Book Discussion: "The Jesus Family Tomb"

[ufojoe]

http://www.examiner.com/a-653922~Jesus_ ... stion.html

Fairly balanced article on the Tomb. But several mistakes on the basic facts.
How do these guys get jobs as writers?

[Charlie P.]

Many, many mistakes on the basic facts. The press deliberately inflamed Christians around the world with the false claim that we have the bones of Jesus, and have essentially claimed, "Bones of Jesus found, Easter cancelled."

Here again, on April 3rd, despite the book's mention of only accretion beds and "biological residue," including fibers consistent with shroud material, and despite weeks of my clarifying the fact (from here to the Today Show)that not only do we have no bones from the Jesus ossuary - but in fact the biological signatures of both bones and decay products (the J* mold stem and nematode anomalies) are completely absent from this ossuary - - despite the fact that I have gone on record saying that the expanding accretion bed evidence is indicating nothing except a DNA smeared shroud (apparently from globin proteins and their associated cells [blood]), was ever placed in the Jesus ossuary, we still have people who have not read the book quoting the already more-than-a-month-old talking points of predecessors who had not read the book.

While we are continually accused of trying to "disgrace Jesus" and to deny him with bones, and to upset Christians unecessarily during the season of Lent - it would seem (at least to a simple mind such as mine) that these constant crisis-criers are doing exactly what they (falsely) accuse us of having done.

See y'all later,
- - Charlie P.

[mayavision2012]

Dear Charles,

When you say "J* mold stem", is this about mold or about mtDNA? Speaking theoretically, would people living today with J* mtDNA haplogroup in some way be related to the people in the local environment around Talpiot?

[Mr. Titanic]

Maya: I remember reading that the J* mtDNA could be traced back to Africa, so anyone with similar DNA doesn't nessesarily have to come from Talpiot, I don't think. It could just be a common Middle Eastern trait carried in through migration from Africa. It seems quite broad to get that specific.

[mayavision2012]

Thank you for clarifying that. When I saw that reference to "J*" I had this funny vision of all the thousands (or millions?) of people doing genealogical DNA/mtDNA projects suddenly running to get their "results" sheet. Ha!

[Mr. Titanic]

No problem. I thought of the same thing at first as well. I also remember asking Charles Pellegrino about Jesus' DNA (or rather, having someone who met him do it) and Jesus actually probably had typical Middle Eastern (Fertile Crescent) features. Curley hair as well. I knew he most likely never looked like that blue-eyed Jesus commonly portrayed in bookmarks and paintings.

[mccormack44]

It has always been clear to me that the historical Jesus would have had a middle-eastern look. In fact, one would expect him (from descriptions in the Scriptures) to look like the quintessential Jew. (I thought this from my grade-school days.)

On the other hand, symbolically Jesus represents the entire span of humanity (again, from the Scriptures). It isn't surprising, nor is it inaccurate to find that artists in various cultures have depicted Him as a person of that culture and that ethnic group.

Perhaps (in the case of cultural depictions of Jesus) we are a bit hypersensitive to the fact that artists in the light-haired, light-eyed, light-skined areas of the world have depicted Jesus to fit the local type, just as Asians and Africans have done.

I believe that I, as a white American (practically a WASP in the literal sense, and definitely so in the extended sense), need to be sensitive to the persistence of whites to feel superior and to run roughshod over all others. (And again, I have done so for 60 plus years.)

But, in the single instance of artistic depictions of Jesus, Holman Hunts "Christ Knocking at the Door" merely follows a world-wide trend in painting the Messiah to resemble the people around the artist. (Whether or not you find the picture trite and over-sentimental — as I do — is another matter entirely.)

Sue

[Charlie P.]

In the Gospel of Didymos Judas Thomas, Jesus is quoted as making a very clear point, that the body, in his view, is merely a husk, and that the flesh is merely irrelevant clothing. Near the end of this early Christian text, this becomes the reasoning for Mary Magdalene, who is merely clothed in the flesh of a woman, being able to take over the Jesus ministry, as an apostle, at some future date after the death of James (whom Jesus has prophecied will be murdered unless he changes his fate, by leaving Jerusalem). The dual lessons, to James and to Magdalene, and to the other apostles, (and to the rest of humanity), are that the future is not cast in stone, and that one's spirit is not cast in mere flesh. Mary Magdalene can be equal to the apostles because she has a strong spirit that just happens to be clothed in a woman's body. (NOTE: Hippolytis, about AD 175, in Refutations[5.2], wrote of how James turned the leadership of the ministry over to Mary Magdalene before his death - and note also that he called her by the same name found on the "Magdalene, also called Mara [master]" ossuary: "Mariamne").

So, if the quotations of Jesus in Thomas are to be taken seriously, the flesh (the DNA) is irrelevant and any attempt to match one's own DNA to Jesus (as some have done already, horrifying me), and to believe that by being genetically more similar to Jesus than the rest of humanity, means being closer to Jesus for that reason - would have been pointed to by Jesus himself as a foolhardy adventure.

Note that one of the loudest among the most recent shouters against the validity of Thomas and the other "heretical" Gnostic texts (nevermind that Church Historian Eusebius [in the time of Constantine] records how a Gnostic text became canon: we call it the Revelation of John), appears to have motive for dismissing the warnings recorded in the "Gospel of Thomas" - for his mitochondrial control regions have turned out to be so startlingly similar to Jesus that he believes it possible for him to be a distant descendant of the Prophet.

It's cliche, these days, to ask, "What would Jesus do?" But that's how cliches become cliches: They ring so true that they tend to get "over-used." I do believe that anyone who tests his DNA against Jesus and tries to draw from this a quantitative scale of either goodness or holyness - and perhaps a sense of superiority over other human beings - is a prize fool embarking on a dangerous farce.

And yet, unfailingly, we humans can be counted on to embark on whatever stupid adventures it is possible to conceive. Gee, ain't we a very clever species?

- - Charlie P.

[Charlie P.]

RE the question of mold stem: As an example, if you look to the photo of the fiber bundle in the book, you will note that it appears to be quite pristine. I have since recovered more fibers, and a micro-sliver of wood, from the interiors of mineral encrustations. In addition to the lack of nematode signatures, normally laid down in the bottoms of ossuaries when bone deteriorates into a wet powder, the fibers should be so penetrated (usually during dissolution of the body in the primary burial phase), by black mold, that like the Mariamne linen and the originally white linen from Tabor's and Gibson's shroud tomb, it is black. As an example, the Mariamne fibers are about 50% mold stem, by weight. The Jesus fibers (at least, those found so far) are anomalously pristine. They appear never to have been in contact with a body in a state of decay.

Rather than continuing to yell about bones, and calling us all sorts of names and implying all sorts of conspiracies - I would have expected that Christian pundits would have begun penerating into the details by now, and that they'd be asking us scientist types if we did not think this result consistent with what the Gospels had been saying, all along, we should have expected to find.

For the record: For my own part, I'm still agnostic on the subject, though an old Franciscan mentor keeps asking me, "Why?"

- C.R.P.

[mayavision2012]

I thought the team had cleared up the misunderstanding that the team had found "Jesus' bones". I certainly understood that there are no bones, both from the interview on C2C and in the book. It is absolutely beyond my personal understanding that the critics are picking and choosing what suits their purpose.

I agree completely with your thoughts on trying to link contemporary DNA/mtDNA haplogroups relative to the Talpiot Tomb or its environs. From my view in the bleacher of life, we have all bifurcated from the same "root", which to me means that all our wars are essentially "family feuds". Jesus was simply setting an example, demonstrating to all of us that we ALL have the ability for healing (self or others), and this meant accepting personal control of mind/body/Spirit...something that seems to have been lost in the translation and replaced by this idea that we need intermediaries to intervene on our behalf (and be sure to put the tithe in the basket).

[mayavision2012]

This is a very off-the-cuff question but it just popped into my brain, and I thought I would ask.

One of the well-known scenes in the bible is Mary annointing Jesus with Spiknard at least twice that I am aware of; once by applying it to his feet and using her hair and another by pouring it on his head when she "foresaw" his death. Has anything turned up that would even remotely suggest an herbal ointment in the ossaries? This question has been in my thoughts most of today.
Also, I understand there was another decorated ossury in the Talpiot tomb that bore no name, but I would think that some significance was attached to that since only two of the ten ossaries were decorated (please correct me if I am wrong on that). Has there been anything important associated with this ossuary to date?

[ufojoe]

http://cosmiclog.msnbc.msn.com/archive/ ... 14539.aspx

Decent article on the Tomb and other Jesus stuff. Mentions how Tabor is in Israel this weekend to do a story on the tomb for the Australian version of "60 Minutes"

[Zomboy]

I haven't seen any mentions of it online as of yet, but remember the clones of Jesus and Buddha in Charlie's "The Killing Star"? Hmmm!! Fortunately, only undegraded mitochondrial DNA has been found - thus far.

On a related note, does anyone remember the Garfield and Judith Reeve-Stevens horror novel "Children of the Shroud"?

[saralestes]

No problem. I thought of the same thing at first as well. I also remember asking Charles Pellegrino about Jesus' DNA (or rather, having someone who met him do it) and Jesus actually probably had typical Middle Eastern (Fertile Crescent) features. Curley hair as well. I knew he most likely never looked like that blue-eyed Jesus commonly portrayed in bookmarks and paintings.

Here is an artist's conception of his face, painted over the image on the Shroud of Turin:



Looks pretty much like typical Semitic features to me! Curly hair, curly beard, long high-bridged nose -- the whole shebang.

(I love this picture. It looks like he's looking right into my eyes and heart.)

[saralestes]

Nobody has answered my question about something that is said in the book, but is not explained. How did you come to the conclusion that Yehudah bar Y'shua was either 10 or 13 years old at the time of the crucifixion?

[Mr. Titanic]

Although I cannot answer your question, I can say that the image you posted is what I always imagined Jesus too look like. Very nice picture, thank you for posting it!

[mayavision2012]

Author Lawrence Gardner
states in an online article (apparently written at the end of 2002 but in any case before the current investigation became public) regarding the James ossuary and the original 1980 discovery of the "Jesus" Talpiot tomb:

Along with these (ossuaries) was a 6-inch shard of pottery, also bearing the name of Jesus and engraved with the emblem of a fish.

. I have not heard about this in the current investigation and would like to know if this is accurate.

[Charlie P.]

The piece of pottery, marked with Jesus' name and the symbol of the fish, is news to me. It's not listed in the catalogue or classified with the artifacts from the tomb. And, one can guess that if anything like this were found in 1980, with this cluster of names, the Talpiot Tomb would have become news to the whole world, essentially instantly. - - C.R.P.

[mayavision2012]

Thanks for your reply Dr. Pellegrino.

I did a search to see if any other sites allude to the pottery shard. I just found the same claim made on what appears to be an official (Discovery?) Talpiot "Jesus Tomb" website copyrighted by Talmor Media. The page name is SITE HISTORY: East Talpiot, Jerusalem... and includes the following:

Ten ossuaries were found in total, with six of the ossuaries containing inscriptions. In addition to the ossuaries inscribed with the apparent names of Jesus Christ’s family, a 6-inch shard of pottery was also found, engraved with the name Jesus and engraved with an emblem of a fish. Three skulls were also found placed to form what appears to be a ritualistic triangle.

(Emphasis mine).

I wonder where this information is coming from if it was never cataloged with other artifacts in the tomb? I agree with you that it would have been big, big news, so this rather puzzles me. Perhaps there was simply an information error? But even if this shard was not found there but has manifested somewhere in the locale, this might be important as well?

[injil]

Below is a site discussing the "discovery" of the ossuaries with the name Jesus son of Joseph on them by a journalist trying to make a story in 1996. He looked in the catalogue of arch. finds and found two. One was a six inch shard with the name Jesus son of Joseph, the other from Talpiot. He then mentions that around the Jesus ossuary was found those of the others in the tomb. No mention of the shard. He would have mentioned that it was near the other ossuaries, if that were the case, which he did not say, as Mr. Pelligrino stated.

As for the meaning of the fish symbol. We all know that the fish was a symbol, almost a rhebus-acronym, for the Greek Ichthus. This spells out "Jesus Christ Son of God Saviour". First we have no picture of this item, so it could be a direction marker that looks vaguely like a fish. (On the Jesus ossuary at Talpiot, the direction marker looks like the back half of a Jesus fish, and could fool the untrained eye). Second, if one uses logic, you would not connect a dead guy in an ossuary with the title of the Messiah, that is Christ. You would not call him the Son of God in the messianic sense, and you would certainly not call him a saviour.

I encourage everyone to read the article I gave the link to. In many parts its more sensationalist blather, but it does address the shard issue. (Its about half-way down the page).


https://listhost.uchicago.edu/pipermail ... 09125.html

[mayavision2012]

Thank you injil. This helps clear the question of where the pottery shard came from (not from "The Jesus" tomb). If this is the case, however, then perhaps this should be clarified on "The Jesus Tomb" site that I cited above (apparently part of the Discovery channel coverage?).

[saralestes]

We all know that the fish was a symbol, almost a rhebus-acronym, for the Greek Ichthus. This spells out "Jesus Christ Son of God Saviour".

So far, in all of the canonical and non-canonical writings I have read, the person whom we refer to as "Jesus Christ" seems to always refer to himself as the Son of Man. The attribution of "Son of God" was given to him by others over the decades and centuries that elapsed after he had withdrawn, but as far as I know, he never made that claim for himself.

I recommend reading Bart Ehrman's books, such as "Misquoting Jesus" and "Lost Christianities" for further insight into how different groups held different beliefs about what happened and what it all meant. There were enormous differences right from the beginning and as happens so often, the ones who came out on top in the power struggles got rid of their competition and made their own views the "official" doctrine.

One of the positive things I think could come out of the Talpiot discoveries and the discussion about them might be an eventual shift in the perceptions about the scriptures themselves and that they are far from "inerrant." However, there is a huge investment in the status quo, and it is interesting how fervent people can be in defending their ignorance.

[Mr. Titanic]

We all know that the fish was a symbol, almost a rhebus-acronym, for the Greek Ichthus. This spells out "Jesus Christ Son of God Saviour".

So far, in all of the canonical and non-canonical writings I have read, the person whom we refer to as "Jesus Christ" seems to always refer to himself as the Son of Man. The attribution of "Son of God" was given to him by others over the decades and centuries that elapsed after he had withdrawn, but as far as I know, he never made that claim for himself.

"Son Of Man?" And what do you suppose that means? He refers to God as his father, and asks for his assitance in miracles as well. I find that the "Son of Man" title was to show that he was God in man's form, born of man among man to die, well, for mankind.

[Aulus]

Hmmm:

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite? ... e/ShowFull

Interesting.

[saralestes]

"Son Of Man?" And what do you suppose that means? He refers to God as his father, and asks for his assitance in miracles as well. I find that the "Son of Man" title was to show that he was God in man's form, born of man among man to die, well, for mankind.

Mr. Titanic,

In a previous post on this thread, you said you are descended from a long line of priests, so it is totally understandable that your personal beliefs would have come from what you have been taught by others who align with the usual interpretations of the scriptures that have come down to us in their present form. However, as James Cameron wrote in the Foreword to this book:

"The Gospels as we know of them today have been retranscribed and rewritten many times and translated from one language to another -- from Aramaic to Greek to Coptic to Latin to various forms of English -- with corresponding losses in nuanced meaning. They have been edited by Church fathers, centuries after the original words were spoken, to conform to their subsequent version of orthodoxy ... Complicating matters are the other Gospels: the apocryphal texts such as the Gnostic Gospels of the Nag Hammadi library... "

Even the canonized versions of the scriptures have been altered to conform to the beliefs of the eventual victors in the "orthodoxy" disputes. None of the original texts survive. The authors cannot be identified with any certainty. None of them can be said to have even been present at or eyewitnesses to the actual events described. There were many theological conflicts already present at the inception of Y'shua's minitstry: Pharisees, Sadducees, Zealots, and Essenes all had different views about even Jewish law and practices. Following Y'shua's ministry and disappearance, new conflicts and divisions were rife in the developing new religion of Christianity. Ebionites apparently did NOT consider Y'shua divine, although they considered him their Messiah and redeemer (Simcha did a fairly good job of laying out these different, conflicting views). The other extreme was expressed in the docetist view that Y'shua WAS God and had merely (temporarily) entered the body of a human, and left it upon the death of that body.

There are two areas of discussion that are sure to engender disagreements between people: religion and politics. Our history is filled with the workings of both.

As I stated in my original post, I am trained in scientific method, which I was introduced to at the age of 10. I later got a B.S. in Zoology from the University of Michigan and worked in several areas of medical research for 8 years, until I branched out into other fields. One of the foundational attitudes in scientific method is the requirement to suspend personal belief and look at evidence objectively and logically, with an open mind and with the idea that DISPROVING a hypothesis is just as valid and important as "PROVING" one.

In fact, scientific method can never PROVE anything! It can only DISPROVE something as NOT being true. With regard to "truth," it can only assert that a particular observation and logic shows a certain degree of PROBABILITY of being true. The statistical approach taken to the probable significance of this particular cluster of names being found together is one example of this kind of "proof." It really doesn't (and CAN'T) prove anything as FACT.

However, what one CAN do is assemble greater and greater amounts of data that increase the odds in such a way that the likelihood of the evidence occurring randomly is so miniscule that it in effect disappears and we tend to regard the evidence as "proof" of the hypothesis as being "true."

Your view of Y'shua as "divine," as being the Son of God (whatever that may mean) is based on (at best) unreliable scriptures, the personal beliefs of the persons who wrote them and those who altered them over the centuries, and those of who prevailed in terms of what was "canonized." It is also said that "might makes right," and the views about Y'shua that came down to you through your priestly heritage were those that survived through suppressing other knowledge and beliefs that existed at the time of Y'shua's ministry. Y'shua spoke of God as his father, to be sure, and he also taught his followers to pray to him as their father, also. The "Lord's Prayer" he taught them began with the words, "OUR Father" (emphasis mine), so Y'shua's "father" was the "father" of all of us!

No amount of DNA evidence will prove or disprove the idea of Y'shua as BEING God, unless you regard the Creation itself as God-in-expression. What DNA evidence CAN do is establish genetic ties between the materials in these ossuaries, and compare them to the gene sequences found in the blood globule on the Shroud of Turin. THAT data would certainly raise the probability of (at least) the familial relationships of those whose names were found in the Talpiot tomb, as well as whether the blood on the Shroud of Turin is connected with the blood on the fibers of the ?shroud? material that was recovered from the accretion in the Y'shua ossuary.

My own beliefs are different than yours on this issue, but that's all they are for either of us -- personal beliefs. I can't prove my beliefs as being any more true than you can prove your beliefs to be.

For the past 26 years, I have been having a series of "Christ encounters" and received teachings directly from a being whom I believe is Christ. These "visitations" have been reported for the past 2,000 years, beginning with the scriptural accounts -- both canonical and noncanonical -- and reaching down to the present day. (See "Witness to His Return: Personal Encounters with Christ," by G. Scott Sparrow, for one compilation of several of these accounts in our present time). I have had physical demonstrations of many kinds to support what I am being told and shown, but these were not documented by photographic evidence or seen by many people when they occurred -- usually only myself or with one or two others present.

I was raised in a traditional conservative Jewish household. I am descended from a long line of Jewish rabbis. On March 9, 1981, Christ appeared in my bedroom, put his hands on my head, and I was filled with "knowledge and power." My interest in these matters began with that experience, which put me in total conflict with the teachings of MY upbringing, so I began my own personal search for the truth. In April 1982, Christ gave me a vision of the future, which I believe is occurring now, and I saw the "new heaven and the new Earth" described in Rev. 21:1. I SAW a shift in the planet's axis of rotation (Isaiah 24) that flung the oceans off in great clouds of water, in keeping with Rev 21:1 "... and the sea was no more." (I had not read Rev. 21:1 at the time I had that vision, BTW.)

Just before the pole shift occurred, following a time of cataclysmic Earth changes and social chaos, I also saw people being gathered together in groups by people dressed in white and being led upward into great white circular ships that are often disguised as "clouds" during the daytime. (The cloud cover is the result of an ionization layer surrounding the surface of the ships. I believe that the "pillar of cloud" that led the Israelites by day in the Exodus account was a cylindrical ship, and others have come to the same conclusion, e.g "The Bible and Flying Saucers," by Rev. Barry Downing, a Presbyterian minister who earned a Ph. D. at the University of Edinburgh and who specialized in the relationship between natural science and theology)

Regarding the Talpiot tomb, I do feel this is a discovery of enormous significance for our time. I also feel the science associated with it is very prelminary, although promising. I DO find it significant that the Y'shua ossuary did not appear to have contained a body. The man who taught my electron microscopy course said that the degree of significance of any particular discovery was proportional to the degree it connected previously unrelated knowledge. Using that criterion, connecting the DNA from the ossuaries with the DNA from the Shroud would increase the significance of both of those artifacts AND might shed some additional light on what really happened 2,000 years ago. Simcha "connecting the dots" between the names on the ossuaries is also an example of this kind of significance.

One of the things I often say about matters of faith and belief is that "time will tell the truth of all things." The search for truth goes on....