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You wrote: "You've gotta be kidding. You can't think of a reason?"

I noticed you didn't respond to my expansion of this point in the rest of my post. Instead you took a single-sentence potshot, which I'll assume is because you were short on time.

I can't believe some posters here are giving preference to Eisenman, whose I"research" leads him to doubt the historical Jesus of Nazareth even existed to the research of someone with the solid standing of Hershel Shanks.

While Eisenman's other past conclusions which are at odds with most 1st century scholars do not disprove his objections to the Shanks team discovery, they certainly give an early indicator as to his judgement skills on these topics.

So, now that you're in this debate, care to expand beyond your single-sentence reply? Perhaps you've expanded further on this thread, care to point me to your post number?

Can to give me some reasons why Shanks and the scholars would perpetuate a hoax like this? Include deference to the reasonable description of the anonymous ossuary owner's avoidance of money and fame in the Shanks article (perhaps this isn't true). Also, to support your assertion, can you give other examples of poor judgement and outright fraud by Shanks or the other scholars involved?

I've been an occasional reader of BAR over the years, and Shanks has a solid reputation. Furthermore, Shanks is anything but a fundamentalist "I found the Ark" pseudo-researcher. Can you give me some reasons why I should doubt Shanks intellectual integrity?

Again, this "discovery" deserves reasonable skepticism. And it may be conclusively proven to be a forgery -- experts can often be wrong (see the tale of the Hoffmann forgeries). But the article by the professor at the lightly regarded Cal State Long Beach should not be given deference against the long-standing, highly-regarded work of Shanks and fellow scholars, especially in light of his past conclusions about Jesus of Nazareth and the early Christian movement.