THE JESUS TOMB? ‘TITANIC’ TALPIOT TOMB THEORY SUNK FROM THE START
(This picture of the Talpiot tomb courtesy of the Discovery Channel via the Toronto Star article).
Remember the tale of the Titanic? How it was supposed to be impregnable, and nothing could poke holes in it? How it would never be sunk? Well all I can say is that human hubris knows no bounds, and that hasn’t changed in the last century. On April 15th 1912 the supposedly leak proof Titanic rammed into an iceberg and sank—sank like a giant stone. Sank quickly, with great loss of life.
Why do I bring this up? Because in one of the interesting ironies in recent memory, James Cameron the movie director who made the enormously successful film “Titanic”, on the night after the Oscars, will give an Oscar winning performance at a news conference along with Simcha Jacobovici who have now produced a Discovery Channel special on the discovery of Jesus’ tomb, ossuary, bones, and that of his mother, brothers, wife, and his child Jude as well! Who knew! The show will air on March 4th. In addition we are now regaled with a book by Simcha and Charles Pellegrino entitled The Jesus Family Tomb: The Discovery, the Investigation, and the Evidence That Could Change History just released today by Harper-Collins timed to co-ordinate with their news conference and the Discovery Channel special. Why should we be skeptical about this entire enterprise?
First of all, I have worked with Simcha. He is a practicing Jew, indeed he is an orthodox Jew so far as I can tell. He was the producer of the Discovery Channel special on the James ossuary which I was involved with. He is a good film maker, and he knows a good sensational story when he sees one. This is such a story. Unfortunately it is a story full of holes, conjectures, and problems. It will make good TV and involves a bad critical reading of history. Basically this is old news with a new interpretation. We have known about this tomb since it was discovered in 1980. There are all sorts of reasons to see this as much ado about nothing much:
1) The statistical analysis is of course only as good as the numbers that were provided to the statistician. He couldn’t run numbers he did not have. And when you try to run numbers on a combination name such as ‘Jesus son of Joseph’ you decrease the statistical sample dramatically. In fact, in the case of ‘Jesus son of Joseph’ you decrease it to a statistically insignificant number! Furthermore, so far as we can tell, the earliest followers of Jesus never called Jesus ‘son of Joseph’. It was outsiders who mistakenly called him that! Would the family members such as James who remained in
Out of a total number of 2625 males, these are the figures for the ten most popular male names among Palestinioan Jews. the first figure is the total number of occurrences (from this number, with 2625 as the total for all names, you could calculate percentages), while the second is the number of occurrences specifically on ossuraies.
1 Simon/Simeon 243 59
2 Joseph 218 45
3 Eleazar 166 29
4 Judah 164 44
5 John/Yohanan 122 25
6 Jesus 99 22
7 Hananiah 82 18
8 Jonathan 71 14
9 Matthew 62 17
10 Manaen/Menahem 42 4
For women, we have a total of 328 occurrences (women's names are much less often recorded than men's), and figures for the 4 most popular names are thus:
Mary/Mariamne 70 42
Salome 58 41
Shelamzion 24 19
Martha 20 17
You can see at once that all the names you're interested were extremely popular. 21% of Jewish women were called Mariamne (Mary). The chances of the people in the ossuaries being the Jesus and Mary Magdalene of the New Testament must be very small indeed.
By the way, 'Mara' in this context does not mean Master. It is an abbreviated form of Martha. probably the ossuary contained two women called Mary and Martha (Mariamne and Mara).
There are so many flaws in the analysis of the statistics themselves, that one must assume the statistician did not have the right or sufficient data to work with.
2) there is no independent DNA control sample to compare to what was garnered from the bones in this tomb. By this I mean that the most the DNA evidence can show is that several of these folks are inter-related. Big deal. We would need an independent control sample from some member of Jesus' family to confirm that these were members of Jesus' family. We do not have that at all. In addition mitacondrial DNA does not reveal genetic coding or XY chromosome make up anyway. They would need nuclear DNA for that in any case. So the DNA stuff is probably thrown in to make this look more like a real scientific fact. Not so much.
3) Several of these ossuaries have very popular and familiar early Jewish names. As the statistics above show, the names Joseph and Joshua (Jesus) were two of the most common names in all of early Judaism. So was Mary. Indeed both Jesus’ mother and her sister were named Mary. This is the ancient equivalent of finding adjacent tombs with the names Smith and Jones. No big deal.
4) The historical problems with all this are too numerous to list here: A) the ancestral home of Joseph was
E) By all ancient accounts, the tomb of Jesus was empty-- even the Jewish and Roman authorities acknowledged this. Now it takes a year for the flesh to desiccate, and then you put the man's bones in an ossuary. But Jesus' body was long gone from Joseph of Arimathea's tomb well before then. Are we really to believe it was moved to another tomb, decayed, and then was put in an ossuary? Its not likely. F) Implicitly you must accuse James, Peter and John (mentioned in Gal. 1-2-- in our earliest NT document from 49 A.D.) of fraud and coverup. Are we really to believe that they knew Jesus didn't rise bodily from the dead but perpetrated a fraudulent religion, for which they and others were prepared to die? Did they really hide the body of Jesus in another tomb? We need to remember that the James in question is Jesus' brother, who certainly would have known about a family tomb. This frankly is impossible for me to believe.
5) One more thing of importance. The James ossuary, according to the report of the antiquities dealer that Oded Golan got the ossuary from, said that the ossuary came from Silwan, not Talpiot, and had dirt in it that matched up with the soil in that particular spot in Jerusalem. In fact Oded confirmed this to me personally when I spoke with him at an SBL meeting. Why is this important? Well because the ossuaries that came out of Talpiot came out of a rock cave from a different place, and without such soil in it. To theorize that there was a Jesus family tomb, and yet the one member of Jesus' family who we know was buried in
6)What should we make of James Tabor’s being co-opted into this project? You will remember his book which came out last year The Jesus Dynasty. In that book he had quite a good deal to say about the Talpiot Tomb, and about Panthera being the father of Jesus, and about Jesus being buried in
In the Toronto Star article from Sunday’s paper, we find that the unraveling has begun before they even hold the news conference today--- here is a brief quote from the article written by Stuart Laidlaw---
“But there is one wrinkle that is not examined in the documentary, one that emerged in a Jerusalem courtroom just weeks ago at the fraud trial of James ossuary owner Oded Golan, charged with forging part of the inscription on the box.
Former FBI agent Gerald Richard testified that a photo of the James ossuary, showing it in Golan's home, was taken in the 1970s, based on tests done by the FBI photo lab. The trial resumes tomorrow.
Jacobovici conceded in an interview that if the ossuary was photographed in the 1970s, it could not then have been found in a tomb in 1980.
But while he does not address the conundrum in the documentary, he said in an interview that it's possible Golan's photo was printed on old paper in the 1980s.”
Here is the link to the Toronto Star article.
http://www.thestar.com/News/article/185708
In fact the same article reports that Professor Amos Kloner from bar
I feel sorry for Simcha, but I know how these things happen. One’s enthusiasm for a subject propels one into over-reaching when it comes to drawing conclusions. The problem with keeping these ideas secret for the sake of making a big splash of publicity, and lots of money, is that peer review by a panel of scholars could have saved these folks a lot of embarrassment down the road. ‘C’est la vie.
NEW ADDENDUM
And one more thing to add---Eusebius the father of church history (4th century) tells us that there had been since NT times a tomb of James the Just, the brother of Jesus, which was near the Temple mount and had an honoric stele next to it, and that it was a pilgrimage spot for many Christians. It was apparently a single tomb, with no other Holy family members mentioned nor any other ossuaries in that place. The locality and singularity of this tradition rules out a family tomb in Talpiot. Christians would not have been making pilgrimage to the tomb if they believed Jesus' bones were in it-- that would have contradicted and violated their faith, but the bones of holy James were another matter. They were consider sacred relics.
Here is part of the passage from Eusebius on Jesus' brother--- James "was buried on the spot, by the Sanctuary, and his inscribed stone (stele) is still there by the sanctuary." (Hist. Eccles. 2.23.18). This is clearly not in Talpiot, and remember to claim there is a Talpiot family tomb means that Jesus would have been buried there long before James was martyred in A.D. 62. In other words, the James tradition contradicts the Talpiot tomb both in locale and in substance. James is buried alone, in another place.
posted by Ben Witherington at 5:13 AM
187 Comments:
Thanks so much, Dr. Witherington.
(I'm an Asbury College grad from 2000, by the way. I'm a Calvinist, but love your work. Keep it up.)
He is risen.
Dr. James Tabor has a well-worn track record of believing and promoting what can only be called nonsense about the history of early Christianity. Many years ago he was a member of Herbert Armstrong's Worldwide Church of God, a seventh-day adventist sect that promoted all kinds of drivel, such as British Israelism and the conspiracy theory that Simon Magus, not Simon Peter, was the first Pope and was buried on Vatican Hill.
Thankfully Dr. Tabor is no longer an Armstrongist, and he has genuine credentials as a scholar and an archaeologist. But there seems to be one aspect of his old Armstrongist worldview that he has retained. He still thinks the true message of Jesus was distorted and suppressed, and he still has a yen for a "conspiracy theory" approach to early Christianity history. In my opinion, and to be blunt, I think Dr. Tabor's theory is basically "Holy Blood, Holy Grail" without the stuff about the Order of Sion and Knights Templar. It's not surprising that someone like James Cameron would be attracted to such dubious and reckless speculations as Dr. Tabor promotes.
I think your criticisms are valid, but I can't help but think your own immediate rejection of the discovery is in itself a reflection of an unwillingness to think critically. Don't you think it will be in MANY people's interest to discredit these findings? Don't you think it's first necessary to see what evidence they are providing? I checked out the site (Jesus Family Tomb) and I must say I was very impressed. You can see that Simcha and his team took the time to consult experts on all of the big questions. YES the names were common, but that CLUSTER of names is NOT.
Get the facts first, that's all I ask.
Anyway, check out the official site at: http://www.jesusfamilytomb.com
Stephanie:
The facts about the Talpiot tomb have been known for a very long time, and you are wrong about the cluster of names like that. That's not surprising or uncommon either. And as for the DNA evidence, you can't prove a negative with this sort of evidence. You can't say--- o.k. the Jesus DNA and the Marimeme DNA don't match and THEREFORE THEY MUST BE MARRIED! This is nonsense. The slickness of the presentation does not equal the quality of evidence or argumentation. And for the record--- various of us already had a prescreening of the show itself. See Darrell Bock's blog.
Blessings,
Ben W.
Blessings,
Ben W.
I remember reading about a tomb being discovered many years ago with ossuaries inscribed with Mary, Martha and Lazarus. I have not seen people claim this is the biblical family because finding the historical Lazarus is a lot less sensational then finding the historical Jesus. It just demonstrates that marketing has a very real influence on how we interpret evidence.
I do find it interesting that the people who saw the James ossuary as being likely the biblical James because of the cluster of names are denying this find as those same names are so common. I would like to believe the James ossuary and deny the Jesus tomb, but only based on my personal beliefs and not on the evidence. It is something we all have to watch out for.
Ben,
Thanks for the article. Do you mind if I makes copies for my church?
Clyde G
Fine Clyde. Steve the issues are different with the James ossuary which was unprovenanced, which means it came to us from the antiquities market not out of the ground. That we know more about the Jesus tomb ossuaries makes it clearer and more certain that they are not connected with the holy family. Just the locale of the tomb makes this improbable, for starters.
sn"One of the ossuaries has the name Jude son of Jesus. We have no historical evidence of such a son of Jesus"
This is the proof that Cameron and company are arguing from prior assumptions instead of thinking critically here. We have zero evidence of Jesus having a son. This is current given, though open to being disproved. The presence of a "son of Jesus" is a good reason for a critical historian to say, "The probability of this being the biblical Jesus decreases because of this issue." It still could be the historical Jesus, but the odds drop because of this.
But that is not how Cameron and company are viewing it. Instead of saying, "Well, we have no evidence of a son, so this musn't be Jesus;" their argument goes like this- "Well, we sure believe this tomb belongs to Jesus, and there is a son there, so therefore, it's proof that Jesus had a son." Their belief in their theory is their prior assumption, which is not open to debate, and which is then used to "correct" every other bit of evidence and history built up over 2000 years.
Dr. Witherington,
What a sorry thing you've done! Why I was looking forward to all the hoopla about this incredible new find that will banish historic Christianity forever into the ashheap of forgotten ideas.
Now, I guess we may celebrate Easter afterall:)
With that, I am...
Peter
p.s. I very much appreciate your scholarship, Dr. Witherington...
Thanks for the article, Dr. Witherington. Out of curiousity, does it bother you that the publisher of your book (HarperCollins) is publishing another text that, to put it bluntly, isn't worth the paper it's printed on?
Steve,
As I recall, the thing that raised eyebrows about the James ossuary, causing some to think it belonged to the biblical James, was not specifically the cluster of names (James and Jesus), but the particular way it was stated. It was rare that a person's ossuary would have been identified by his brother, unless the brother was famous. The question was, "Why was this James identified as the brother of Jesus on his ossuary?"
However, this latest announcement concerns a cluster of names that do not stand out in the same way. Everyone is identified as "son of," including Jesus, and the son Jude. There is nothing remarkable here at all, except a coincidence of names which were actually quite common.
In fact, the specific combinations of names argue against identifying the tomb as belonging to the biblical Jesus. As Dr. Witherington pointed out in his post, if the tomb does belong to the biblical Jesus, then why is he identified by his father? The unbelieving Jews thought Jesus was illegitimate, and the believing Jews believed that Mary conceived as a virgin, so neither group was really into calling Joseph Jesus' father. Also, the mention of the son, as I said in the previous comment, also points away from the historical Jesus, unless one is willing to take James Cameron on faith and ignore every other bit of 2000 years of historical inquiry.
dr.
the first thing you have said about the names being very common in those days makes me laugh .
by even basic khowledge of THEORY OF PROBABILITY the chance of what you are supporting is less than 0.33%.
simple mathematics will support james tabor .......
Hey Ben,
Can you tell me the primary sources for Roman and Jewish claims of an empty tomb? I didn't know this could be found outside the gospels, other than I guess some first-century Roman or Jew saying that the early Christians claimed this.
Thanks,
Hi Bob:
Nope--- Harper is a secular publisher, and its their business.
Alex-- you will want to look first at the evidence in Josephus, Tacitus, and Suetonius. The person to really ask about this particular point is Gary Habermas.
Blessings,
Ben
Mr. Harneet:
Just remember the old saying-- he who laughs last, laughs best.
In fact you are wrong. Various of the names found in the tomb on these ossuaries do not match up with the Holy Family names at all--- for example the names Matthew and Martha. I'm sorry but you can't conveniently ignore the evidence that doesn't comport with your theory, then run the numbers and say-- presto, the chances are infintessimally small that this is not the tomb of Jesus.
There is no historical evidence that Jesus had a son named Jude, or any son for that matter. This idea flatly contracts James Tabor's own theory about the Jesus dynasty being passed from Jesus to James his brother, and then others (not direct descendants of Jesus). In short Tabor has done yet one more flip flop to endorse this flawed theory.
Blessings,
Ben W.
Don't you just wish that people would be as insistent on historical rigor with this production as they have been with Prof. Ariel Toaff's recent book "Bloody Passover"?
But I suppose I'm asking too much...
Bravo, Dr. Witherington! And let me take an opportunity -- as somebody with many of your books on my shelf -- to say first that I am a fan and second that I greatly appreciate and admire your hard work and your intellect. I'd like to amplify your critique of the statistical mumbo-jumbo that the creators of this documentary are profering.
The statistical analysis that Discovery is promoting on their website seems to me to be caused, on a sociological level, by what I'd call "expertise creep." The CV of their in-house statistician, Andrey Feuerverger, shows a man interested in theoretical statistics. There is a big difference between this and applied statistics. In the latter -- you need to employ not just statistical knowledge, but also the logics of descriptive and causal inference. In fact, in most instances of applied statistics -- I'd rather have somebody trained 10% statistics to 90% logic of empirical inquiry. This is because most real-world statistics problems, even those encountered by academics, can be handled with 3 semesters of graduate-level statistics; and also because the logic of empirical inquiry seems easy at first blush, but is actually quite difficult and tricky. It takes not just a close reading of somebody like Popper, but a re-orientation of the way one thinks and looks at the world. Just as lawyers start to think differently after having been trained in the ways of evidentiary procedure, so also should scientists. So, you need not just coursework, but also lots of practice in your spare time! There is nothing in Feuerverger's CV to indicate that (a) he has been trained in this method and (b) he has learned to think in this method.
I think this might explain why Feuerverger made a major inference-related mistake, which it appears he did. It seems to me that he calculated the chances of this tomb being Jesus of Nazareth's by multiplying all of the individual probabilities together (i.e. the chances that this is our Jesus = the chances of finding a "Jesus son of Joseph" X the chances of finding a "Joseph" X the chances of finding two "Mary"s, and so on). From this, he gets an impossibly small number -- too small, actually, for his tatse because he then arbitrarily increases it by a factor of at least 25% -- and claims, "The odds that this is Jesus of Nazareth is 600 to 1." The problem with this is that, like so much in lefty NT studies (and generally all NT studies that try to rewrite the Gospel narratives while largely relying upon them as evidence), his logic is circular and the overarching hypothesis is unfalsiable. He cannot calculate the probability that this is Jesus by recourse to any but the Joseph and the ONE Mary ossuary. The reason is clear: it is his hypothesis, and not the pre-existing data, that calls for the inclusion of these other names in the calculation. For instance, the 600 to 1 number seems to include the probability of finding an ossuary with the name "Matthew" on it. But this cannot be included in calculating that this is Jesus Christ's ossuary because we have no evidence -- independent of this tomb -- that Jesus had a relative named Matthew. If we establish that this is Jesus of Nazareth, then we can say that he indeed had a relative named "Matthew." However, we first have to establish that this is "Jesus of Nazareth," which means we have to work from the biographical data that is already accepted.
This is how I would see the calculation occuring. The easiest way to the goal is to estimate the number of people whose tomb this could be. My understanding is that the average population of Jerusalem in the Herodian period was 100,000. Meanwhile, of the 1,000 or so ossuaries that have been discovered, 2 of them have the name "Jesus son of Joseph" on it. If we assume that our ossuary record is not a biased estimate of the Herodian population of "Jesus son of Joseph," we can say that -- at any given time in Jerusalem in the Herodian period -- there were 200 people who could say, "Hi! I'm Jesus. The son of Joseph." Across the entire Herodian period, I'd say that maybe 500 (maybe more -- here my knowledge of Jersualem demography begins to break down, but the point is still valid even if some of the numbers that follow need to be rejiggered) or so people could say the same thing.
Let's go on and assume that this tomb represents an average family who buried their dead in a tomb. One will find about 10 ossuaries in it and -- by extension, any given male person would have about 9 other relatives with whom he was sufficiently close to be buried with (in all 5 males, 5 females). What are the chances that at least one of said relatives would be named "Joseph?" If we assume that Dr. Witherington's friend's sample values of names are unbiased estimators of the Herodian Jerusalem population, it will be 29.3%. However, what are the chances that at least one of the 9 related to a "Jesus son of Joseph" would be named "Joseph"? Much, much, much higher! "Jesus son of Joseph" and "Joseph" are NOT independent. If you find the former, you are highly likely to find the latter -- and, by extension a guy named "Jesus son of Joseph" is more likely to have a "Joseph" in his family than a "Tim son of Tom." The "Joseph" they have found from this tomb is not spelled the same as the "Joseph" on the "Jesus" ossuary, but if "Joseph" is a family name, often times you will see variations. "Little Joe" for instance in our culture. It need not even be a close name. My name, "Jay," is derived from my grandfather's, "James" (at least in my mother's mind!). In other words, the chances that a "Jesus son of Joseph" would have a Joseph-esque name in his family would have to be much, much higher. Let's be charitable to the documentaries and say 60%. Thus, multiply that 500 by 60% and you get 300 people in Herodian Jerusalem named "Jesus son of Joseph" with a close relative with a "Joseph" name.
Doing the same for "Mary" is easier because, presumably at least, "Mary" and "Jesus son of Joseph" are independent. A male with 5 female relatives stands a 76.2% chance of having a "Mary" in the family somewhere. Thus, we multiply this chance by the 300 remaining people in our sample, and we get 229. This would be the number of people in Herodian Jerusalem named "Jesus son of Joseph" with a close relative named "Joseph" and a close relative "Mary."
What about the remaining ossuaries? Again, we cannot really include them in our mathematics because they are not extant in the historical record. What is more, they begin to damage the idea that this is our man Jesus. With 228 different people in our pool of contenders -- the fact that the tomb in question contains 3 surprise names becomes a falsifying instance. A critically falsifying instance. What is more -- if this is a family tomb, where are the other relatives of Jesus? Where are his sisters? Where is James? Where is his father? Why would James be buried in a different place? Their introduction of the theft of the James ossuary stinks of the kind of ad hoc hypothesizing needed to salvage a hypothesis that has encountered a falsifying instance. It makes no sense for James and Jesus to be buried in Jerusalem in separate spots -- the latter with his mother and another brother. Thus, the James ossuary MUST have been stolen. What about the photographic/forensic evidence that it had been discovered before this 1980 discovery? That must be wrong. This is like adding Ptolemic epicycles to explain the movement of the planets without recourse to Galileo. You can do it as long as it needs doing, but it doesn't make you right. It's a sign that you are wrong, wrong, wrong!
Which is more reasonable: (a) the historical record completely missed 3 closely-related relatives and the Jesus family forgot something like 70% of its remaining relatives or (b) this tomb belongs to one of the other 228 Herodian Jersualem citizens named "Jesus son of Joseph?" (This analysis, further, assumes that our Jesus would be buried IN Jerusalem, that he would be 1 of the 229. You'd have to have a blind eye to the political-social-cultural milieu in 32 AD Jerusalem to believe that -- if Jesus were to be buried (big if!), he'd be buried, and left undisturbed, in the capitol city of his organized, mobilized opponents? That makes A LOT of sense. Imagine burying Hitler in Moscow in 1946. How long do you think that tomb would go unpilfered/undescrecated?)
I would take all of this a step further. Cameron, Jacobvici and Pellegrino are not just a lot wrong. They are irresponsible and, I would say, even immoral. There are 2.1 billion Christians in the world today. Minimally, it is irresponsible to leverage the faith of 2.1 billion for television ratings and book sales. The psychological effect this could have on the world's population -- taken in the aggregate -- is enormous. It is staggering. Is this really worth a 0.7 share for Discovery? Of course, most Christians will not be affected because the argument is so terribly weak. However, that does not excuse their intentions -- which were to deal a severe psychological blow to 33% of the world so as to gain ratings/book sales/notoriety/money.
This is a general phenomenon that is all too present in our society. People who specialize in areas of knowledge that are, at first glance, far removed from the foundations of modern society are often all too unaware of the social/cultural/moral effect that their findings could produce. Think of the Bell Curve by Herrnstein and Murray. Even if they were correct, which they weren't -- the effect that such knowledge could have had on society makes its publication very, very suspect.
In other words, the claim that scientific knowledge is the highest good is a specious claim. We as a culture are pro-science, so we do value it highly. As well we should, I would t hink. But none of us value it above all else. It is easy for each of us to imagine an instance where we would prefer NOT to have a certain bit of scientific knowledge because it would disrupt all of us so badly (e.g. pre-birth genetic screening could lead to eugenicsf; thus, it is best to deny parents this knowledge). This is a sign that any given discovery must be weighed against its social effect. The presumption, of course, should be on the side of science -- but there still must be a weighing and certain scientific truths would probably have to be rejected.
As I said, I think it moves beyond irresponsibility. They clearly have not weighed the consequences. So they are irresponsibile. Their ostensible motives make them immoral. Cameron et al. -- with their motives (money, ratings, prominence, etc) and their circus-show promotion (Behold, I give you...Kong!) -- have moved beyond the type of irresponsibility of which Herrnstein and Murray were guilty (those two could be said to have had a genuine and paramount interest in knowledge, but who failed to do the proper weighing of knowledge against social consequences). Cameron et al. are not just being irresponsible, they are immoral -- to intend to affect so negatively such a large porportion of your fellow-species for...money? Their actions are contemptible. No human being should be prepared to damage so many other human beings for money and fame.
I agree that there is a difference between the James Ossuary and the Talpiot Tomb. What I am saying is that traditional Christians must be aware that we have a bias to want historical evidence that Jesus lived and to not want historical evidence that Jesus' physical remains still exist or that He had a son. I am not saying that we are wrong. I am just saying that we must be aware of our own bias. The same goes for those who are critical of traditional Christian beliefs and are looking for support in this discovery.
I'm having trouble finding the university at which Richard Bauckham teaches statistics. He is the statistician that you quote above as disproving Andrey Feuerverger's work. Can you point me to his university profile so that I can see his statistical qualifications?
These statistics can be found in Tal Ilan's book on the Jewish Lexicon of Names. One doesn't need to be a statistician to present the raw numbers. Presumably it helps to be one to analyze them :)
Ben W.
Ben can you please enable the RSS so that we can receive feed of your blog's update?
I've been reading a couple of the articles around the 'net and have seen two numbers published on the likely hood that this is "THE" Jesus tomb. One of the numbers was 600-to-1, and the other was 1 million-to-1.
Which on is it?
Thanks, Ben.
Is that the same Tal Ilan that is a part of the Jesus Family Tomb project? Kind of ironic, don't you think?
And, my question wasn't about the listing of the numbers. I was referring to the quote that I assume is Baukham's in which he states, "You can see at once that all the names you're interested were extremely popular. 21% of Jewish women were called Mariamne (Mary). The chances of the people in the ossuaries being the Jesus and Mary Magdalene of the New Testament must be very small indeed."
This seems like analysis, no?
So, something else that is bothering me....
I have been reading that these tombs have been known about for decades, and that they weren't thought to be any big deal because the names were very common.
But then again I've read that it's taken 20 years to translate the names?! 20 years?!
So which is true?
Also, if it's so difficult to translate what are the statistical probabilities that they've even translated the names correctly?
Thanks for your timely post on this matter and your helpful responses to some comment objections here.
Your point about peer review and publicity is well taken. Using secrecy as a weapon to drive promotion also weakens the testing of such pseudo-factual reporting.
-David
Re: Dave's comment about the probability.
My understanding is that Cameron et al. estimate it at 600 to 1. Tabor contracted independently for an estimate that assumes the James ossuary is part of this tomb, which would "put" it at 1 million + to 1.
As I said, their ostensible need to place the James ossuary at this tomb is a sign of the trouble that their hypothesis encounters.
Question 1: If this is the Jesus family tomb, why was James buried "across the street?"
Answer 1: It MUST have been stolen!
Question 2: What about the forensic evidence that suggests the James ossuary was found before 1980 AD?
Answer 2: It must be mistaken. The film must have been housed for several years before it was used.
Question 3: Why should we believe that this evidence is indicating a "false positive," but yours is not?
Answer 3: ...
Side inquiry: Cede their probabilities for the sake of argument. The chances that this isn't Jesus is approximately 0.00167%. Are those odds greater than, less than, equal to the odds that we would find the ossuaries of members of Jesus of Nazareth's family from TWO independent sources with less than 5 years between discoveries, after they have been lost for 2,000 or so years?
My intuition is that it is LESS, much, much much less. So, if we are going to talk about statistical probability -- the chances are actually greater that this is NOT Jesus of Nazareth, even if we cede their ridiculous probabilities.
It is thus unsurprising to me that a filmmaker is bankrolling this whole project. Odds like this are "natural" to filmmakers. Almost always, movies deal with occurrences that have a probability of close-to-zero. That is why we all go to the movies: we can't see that stuff in real life!!!
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Thanks for your post. It was really helpful. I found out about it on the today show this morning, and thought something seemed a little fishy when I saw a film maker was pushing this as a new documentary the day after the oscars. I would think a legitimate historical find (and one as significant as this one would be) would be guarded by historians and presented in a reasonable fashion, not one designed to make film makers a lot of money.
The statistics:
(1) 8.3% of Jewish men were named "Joseph."
(2) If 21% of them married women named "Mary":
1.8% of Jewish men were "Joseph, husband of Mary."
(3) If 3.8% of Jewish men were named "Jesus":
0.067% of Jewish men were "Jesus, son of Joseph and Mary."
(4) If there were 100,000 Jewish men in first century Palestine:
67 of them were "Jesus, son of Joseph and Mary."
Jesus Christ was 1 of these 67. That is, there is only a 1.5% chance that the Jesus of the tomb is to be identified with Jesus Christ.
If we take into consideration the names "Judah son of Jesus" and "Matthew", it becomes even less likely that the Jesus tomb can be identified with Jesus Christ. It was probably a family that lived in Jerusalem.
[Notes: I am not claiming that Joseph was Jesus' biological father. I don't know the actual population of Jewish men in first century Palestine; 100,000 is just a guess. These calculations assume that there is no correlation between people of different names.]
Dr. Witherington,
What is your current belief about the authenticity of the James ossuary? Has it changed since the Golan trial and the prosecutors' claim they have evidence that he and others were part of an antiquities forgery ring?
Dr. Witherington,
Your knowledge simply astounds me. Incredible argument! Thank you for your contribution to the Christian community.
Will Dawkins and Harris clamber aboard this leaky vessel? If they're as evidence-driven as they say surely not.
Great analysis Dr. Witherington. I vaguely remembered the Talpiot Tomb discovery from somwhere in the murky past when this hit the headlines. They'll trot it out with breathless wonder thinking they've found the silver bullet against Christianity, unfortunately, deceiving and confusing some folks.
Thanks and blessings!
Frank
Ben, I wonder how you could say I make nothing of this tomb or this ossuary in my book when more than half the Introduction is devoted to it. I never argue for the Jesus tomb in Safed, what I try to do, as with the father of Jesus, to cover the various ideas and possibilities that are out there in an effort to honestly inform readers. I end up saying I am not sure which tomb might most likely be the Jesus Family Tomb and I also say that we would have to say "father unknown" for Jesus' birth certificate. We now have new evidence linking not only the James ossuary to the Talpiot tomb but DNA and other indications, plus the statistics. It is one thing to list the names and their frequencies. That we all have, but you have to then determine the liklihood of the cluster. I also am puzzled as to why you say Jesus was never called "Jesus son of Joseph" when it is found a number of times in the N.T. itself? Look, even if there was only a 50/50 chance that this was Jesus of Nazareth that would make it of interest but by any measure I have seen from those who do these sorts of numbers, the probabilities are vastly greater. See my Blog for a few details and I will publish the math sometime next week. jesusdynasty.com/blog
Joseph died early in Galilee (Mk 6, Jesus is "son of Mary" and Joe is not mentioned). Was he exhumed and moved to Jerusalem?
I believe the James ossuary is genuine. The latest examination of the ossuary last year by a careful German scholar once more confirmed that the inscription, all of it is genuine, and Yuval Goren admitted under oath at the trial of Golan that there was ancient patina in the word Jesus-- the very word on the ossuary they most wanted to discredit. I look forward to further testing after the ossuary survives the trial.
And Rainsbrough I think that Prof. Dawkins is not a foolish person. We need to remember that Cameron and Jacobivici are the ones who regaled us with the special about finding the ark of the covenant as well--- NOT.
I was so glad to see Amos Klosner on the major networks tonight, the original discoverer and archaeologist at the Talpiot tomb say emphatically that this is fairy tale.
Blessings to all in blogland, pray for me as I do the umpteeneth interview. I am already worn out and have a headache brought on by lack of critical thinking by so many of these folks,
Ben
Hi James (Tabor): Welcome.
Did you read what I said carefully? I do not say that you made nothing of the Talpiot tomb. Indeed you did. But what you did not do is come out and claim that it was the tomb of Jesus in the Jesus Dynasty. And you have no evidence at all to connect the James ossuary to this tomb--- none. Where is the connecting link please? It is surely not that the James ossuary manifests the same age or sort of patina as these other ossuaries. That doesn't link one ossuary to another-- that only links them all to the same locale in antiquity!
Do we have a single Bible passage where any insider, any disciple or family member or some other intimate who would have known, not some opponent or objector, calls Jesus the son of Joseph? No we do not, unless you claim that the reference to 'your parents' in Lk. 2.41-52 points in this direction . But Luke in that same chapter had already claimed that Jesus was born of a virgin, so I doubt you should read even Lk. 2.41-52 as claiming Jesus is literally the son of Joseph.
And while we are asking questions, why in the world would Joseph's body be dragged all the way from Nazareth to Jerusalem to be buried? This is far fetched. At best this is a family of artisans, not ones who can afford a rock cut tomb in Jerusalem. And let us be clear-- Joseph would surely be the first to be buried there. What about the traditions in Eusebius that indicate James was buried elsewhere near the temple mount? What about the traditions that say Mary left Jerusalem and went to Asia Minor and died there? Why exactly is anyone claiming that the lack of DNA connection between the 'Jesus' ossuary and the 'Mariameme' ossuary proves they were married? Many people can be buried in the same extended family tomb, and numerous of them without DNA link.
I would welcome your answer.
Hello all,
Ever consider that the New Testament and the stories of Jesus Christ are the Roman deceptions that the original Hebrew texts warned about? Isn't it odd that the New Testament is full of Greco-Roman names from Europe, not from Judea? Isn't it odd that all of the purported authors of New Testament books have European names and made numerous geographical errors. For example, the proven fact that there was no town named Nazareth during the Second-Temple period. Why have the Vatican, Papacy, and Christianity been characterized by such extreme duplicity and deception for their entire existence if they were truly representatives of the Creator?
You do understand that Gog from Magog refers to Greeks and Romans (Greco-Romans) who invaded, subjugated, and scattered the children of Israel? Isn't it at all worrisome that the Vatican and Christianity have "whitewashed" the names, images, and activities of all of the supposed Judean characters in the long-dubious New Testament that history proves would have been dark-skinned, dark-haried locals, not blue-eyed European invaders. Consequently, billions of people have long been deceived into worshipping a false god with a name that never could have existed in ancient times!
Ever heard of strong lies and strong delusion? Read 2 Thessalonians 2:11 again.
Can you say woe, woe, woe?
Here is Wisdom !!
Here's a little bit about seven hand star :
Lawrence W. Page II is the Teacher of Righteousness reincarnated who now stands forth as the long-prophesied Messiah and Lion of the Tribe of Juda, the Root of David; (a.k.a. Melchizedek, “Archangel” Michael, Moses, Elijah, the Branch, the Stem and the Rod from the Stump of Jesse) to decisively end millennia of Vatican deception, injustice, genocide, false doctrine, and false prophecy. Here is Wisdom!!
I guess we're blessed to have the TRUE messiah right here, right now, blogging with us.
Please keep an eye on Tabor's blog for us. He's already calling for professionalism from you guys. >_>
http://jesusdynasty.com/blog/
Thanks.
Hi, Doctor,
Do you know when the Discovery channel began hyping this? I don't whatch much TV and only heard about this stuff yesterday. The reason I ask is that if this documentary has come out of the blue with with only a short period of hype before its airing, I have to assume that the Discovery Channel is either engaging in bad business practice by not giving it much advertisement, or, it wanted to get a sucker punch in with the show before it was rendered useless by the facts.
Hi Dim Bulb--- you're not so dim. No they have not been regaling us with lots of publicity for next Sunday night's show.
o.k. I've been to James Tabor's blog and read the latest post. James himself is not claiming that Joseph was buried in Jerusalem. But here is something he does not seem to have considered. This tomb is not at all within the confines of ancient Jerusalem. Indeed it is well outside Jerusalem, and without question Eusebius says James the brother of Jesus was buried near the Temple Mount. Why in the world would the family of Jesus be buried in a sheep field somewhere outside Bethlehem? This makes no sense.
Oops I meant outside of Jerusalem. The Talpiot tomb is well outside of ancient Jerusalem.
I have now watched the Larry King Live special, which typically had rebuttal witnesses who are not experts ancient historians of the NT period-- the President of the Catholic League and the President of Southern Baptist Seminary.
James Tabor and Simcha and James Cameron on the other hand came across composed and sensible while the rebuttal witnesses appeared flustered angry, and with minimal detailed arguments. Not helpful.
Typical of the media to give a biased one way answer. Wonderful.
Dr Witherington,
It seems to me that the Larry King show was quite helpful for the other side. We saw the same sort of stacked deck presentation was used by 20/20 (ABC) in a show it did on the DaVinci code a few years ago. Likewise, more recently one major network did a stacked deck piece on the Pope Joan myth.
In the present case two men with "credentials": the guy from the Catholic league (who's fairly well known) and a President of a Baptist College, were pitted against two other men with credentials (Simcha and Tabor).
Of course, the credentials of the first two are very different to the credentials of the second pair. The subject matter gave the second pair the edge, and this was, no doubt, why the first pair were chosen.
Thanks Ben for displaying to us that their 'story' has more holes in it than the titanic.
(Well someone had to say it)
"First of all, I have worked with Simcha. He is a practicing Jew, indeed he is an orthodox Jew so far as I can tell."
Relevance?
Some questions that came to my mind...what state were the remains in and was there enough for any forensic analysis? Specifically, would there by any way to tell whether the Jesus individual had been crucified?
Secondly, I was struck by the lack of ornamentation and the almost careless inscription on the side of the Jesus ossuary compared to the Mariamne ossuary. It almost seems that Mariamne was more highly revered than Jesus. But perhaps it simply indicates a later burial date or that Mariamne's family was wealthier?
How certain are we that the Jesus inscription is in fact Jesus?
Finally, at least for here, I'm wondering if these could be forgeries, for whatever reason, say from the second century.
Oh I suppose I've got one more thing, how certain are we that Golan had the James ossuary in his possesion prior to 1980? Or could that simply be a deceit on his part, so that he could claim ownership?
www.wildrye.com
As ever your Blog is a really helpful resource, thanks Ben!
A quote i read recently sprang to mind as i read the news article on the BBC; "Remember, the Ark was built by a lone amateur, the Titanic was built by a team of professionals."
Dear Ben,
I think it best for you to wait and read the case presented in the documentary and the book as I think you have quite a few things confused. No one is claiming, for example, that Joseph's body was taken from Nazareth to Jerusalem. What seems to be the case, if this is the tomb of Jesus of Nazareth, is the Jose is his missing brother, not his legal father. I say "missing" in that we know the fate of Shimon and Jude, but Jose drops out of view in our records. We have a Jose in this tomb. Since Shimon, who was third, takes over from James, rather than Jose, who was second, it makes sense with this new evidence that Jesus 2nd brother, Jose, had died before 62...this it fits for him to be buried in such a tomb.
As far as "Jesus son of Joseph," what name would you suggest would be used in calling Jesus, a 1st century Jew, the "son of" another? The two we have are Jesus son of Joseph and Jesus son of Pantera. Do you suggest a third? As a Jew how would Jesus have been described in terms of the Yeshua bar ____ formula as you see things?
Also, you need to have time to catch up on the patina studies that Rosenfeld and others have carried out that link the James ossuary to this tomb. Why do you write so dogmatically when you have not even read what is being claimed but are all ready to refute it, saying there is not a shred of new patina evidence. Again, please, calm down, read and consider the evidence, then reply as you like. The patina tests of Rosenfeld, etc. have to do with the specific patina that develops in a given singular tomb environment. You are incorrect, there is quite a bit of new information that I did not know in Nov 2005 when I finished my book, and yes, it has now pointed toward the Talpiot tomb. I have not "flip flopped" as you charge, and I think that kind of tone and language is unfortunate. Obviously if the Talpiot tomb can be identified with Jesus of Nazareth then in that tomb is a Jude son of Jesus--that is in my book, it is nothing new, but whether one accepts it depnds on one's view of this tomb.
Unfortunately, because of my inability to keep up with so many Blogs on this I will not be able to continue to put my responses here but I do direct any interested in my reasoning and the latest data on the Talpiot tomb from my own perspective to read my Blog: jesusdynasty.com/Blog. I will over the next week or so, and particularly after the documentary is shown where a fuller picture of the facts is presented, address many of the points that you and your readers have raised here.
Thanks, James Tabor
Just a quick rebuttal to Tabor, because it seemed so glaring.
What else to call jesus other than yehsua bar ___? Well, how about just plain Yeshua? I mean, unless you are saying that ALL ossuaries have to contain patronymics and genealogies in their inscriptions (which, considering there are some there which don't, would seem unlikely) then why is it impossible for the christian yeshua, were you to find his tomb (etc.) to simply have yeshua, not necessarily yeshua bar___? For example, the 'matthew' doesn't have a 'bar ___' in his inscription.
Just a thought.
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I have no opinion on this latest controversy since I need to look at all claims and evidence first. I admit I'm a bit biased against it because of the hype, so I'll have to guard against that.
Recent posts and comments on this blog have caused me to think A LOT about personal bias.
If belief in a literally resurrected Christ is essential to our faith system, then anything suggesting Jesus might have a tomb and ossuary will be automatically rejected. It's just a matter of figuring out the best way to discredit the evidence or messenger.
If we have publicly promoted and defended an archaeological find, staked our scholarly reputation on it, and profited from the sale of books released on the topic, then we will likely defend its authenticity to the very end.
If we occupy a position in the evangelical world where our job, our readership, our listeners, and our friends expect us to oppose the acceptance of homosexuality (committed, loving same-gender relationships), then we will do so or almost certainly lose everything.
Do any of us adequately recognize the power of personal bias? And how do we overcome it?
Dr. Tabor --
Re: Your "Some Initial Thoughts on the Talpiot Tomb" Blog Post and your comments on this thread.
The statistical analysis you proffer on your blog is incorrect. I mean that in two ways. First, you are taking elements of your theory as data points to test your theory. I was hoping that you and the documentarians would offfer something a little bit better than this. Second, your numbers are wrong.
I also have something to say about the petina, as well as the way which your coterie has chosen to promulgate this "discovery."
1. Theoretical Concerns
You cannot arrive at the probability that you arrive at by multiplying: P(Joseph) X P(Jesus son of Joseph) X P(Mary 1) X P(Mary 2) X P(Matthew) X P(Judah son of Jesus).
Well -- actually you CAN. In fact, you MUST. But your mathematics are all screwed up. You see -- your FIRST method is how you would arrive at the man whose tomb this is. The problem? This is NOT Jesus, based upon what we know about him. Your second method, with the stadium analogy, arrives at Jesus, but it arrives at more people than you think because you have calculated incorrectly.
So -- let's take the first method first. It is valid, at least in theoryj. But the man you find, by this method, is likely NOT going to be be Jesus of Nazareth, based upon what we know. The reason is that there is no evidence independent of this tomb that Jesus of Nazareth would be buried with an additional Mary, a Judah and a Matthew. Indeed, the chances are very small that any one person would have these six people in his "constellation." It is one thing to say that. I agree with that. But, it is another thing to connect this person to Jesus of Nazareth. You have failed to do that, at least by what you have written in your blog.
The probabilities are actually the least interesting part, though your calculations seem to be very problematic. Your main task is to demonstrate that Jesus of Nazareth would be this particular guy. This requires not simply a working out of the probabilities, not simply marveling at the eeriness of finding a "Jesus son of Joseph," a "Mary" and a "Joseph," but an accounting of three things.
To assert that Jesus is the man at the end of your first mathematical operation (where you account for all six), you first have to make an independent argument that Jesus would (a) be buried, (b) be buried in Jerusalem, (c) be buried in Jerusalem apparently not in a borrowed tomb, (d) be able to rest for 2,000+ years without being looted, despite the fact that everybody (including the Romans and the Jewish leadership) would have loved nothing more than to have produced his ossuary, which apparently was right across the street this whole time! How'd they miss that, eh?
Can you name the percentage value of the NT scholarship field who hold any of these postulates, let alone all four?
Borrowing the metaphor from your second mathematical operation, you have a stadium full of people. First, you have to show that Jesus is in the stadium to begin with!
You need to do more than this, though. Basically, you have to account for the extreme likelihood that, at some point along the way, the Jesus as we know him in the historical record will be sitting down. Your tomb has produced for you two types of error when it comes to Jesus of Nazareth: you have people who should not be there but who are there, and you have people who should be there but who are not there.
The historical record lacks any credible, accepted data, that Jesus had within his family a Matthew, another Mary and a Judah. Thus, you must offer a compelling explanation for why these people would be in Jesus's tomb. With all of the information we have -- how did we miss three of the five named boxes associated with this Jesus tomb if this in fact JC? In other words -- we need serious, independent evidence that Jesus of Nazareth had a son named Judah, a Matthew and the second Mary in his family. Otherwise, these three names work AGAINST you. They are a falsifying instance.
In other words, when you call out "anybody with a relative named Matthew?" -- guess who sits down? Our boy Jesus! You need to explain why he would not sit down.
After that, one must begin to offer explanations as to why more than half of Jesus's family is absent from this tomb. It is simply not enough to proclaim those who are included in this tomb as evidence that the tomb is legitimate. One must also account for those who are NOT in the tomb. Where is Simon? Where is Judas? Where are the sisters? Where's Poppa Joe?
All of this works independent of your statistics. Error must be dealt with in a serious way. This is especially necessary because your statistics (which again, I disagree with and will discuss below) offer what boil down to a very small confidence interval and a statistically significant result. However, your THEORY -- that this is the tomb of Jesus -- has a LOT of error. It fails to explain at least 6 data points. That is, there are 3 people who should not be there, and at least 3 people who should be there. Bear in mind that you only have 6 ossuaries with names on them. So -- yikes on the error front! That dings your impressive odds. Big time.
The information I have seen -- both on your blog and on the website -- have little-to-none of this requisite explanatory work. My hunch is that this will not fit into a 90 minute documentary and that the folks over at HarperCollins don't want a book filled to the gills with tedious stuff that satisfies us sticklers for the logic of causal inquiry. I also doubt that the authors of the book -- given their non-NT backgrounds -- could produce this kind of argument, anyway.
I hope you have and your fellows have prepared another, more scholarly, forum for the evaluation of this hypothesis, and that your intention is not just to pass it off to the unsuspecting general public that is unqualified to evaluate these claims for a quick buck and some notoriety.
II. Mathematical Concerns
It seems to me that your second mathematical operation -- where you use your football analogy -- is a way to get around the problem of error and the possibility that JC might not be in the stadium at all. Your argument seems to be that when we calculate the known relatives of JC in that tomb, we get such a small number that the error doesn't even matter. In other words, the odds are so great that this is Jesus that our historical method MUST be wrong.
However, I do not think you have executed the math properly (perhaps miscommunication between you and your statistician?). First off, I am not sure your theoretical model is accurate. Your football analogy seems to be narrowing down to Jesus of Nazareth as we know him independent of this tomb (hence your references to "mother," "brother," etc.). What you need to do is narrow down the people who COULD be in this tomb, see how many are left, and see whether JC is in the batch. The reason I mention this is that the questions you ask to those in the stadiums are JC-as-we-know-him questions, not Jesus-of-this-tomb questions.
The best way to review your work is to recreate it correcting the mistakes I see.
For simplicity's sake, let's assume that each family has, on average, 10 family members who are sufficiently closely related to be in the tomb -- just like the tomb in question. Let's also assume that each family has 5 males and 5 females. Both reasonable assumptions. Another reasonable assumption: let's assume that the sample we have on Herodian Jerusalem names is not a biased sample (i.e. the population values and the sample values are expected to be the same).
First, you have those named "Jesus son of Joseph" remain standing. Fair enough. I am with you there.
Second, you ask those with a "mother named Mary" to remain standing. This is not valid. What we should be doing is asking those with "any relative named Mary among your five female relatives" to remain standing. This is a huge difference because, again, we are trying to see whose tomb this could be. If we could confirm that either of the Mary ossuaries contains the mother of the man in the Jesus ossuary, then indeed we could multiply the number by 23%, which is what you have done. But, in actuality, what we have to do is multiply the probability that, a given "Jesus son of Joseph" will have at least one woman out of five in his family named "Mary." By my calculation, there is about a 69% chance, not a 23% chance.
Your second mistake is unrelated and even more damaging to your argument. Your statistician factored in Joseph a second time by multiplying by 13.3%, which is indeed the correct probability -- if and only if the two observations are independent! This is MAJOR trouble for you because "Joseph" and "Jesus son of Joseph" will not be independent events. The observation of one increases the likelihood of observing the other. My hunch is that their correlation will be upwards of 100%. The actual probability would be something like this:
P(Jesus son of Joseph AND Joseph) = P(Jesus son of Joseph) X P(Joseph, given Jesus son of Joseph).
The latter term will approach 1 because Joseph has already been established to be a family name, and after all this Joseph ossuary might be the dad's. Which means that you have over-estimated the number of people who would sit down when you call for the non-Joseph people to sit down. You already basically accounted for the "Joseph" crowd when you accounted for the "Jesus son of Joseph" crowd.
And your write-up mentions "brother." How do we know that this ossuary contains the brother of the man in the Jesus ossuary? So, here again, we have to factor in having one relative in four being a "Joseph" given a "Jesus son of Joseph."
Also, my estimate starts out with a greater population than yours. You mention the "average" population in Jerusalem. However, this ossuary -- by my understanding -- is dated from the Herodian period. My understanding is that the average population was 100,000 -- not 25,000 to 50,000. Even if I am wrong, you are not right. You can only use this smaller figure if you know for sure that this tomb was filled during JC's lifetime, which you do not know. Thus, you would have to take as your population the number of people who lived in Herodian Jerusalem altogether, not the number of people who lived at any given time.
This would be the extent to which this tomb correlates with known facts about Jesus. The number of people with whom he stands would be the number of people with whom the tomb correlates just as well. My estimate of this is 229 people, which means that you need to start explaining that error and making a case that Jesus would be in the stadium at all. If we use your baseline population and my calculations, we still get 55 potential candidates -- which means you have to start explaining the error and justifying why JC is in the stadium to begin with.
III. The Wait for the Petina
On a personal note -- from one scholar to another -- I have to say that this "wait and see about the petina" is unseemly, unbecoming and downright inappropriate for a scholar.
Unseemly, unbecoming, downright inappropriate. This is how I would characterize this whole absurd, carnivalesque affair that you have gotten yourself into.
For this reason, I am skeptical about your analysis of the petina.
But more than this. I am skeptical because it seems to me that you have misexecuted your statistics. I am somebody who knows about statistics. I do not know much about petina. Why should I trust your judgment on this thing when I think you are wrong on another?
But more than this. Why is your new revelation about petina, and its application to this particular case, not in a referred journal? How is it sufficient to introduce new, revelatory methods via a Discovery documentary and a HarperCollins book? Why, generally, are there no stated plans to subject your analysis of the petina, not to mention everything else, to the rigors of peer-review? If you do not plan to do that, why should I believe anything that Jim Cameron has to say on the matter? Personally, I like Ridley Scott's Alien more than his hackneyed sequel. "They mostly come out at night. Mostly." Puhlease. What else is there to recommend him?
Another question. What about that photograph that just came out in the trial of Oded Golan? It is dated prior to the discovery of the tomb in question. Its dating was verified by an FBI expert witness. The initial claim I read from your camp is that this is a false positive -- that the film was just old film used several years after purchase. You have no evidence for this. So, this question is relevant: why should I believe that Golan's expert witness has hit upon a false positive, but that your expert witness has not? On top of that, what about the testimony of Amos Kloner, who is quite clear that the 10th tomb was unmarked, and who has the documentation from the IAA to back up the claim, and who has nothing to gain from lying, and who spent time doing a write-up on the subject and who probably could remember the details?
Basically -- Kloner, the first guy to deal with the tomb in question, disagrees with your assertion. So does Oded, the first guy to deal with the James ossuary.
So, I will be interested to know whether the probability of a "false positive" about the petina (assuming that your man has the capacity to test whether two boxes shared the same square footage for 2,000 years) is greater than the probability of a false positive on the initial reports of that tenth ossuary being nameless multiplied by the probability of a false positive on that photograph.
Nevertheless, I'll cede you, for the sake of the following argument argument, the James ossuary. We have a subsample of about 200 people. To what extent does its i