Posted on 07/22/2005 2:22:30 PM PDT by nickcarraway
JERUSALEM, July 22, 2005 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Israeli police have put under house arrest, Oded Golan, the owner of the so-called "James Ossuary", the fake ossuary that attempted to promote the idea that Jesus Christ had brothers casting doubt on the virgin birth of Christ.. The trial has begun. The next session, will be held in Jerusalem, September 4, 2005.
A 27-page indictment in a Jerusalem court was based on a two-year investigation involving the Jerusalem police and the Israel Antiquities Authority. Golan was among the five charged with 17 counts of antiquities forgery and fraud in January 2005.
If they are found guilty they face the possibility of seven years in jail on each count. 100 witnesses are listed in the indictment. Hundreds of other artifacts are named in the indictment; some were in private collections and others exhibited in museums around the world.
Israeli antiquity experts were headlined in The Toronto Star of June 19, 2003 about the "James Ossuary": `It is better to stop this... than to let it travel through the great museums of the world". It took great intestinal fortitude for the Israel experts to admit that they were hoodwinked.
The Royal Ontario Museum (ROM) in Toronto, was the only museum to be caught up in this forgery and fraud when they displayed the "James Ossuary" in 2002. 95,000 visitors to the ROM were misled into believing that the ossuary was genuine and provided evidence against Judeo-Christian historical accounts. To date, the ROM made no attempt to apologize for the massive error in judgement.
Meg Beckel, Board Secretary of the ROM, said in a letter dated February 24, 2005: "We are all waiting to see definitive evidence regarding the authenticity on the inscription on the James Ossuary. The ROM curators have yet to see any evidence that would change their view."
Beckel insists that curators still have the same point of view and that they have not received information about the `James Ossuary' from what they consider reliable sources. It does not appear that ROM has plans to have their curators go to Jerusalem in September when the court case resumes to "see any evidence that would change their view".
The five suspects, including Golan, alleged that the ossuary was linked to a brother of Jesus. The inscription reads: "James, son of Joseph, brother of Jesus". They were suspected of running a sophisticated forgery ring that operated in various configurations for more than 20 years, according to Shuka Dorfman, the Director-General of the Israel Antiquities Authority
"We have discovered only the tip of the ice berg," said Dorfman, "This spans the globe and has generated millions of dollars. Normally the Authority does not get involved in forgery investigations, but when officials realized these forgeries were an "attempt to change the history of Jewish and Christian people by making forgeries that had significance in the Jewish and Christian world," the Authority felt it had no choices but to investigate.
"We draw the line at the changing of history." Dorfman said.
Golan, an antiquities dealer, denied all charges and said that the charges were an attempt by the Authority to "destroy the local antiquities trade". However, detailed findings by materials and historical experts demonstrate definitively that, while the ossuary is authentic, the inscription was a forgery.
See the report of the Final Report of the Israeli Antiquities Authority Investigation: http://www.antiquities.org.il/article_Item_eng.asp...
Mr. Cunningham, I believe you are mistaken.
Interesting. Thanks for posting this, nickcarraway.
No, he isn't.
You are mistaken. All references are from Luther's own writings.
Christ…was the only Son of Mary, and the Virgin Mary bore no children besides Him… "brothers" really means "cousins" here, for Holy Writ and the Jews always call cousins brothers. (Sermons on John, chapters 1-4, 1537-39).
He, Christ, our Savior, was the real and natural fruit of Mary’s virginal womb…This was without the cooperation of a man, and she remained a virgin after that. (Ibid.)
God says…"Mary’s Son is My only Son." Thus Mary is the Mother of God. (Ibid.).
God did not derive his divinity from Mary; but it does not follow that it is therefore wrong to say that God was born of Mary, that God is Mary’s Son, and that Mary is God’s mother…She is the true mother of God and bearer of God…Mary suckled God, rocked God to sleep, prepared broth and soup for God, etc. For God and man are one person, one Christ, one Son, one Jesus, not two Christs…just as your son is not two sons…even though he has two natures, body and soul, the body from you, the soul from God alone. (On the Councils and the Church, 1539).
It is an article of faith that Mary is Mother of the Lord and still a virgin.... Christ, we believe, cameforth fromawomb left perfectly intact. (Works of Luther, Vol. 11, pp 319-320; Vol. 6,pg 510)
Luther also believed in the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary.
It is a sweet and pious belief that the infusion of Mary’s soul was effected without original sin; so that in the very infusion of her soul she was also purified from original sin and adorned with God’s gifts, receiving a pure soul infused by God; thus from the first moment she began to live she was free from all sin" (Sermon: "On the Day of the Conception of the Mother of God," 1527).
She is full of grace, proclaimed to be entirely without sin—something exceedingly great. For God’s grace fills her with everything good and makes her devoid of all evil. (Personal {"Little"} Prayer Book, 1522).
499 The deepening of faith in the virginal motherhood led the Church to confess Mary's real and perpetual virginity even in the act of giving birth to the Son of God made man. In fact, Christ's birth "did not diminish his mother's virginal integrity but sanctified it." And so the liturgy of the Church celebrates Mary as Aeiparthenos, the "Ever-virgin"."
indeed. I don't believe Mary was a perpetual virgin.
You are correct. I stand corrected.
for later read
So, that's around 1.7 billion for; 350 million against.
Mr. Cunningham knows his stuff.
See
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/15448a.htm
That seems to be a rather harsh judgment on your part. Why do you say he is complicit. He makes some pretty compelling arguments for not accepting at face value the judgement of the Israeli Antiquities Authority. Whether you like the man or not (he is flamboyant) he makes some good points in defending the authenticity of the ossuary. Besides, he is not alone. At least read Golan's defense at http://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/bswbOOossuary_Golan_Cornerstone.pdf. All the information is there.
Yep, just for example (there are many more examples):
Joseph "had no marital relations with her UNTIL she had borne a son; and he named him Jesus."
(Matthew 1, 25)
"Where did this man get this wisdom and these deeds of power? Is not this the carpenter's son? Is not his mother called Mary? And are not his brothers James and Joseph and Simon and Judas? And are not all his sisters with us? Where then did this man get all this? And they took offence at him" (Matt. 13, 54-57)
(The standard response line is that the Greek or Aramaic used in the various "brother" passages throughout the New Testament are "ambiguous" and might mean "cousin" and not "brother." This broader interpretation is inconsistent, however, with the use of the same word to always mean "brother" elsewhere in the book.)
The ever-virgin belief was a fairly late addition to Christianity. The first confirmable reference is when St. Athanasius used the term "ever virgin" to refer to Mary. Im fact, it wasn't formally established as a doctrine until the Roman Church's Lateran Council in 649.
That said, it's trivia, in that there is no dispute among Christians that Jesus Christ is the important one who died for our sins.
Hence, speak the truth with love.
I used to be a big fan of BAR and the editor. Subsequently, I have read articles from scientists outlining the story in more detail and the financial shenanigans of the editor in regards to this issue and others. Sorry, can't link these articles.
Here's two more examples in addition to the ones I've already posted about Luther.
"There have been certain folk who have wished to suggest from this passage [Matthew 1:25] that the Virgin Mary had other children than the Son of God, and that Joseph had then dwelt with her later; but what folly this is! For the gospel writer did not wish to record what happened afterwards; he simply wished to make clear Joseph's obedience and to show that Joseph had been well and truly assured that it was God who had sent His angel to Mary. He had therefore never dwelt with her nor had he shared her company.... And besides this Our Lord Jesus Christ is called the first-born. This is not because there was a second or a third, but because the gospel writer is paying regard to the precedence. Scripture speaks thus of naming the first-born whether or not there was any question of the second." John Calvin, Sermon on Matthew 1:22-25, 1562
"I firmly believe that Mary, according to the words of the gospel, as a pure Virgin brought forth for us the Son of God and in childbirth and after childbirth forever remaaned a pure, intact Virgin." Ulrich Zwingli, Zwingli Opera, Vol. 1, pg 424.
"I don't believe Mary was a perpetual virgin."
He who is not Marian is most generally Arian.
In 2 Samuel 6:23, we also learn that Michal had no children UNTIL the day of her death.
So, did she have children after she was dead?
You are comparing Hebrew with Aramaic and/or Greek. Different language structure completely.
That said, I have no interest in the debate, as it is trivia, in that, there is no dispute that that Christ died for our sins, and that shared belief alone should unite Christians of all denominations.
I would finish the Luther quote above (an addition that has nothing to do with continuing virginity or not), the following, which I think IS important:
"Oh, how many kisses we bestowed on Mary! But she did not redeem and save me . . . [she is not] a goddess who could grant gifts or render aid, as some suppose when they pray and flee to her rather than to God . . . she does nothing, God does all.”
He also had trouble controlling his libido, was prone to drinking excessively, invented doctrines out of thin air, discarded large portions of Sacred Scripture that he didn't like and was most likely paranoid schizophrenic. On some topics he was right and on many topics he was dead wrong. Quite the character to place ones faith in as the "correct interpreter" of Scripture.
Both use the same word, heos, for "until."
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