Posted on 02/26/2007 3:59:41 AM PST by Mount Athos
The Israeli-born, Canadian-based filmmaker Simcha Jacobovici is reigniting claims, first made over a decade ago, that a burial cave uncovered 27 years ago in Talpiot, Jerusalem, is the tomb of Jesus of Nazareth and his family. [...]
But Bar-Ilan University Prof. Amos Kloner, the Jerusalem District archeologist who officially oversaw the work at the tomb in 1980 and has published detailed findings on its contents, on Saturday night dismissed the claims. "It makes a great story for a TV film," he told The Jerusalem Post. "But it's impossible. It's nonsense."
Kloner, who said he was interviewed for the new film but has not seen it, said the names found on the ossuaries were common, and the fact that such apparently resonant names had been found together was of no significance. He added that "Jesus son of Joseph" inscriptions had been found on several other ossuaries over the years.
"There is no likelihood that Jesus and his relatives had a family tomb," Kloner said. "They were a Galilee family with no ties in Jerusalem. The Talpiot tomb belonged to a middle-class family from the 1st century CE."
A spokeswoman for the Israel Antiquities Authority had no comment herself on the documentary and referred inquiries to Kloner, who no longer works for the IAA.
The spokeswoman did say, however, that the IAA has loaned out two of the ossuaries that were found in the Talpiot tomb for display by the filmmakers at Monday's New York press conference. She said it was a routine procedure to lend out such artifacts provided the borrowers complied with the necessary handling, transport and insurance requirements and that it did not signal any IAA authentication of claims made in the documentary.
Kloner said the IAA had been "very foolish" to agree to the loan. "The left hand there doesn't know what the right hand is doing," he said.
The Daily Telegraph reported this weekend that the 10 ossuaries removed from the tomb when it was first excavated "were taken initially to the Rockefeller Archaeological Museum outside the Old City of Jerusalem. Nine were catalogued and stored but the tenth was left outside in a courtyard. That ossuary has subsequently gone missing."
But Kloner said the IAA routinely left ossuaries in the courtyard if they were not inscribed and were unremarkable, since it had no room for them all "under our roofs." He added: "Nothing has disappeared."
The Jacobovici documentary comes more than 10 years after similar speculation about the so-called Jesus family tomb made world headlines, prompting a London Sunday Times feature entitled "The Tomb that Dare Not Speak Its Name" and a BBC documentary.
The assertion that the ossuaries found in the Talpiot tomb were those of Jesus of Nazareth and family members was branded by The Sunday Times at the time as an archeological discovery "that challenges the very basis of Christianity."
The makers of the documentary are refusing to discuss its content prior to their New York press conference.
And we all know that those 12 Apostles who knew Jesus, Mary and Mary M. personally spent their remaining lives, suffering unimaginable hardships(and dying martyrs) perpetuating a lie.
Wow, that's pretty good. You could get a job at the NY times as a religion writer!
Meanwhile, I pray that you find the Truth before its too late, or did I miss your sarc disclaimer?
That's funny. We just watched Da Vinci code Sunday night for the first time, almost nodded off several times, and in the end decided it was like National Treasure, only less believable.
Hey, it even had the same references to the "Knights Templar".
Well. Yes. Hope you can find your way there someday.
No, this is just silly.
So the Israeli Antiquities Authority is lending its name to anti-Christian propaganda. Just another shameful behavior to add to their various ones surrounding the James Ossuary.
If Jesus was a Jew, how come he has a Mexican name?
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The Knights Templar seem to be getting blamed for almost as much as George Bush nowadays.
If Tom Hanks face gets any puffier, we won't be able to see all those facial expressions that have made him famous. It certainly can't be his acting that got him this far.
No, he just invented unions and foisted them off on us. He never sleeps, just works 24/7 on our destruction. And today he has a lot of help from the people in the article.
That's easy: Mexicans are just Jews in disguise!
After all, there are a lot of "Mary"s in the New Testament.
This is true in other cultures/periods as well.
I have been doing some genealogy work and had some time with a fellow from Boston (yes, Irish ancestry for me). During the interview he said my ancestor's name was uncommon enough to be able to get some quick results, but he noted that when folks talk to him and their ancestor's name was "Mary Kelly" he essentially wishes them good luck - the name being so common.
But as far as Jesus goes, his life and death and resurrection is extremely well attested to. Eyewitness accounts and the eyewitnesses (all of them, save John) died martyr's deaths as a result. It's one thing to believe a lie, but it's another thing entirely to die for it.
I have yet to hear an adequate explanation for the death and resurrection of Jesus other than what is presented in the Gospels.
Well, they do control the weather....
Hey! I kinda liked Joe vs. the Volcano....
"Mexicans are just Jews in disguise!"
More truth to that than most people think.
Mexico was the destination of choice for Jews during the Spanish Inquisition.
For example, Presidente Fox is (was? can't recall, if he's no longer el jefe) of Jewish descent, paternal and maternal.
Crickets chirping.....
a couple of quiet embarassed laughs.
Then every body wanders away careful not to make eye contact.
A regular Lenten feature just to distract the Christians.
He looks like he's getting ready to play Al Gore in a movie or something.
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