES.")

As for the rest - and as I've said so often these past couple of years (about the Talpiot Tomb, Ladder 4, etc.): history, like time itself, will have its say. It always does. I might add that science will have its say, also.

C.R.P.

[Darb]

My checklist for tomorrow isn't quite as interesting as yours, but certainly not the usual "honey do" list:

Supplementals for 115th annual BBQ/Pool party on 7/15:
* Is La Caja China roaster avail ? If so, do 30-50 lb pig (split backbone). Alt: smoke cola-brined pork shoulders. Remember to crow about delicious "koshered pork" to any jewish friends present, and snap some 'food porn' for The Tap Room sub-fora.
* If no box roaster or smoker, do grilled tandoori chicken ... but ask local fishmonger to save some salmon belly trimmings, salmon flipper joints, and salmon skins for grilled fish cracklings (scaled, 1/8" meat left on) and perhaps get a grouper head (for braising in sake).
* Ask Charlie & his young velociraptors if interested/available to attend pool party & eat some roasted (or braised) head. Brains are the ultimate brain food !

[haelwen1]

Thank you for this forum. I found it sometime ago through Dr. Pellegrino's webpage.

I was initially distressed when I realized I had purchased the book and DVD from Discovery Channel, who had heavily edited the material. Next I find Amazon, which I assume carried "unedited-by Discovery Channel" book and DVD, begins to edit the comments!

However, I did notice they are offering for pre-order for 3/9/08, a new paperback book entitled "Jesus Family Tomb: The Evidence Behind the Discovery No One Wanted to Find." I assume this is a new publication that C.R.P. is writing with Pilot Pens. I will patiently wait and watch this forum and let Dr. Pellegrino advise me which edition and where to buy that book ---when the time comes.

Thanks, Haelwen