Book Discussion: "The Jesus Family Tomb"

[Charlie P.]

Many, many developments continue, as technology expands. Patina fingerprinting and oxygen isotope evidence have all but ended the Golan case, indicating very strongly that the much-disputed James ossuary came from the Talpiot Tomb excavation and was indeed the stolen tenth ossuary (whose measurements are exactly consistent with the pre-breakage measurements of the James ossuary).

Despite the evidence, the standard for including the James ossuary in the Talpiot Tomb statistical sample is rather higher than the standard of the courts - and when the inclusion of such results leads to a spectacular conclusion (one chance in several billion that this is not the Holy Family Tomb), I must act on the shadow of doubt cast by an object that spent some part of its history in the antiquities market and exclude it from the assemblage.

I have told Golan that I hope he has learned a lesson from the damage done in this instance, by the antiquities trade, and from his response, I am encouraged that he will inevitably will come to an epiphany. (By the way, when exactly does hell freeze over, presuming hell has mass and experiences time)?

The patina evidence on the Turin Shroud is fascinatingly consistent, as is the pollin evidence - and especially the trace fiber evidence in the Jesus ossuary. As I have previously reported, we do have a new carbon 14 date on a single 1cm fiber sampled away from the rewoven Princess-Clothide-sample corner of the Turin shroud allowed to be tested under Cardinal Pellegrino. It brackets the first century AD. We no longer need 1cm square cuts - so ten more fibers randomly sampled from the shroud, if they yield the same result, will really have my attention.

Unfortunately, while there is great (yet cautiously repressed) enthusiasm from Jesuit scholars (who immediately recognized the symbol on the tomb), Cardinal Pellegrino's protege` is very concerned that if the Shroud (I'm talking about the shroud and the blood evidence, not the image - which I still believe may be a later artistic enhancement of unknown methodology) - IF it should be authenticated as being real and/or coming from the Talpiot Tomb, that the tomb and the shroud may come to be venerated more than Christianity's founding prophet.

The logic of this escapes me. The tombs under the Church of the Holy Sepulchre are already a venerated site (which according to the Discourse of St. John would mark the place of the resurrection - a temporary location for family burial before, according to Disc. J., Maria upon her death was taken with Matthew and Didymos Judas Thomas to a new family tomb in the Jerusalem Hills, toward Bethlehem [Note that Talpiot overlooks the Temple Mount and is located between Jerusalem and Bethlehem]).

So, oddly, further tests now come down to Cardinal Pellegrino's camp vs Charlie Pellegrino, the scientists, and the Jesuits' camp - in terms of whether further tests will be conducted on Turin fibers.

About the Jesuits: They have told me that Simcha Jacobovici's translation of the chevron-orb symbol in the antechamber was spot-on: "The promise that the temple would be built in three days, by Jesus." This symbol was carried by French (and Portuguese) Jesuits (a descendant group of the Templars, not the masons) - to Quebec and to Nagasaki Japan, as a glyph meaning literally, "Jesus savior of man." The "lost symbol" I had reconstructed under the orb - a small orb within a closed triangle (damaged by dynamite) - meant, to the Jesuits, that the promise had been fulfilled through Jesus' body, and that the temple had been rebuilt through Jesus' body during the three days in the tomb ending in the resurrection. To the Jesuits, the two symbols in this only tomb in the region with antechamber symbols, translates as "Jesus savior of man - the resurrection has been fulfilled." The trace fiber evidence - all of it - was preserved in the Jesus ossuary (and in this one alone, of all known ossuaries) without any trace of black mold, in situ, and in the absence of a primary burial. The one firm conclusion I have made is that this ossuary lacked a human skeleton (save for a single small, hemispherical bone fragment consistent with a metacarpal) and that only two shrouds of unusual composition were all that was ever placed inside the Jesus ossuary. To the Jesuits, the two symbols (plus the ossuary) mean, "This is the place of Jesus savior of man; the proof of the resurrection is here."

For my own part, I am more a doubter than ever before - as close as one can be to being atheist and still call himself agnostic. (I suspect the whole thing got started by a single anonymous body thief.) Farther Mervyn Fernando (whose mind is up there with Arthur C. Clarke and Stephen Hawking) says my even more intense agnostism causes him no dispair. He is convinced that the Gospel of John's "Twin, the beloved disciple of Jesus" was found in this tomb - and that, "Who you found was Doubting Thomas, the patron saint of the sciences."

More discoveries continue to be made. Watch Jerusalem Symposium Proceedings. And watch this space.

See you later,
- - Charlie P.

[JW Nugent]

[size=18][/size][color=indigo][/color]Recently went through a book discussing the same discoveries, but using passages from the bible and other recent translations to analyze and differentiate between individual accounts. I found it interesting (and oddly echoing my own instincts) that Paul diverged from the path followed by the original twelve (minus Judas) and created a theoretical vision which gained strength among Eastern Christians and became the focus of dogma. When one considers how much information has been lost due to the destruction by mankind I have to wonder what our world would be if a larger fraction of ancient texts had survived. The systematic destruction of documentation, family histories, and personal accounts occurring in early Christianity as a process of suppressing dissenting views and liquidating factual information dangerous to the myths serving as a foundation for power in itself is telling. Hopefully more evidence will be tripped over and come to light. I wonder what information is hidden (never destroyed) in secure archives to maintain the mythology perpetrated in place of the truth.

[Charlie P.]

After a grueling schedule that included working as a science advisor on "Avatar" (A main reason I dropped off everyone's radar screens for several months), I've returned to forensic archaeology - and have also gotten enough past my aversion to flying to resume the lecture series I had stopped after 9/11. I'm also returning to forensic archaeology RE the first century AD. I have recently been asked to join "as devil's advocate" (that is, as scientific doubter), the Turin Shroud research team, working on the blood fibers = a position I am accepting. Mitochondrial DNA has been identified, and I am now working out the probabilities of any two of the hundreds of people who have touched or breathed upon the Turin Shroud having the same three highly mutable genetic markers. As usual, I am being quite annoying. I will say, however, that the combined probability of the Turin Shroud being one of the two missing, pristine shrouds removed from the "Jesus son of Joseph" ossuary about the time Saladin invaded Jerusalem seems likely to approach my current maximum ceiling of 50%. - - Charlie P.

[Anastasia]

Interesting! Go get 'em Charlie!!

[qraal]

After a grueling schedule that included working as a science advisor on "Avatar" (A main reason I dropped off everyone's radar screens for several months), I've returned to forensic archaeology - and have also gotten enough past my aversion to flying to resume the lecture series I had stopped after 9/11. I'm also returning to forensic archaeology RE the first century AD. I have recently been asked to join "as devil's advocate" (that is, as scientific doubter), the Turin Shroud research team, working on the blood fibers = a position I am accepting. Mitochondrial DNA has been identified, and I am now working out the probabilities of any two of the hundreds of people who have touched or breathed upon the Turin Shroud having the same three highly mutable genetic markers. As usual, I am being quite annoying. I will say, however, that the combined probability of the Turin Shroud being one of the two missing, pristine shrouds removed from the "Jesus son of Joseph" ossuary about the time Saladin invaded Jerusalem seems likely to approach my current maximum ceiling of 50%. - - Charlie P.

The sceptical farago that's assaulting the Shroud currently - that Italian scientist's over-hyped "reconstruction" (that Barrie Schwortz has pointedly counter-attacked on Shroud.com) and the piece of linen from "The Tomb of the Shroud", courtesy of James Tabor's efforts, but misrepresented badly by the media - I kind of feel ashamed to wear the "skeptical hat" and try to be objective. Scientific objectivity, or even basic fairness of representation of one's opponent's position, has been thrown out the window by the anti-Shroudies. They're desparate to trash the Shroud publicly before its next viewing in the new year, stridently so, which only hardens opposition to their point-of-view in the vacillatingly religious (like me). So much for science... ideology has a stranglehold on methodological scepticism. A sad state of affairs.

[Charlie P.]

Yes. It's very strange to me that the very evidence from the Tomb of the Shroud that is consistent with the evidence from the Talpiot Tomb's ossuaries (the trace fiber evidence) and which favors the possibility of the Shroud's authenticity, is twisted (a little enthusiastically and not quite logically) into a negative indicator. But Turin Shroud believers, be warned; my role is to approach it with doubt, with each test intended to explain it away. What's fascinating is a continual series of failures to explain it all away. I expected that my work with the Talpiot Tomb and with this whole thing would be ended in about two days of explaining it all away, and that I would be able to go home - way back in 2005. - - Charlie P.

[voralfred]

(...) Mitochondrial DNA has been identified, and I am now working out the probabilities of any two of the hundreds of people who have touched or breathed upon the Turin Shroud having the same three highly mutable genetic markers.(...). - - Charlie P.

Would you mind explaining what the issue of three highly mutable genetic markers is, exactly, with respect to the authenticity of the Turin shroud? This sounds a bit cryptic...

Also, what are your reactions to the finding of a much simpler weave in the shroud found in a tomb of about the same period, see for instance
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/20 ... 103558.htm

[Charlie P.]

The DNA we seek in the mitochondria are those segments that pick up the highest degree of variation as populations of people diverge and differentiate. Some markers, especially those involving crucial biochemical stages do not undergo a survivable change and will look the same in everyone. From the talpiot Tomb's Jesus ossuary, we have three very variable markers - or, rather, segments of them - and they are relatively short sequences. If 800 people touched the Turin Shroud during the past 800 years, contaminating it with their own DNA, then a preliminary estimate suggests about a 25% chance that someone from the Turin Shroud's population od possible contaminants would have markers consistent with the mtDNA from the Jesus ossuary. A "match," therefore, would not be particularly impressive to me. Certainly not a slam dunk. Taken together with a (so far) uniquely consistent patina fingerprint, and with other consistent evidence, it certainly has my curiosity. A carbon-14 date on a single 1cm-long fiber from the center of the Turin shroud - which brackets the 1st century AD - also has my curiosity (the corner Cardinal Pellegrino allowed to be cut, all thoose years ago, was a scientific botch). Now, if ten more random fibers from the body of the shroud all bracket the 1st century AD, then they'll really have my attention.

Like the Tomb of the Shroud (Gibson's), trace fibers in ossuaries from the talpiot Tomb also included wool (which was a a surprse). In both the Jesus and Mariamene ossuaries, we found a very cheap burlap-like material, and traces of a second fabric of flax-based linen evidently woven on a loom contaminated with cotton. This was trace evidence, as the Jesus ossuary shrouds (the burlap and flax-cotton) were removed after the Talpiot Tomb's apatite phase of patina production (the trace fibers are embedded in the terra rossa phase, after approximately AD 1000-1100). The Mariamene fibers are deeply penetrated by the process of decay and primary burial. Most interestingly, the Jesus ossuary fibers are not. They are pristine, suggesting that the shrouds were placed in the ossuary without a process of primary burial ever having taken place. Though this is consistent with what people of faith say we should have found, to me, the Razor points toward a body thief. A miracle was believed, and just as happened in recent times, in my family and in other 9/11 families, people under extreme stress thought they saw apparitions of friends and loved-ones. The two shrouds, then thought, naturally, to be sacred, were were placed in the Jesus ossuary; and when people entered the tomb over a thousand years later (about the time of the first crusade), they eventually removed, from an ossuary inscribed "Jesus son of Joseph," with a cross mark and a star, both shrouds.

Note also that the herringbone weave on the Turin Shroud is not contradicted by the Tomb of the Shroud (Gibson). Herringbone weave fibers of flax-based linen cloth have been found at Masada, dating from the first century AD.
What we are learning is that there was some variability of shroud composition, even in a single tomb (Talpiot being an example of this)

See you later,
- - Charlie P.

[voralfred]

(...) Mitochondrial DNA has been identified, and I am now working out the probabilities of any two of the hundreds of people who have touched or breathed upon the Turin Shroud having the same three highly mutable genetic markers.(...). - - Charlie P.

Let me see if I get this straight. You found mtDNA in the Talpiot "Yeshua bar Yehoseph" ossuary, three different markers.
The same markers were found on the Turin shroud. Can you tell whether the three markers came from one single individual, or might they come from three different individuals? The probabilities would be very different, I'd say.
What I still do not understand is why you mention

any two of the hundreds of people who have touched or breathed upon the Turin Shroud

I cannot understand this at all. What I would understand is if it was phrased as

any one of the hundreds of people who have touched or breathed upon the Turin Shroud having the same three highly mutable genetic markers as the person's whose {blood traces/sliver of bone} was found in the Talpiot "Yeshua bar Yehoseph" ossuary

What did I get wrong?

[Charlie P.]

Let me clarify (for in this case, anything unclear is my fault): From the Jesus ossuary - from a single bone consistent with a metacarpal from the wrist - we have three genetic markers, mitochondrial DNA. There are markers from blood fibers on the Turin Shroud, but more work has to be done to find whether or not we have specific genetic markers lining up with the mtDNA markers from the Jesus ossuary. The problem is that even if they do, we only have those three markers and there are enough people who have touched the Turin Shroud (and kissed it) over the centuries that I would never (mathematically) use the word "match" with regard to the mtDNA - even if we do get what most people would call a "match." At best, I would say the Turin blood fiber-"Jesus" metacarpal mtDNA is "consistent." Taken together with a patina fingerprint that is also consistent (uniquely consistent) and that even provides dating information (suggestive of two shrouds of pristine fibers being removed from the Jesus ossuary roughly 70 - 100 years after the first crusade and the initial break-in to the Talpiot Tomb), and taken together with other tests that have failed to explain away the Talpiot Tomb, I would say the whole thing definitely sustains my curiosity. If a bone attributed to Mary Magdalene should have the same patina fingerprint with approximately the same time-line of terra rossa phase chemistry layered over about a thousand years of apatite phase patina, and if mtDNA from that bone should also be consistent with the Talpiot Tomb's (Mariamene - Mara [master of the congregation]) DNA, then they'll really have my attention. We already have a report of a single 1cm fiber from the center of the Turin Shroud bracketing the 1st century AD (to a level of 300 years either way, given the small sample). Ten more 1cm fibers randomly collected from the inner (not-rewoven during the past 400 years - - as was that 1980s "expendable" princess Clothide corner), with the chain of custody of the evidence maintained all the way to the accelerator, if they should all bracket the first century AD - taken together with all of the above congruences (including also Amnon Rosenfeld's pollen analysis RE Turin fibers) - THAT, will really grab my attention. At that point, I would give the maximum ceiling of the Turin Shroud being one of the two masses of fiber removed from the Jesus ossuary at about the time Saladin invaded jerusalem of about 90%. Note also that the trace fiber evidence in the jesus ossuary is also uniquely consistent with the Turin Shroud. As to whether the Turin man's image is a medieval artistic enhancement - at this point i really don't know. But as i so often say, "I don't know" is the best place for science to begin. - - Charlie P.

[voralfred]

I understand that you have some mtDNA from the Mariamne-Mara Talpiot ossuary, and the fact that is was incompatible with the Yeshua bar Yehoseph ossuary was considered a plus, since the fact that there were not blood-related but still in the same tomb suggested the relation was probably by marriage. But did you find any usable mtDNA from the Maria ossuary? That one should be compatible with the Yeshua bar Yehoseph one.
Just for my curiosity, the three markers on the Turin shroud, do they come from a single individual, or could they each come from a different contaminator? That would considerably change the probabilities. Though your post above is even less clear than the previous one. Did you actually find those three markers from the Yeshua bar Yehoseph ossuary on the Turin shroud? Your last post suggest this is still unclear:

(...)There are markers from blood fibers on the Turin Shroud, but more work has to be done to find whether or not we have specific genetic markers lining up with the mtDNA markers from the Jesus ossuary.

But unless you have actually found them, what is the point of calculating the probability of this occuring by pure chance, by an estimate of the number of people kissing it over the centuries? From your earlier post I understood you had actually found them, but that the degree of evidence that this match provided was unclear because of the large number of possible contaminators.

(...) Mitochondrial DNA has been identified, and I am now working out the probabilities of any two of the hundreds of people who have touched or breathed upon the Turin Shroud having the same three highly mutable genetic markers.(...). - - Charlie P.

And I stll don't see quite the point of the way your formulated this quote "two of the hundreds..." Why two?

[Charlie P.]

There were no traces of DNA or anything else in the "Maria" ossuary, except for some trace fiber evidence. The sources of markers on the Turin Shroud blood fibers is yet to be determined. I need more data and cannot make a determination at this point, where the probabilities are pointing. I'll keep you updated. DNA matches alone will not be a slam dunk even if confirmed, owing to a paucity of markers from the Jesus Ossuary metacarpal. I would at best be able to say the markers are consistent. However, taken together with trace fiber evidence, patina evidence, and other indicators that, one after anoother are consistent, the entire constellation of indicators continues to become utterly fascinating.

More shall be reported. New samples are now on their way to me.

- - Charlie P.

[Charlie P.]

When Jim Cameron and I met with double atomic bomb survivor Tsutomu Yamaguchi on December 22, 2009, he told us about the path that lay ahead of us - warning that it would be a long an hard path, if we were to take up his torch, "and become the flame." Mr. Yamaguchi turned to me and spoke about "Maria" and going back to her. Some of what he said was quite unbelievable. I had to get a transcript to be sure I had heard what I thought I had heard (indeed I did). In the car, as we left the Nagasaki hospital, Jim said that he hadn't intended to tell me quite yet, but that it seemed I would be going back to Jerusalem, to stand again before the strange tomb that bore the ossuary, inscribed in Aramaic with the Latinized name, "Maria."

Two weeks ago, Simcha (who despite all the controversy that surrounds him, and despite all the mud-slingers, still keeps a place in that top 20 list of the most brilliant minds I have ever known) - visited me in New York. He reported to me that two independent labs had now reproduced for him, my results - confirming the nematode anomaly, the phosphorus anomaly, and the trace fiber anomalies in the ossuary inscribed in Aramaic with the words, "Jesus son of Joseph," with a cross mark attached to the name, Jesus, and with a star on the ossuary lid. Simcha, who three years ago (with a Discovery Channel producer) said I must really be a Christian hiding in an agnostic's clothing to say the evidence indicated a missing skeleton - said now that I was right about the "body thief." (See Occam's Razor.) The conclusion is substantiated: None of the fibers inside the mineral matrix at the bottom of the Jesus ossuary were ever in contact with a primary burial. A skeleton was never placed in the ossuary. The only things that appear to have been placed in the ossuary were two shrouds of unusual composition (one a burlap-like material, the other flax based linen woven on a loom with a high degree of cotton contamination [consistent with the Turin Shroud but not with fina wool burial shrouds in other ossuaries and in ntabor-Gibson's Tomb of the Shroud]) - and the apparently pristine shrouds appear to have been removed from the ossuary after the beginning of the terra rossa phase of the tomb's patina record - roughly about AD 1100 - 1200. The only bone found inside the ossuary, evidently wrapped or folded in with the shrouds, was consistent with a single metacarpal. No other biological or chemical traces of larger amounts of bone were present. Nor do I understand why if the shrouds were considered and were removed (about the time the Christians fled Jerusalem before saladin's army, taking what was sacred), the metacarpal would have been left behind. Was it considered sinful to remove from its resting place. Who knows. New York's former medical examiner, Zugibe, discovered that during crucifixion he would expect several metacarpals to pop out of the wrists, like wisdom teeth. (He's actually demonstrated this on cadavers, and compared the results with the image of the Turin man.) He noted that the metacarpal was the only bone he could think of finding in a burial cloth-bearing ossuary, consistent with crucifixion as a cause of death.

Simcha said, "Charlie! We have to go baaaaaack!"

I replied, "Do I look like Kate to you?"

I guess he's never seen an episode of "Lost." He didn't get the joke.

Soon, I suspect, the little joke won't seem quite so funny anymore.


- - Charlie P.

[qraal]

Freaky Charlie, truly freaky.

[CitoyenMundi]

Bonjour, désolé d'écrire en français, mais comme moi , vous devez pouvoir traduire.
Outre le" Suaire de Turin", il y a aussi la " Tunique d'Argenteuil", et le"Soudarion d'Oviedo"qui sont des linges de la "Passion" , et desquels ont été tirés des analyses ADN, voir le livre: "Le Linceul de Turin et la Tunique d'Argenteuil", Presses de la Cité, d'André MARION et Gérard LUCOTTE.(2006).
Y-a-t-il en cours, des examens croisés d'ADN, provenant de ces tissus (outre le linceul de Turin), avec ceux des ossuaires IAA 80/500 et 80/5003, et si oui, qu'apportent-ils actuellement?
Amicalement