THE SMOKING GUN---TENTH TALPIOT OSSUARY PROVED TO BE BLANK

Ben Witherington ^ | Thursday, March 01, 2007 | Ben Witherington

[AlbionGirl]

Joe Zias is a fine archaeologist of long standing and good reputation. He is the person who catalogued the ten ossuaries from the Talpiot tomb, and personally catalogued the tenth ossuary. He worked with Amos Kloner as part of the team who made the original discovery. In two emails this morning to someone I have been talking to he made crystal clear that the tenth ossuary was blank, certainly was not the James ossuary at all despite the assertions of those involved in making the Discovery Channel special. These emails have been sent along to me, and I will let them speak for themselves, except I have edited out the personal and extraneous stuff.

Joe Zias jezias@yahoo.comTo: Subject: Re: Jesus Tomb Sent: Thursday, March 1, 2007 6:02 AM

"Amos Kloner is right as I received and catalogued the objects, the 10th was plain and I put it out in the courtyard with all the rest of the plain ossuaries as was the standard procedure when one has little storage space available. Nothing was stolen nor missing and they were fully aware of this fact, just didn't fit in with their agenda." ShalomJoe

[AlbionGirl]

More from the piece:

From: Joe Ziasjezias@yahoo.com To: Subject: Re: Jesus Tomb Sent: Thursday, March 1, 2007 4:31 PM

"There was no photo of the 10th ossuary as there was no reason to photograph it, plain white ossuaries, basically once you have seen one you have seen them all. time is money and it would be a waste of time to waste resources on something which was put out in the courtyard. Remember these are large, and heavy not to forget that Kloner has the measurements. They knows this from me personally. The conspiracy idea fits in well with their agenda of hyping the film as well as his/their book." Joe

In short, the tendentious agenda of this film becomes so very clear when confronted with the naked truth.

To this I can now add the following fuller, more considered report from Richard Bauckham. I have left it entirely as he has written and endorse it as being careful and very likely right in all the particulars. There are small details we differ on, but they are inconsequential for these purposes. The crucial bit is the last line-- there is no way Mariamenou is Mary Magdalene. No way at all.

The alleged ‘Jesus family tomb’--- Prof. Richard Bauckham

[padre35]

Secularists keep trying, I'll give them that, but Truth is Truth, no matter how much they lie or try to put on a spectacle to convince people otherwise.

What next "Jurassic Jesus" a team finds a misquito trapped in amber in the Galilee region and confirms that....

Give me a break!

[AlbionGirl]

Secularists keep trying, I'll give them that, but Truth is Truth, no matter how much they lie or try to put on a spectacle to convince people otherwise.

Well put. There's a poster here on FR whose tagline runs something like, The truth, you can twist it, spin it, allegorize it, but you can't deny it. The tagline is not exactly as I've written it here, but it's one of the best taglines on FR because it's true and it's powerfully put.

The spineless and cynical Pilate asked Jesus, What is truth? He was looking right at Him, seemed to have the brief sense that maybe He was looking at the Truth, but in the end convinced himself that it couldn't be so.

[Publius6961]

BUMP!

[SunkenCiv]

Joe Zias, a physical anthropologist and archaeologist who formerly worked for the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) but was let go during a budget squeeze in 1997... in August 2003, Zias (unnamed) had given a sworn deposition to the Israeli police swearing to having seen the ossuary in the antiquities shop -- without "brother of Jesus" on it.

update:

Former IAA employee Zoe Zias told several archaeologists and BAR editor Hershal Shanks in 2003 that he had previously seen the James Ossuary in a Jerusalem antiquities shop without the words "brother of Jesus" at the end of the inscription. At the trial, he admitted he had not seen the inscription and could not read it if he had. -- Joe Zias Under Oath | Excerpts from the Forgery Trial of the Century | Biblical Archaeology Society Staff | 06/14/2012