PeterDavid.net

Yeah...I find it kind of interesting. Although, I chuckle at the notion that this finding now qualifies in some minds as "indisputable fact". It's an intriguing find, though.

And yeah, the Preacher's comment is rather funny.

As I understand it, all they have is a box inscribed with "Jesus, son of Joseph" - both of which were extremely common names at the time ("Jesus" simply being the Greek version of "Joshua"). I'm not convinced.

Oh, well, if there were 500 witnesses then it's settled. So what if they've been dead for two millenia and some change?

I don't get it. How can a religionist exhort us to accept his pronouncements based on faith and then try to use "evidence" to prove his beliefs? It's either about faith or its not.

I am not a religionist myself, but I believe in God. I believe religion and spirituality are not synonymous, and that the former often acts as an impediment to the latter. Your mileage may vary, and that's okay. It's a big enough world for all of us.

500 witnesses and not a single one of them (except for the ones who already were apostles) wrote about it?

If somebody were to fly up to the skies in times of the Roman Empire, I'd expect lots of scribes telling us stories. Instead all we got is silence.

I'm skeptical about both sides of the story right now, especially coming just a few years after the James ossuary was shown to be a fake. Some archeologists are already saying that the inscriptions aren't. It really isn't going to change anyone's views. If the boxes are fakes, then the faithful will continue to assume that they belong to some other Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. The nonbelievers will cite them as counterproof.

Still, the reverand's statements were funny and shows why so many in the religious community has so much trouble with the scientific method. When you start with the mindset that it's impossible that a translation of a translation of a translation of a 2000 year old book couldn't possibly have any innacuracies or exagerations, it's hard to even fathom the concept of taking a critical examination of the details and seeing if they match up with the real world.

Jose, the answer for that one is simple. All the Romans were too worried about whoever their versions of Britney Spears and Anna Nicole Smith. "Who is the child's father? Him? Him? The Gorgon? The Minotaur?"

"Although, I chuckle at the notion that this finding now qualifies in some minds as "indisputable fact". "

It's a fact that coffins were found and that some names in hebrew/arameic were scratched on them. The interpretation that this is the tomb of the Jesus and his family is the interpretation of the peole who made the movie. Even the archeologist who discovered and published the discovary rejects this interpretation.

"I don't get it. How can a religionist exhort us to accept his pronouncements based on faith and then try to use "evidence" to prove his beliefs? "

Because the idea of faith as an alternative to evidence only came after people started doubting the evidence. It was only then that people started saying, look, this is not about evidence and reason, it's about faith.

Jesus no longer a character on "South Park"? When did this happen?

Bill Myers stated: "I don't get it. How can a religionist exhort us to accept his pronouncements based on faith and then try to use "evidence" to prove his beliefs? It's either about faith or its not."

I agree. When I was in college I took a class called "Medieval Art History" to satisfy my art requirement. Basically every piece of art was Christian religious in nature because that was all that was permitted in Europe until the Renascence.

Anyhoo, the prof starts talking about these "cathedral tours" that the emerging mercantilist class would go on during their vacations. Each cathedral they would visit would have this "artifact", usually a piece of wood from the Cross or Judas's soup spoon from the Last Supper or some such. In most if not all cases these were not artifacts at all but probably something old that the church was claiming was an artifact to draw a crowd of fat pocketed tourists.

Sitting in class as a forming Christian all I could think was-- where is your faith? These 12th century yuppies have so much wealth and power that they need something they can touch to have faith in something bigger than their own pocketbooks and egos.

Even if you don't believe that Christ rose from the dead, what distinguishes these bones as Christ over any OTHER bones from the first century? I am as skeptical that these are THE bones of Christ as I was at those artifacts meant to draw an ecclesiastical crowd.

--Captain Naraht
(Ray from NH)

Well, rumor has it that at the time the Gorgon was always stoned, and the Minotaur was walking around in a stupor, like he was lost in a maze or something ^_^

Sorry, couldn't resist :-)

While I don't think the finding is a hoax, I also don't think that they are the actual burial places of Jesus and Company. What gets me is that some are saying that James Cameron faked this entire thing as a devioius attack on Christianity (same as Dan Brown was wringing his moustache evilly planning to destroy Christianity with his book :-).

Captain Naraht, you are looking on 12th century Christian society from the point of view of a 21st century Christian. People in the 12th century lived an a more concrete world, and one in which miracles were common.

"Each cathedral they would visit would have this "artifact", usually a piece of wood from the Cross or Judas's soup spoon from the Last Supper or some such. In most if not all cases these were not artifacts at all but probably something old that the church was claiming was an artifact to draw a crowd of fat pocketed tourists."

Only they were not tourists, they were pilgrims, and they were from all walks of life (see Canterbury Tales). The relics were artifacts, and body parts of saints. I was in a cathedral in Marsailles that had a glass cabinet with the Ossa Sanctorum, bones of the saints, including the skull of Saint Cassiodorus. These relics -- Like Thomas Becket's body for example, performed miracles that were retold in anecdotes. Also, Thomas Becket's assention to Sainthood was the result of popular pressure. The stories of these miracles, cripples walking blind seeing the wicked punished, were not that different from revival meetings in this 20th century. The True Cross was a very valued relic with a long history before the Saracens took it. The Crusaders carried it into war and attributed victories to it. The king of Jerusalem war a fragment of it around his neck. The relics were valuable enough -- both for the money and for the miracles -- that people wanted to steal them in times of war. Swearing on relics was a good way to ensure faithfulness. Today a witness swears on a bible in court. In the Middle ages a noble could prove his innocence by swearing on a relic. In the Chanson de Roland one of the characters has a relic in the hilt of his sword which he swears on at one stage. Even the host of the Eucarist has magical properties (it is the body of Christ). That's why, to this day, the priest puts it in people's mouths and not hands, so they won't keep it for magical purposes.

What is it about those dead bodies that is so threatening? Unless they get up and start attacking people (the people they kill getting up to kill as well, forcing those few remaining survivors to move into shopping malls and wear tacky clothes and eat mall food), I don't see what the issue is.

500 witnesses and not a single one of them (except for the ones who already were apostles) wrote about it?

Maybe they were destroyed at the Library of Alexandria along with the majority of Aeschylus' plays.

Is this part of the same discovery announced five years ago about James' casket?

Yeah, I had a Raiders flashback too. If Cameron had just put a light into the box so there was a glow as he opened it at the press conferance it would have been the Greatest Practical Joke Ever.

I'm not to terribly convinced by the evidence. 20 years to translate a few names??? And when they trot out "statistical proof", well, bells go off.

TransDutch--One account said thatthe filmmakers were including the James casket as part of the same find, which wold seem to raise red flags.

I was at a seminary once where they had, hidden away in the back, a glass case with relics. The priests were sort of embarrassed by the whole thing but one of them would seem to periodically "bleed". It was not considered a miracle and they kept quiet about it (this was at a time when the Exorcist was coming out and the Church was really uptight about the mystical aspect of things, at least in our neck of the woods). At any rate, the power of relics is almost certainly not in the relic itself but in the emotions they can create in the minds of believers. That's why, when fighting vampires one should really bulk up on the relics. Me, I'd tattoo crucifixes all over my body, drink Holy water til I burst, and carry a sword with the left knuckle of Saint Mickey attached to the handle. I'd be one vampire killing mofo. (and I'd probably get offed by a werewolf! Ain't that always the way?)

I might as well toss my $0.02 into the mix. . .

I don't want to go so far as to see this whole thing as a deliberate hoax (although there is currently an investigation, as Den mentioned, as to whether the James ossuary is a fake), but I do find a lot of holes that don't add up. I don't particularly believe that this discovery is going to change anyone's views, but I think it's to be expected, and that these challenges should be carefully examined.

The apostle Paul effectively lays down a challenge in 1 Corinthians 15: 13-15a, 17, 19. He says (NIV translation), "If there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith. More than that, we are then found to be false witnesses about God, for we have testified about God that he raised Christ from the dead. . . And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins. . . If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are to be pitied more than all men." This is a statement that without the resurrection of Christ, faith is useless, and Christians should be pitied. This is a challenge that many who disagree with Christianity are more than happy to take up: if Christ's resurrection can be debunked, Paul believes that Christianity would crumble.

So with the stakes firmly established, let's now examine the evidence. Several ossuaries with inscriptions were found, one with the name Mariamene (a common translation of Mary Magdalene) was found, and whose DNA was divergent enough from the others to be implicated as being married into this family burial site. Another was labeled Yeshua bar Yosef (Jesus son of Joseph). And then there are several other ossuaries including one labelled Joseph which is being implicated as one of Jesus' brothers. Another intruiging label can be translated as "Judah, son of Jesus."

Currently there are some concerns over the assetrtations. I'd like to raise a few of them now (in no particular order except how they flow out of my head).

1) This box was found near Jerusalem. If it's a genuine burial plot for the Biblical Jesus' family, why would it be in Jerusalem and not in the family's land in Nazareth?
2) The biggest pieces of evidence that the statistics of finding these common names was estimated as 600 : 1 all in the same location. However, this includes the odds of finding Mary Magdalene's ossuary as the wife of Jesus, a conspiracy theory that, while gaining popularity after the DaVinci code, has yet to be proven, and would negatively affect the statistical argument.
3) Scholars believe that Joseph died significantly before Mary, who retired to Ephesus, and thus would not be likely to be buried in Jerusalem.
4)
i: If we assume the crucifiction was a hoax, then Jesus would have had to have gone into hiding, which means not being burried on the family plot, and would not be found with his parents and brothers and "wife."
ii: If we assume the crucifiction wasn't a hoax but the ressurection was, then he either got his own tomb or was put somewhere else, which again means no family plot, otherwise the fact that the resurrection was a hoax might be debunked.
5) The NT gospels were passed on as oral traditions and have withstood scholarly inquiry for the better part of 2000 years and have not adequately been debunked. The liklihood that we would find something to disprove them now is slim. If the claims were false, wouldn't they be debunked historically when they were first made? I mean, if someone started telling a story about how your friend was resurrected after his death, and you were at his funeral, wouldn't you make sure that the lies this person was telling were debunked? Contrary to this expected outcome, what has been demonstrated was that the stories at the time continued to spread, and that the witnesses at the time did not debunk it.
6) No DNA testing to prove whether Judah's DNA was related to either the Jesus ossuary or the Mary Magdalene box, so it's possible that Mariamene could have been wife to another member of this family.
7) Since there is only one Joseph box, how can that be asserted to be Jesus' brother and not father? Wouldn't one need two Joseph boxes to be able to attempt to make the sorts of statistical claims that are being argued?

I've gone on longer than I planned and need to get in to work, but I thought I'd drop my thoughts.

For more information, look into it yourself, a New York Times article on this thing is found here: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/27/us/27jesus.html?hp

Chris

"Jesus no longer a character on "South Park"? When did this happen?"

I believe the episode was called "Red Sleigh Down" and it aired a few years ago. Santa's sleigh was shot down over Iraq. The boys and Jesus went there to rescue him. Jesus died in the attempt. Santa declared that from now on Christmas would not only be a day of giving gifts, it would also be a day for remembering the death of Jesus Christ.

Transdutch: Yes, that assertion has been made, as some type of "fingerprinting" of the residues on the Jesus and James boxes has been matched.

Although that brings up one other point I wish to make, which is that the archaeologists felt that with how much grave robbing had already ocurred, that a lot of the other ossuraies (such as the James box) had already been removed. We will never know, but perhaps these would have had other names which would have either supported or weakened the theories presented here.

Chris

Transdutch: Yes, that assertion has been made, as some type of "fingerprinting" of the residues on the Jesus and James boxes has been matched.

Although that brings up one other point I wish to make, which is (sorry, I guess I should go back to my numberings):

8) The archaeologists felt that with how much grave robbing had already ocurred, that a lot of the other ossuraies (such as the James box) had already been removed. We will never know, but perhaps these would have had other names which would have either supported or weakened the theories presented here.

9) A quick parting thought: If the filmmakers are so confident of their find, why have they not examined the actual bones in the Jesus ossuary and tried to determine whether or not the bones were fractured in places consistent with crucifiction?

Now I'll really shut up.

Chris

So, I have a question, based on this whole "no bones 'cause Jesus went to heaven" stuff:

A Christian dies, and supposedly goes to Heaven. Yet, if I dig him up, and the bones are still there does that disprove Heaven? Or does that just mean the guy went to Hell for some reason?

Or is Jesus the only one who gets to have his bones transported to Heaven? :)

Micha wrote: "That's why, to this day, the priest puts it in people's mouths and not hands, so they won't keep it for magical purposes."

Actually, in the Catholic church, the priest _does_ put the host (eucharist) in people's hands. At least at every church I've been to in the last 20 years or so. Before that, the priest (or a lay minister) did put the host in your mouth. I believe it changed for hygiene-related reasons.

And I've never heard or read anything so much as hinting that the host could be used for magical purposes. Not at any mass; not at CCD classes as a kid; and not in 10 years of a Jesuit education. But perhaps that mindset comes from a different branch of Christianity than Catholicism.

Yes, we're told the host undergoes a process of transubstantiation, where it actually (not metaphorically) becomes the body of Jesus (with the wine becoming his blood); but that's not the same thing as the host having magical properties people can use to their advantage.

Rick

I've always had one problem with the N.T..
Jesus was the son of G-d. It was the holy spirit that impregnated Mary.When he died he rose to heaven to be with his holy father.
Hercules was the son of Zeus. He took the form of, (Eagle? I forget) that impregnated his mother. When he died he rose to Olympus to be with his father.
Jesus did miracles, Hercules did Labors.
Since the books of the N.T. were codified by the Roman empire, I wonder how much was changed to 'convert' the Roman people.
If this crypt has any chance of validity perhaps we should keep all this in mind.

Of course while I have no hard concrete evidence that there is a G-d, as a Jew I do have faith.

So Xtians should not fear this tomb either way.

Bobb

Craig: According to the story in the Bible, Jesus went _bodily_ into Heaven after his resurrection. If I remember correctly, Mary may have, gone bodily into Heaven, too. And a few others. So, to answer your question, according to the Bible, only a select few get to take their bones (and muscles, and and tendons and veins, and arteries and hair and....) with them into Heaven.

Rick

So, to answer your question, according to the Bible, only a select few get to take their bones with them into Heaven.

Damn elitists. ;)

"Or is Jesus the only one who gets to have his bones transported to Heaven? :)"

Jesus rose from the dead and afterwards physically went to heaven. The prophet Eliaja also went to heaven in a similar way.

The Church should retaliate by sending a robot to the past to kill James Cameron's mother.

"3) Scholars believe that Joseph died significantly before Mary, who retired to Ephesus, and thus would not be likely to be buried in Jerusalem."

There's a church in Jerusalem called the Dormitzion. It's connected to a story that Mary did not die but fell asleep. I don't know if she's supposed to be buried there.

"The NT gospels were passed on as oral traditions and have withstood scholarly inquiry for the better part of 2000 years and have not adequately been debunked. The liklihood that we would find something to disprove them now is slim. If the claims were false, wouldn't they be debunked historically when they were first made? I mean, if someone started telling a story about how your friend was resurrected after his death, and you were at his funeral, wouldn't you make sure that the lies this person was telling were debunked? Contrary to this expected outcome, what has been demonstrated was that the stories at the time continued to spread, and that the witnesses at the time did not debunk it."

Every religion has countless stories of miraculous events taking place and being witnessed. I think when people say that the gospels have been proven historicaly it means that they are not forgeries. There is no real way to proove that what they say is true, except maybe other contemporary sources which are not available. In any case, the gospels were written some time after the events, and they do not always correspond.

"Is this part of the same discovery announced five years ago about James' casket?"

I think (but I'm not certain) that James's casket was brought from antique dealers while these were found by reliable archeologists.

"A quick parting thought: If the filmmakers are so confident of their find, why have they not examined the actual bones in the Jesus ossuary and tried to determine whether or not the bones were fractured in places consistent with crucifiction?"

a. According to the archeologist who found the cave, when the bones were found, they were in no condition to find signs of crucifixion.
b. There is an ongoing struggle between archelogists who find bones often and Ultra-Religious Jews who accuse them of desecrating Jewish graves (althogh you can't always be surethey're Jewish or even human). The compromise apparently is that the bones are handed over to an Ultra-Religious group for re-burial.

"This box was found near Jerusalem. If it's a genuine burial plot for the Biblical Jesus' family, why would it be in Jerusalem and not in the family's land in Nazareth?"

This point was also made by the archeologist who found the cave. He also said that the cave belongs to more middle class family. However, since the gospels have Jesus buried in Jerusalem after the crucifixion, it is possile that other family members were buried there afterwards. If you really want to get speculative and religious at the same time you can claim that although Jesus rose from the grave, the grave and casket still remained, and certainly the people who witnessed the resurrection (Mary and Mary Magdalene), as well as other family members, were then buried there. Or you can go Da-Vinci Code and suggest that Jesus's resurrection was a story someone came up with later, and that Jesus and family were buried there, or that Jesus rose from the dead but was married and had an offspring who were buried in the same cave. In any case, at this stage this would be more along the lines of speculation historical fiction, as this documentary seems to be.

One account said thatthe filmmakers were including the James casket as part of the same find, which wold seem to raise red flags.

It's important to note that no one is really sure where the James ossuary was "found" as it allegedly passed through the hands of several antiquities dealers of questionable reputation. When the police searched the apartment of the one guy who sold it to its most recent owner, they found all the tools and materials one would have needed in order to fake an inscription. It's highly doubtful that box is real. If the producers are claiming that the James ossuary is part of their find, then it puts their entire claim into doubt.

As for the issue of relics, Micha is correct in that it was common belief in the middle ages that relics (bones and samples of blood being among the most common) associated with saints were imbued with supernatural properties. Churches knew that a good relic attracted a lot of pilgrims (and money), so there was a great deal of competition as to who could come up with the best relics.

I've often heard that if you gathered up all the pieces of the "true cross" that are floating around the world today, you'd make one large economy sized cross.

A Christian dies, and supposedly goes to Heaven. Yet, if I dig him up, and the bones are still there does that disprove Heaven? Or does that just mean the guy went to Hell for some reason?

Again, Craig, we have to compare what many people believed during the middle ages compared to the common beliefs of the modern era. Today, most Christians assume that when you die, your soul immediately goes to heaven. But, it was a common belief in the middel ages that the dead were actually slumbering and would be physically resurrected at the end times. Only Jesus and certain saints were believed have already ascended into heaven. This is why there were so many superstitions about disturbing the dead, because many believed that if the body wasn't kept whole, they would not be resurrected. Apparently, saints were excluded from this rule.

Today, most Christians still believe in Jesus' bodily ascension, even as they believe that their own souls will depart from their bodies upon death.

I wonder, if they could prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that Jesus was buried in that tomb and his bones were still there, would Christians modify their view and simply assume that Jesus' ascension was a spiritual one or would that take away too much of his specialness?

One final thought: If the resurrection was a fraud perpetrated by his followers, wouldn't one of the first things they'd have done was make sure his body would never be found? Why inscribe his name on his ossuary then?

If I've read things (and remembered them) right, there were no bones in the oiosuaries - there had been grave robbers before the present day. Some DNA was taken from the containers. It will probably be a topic of discussion until the next big "thing" happens - either war or celebrity related. These ossuaries hit at a slow time, apparently.

"Unless they get up and start attacking people (the people they kill getting up to kill as well, forcing those few remaining survivors to move into shopping malls and wear tacky clothes and eat mall food),...'

Move over Jesus Christ: Vampire Killer. This fall, James Cameron and Chadwick H. Saxelid bring you Jesus Christ: Killer Zombie.

(This film has not yet been boycotted.... er... rated.)

How many things did Jesus do that Firestorm has never done?

And don't say "rise from the dead," Firestorm did that.

"And I've never heard or read anything so much as hinting that the host could be used for magical purposes. Not at any mass; not at CCD classes as a kid; and not in 10 years of a Jesuit education. But perhaps that mindset comes from a different branch of Christianity than Catholicism."

I heard about he ned to protect the Eucarist host from my Medieval History professor, Amnon Linder.

About he magical uses of the host I fortunatly have with me here "Magic in the Middle Ages" by Richard Kieckhefer (1990). It seems I need to correct a bit what I said about the relics. Anyway p. 78-80:
"The relics of saints also seem at times to have served as amulets. When Count Rudolf of Pfullendorf brought relics of the biblical patriarchs back from the Holy Land they impated peace, fertility and good weather everywhere he took them. Wax taken from the tomb of St. Martin of Tours and place atop a tree could protect the surrounding vinyard from hail. Carried into battle, relics could secure victory over the foe.Yet it is dangerous to focus on such reports in isolation from other factors in the veneration of saints. These holy persons might work on earth through their physical remains, but their devotees knew that their souls were inheaven interceding before God. ...It is thus misleading to assume that their relics were seen as having inherent power,only loosly connected to their spiritual presence. ...They may still on occasion have treated their relics as magical amulets, but concrete evidence for this is rare."
"...The thwelfth and thirteenthh centuries saw escalating devotion to the eucharist, or to the host that the priest consecrated during the mass. This was the age when the theological doctrine of transubstantiation was being refined.... Popular belief soon held that a person who saw the consecrated host during mass would be safe from harm for the res of the day. On the feast of Corpus Christi the host would be carried in procession through town and then out to the fields to ensure fertility of the crops. Laypeople allegedly carried the process further, stealing or otherwise obtaining consecrated hosts to protect themselves against wounding or drowning, to cure their diseases or procure fertility, to prevent storms or to gain riches. At times they might heighten the power of the host by writing Bible verses or magical charms on it."
"People in meieval Europe who noted and protested against these abuses were not likely to call them magic, but rather superstition, which in this context means the improper use of a holy object. ...From the theologians' and preachers' viewpoint, relics and hosts were not natural repositories for occult power; they were not analogous to springs of rosmary or organs from vultures."

Micha:

You say, "Every religion has countless stories of miraculous events taking place and being witnessed. I think when people say that the gospels have been proven historicaly it means that they are not forgeries. There is no real way to proove that what they say is true, except maybe other contemporary sources which are not available. In any case, the gospels were written some time after the events, and they do not always correspond."

But scholarly evidence I recall hearing (I'm at work and couldn't pull up a source at this point) indicated that the minor discrepancies between the gospels are actually evidence for their veracity, as, for example, firsthand accounts of a car accident will agree very strongly on the overriding facts of the case (ie-that it happened) but have minor discepancies (ie-the color of a car that ran a red light and precipitated the event). In fact, it's often a red flag when evidence lines up too much that the witnesses have been "prepped."

Further, I seem to recall a debate trying to debunk some of the contents of the Bible in the 1800s or such where no evidence had been found for the existence of the Hittites, and that in 1950, archeologists unearthed a tomb which explicitly identified those present by the name Hittites. I just use this as an example. So when the argument is made that the Bible has so far been proven historically accurate, I think it also means that what has been referenced, like any good hypothesis, has so far held up to scrutiny and new evidence continues to support it.

As for James' casket, yes, it was purchased from antique dealers because the tomb had been ransacked several times and James' ossuary, for instance, had been removed.

As for the bone evidence, a) the archeologist who found it originally did not agree with the current assertions that this was the biblical Jesus and his family, b) there was DNA evidence from the bones, so I don't know how exactly the legal balance works, and c) the NYT article indicated that there were plans to pursue the testing I'd mentioned but that they weren't going to do so yet, which leads me to believe they wanted publicity rather than going thru proper scientific inquiry.

As for your parting thoughts, I agree 100%. My comment had merely been intended as a rhetorical question to articulate my skepticism of these speculations that I believe are a load of BS, which you were able to articulate better than I did.

Chris

Here's the thing about this: It doesn't really matter if they're real or not. Christianity is so far entrenched that Jesus himself could descend from heavan carried by Angels, and there would still be Christians doubting that he was the Real Deal. Because he wouldn't fit, in some way, their concept of Jesus, so of course he'd have to be fake.

Just like ID, there's nothing inherant about this finding that, if true, contradicts anything about the crucifiction, resurrection, and ascension. As far as I can remember, there's nothing in the Bible that says that Jesus ascended into Heavan and STAYED THERE. For all anyone knows, after lifting up to Heavan, he returned to live out his normal human lifespan with his family. Or maybe commuted back and forth.

Or maybe, since the timelines in the Bible are not consistant, his ascension occurred years after his resurrection.

In any case, it's an interesting find. Maybe we'll be able to use the recovered DNA to clone him?

You know, it's funny. Earlier in this thread I said "it's either about faith or it's not." Upon further thought I realize that that's a false dilemma.

Science to a degree relies on faith. No one has ever seen an atom with their naked eye, but scientists believe they exist based on the available evidence. Granted, there's damn good evidence of the existence of atoms -- I mean, look what happens when we split one... KABOOM! Still, there is a leap of faith that must be taken, however small.

Christianity requires a much, much, much, MUUUCCHHH bigger leap of faith, of course. We accept that atoms exist because there is an assload of evidence that has been gathered using the scientific method. Most religions, on the other hand, rely on evidence in the form of ancient texts whose authorship is often in doubt.

I think the difference is one of degree and not kind. But -- it's a HUGE degree of difference. Like the difference between absolute zero and the temperature in the heart of the sun.

Is Christianity "bad" because it has as its basis some ancient texts? I dunno. As I said, I'm not a religionist. But I tend to think if Christianity can make you a better person -- kind, generous, non-judgmental, confident, at peace -- then Christianity is "good." If it instead pushes your worst aspects to the fore -- intolerance, hypocrisy, hubris -- then it is "bad."

In other words, Christianity is like anything else. What you get out of it is what you put into it. It's neither inherently good nor bad.

That said, I personally could not return to Christianity without betraying deeply held beliefs I've developed over the last couple of decades. I disagree passionately with too many of its precepts -- and have found that I can follow the precepts with which I DO agree without having to be a Christian.

Your mileage may vary. Again -- it's a big enough world.

Mr. Myers said:
I don't get it. How can a religionist exhort us to accept his pronouncements based on faith and then try to use "evidence" to prove his beliefs? It's either about faith or its not.
Have you read Karen Armstrong's The Battle for God? It very neatly answers this, although I have minor squabbles with her timeline. Basically she argues that for a very long time, the idea of mythos - religion - and logos - the logical world - existed side by side. They didn't cover the same things, so there was no real conflict. But eventually logos began talking about things that traditionally belonged to mythos, and mythos fought back the only way it knew how - it coopted the writing of logos. (Bear with me, I'm summarizing, and generally.) For Armstrong, this is how mythos, religion and oral traditions, became solidified into fundamentalist writings - because the attitude that once something is written down it's empirical and concrete was taken from the sphere of logos. So instead of flexibility in interpretation of words to modern situations, you get entire religions frozen at the moment in time they abandoned the realm of mythos for logos.

It's a good book. Worth reading. :)

Mr. Mulligan said:
At any rate, the power of relics is almost certainly not in the relic itself but in the emotions they can create in the minds of believers.
Yep, precisely. Tangible forms of faith to bolster the faithful. I actually got to look at relics last month, when we went to a place that has several relics of St. Peregrine - my mother was blessed by them, and I sort of sideways lurked my way over to the alcove holding them after the service. Kind of interesting little statues - reminded me of little league trophies. But for the people there to be blessed by them, it was confirmation of their faith, of God's love, of His plan for them, and comforted them in their illness. (Peregrine is the saint of cancer and other nastybad illnesses.)

Although I don't believe in that particular religion, or even my own when it comes to things like relics inside stupas, I can't knock the comfort and peace that their presence brings those who do believe. Faith is powerful.

The NT gospels were passed on as oral traditions and have withstood scholarly inquiry for the better part of 2000 years and have not adequately been debunked. The liklihood that we would find something to disprove them now is slim. If the claims were false, wouldn't they be debunked historically when they were first made?
Er... but in many ways they haven't withstood scholarly inquiry. We know that they were modified, edited, and we know exactly when the Church met up to do these things.

Given when they were actually written down, and who they were written for, there would really be no one around to "debunk" the story - in many cases, the New Testament was written down decades after anyone involved in the stories were around. They were written for a core group of faithful who would have no reason to doubt. (And there are a lot of those "extra" books that do specifically conflict with the official NT - things that the Church kicked out during their revisionist periods. Y'know, gnostic gospels and such.)

Finally, the notion of debunking itself it something that's new. You can't really debunk faith prior to Enlightenment concepts of the scientific process and proof. ...these are just some of the problems of looking at history with 21st century assumptions.

I haven’t really paid much attention to the whole thing truth to tell.

James Cameron made a movie about it? Well, as a Christian I could feel a lot better about the whole event if he donated the profit to Christian charities.

I don’t need to know what happened to Jesus’ bones to cement my faith. I would be lying though if I didn’t say I wish the whole matter was treated with a certain amount of reverence in any event.

I‘m not a pious person, nor a big church goer but, the tenets of my faith are a serious thing to me and as such should be shown the same respect others want their beliefs to be regarded in.

I can laugh as much as the next person when I watch South Park but, people’s beliefs are touchy subjects. Wars begin over such things and even while I may not agree with all of the views expressed, I will at least treat them with dignity and not go out of my way to belittle others opinions.

On a personal level, my only reaction to the thing is it does seem a bit creepy and sensationalistic. I do doubt the veracity of any claims of finding the actual remains of Christ and his family. A lot of the discussion on this topic misses the point that this is a bit of a serious subject to quite a few people.

The curious thing is a series of cartoons (about Mohamed) can provoke all kinds of back stepping and riots - if we are going to show a level of sensitivity to one group we should show it fairly to all groups.

"The curious thing is a series of cartoons (about Mohamed) can provoke all kinds of back stepping and riots - if we are going to show a level of sensitivity to one group we should show it fairly to all groups."

Except that the Mohamed issue isn't respect, it's hysteria. We definitely shouldn't treat everything that way.

Thing that gets me is how poorly chosen the moment was. For the whole resurrection thing, I mean. 2000 years ago, there were already people all over the planet. But methods of communication were very slow and unreliable. Only a very small part of the world's population would get rumours of the event - ostensibly the most important in the history of Christianity - for centuries to come. So why not delay the coming and death/resurrection until, oh, say at least the 1960s when global communications would have the event be seen by at least millions, if not billions instead of a few handfulls? (500? Where did they get that number? Did someone count heads?) It isn't as though it really changed much anyway. It was supposed to cleanse Man of sin, but I'd say Man, as a race, is still pretty sinful. So that was a wasted effort anyway.

I'm no scholar (Biblical or otherwise) by any means. I hadn't even heard about these things (nor the word ossuary, for that matter), until I read about it in PAD's blog. The debate however does interest me in a rather dispassionate way, and so I'll throw my opinion in the ring too. I see a lot of interesting things about the witnesses to Christ's resurrection, and how most historical evidence tends to support the scriptures (Jewish exodus, existence of Hittites, geologic evidence of a flood, etc...). This brings to mind something that I had been mulling over a few months ago, while reading up on a completely different subject. Please forgive me if this gets a little overlong, but it's a good story, trust me.

In the Summer of 1947, a rancher named Mack Brazel found some debris scattered across a couple acres of his land. Some wierd silvery fabric, struts that resembled balsa wood, and some stuff that "looked like bakelite". Mack took his find to the local Sherrif's office, who told him to take it to the Army Air Base near town. Well, he turned it over, and a day or so later there was a radio broadcast about the Army recovering "wreckage" of a flying disc. Now, these flying discs had just started being reported throughout the country, and had the whole nation in something of a tizz. When the Brazel debris came in, one Army general thought he'd make some headlines. This headline was quickly retracted, and the debris packaged up, and sent off to one or more other Army Air bases. A new story was now released that the debris was just from a "weather baloon". At the time, this was pretty much the end of it.

Now look at the story 30 years later. It's 1977 and Charles Berlitz publishes the book "The Roswell Incident" with the events I've described above, along with many events that almost certainly did not occur. The evidence that Berlitz and his co-author presented? All verbal accounts by "eye-witnesses" to the event. Fast forward another 30 years to today, and look at what Roswell has become. Books, movies, television series, everything imaginable has the stamp of "The Roswell Incident" on it.

But guess what? There was no spacecraft, crashed or otherwise, recovered by Mr. Brazel. Nor was it a weather baloon. The debris was almost certainly from a project called MOGUL, which was testing baloons designed to stay aloft at a constant altitude to monitor for missile launches in Russisa. They used translucent neoprene for the baloons, balsa wood frames for support, and several monitoring instruments whose casings were made of bakelite.

But here in this age of unprecendented age of information available to the public at all times, the actual evidence of what is most likely to have occured is completely ignored in favor of the far more sensationalistic accounts that have cropped up over the last 50 years. All of the other stories about it started with a "witness", someone supposedly involved in the events at Roswell.

Now consider this: The books of the New Testament were written about 70 years after the Jesus' death. They were all stories handed down through oral tradition. And the basis for these stories? Eye-witness accounts.

Interesting, no?

(btw, thanks to Karl Pflock for his fantasic book "Roswell: Inconvenient Facts and the Will to Believe" - highly recommended for anyone interested in the subject of UFOs)

Personally, I think the real story here is not how Jesus' body has been found, I think the real story is how James Cameron's swollen ego has somehow caused his head to disappear up his own ass.

"I found the Titantic, now I'm going to find Jesus, dammit!"
"But, uh, Jim, you didn't really FIND Titanic, you see--"
"KING OF THE WORLD! WHOOOOO!!! LA LA LA!!"

Hell, I'm still looking forward to Avatar and Battle Angel, and Aliens is still the greatest movie of all time. But Cameron dictating that he found the body of Jesus cause he said so. Eh, I don't think so. Which is a shame because when his new movies finally come out, there'll just be a shitstorm of bad publicity and boycotting surrounding it that'll drown out the movie. The fact that he's making the flick entirely in 3-D because he sees himself as the saviour of cinema kinda supports the idea of the messiah complex thing he's got goin on, though.

Besides, the Reverend quote was basically right: Jesus left spaceship Earth physically so there aren't remains left. Case dismissed. Everyone go back to your lives. Nothing to see here. Move along. These aren't the droids you're looking for.

But scholarly evidence I recall hearing (I'm at work and couldn't pull up a source at this point) indicated that the minor discrepancies between the gospels are actually evidence for their veracity, as, for example, firsthand accounts of a car accident will agree very strongly on the overriding facts of the case (ie-that it happened) but have minor discepancies (ie-the color of a car that ran a red light and precipitated the event). In fact, it's often a red flag when evidence lines up too much that the witnesses have been "prepped."

That might apply to some parts of the gospels, but there are others that just don't work if you try to view them as literally describing actual events. (Try reconciling the two Christmas stories--one has Mary and Joseph arriving in Bethlehem from Nazareth and leaving a couple of weeks after the birth, while the other has them living in Bethlehem until Jesus is a couple of years old, then fleeing to Nazareth via Egypt.) The geneaologies in Matthew and Luke don't agree with each other (or in some cases other geneaologies elsewhere), down to which son of David Joseph is supposed to be descended from and even who Joseph's father is; to top it off, Matthew apparently couldn't count to fourteen reliably. That's well outside the realm of differing eyewitness reports.

(It should also be noted that the gospel of John diverges from the other three because he was drawing from a different tradition. Although some bits from John have beaten the others into the popular realm--three of the gospels say Jesus' cross was carried by Simon of Cyrene and one by Jesus himself, but the latter is a better image so that's what most people think of.)

Preface: I am a 4th year PhD student in biblical studies, so I know the issues and texts of the new testament fairly well, but I have no training in archaeology.

The James ossuary was a forgery created to fool scholars and make money, and it successfully fooled Hershel Shanks, editor of Biblical Archaeology Review, probably because he wanted it to be real so much that it clouded his judgment. He crowed about his findings at the Society for Biblical Literature and other conferences and can't afford to back down, but the ossuary is clearly a fake. This just goes to show that even an intelligent, knowledgeable historian can be taken in by a con man.

Archaelogy in and around Jerusalem and Israel as a whole comes in two varieties: scholarly and sensationalistic. The more potentially exciting the discovery, the more sensationalistic the work becomes; the dead sea scrolls, about which you have heard so much, have _still_ not been published in their entirety, or in an accessible scholarly edition or translation, because it's to the advantage of the people who found them to let information about their discovery trickle out slowly rather than to share it all with their fellow researchers. The more extraordinary the claim, the less likely the work will be held up to scrutiny.

Is it impossible for scholars to assess the truth of James Cameron's claims about this tomb because the details have not been published in a journal or anywhere else. I do not believe that the archaeologists involved in the find are as interested in scientific analysis as they are in sensationalism. That said, they are almost certainly not part of the real tomb of Jesus. They are much more likely to be a skilled forgery, or the tomb of another Jesus. The evidence to the contrary would need to be overwhelming, and since the work has not been published in a journal, nobody can really evaluate it.

In reference to the argument above about whether the bible has been "debunked:" Biblical criticism has not, historically, been about trying to poke holes in the biblical narrative, because a cursory examination of the bible shows that it does not provide a single historical narrative, but a wide range of different kinds of truth claims, stories, myths, histories, and testimonies. There have been, as one poster noted, some archaeological finds which have verified that the Bible refers to some real historical peoples who were not previously known to scholarship. This, however, does not verify the rest of the Bible's historical claims, any more than the discovery of Troy means that Achilles and Hector actually fought there.

The gospels don't need to be debunked; the argument for their historical accuracy needs to be built from the ground up, and, in my experience, cannot be made convincingly. They are a patchwork of oral traditions weaved together into a group of narratives, each with its own individual biases and purposes. Their sources are unknown and their authors were in the second generation of followers of Christ. The letters of Paul, on the other hand, seem to be genuine (those which are actually by Paul, anyway), are much earlier, and are a far more valuable historical record about early Christian belief and behavior.

Maybe we'll be able to use the recovered DNA to clone him?

Welcome, to Jesusrasic Park.

(Jew-rasic Park sounds better, but it opens a hole other kettle of gefilte)

Jesus was the son of G-d. It was the holy spirit that impregnated Mary.When he died he rose to heaven to be with his holy father.
Hercules was the son of Zeus. He took the form of, (Eagle? I forget) that impregnated his mother. When he died he rose to Olympus to be with his father.

Shhhhhh...don't point that out...they hate it when you do that (and it was a shower of gold).

The Church should retaliate by sending a robot to the past to kill James Cameron's mother.

Ah, there's the good ol Christian spirit!

The curious thing is a series of cartoons (about Mohamed) can provoke all kinds of back stepping and riots - if we are going to show a level of sensitivity to one group we should show it fairly to all groups.

I don't know. I think it speaks well of our society that we can face challenges to the orthodoxy of our majority religion in a calm manner with (somewhat) intelligent discussion. The reaction to Mohammed cartoons showed, to be blunt, a lack of maturity on the part of the people who rioted over it. The backstepping in the west was about being sensitive, it was about the fear of being the target of terrorism.

Imagine the reaction in the Moslim world had a group of scholars presented artifacts that cast doubt on a major event in the Koran.

the only reason jesus is no longer a character on South Park is because he died to save Santa. no reason why james cameron couldn't make a film about how he discovered his tomb... where, presumably, he was buried four years ago.

It's 1977 and Charles Berlitz publishes the book "The Roswell Incident" with the events I've described above, along with many events that almost certainly did not occur. The evidence that Berlitz and his co-author presented? All verbal accounts by "eye-witnesses" to the event. Fast forward another 30 years to today, and look at what Roswell has become. Books, movies, television series, everything imaginable has the stamp of "The Roswell Incident" on it.

I'd be wary of anything with the name Charles Berlitz on it. He's the guy who made the Bermuda Triangle a household word, mostly by being VERY selective of the facts he presented.

Back to Cameron--I love his work but it occurs to me that he made a big deal about how Titanic should never be disturbed or artifacts taken from it, out of respect for the dead. Now he's digging up graves. I dunno, seems a bit of a 180.

I wrote:
"The Church should retaliate by sending a robot to the past to kill James Cameron's mother."

Scavenger replied:
"Ah, there's the good ol Christian spirit!"

This is reference to Cameron's movie Terminator, and has nothing to do with Christian Spirit, especially since i'm not christian.

---------------------

Tjob wrote:
"I do not believe that the archaeologists involved in the find are as interested in scientific analysis as they are in sensationalism. That said, they are almost certainly not part of the real tomb of Jesus. They are much more likely to be a skilled forgery, or the tomb of another Jesus."

The name of the archeologist who has found the cave and documented the findings back in the 80's is Amos Kloner. If you google him you will find him calling the movie nonsense all over he media. In any case, he has nothing to do with the movie. The same articles also claim the the jacob ossuary is a forgery.

-----------------------

Kelly wrote:
"At any rate, the power of relics is almost certainly not in the relic itself but in the emotions they can create in the minds of believers.
Yep, precisely. Tangible forms of faith to bolster the faithful. I actually got to look at relics last month, when we went to a place that has several relics of St. Peregrine - my mother was blessed by them, and I sort of sideways lurked my way over to the alcove holding them after the service. Kind of interesting little statues - reminded me of little league trophies. But for the people there to be blessed by them, it was confirmation of their faith, of God's love, of His plan for them, and comforted them in their illness. (Peregrine is the saint of cancer and other nastybad illnesses.)

Although I don't believe in that particular religion, or even my own when it comes to things like relics inside stupas, I can't knock the comfort and peace that their presence brings those who do believe. Faith is powerful."

This is a modern way to make sense of an old ritual. Of course in the past people believed that rituals involving relics had a real, miraculous, physical effect on people's health. I guess today less people would expect St. Peregrine to heal their cancer, instead they find emotional comfort only.

Kelly also wrote:

"Finally, the notion of debunking itself it something that's new. You can't really debunk faith prior to Enlightenment concepts of the scientific process and proof. ...these are just some of the problems of looking at history with 21st century assumptions."

That's not exactly true. The idea that some things are true and some things are false and should be debunked existed before the Elightenment, even if what constituted scientific analysis changed. For example, in the 12th century the philosopher Abelard got into trouble with the Monks of St Denis for trying to debunk the history of the monastery's supposed founder St. Denis. The scholastic system which Abelard was involved in developing involved studying religious texts critically and placing side by side different arguments for or against an interpretation. Another scholadtic, Thomas Aquinas, debunked the claims that necromancers controling demons in their magic. The demons, he said, were tricking them.

Kelly also wrote:
"Have you read Karen Armstrong's The Battle for God? It very neatly answers this, although I have minor squabbles with her timeline. Basically she argues that for a very long time, the idea of mythos - religion - and logos - the logical world - existed side by side. They didn't cover the same things, so there was no real conflict. But eventually logos began talking about things that traditionally belonged to mythos, and mythos fought back the only way it knew how - it coopted the writing of logos. (Bear with me, I'm summarizing, and generally.) For Armstrong, this is how mythos, religion and oral traditions, became solidified into fundamentalist writings - because the attitude that once something is written down it's empirical and concrete was taken from the sphere of logos. So instead of flexibility in interpretation of words to modern situations, you get entire religions frozen at the moment in time they abandoned the realm of mythos for logos."

I haven't read it, so my criticism is of what little I know about it from the internet and Kelly's post.

It is true that fundamentalism is a reaction to modernity. It is true that in the modern era rationalism and science became idealized and dominant in a way they had not been before. It is also true that rationalism and science cannot address all the psychological needs of humans. I don't agree with this image of pre-modern society as a society in which Mythos and Logos lived next to each other, happy each in its own place. Nor do we live today in aworld of logos with no Mythos.

Compare for example the Peloponese War by Thucydides with the Illiad or the Bible. Thucydides cross referenced sources and used criticism in order to analyze what happened in the war between Sparta and Athens. The bible is also a history, but the events described in the bible are part of a religious story of god's power on earth and the process leading toward salvation. So was history logos or mythos?

How about the philosopher Anaxagoras who said that if horses could talk and make statues they would make their gods look like horses. That's critical thinking. he was thrown out of Athens for saying that the moon is a rock. Is the moon the subject of logos or mythos?

In the extremely religious middle ages Christianity, Islam and judaism had a mixed relationship with philosophy (rationalism). There are books in whch there is a (literary) argument between a Christian, a Jew, a Muslim and a philosopher, in which the Christian, or the Jew, tries to debunk the others. At other times religious thinkers tried to use philosophy in the study of religion, and there were times in which such attempts were criticized. In the 12th century the scolastic method taught by people like Abelard was criticized by monks who felt it was too rationalistic, too technical.

----------------------
Bobb(In Irving) wrote:
"I've always had one problem with the N.T..
Jesus was the son of G-d. It was the holy spirit that impregnated Mary.When he died he rose to heaven to be with his holy father.
Hercules was the son of Zeus. He took the form of, (Eagle? I forget) that impregnated his mother. When he died he rose to Olympus to be with his father.
Jesus did miracles, Hercules did Labors."

cross religious influences exist in all religions including Judaism. The story of the flood for example appears in the Legend of Gilgamesh.

"Back to Cameron--I love his work but it occurs to me that he made a big deal about how Titanic should never be disturbed or artifacts taken from it, out of respect for the dead. Now he's digging up graves. I dunno, seems a bit of a 180."

He didn't do the digging. The archeological dig that unearthed this burial cave was done in the 80's by the Israeli Antiquities Agency.

Eyewitness accounts, for all the legal movies and TV play them up, are not really a very reliable means of presenting "fact." People's perceptions are very subjective, memory is a spotty thing. People tend to see what they want to see, and the brain actually does it's level best to translate the sensory input into something it understands.

And as time passes, and memory fades, eyewitness accounts fail even more. Verbal tradition is only as good as the memory of the person doing the reciting.

All of which is meant to say that in any other setting outside of church, written versions of an event based on eyewitness accounts of an event that occurred several decades in the past would have absolutely zero value in any competent court proceeding.

Granted, because of this oral traditions were limited to a select few keepers, and written documents were too valuable to be used for fictional accounts.

Well at least Jesus didn't died without a use in Southpark.
1. He freed Santa.

2. Santa brought christmas to Bagdad.

3. Kenny came back and he later saved heaven.

But i also miss Jesus on South park. Without his voice of reason the adults became more and more insane (as if this was possible).

"But scholarly evidence I recall hearing (I'm at work and couldn't pull up a source at this point) indicated that the minor discrepancies between the gospels are actually evidence for their veracity, as, for example, firsthand accounts of a car accident will agree very strongly on the overriding facts of the case (ie-that it happened) but have minor discrepancies (ie-the color of a car that ran a red light and precipitated the event)."

On the other hand, people take as fact various urban legends that are the same base story, have minor discrepancies in the telling and are complete garbage. Saying that the fact that people are describing the same event with different details is actually evidence for their veracity is laughable. In my line of work, when five people are telling a story and key points don't match up, it's more often a sign that something is wrong with the story we're being given then a sign that the story is true.

"Further, I seem to recall a debate trying to debunk some of the contents of the Bible in the 1800s or such where no evidence had been found for the existence of the Hittites, and that in 1950, archeologists unearthed a tomb which explicitly identified those present by the name Hittites. I just use this as an example."

For the longest time, Troy was believed to be a myth. Then they found it and proved that the City of Troy was a historical fact. Does that mean that all the stories of Troy are true? If so, you've just said that a man can be dipped in a magic pool and become 99.9% invincible and that there's a whole other set of gods out there.

See, the thing with saying that the Bible is historically accurate is a bit of a problem. You can indeed point to places, people and things from the stories in the Bible and show that they did in fact exist. However, that doesn't begin to support even the smallest of divine "facts" in the Bible. Every religion has used the world around them to craft their tales of the gods. Troy was but one example. Was every volcanic eruption in the Hawaiian Islands proof that the various volcano gods demanded sacrifices on a regular bases? Was the Nile flooding actually because the river gods were ticked off? Was a good hunt because Herne smiled upon his followers? Was a bumper crop or lack thereof a sign of the gods mood toward their followers? Who has the "real" story of the great flood and its cause? Lots of religions have one. Only one group says that it was due to God with a big "G" and not due to a god.

Besides, as I've posted here before, there are some stories that history has kicked in the butt. We've gone into outer space and we've been to the moon. At no time did we pass by Heaven, a host of angels or God himself. Yet, there was such a place as Babel. The Bible says that the tower of Babel was destroyed in part because man was building it high enough to touch Heaven itself. Tiny problem in holding that story of the past to the facts of today.

"Maybe we'll be able to use the recovered DNA to clone him?"

ST:TNG did that with the Klingons in a story that was an analogy for the belief in faith and Christ. They ran into problems.

"I'd be wary of anything with the name Charles Berlitz on it. He's the guy who made the Bermuda Triangle a household word..."

Not to mention the Philadelphia Experiment.

"All of which is meant to say that in any other setting outside of church, written versions of an event based on eyewitness accounts of an event that occurred several decades in the past would have absolutely zero value in any competent court proceeding."

There was a really good book that came out about a year or so ago called Misquoting Jesus. it's not an attack on Christianity nor any of its followers, but it does point out when, where and how a number of translation errors made their way into a number of translations of the Bible and the Gospels.

There's also the fact that most of what people know about the Bible is from what is essentially Biblical pop culture. Mary Magdalene was long believed to be a prostitute, the modern version of Satan clashes with what's actually in the book, most people don't actually know the Ten Commandments because the ten that get thrown around as what was on the stone slabs that Moses did dictation on aren't what was on the stone slabs that Moe actually walked down the hill with, etc.

None of this is to say that either faith or the faithful are wrong for their beliefs and it certainly isn't meant to say that I think James Cameron's documentary, while I may still watch it just for the hell of it, has any real weight to it whatsoever. I first got wind of this thing Saturday night and have been poking around to see what I can see about it since then. Lots of sound and fury, but ultimately signifying nothing. Sorry Jimmy, but, unless you've got some super-sized bombshell hidden away in the documentary itself that you haven't let out of the bag yet, you've got no "there" there. Move on to Battle Angel and don't make too great an ass of yourself with this.

Oh, wait... It's James Cameron. Never mind. The advice will just fall an def ears.

He didn't do the digging. The archeological dig that unearthed this burial cave was done in the 80's by the Israeli Antiquities Agency.

Well, true, but he's shilling it.

Interesting article at http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/02/24/wjesus24.xml

Money quotes:

Mr Gat died several years ago. His boss, Prof Amos Kloner said that while the names together had "a certain power" they are standard.

"At least three other ossuaries have been found inscribed with the name Jesus and countless others with Joseph and Mary," he said.

The 10 ossuaries 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.

...Prof Kloner said there was no way the tomb housed the Holy Family.

"It is just not possible that a family who came from Galilee, as the New Testament tells us of Joseph and Mary, would be buried over several generations in Jerusalem."

Atthis point, the most amazing part of this story is that they left an ossuary out in a yard for anyone to swipe! I realize archeological rareties are a dime a dozen in the holy Land but cripes!

I believe the episode was called "Red Sleigh Down" and it aired a few years ago. Santa's sleigh was shot down over Iraq. The boys and Jesus went there to rescue him. Jesus died in the attempt. Santa declared that from now on Christmas would not only be a day of giving gifts, it would also be a day for remembering the death of Jesus Christ.

If they can kill Kenny for real one season and bring him back without explanation after a long absence, they can bring back Jesus, if they wanna use him. Otherwise they can still have a field day with it.

.
Jose Giles said:
"If somebody were to fly up to the skies in times of the Roman Empire, I'd expect lots of scribes telling us stories. Instead all we got is silence."
-----
Ah, so true. Except that only a few "true believers" were able to see it happen.

Just as today, only a select few are able to speak directly to god and get an answer, said answer usually involving asking the fleeced to donate more money.
.

esus was the son of G-d. It was the holy spirit that impregnated Mary.When he died he rose to heaven to be with his holy father.
Hercules was the son of Zeus. He took the form of, (Eagle? I forget) that impregnated his mother. When he died he rose to Olympus to be with his father.

Shhhhhh...don't point that out...they hate it when you do that (and it was a shower of gold).

So Hercules was born due to his mother being given a "Golden Shower"?

Hmm,that puts a whole new spin on the situation...

Bobb

This is nothing new. In 2002 a small chalk ossuary was found that was asserted to be that of Jesus' brother James, and it was found to be a forgery (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Ossuary and http://www.bibleinterp.com/articles/Final_Reports.htm). Those who blindly accept such artifacts never explain how DNA testing can confirm that it's the mythological Jesus the Christ of Nazareth, when we have no DNA of such a person to compare it with, or why a poor man like Jesus would be buried in a midd-class tomb, especially when the religion based on him wasn't founded until decades after his death by Paul of Tarsus, or how anything alleged in the Bible can be taken on face value without independent corroboration when it was written thousands of years ago before the modern practicies of historiography and critical analysis, etc.

This wasn't the first relic alleged to be connected to Jesus, and it won't be the last.

"...or why a poor man like Jesus would be buried in a midd-class tomb..."

Well, it is strongly believed by many that Mary Magdalene or her family had a fair bit of money. If you were running on the idea that Jesus and Mary had indeed wed, then you would have an argument for how he could have then become middle-class or be buried in an middle-class manner by family. Cameron is working off of that idea, and thus he can rationalize a middle-class tomb.

"Micha at February 27, 2007 04:49 PM"

I don't think that you can discount the "placebo" effect, or the power of the mind over the body. Why would believing that a relic will help/heal you be any different?

"If they can kill Kenny for real one season and bring him back without explanation after a long absence, they can bring back Jesus, if they wanna use him. Otherwise they can still have a field day with it."

Yeah, I still hold out hope that they'll bring him back. They got a lot of mileage out of him.

I suspect that they're not bringing Jesus back to South Park because they like the joke of him having died permanently when they could bring him back so easily. I saw an interview awhile back where the talked about the episode where they said "shit" a lot. They made a point how they could get away with not bleeping it now, but they don't because in the world of South Park it's forbidden again.

I'm not discounting the placebo effect. This is a modern concept. If I were to ask why a relic worked in a given situation, and I wanted to give an explanation that is not contrary to modern scientific principles, I would probably say that it was a placebo effect. But I was talking about the beliefs of people about relics not the effect of relics. My point was that the people who used relics in the past (and maybe some today) believed that the relics had a real effect because the ritual caused the saint in question to intercede before god on the sick person's behalf. Miracles described in the medieval sources sometimes sound like a placebo effect, sometimes like dreams and hallucinations (visions). But the point is that miracles were and accepted occurence in the minds of medieval people and even later, in some places to this day.

Belief in medicine - this pill (whose inactivity is unknown to the user - ie they think it's active ) will cure me, or belief that a relic will get a saint/holy person to intercede for me - what is the difference?

I would argue that, yes the name "placebo" is new, the action/reaction is as old as humankind.

"Belief in medicine - this pill (whose inactivity is unknown to the user - ie they think it's active ) will cure me, or belief that a relic will get a saint/holy person to intercede for me - what is the difference?"

There is no difference. A medieval historian might speculate that some of the effects attributed to relics were the result of a the placebo effect. But most medieval historians are not interested in the medical effects of relics, they are interested in what people believe and how they behave. So a modern historian might study the belief of modern people in medicine while a medieval historian will study the belief in relics. A comparative historian might compare them. But the focus is not the actual effect, but the beliefs, rituals, and attitudes of people.

In the context of this discussion relics were mentioned not because of their possible medical effect but because of their religious significance to medieval people.

I'm pretty skeptical about this "discovery." Even if the names were written on the tomb, how do you prove that *the* Jesus and Mary were buried there? Fingerprints? D.N.A.? A bunch of depressed angels sitting around, shaking their heads?

As for the sometimes fanatical response from some religious folks, it's not surprising. In the very good book RELIGION GONE BAD by Mel White, the author looks at how some people -- especially fundamentlaist evangelicals -- view the Bible as "ineffable." This idea is that the Bible is the literal word of God and is literally true -- not just the Resurrection, Christ's divinity, and Adam and Eve, but people living hundreds of years, giants roaming the earth (usually to be defeated by the Israelites), and it being legal to kill an unruly child or person preaching a different religion. (It's amazing what warrants death in the Old Testament.) So you can imagine how people who take the "small" things as absolutely true react when one of the cornerstones is claimed to be false.

(And for those who need a good Christmas gift for that special rleigious fana-- believer, the Goats website www.goats.com has t-shirts "SCIENCE is SATAN spelled backwards" complete with a microscope with pentagram and blasphemous diagrams)

I'm baaack!

Given that the Romans practically invented bureaucracy, and NOTHING happened anywhere in the Empire or any province, or in the known world without Rome heard about it, reported it, and filed said reports in triplicate, the lack of any contemporary reports of a Jewish carpenter rising from the dead, then flying up to the sky strikes me as a tad iffy. (Breathe). I kinda think those are the events that Rome would know about.

Now we have the irony of devout Christians saying that possible physical proof of their favourite bedtime story is fraudulent, and disbelievers saying that evidence that they might be wrong is real. (Insert head spinning here.)

Posted by Bill Myers:
"Science to a degree relies on faith. No one has ever seen an atom with their naked eye, but scientists believe they exist based on the available evidence. Granted, there's damn good evidence of the existence of atoms -- I mean, look what happens when we split one... KABOOM! Still, there is a leap of faith that must be taken, however small."

Bill, I don't believe science requires faith. Science relies on observation of the world, collection of evidence, and experimentation to find a theory that fits the evidence.

Religion, and faith, require a deep desire that the world be a certain way, evidence be damned. Chris's quote from Corinthians says it all. In order for the Christian faith to survive, there absolutely MUST be a resurrection and bodily ascension to heaven. Without these, faith vanishes in a puff of logic (thank you, Douglas Adams) and the religion goes with it.

Devout Christians, like Rev. Knapp, therefore need these ossuaries to be fraudulent. Otherwise, the foundations of their religious and spiritual world fall out from under them.

By the way, will "Jesus Christ:Vampire Slayer" star Micheal Biehn as Jesus, Lance Henrickson as Joseph, Bill Paxton as James, and Kate Winslet as Mary Magdelene? Please please say special appearance by Sigourney Weaver as Mary and Arnld Shwarzenegger as Pontius Pilate (or God, I'm good either way)

Given that the Romans practically invented bureaucracy, and NOTHING happened anywhere in the Empire or any province, or in the known world without Rome heard about it, reported it, and filed said reports in triplicate, the lack of any contemporary reports of a Jewish carpenter rising from the dead, then flying up to the sky strikes me as a tad iffy. (Breathe). I kinda think those are the events that Rome would know about.

2 points--while the Romans were awfully bureaucratic, they could be frustratingly skimpy onthe important deatils. We know all sorts of things about Roman battles except the one thing we would really like to know--ow they fought! A Roman was a lot more likely to write a detailed account of the loot taken than go into any detail of tactics. Very frustrating.

Also, the Roman mind saw the supernatural in everything. They had gods for virtually every detail of life--the god of the doorway, the god of the roof, the god of the walls, etc, etc. I'm not so sure the stories of Jesus would have made all that much an impact. Especially since his message was so antithetical to the Roman mindset--poverty is good?

Well, if nothing else, at least this whole episode with Jmaes Cameron should serve as a lesson to Christians everywhere--it's not always a good thing when somebody finds Jesus.

Bill, I stand properly humbled.

I still think the 500 witnesses is a steaming crock though. If 500 people saw something that damn big, someone would have talked or left a detailed record independant of the Gospels.

Given the date of the Library of Alexandria's destruction ranges anywhere from 48 BC to 645 AD, it's hard to say if the library held any records at all. It may have burned down 50 some years before the Big Show.

The Roman's seeing the supernatural in everything was rather the norm at the time, though. Greeks, Goths, Vikings all had rather large pantheons. The fact that the Big Show had to be reported without corroboration takes more wind out of the sails for me.

Larry of Norman, Oklahoma posted the following at "Unca Harlan's Art Deco Dining Pavilion" (I hope that he doesn't mind my posting it here):

"Pope, Others Admit Christianity Not True

"Pope Benedict XVI, after seeing the documentary about Jesus by James Cameron, wiped away a tear and said, 'Holy shit, I'm out of a job!'

"Across the pond, the Rev. Jerry Falwell was seen tossing an armload of Bibles into a dumpster. 'I've long worried that Christianity was too good to be true,' said Falwell, 'and now I'm sure of it. By the way, I'm renaming my school Liberty Humanist University.'

"At his Texas ranch, President Bush, looking agitated, said, 'Whoa! Just a minute here. This, uh, this Titanic guy, this, uh, Leo di Cameron fella, he's saying that Christianity isn't, uh, not true? Hey, lottsa good folk believe that. I mean, that it's TRUE. Lots. Christianity, good religion. Poppy believes it. Bar believes it. I mean, if Jesus isn't God, then who told me to, uh, you know, invade Iraq?'

"Vice President Dick Cheney, standing nearby, suddenly noticed that the entire White House press corps was looking at him. He sneered, cleared his throat, and rolled his eyes heavenward.

"Somewhere in the distance, a cow farted."

Actually, it was Perseus was conceived when Zeus took the form of a "golden shower". Hercules (or Herakles, to use the correct Greek version of the name) was conceived when Zeus impersonated Alcemane's husband.

Andrew Laubacher: "I mean, if Jesus isn't God, then who told me to, uh, you know, invade Iraq?"
Luigi Novi: Pay no attention to those Halliburton executives behind that curtain!

Micha:"There is an ongoing struggle between archelogists who find bones often and Ultra-Religious Jews who accuse them of desecrating Jewish graves (althogh you can't always be surethey're Jewish or even human)."

It must be early because for a minute or so I thought you were talking about the Ultra-Religious Jews, not the bones. Gave me a bad moment, there.

Adam Neace: -The debris found at the Foster Ranch wasn't all that was found. According to some reports, a ways over the nearly-intact vessel with occupants was found embedded in a hillside. That hardly ever comes up, all most people(pro and con) ever talk about is what Brazel brought in. And unless you were in fact on the ranch or at the crash site in Corona, you can't say WHAT came down.

You know what I've always found interesting? Take the average religous person, talk to them about something miraculous or incredible happening NOW, chances are they won't believe you. Try it. It's fun. The world is either wondrous viewed through mundane eyes, or mundane viewed through wondering eyes.

Den: "Hercules... was conceived when Zeus impersonated Alcemane's husband."

Yeah, and supposedly her husband really did come home later that night, so they ended up having twins, one mortal born and one god born.

I love myths like that, where you can easily imagine how the myth got started. A man and woman have twins, but they don't look alike. That's odd, but no big deal. As adults one of the twins has a fairly normal life, nothing legendary, while the other one surpasses every possible expectation. He's so awesome that people start making up stories about how he must have a different daddy than his brother.

No having sex with bulls, no splitting someone's head open and a woman comes out. Just a simple, "There's no way that kid is Bob's son," and then the story grows from there.

I have a bone I'd like to pick with Christians: What difference does it make how he died or if he was mortal or divine? It's the MESSAGE he focused on. If you don't believe the message, then you're just believing in a boogy-man.

Sounds like Paul had no faith in his ability to spread Jesus's message, so he played up the boogey-man angle. If there's no threat of eternal damnation, I have no reason to be charitable?

How could a religion marketed as faith be founded on such a lack of it...

Just wanted to pop in and say this week's X-Factor was one of the best things I've ever read. I did not expect Jamie to allow him autonomy. Your new vision for X-factor is so much darker than I expected. I love it.

"500 witnesses and not a single one of them (except for the ones who already were apostles) wrote about it?"

How many writings of *any* sort do you have from Jesus days. There is at least one other account about Jesus from these time (that I know of) this is Josephus, a Jewish historian, corroborated much of what was being said about Jesus (though he didn't believe it himself).

Sean Scullion wrote: "The debris found at the Foster Ranch wasn't all that was found. According to some reports, a ways over the nearly-intact vessel with occupants was found embedded in a hillside. That hardly ever comes up, all most people(pro and con) ever talk about is what Brazel brought in. And unless you were in fact on the ranch or at the crash site in Corona, you can't say WHAT came down."

Exactly: We can't know, because we weren't there. Reports of recovered alien spacecraft/bodies didn't surface until almost 30 years later. Same thing for the resurrection. Nobody writing about it (or even reading about it by the time Mark, Luke, et. al. commited it to paper) was there.

It's possible that I've become too skeptical. I don't believe either Jim Cameron or Rev. Knapp have it right. Why should it matter if Jesus rose bodily to Heaven? Or if he rose from the grave? Or even if he was indeed the divine son of God in the first place? Somewhere along the line, many vocal Christians became so focused on the story of his death, that they forgot to focus on his life. To me, it's his life that is inspiring - his courage, grace and generosity are astounding. The importance of Christ lies, I believe, in the messages he imparted to humanity.

Anyway, that was way off my original point, which was that eye-witness accounts pretty much suck ;)

Josephus lived during the Jewish Rebellion against the Romans around 70 AD, and wrote afterwards.

Acounts of events like Jesus's life usually are passed by word of mouth and maybe less commonly by the vague memories of people who were there. The 500 witnesses is more of a literary convention.

Anyway, Christianity and other religions have shown an ability to adapt to changing attitudes quite nicely if often reluctantly. It will survive this movie.

"I have a bone I'd like to pick with Christians: What difference does it make how he died or if he was mortal or divine? It's the MESSAGE he focused on. If you don't believe the message, then you're just believing in a boogy-man.

How could a religion marketed as faith be founded on such a lack of it..."

Faith in what? I'm not Christian or religious, but the whole point of religions is that they have a divine source. In Christianity it's even more important because the leader of the religion is divine himself. Also, non divine messages are a hard sell even today, and quite difficult 2000 years ago. Even the idea of monotheism -- an abstract god -- was too much for many people, so you have angels, saints, devil, demons, djinns, and spirits. Today, some are willing to follow religious ideas in an abstracted and not divine format. This may be more difficult for Christians because of the divine aspect of the founder.

Adam--first, if my response to you came across harsh, that was the FURTHEST thing from my intention. When I said, "you can't say WHAT came down," I was using the collective you, not singling you out, Adam. As far as eyewitnesses go, I'm right there with you. I think part of the problem may not be so much that the reports are unreliable, but that different people focus on different things. While a group of people may be watching something together, they all focus on different things.

Micha brings up an interesting point about the angels and saints. The way I was always taught was that God was It, The One, and yet you've got people who pray to saints and wear the medals and everything. Is that inconsistent, or am I missing something?

Posted by Tjob

...they are almost certainly not part of the real tomb of Jesus. They are much more likely to be a skilled forgery, or the tomb of another Jesus.

Did you ever hear the one about the professor who spent thirty years proving conclusively that The Odyssey was not composed by Homer, but by another Greek with the same name?

Posted by Manny

Posted by Bill Myers :

"Science to a degree relies on faith. No one has ever seen an atom with their naked eye, but scientists believe they exist based on the available evidence. Granted, there's damn good evidence of the existence of atoms -- I mean, look what happens when we split one... KABOOM! Still, there is a leap of faith that must be taken, however small."

Bill, I don't believe science requires faith. Science relies on observation of the world, collection of evidence, and experimentation to find a theory that fits the evidence.

In other words, you aren't taking anything on faith when you believe in what science tells you.

You have personally observed atoms, electrons, protons, neutrons and quarks, personally analysed the Bethe Solar Phoenix reaction that powers the Sun, derived the laws of gravity and thermodynamics and/or discovered the germ theory of disease and invented pasteurisation?

You don't take any of those on faith because someone who you consider better-educated than yourself told you they were true?

Posted by Bill Mulligan

while the Romans were awfully bureaucratic, they could be frustratingly skimpy onthe important deatils. We know all sorts of things about Roman battles except the one thing we would really like to know--ow they fought! A Roman was a lot more likely to write a detailed account of the loot taken than go into any detail of tactics. Very frustrating.

In his WW2 book, Up Front, Bill Mauldin says aomething like "...I don't bother doing drawings that show how the rest of the squad cover a grenadier as he moves in to knock out a machine-gun nest, because it never occurs to me that there's anyone who hasn't seen it for themselves..."

Same with the Romans - they knew how the legions did their thing. They were more interested in the results than the process. Modern novels (unless it's important to the plot, or the author is paid by the word and needs to buy groceries) don't describe how you start the engine, manipulate the shift and the wheel and the pedals and so on, they just say "He got in the car and drove to Angie's house..."

Posted by Sean Scullion/b>M

Micha brings up an interesting point about the angels and saints. The way I was always taught was that God was It, The One, and yet you've got people who pray to saints and wear the medals and everything. Is that inconsistent, or am I missing something?

The Official Position on that is that we/they don't worship the saints, you pray to them to go to God and ut in a Good Word in the Big Guy's ear.

All i know about that is that the Catholics i've ever actually talked about it with used terms in referring to praying to intercessors (particularly Mary) that sounded a lot like worship to me.

Which reminds me:

Jesus drops by the Pearly Gates.

"How's it going, Pete?"

"Just fine, Boss."

"Uh huh. Look, Peter, I've been looking around on the Golden Streets, and every day I see a bunch of people I told you weren't allowed in. What's up with that?"

"Boss, it is not my falt. They come up, I ask their names, i check the Big Book and see they're on the 'no-fly' list, I tell 'em they can't come in...

"Then they whip out cell phones and call your Mom, and she comes down and lets 'em in at the side gate..."

>They were all stories handed down through oral tradition. And the basis for these stories? Eye-witness accounts.

Knowing how the 'telephone game' shows such word-of-mouth can be unreliable - to say the least - I also have to point out that, back then, vanishingly few people knew how to read and write and, in many cultures, as far as many people were concerned, history was often passed on verbally. I'm not saying this automatically made them accurate, but that people were sometimes more used to remembering things and passing them on than we are.

The way I was always taught was that God was It, The One, and yet you've got people who pray to saints and wear the medals and everything. Is that inconsistent, or am I missing something?

Maybe they were taught differently?

Same with the Romans - they knew how the legions did their thing. They were more interested in the results than the process. Modern novels (unless it's important to the plot, or the author is paid by the word and needs to buy groceries) don't describe how you start the engine, manipulate the shift and the wheel and the pedals and so on, they just say "He got in the car and drove to Angie's house..."

I suppose that's possible...though why a typical Roman would have a greater knowledge of battlefield tactics than the average American (who has access to books, TV, movies, the internet, etc) escapes me. There's also the matter of how some of the few surviving mentions of tactics in all likelihood get it wrong. That is, the tactics described make no sense and seem to be the result of someone making it up as they go along.

I suspect that ancient warfare was so insane and confused that nobody was really sure what was going on, You didn't even know who won until you saw at the end whether you were alive or dead (a telling clue).

"Did you ever hear the one about the professor who spent thirty years proving conclusively that The Odyssey was not composed by Homer, but by another Greek with the same name?"

Something similar actually occured. Today historians believe that Homer, or somebody else took together bits of songs that were passed along from person to person for a long time.

"In other words, you aren't taking anything on faith when you believe in what science tells you.

You have personally observed atoms, electrons, protons, neutrons and quarks, personally analysed the Bethe Solar Phoenix reaction that powers the Sun, derived the laws of gravity and thermodynamics and/or discovered the germ theory of disease and invented pasteurisation?

You don't take any of those on faith because someone who you consider better-educated than yourself told you they were true?"

We have to distinguish between several things;

1) The scientific system is different than religion on the methodological level. So even when scientists talk about something they haven't seen, like atoms, they are doing it not by faith alone but in a context of a system that is quite different than religion. This system is considered more reliable than stories passed down from ancient times.

2) still there is an element of faith inside the scientific community. Faith in the system, faith that the world works according to consistent principles, that it can be understood by humans, that a good explanation is the simplest one, and so forth.

3) Lay people have faith in the authority of acientists as they did in the past in the authority of priests. Still, there's a difference between having faith in people and having faith in god, and there is a difference between having faith in the sense of trusting them based on past performence, and in the knowledge that you can study up on things if you want, and the faith in god. In the second case peole use the word faith to say that they don't ask for any further explanation or proof.

"Micha brings up an interesting point about the angels and saints. The way I was always taught was that God was It, The One, and yet you've got people who pray to saints and wear the medals and everything. Is that inconsistent, or am I missing something?"

It's consistent with the internal logic of Caholicism and Orthodox Christianity. Saints are not gods, or equal to god, but they are worshiped. If you look at it from a psychological point of view you could say that people needed something that was closer to them and more tangible and understandable than the distant god. In any case, protestants used to mock catholics for worshiping saints -- it was idolatry for them; muslims and Jews mocked Christians for worshiping a son of god that came to earth; theists mocked all religions for worshiping a god that concerns himself with everyday human behavior; and atheists mocked everybody for believing in any god. But all these people exhibit signs of irrationality at some point in their life. So it's better to let people live each in their own faith.

"I suppose that's possible...though why a typical Roman would have a greater knowledge of battlefield tactics than the average American."

Two answers. (1) The avarege Roman learned about tactics when he served in the army. What he didn't learn he didn't feel he needed to know. (2) The people who wrote and read Roman history books were higher class people who served in command positions.

"Jesus drops by the Pearly Gates.

"How's it going, Pete?"

"Just fine, Boss."

"Uh huh. Look, Peter, I've been looking around on the Golden Streets, and every day I see a bunch of people I told you weren't allowed in. What's up with that?"

"Boss, it is not my falt. They come up, I ask their names, i check the Big Book and see they're on the 'no-fly' list, I tell 'em they can't come in...

"Then they whip out cell phones and call your Mom, and she comes down and lets 'em in at the side gate...""

Here is something I read in book called the Dialogue of Miracles from the 13th century:

A laybrother (a monk from a lower class uneducated background usually) was praying to Jesus asking for something. so he told Jesus: "If you don't answer my prayers I will tell your mother." That's what''s called popular piety.

Oh, I recently saw the episodes of Star Trek: Enterprise in the last season about the Vulcans. I think they really missed an opportunity to explore a civilization whose religion is logic.

"Maybe they were taught differently?"

Wait, you're saying, someone was taught things other the One Truth that I was? They must be vanquished!

The StarWolf makes the point that I was gonna, but it always happens that there are so many interesting points around here that I leave stuff out. So, if few people can read, how many people who could would write stuff down?

Bill, I don't believe science requires faith. Science relies on observation of the world, collection of evidence, and experimentation to find a theory that fits the evidence.

In other words, you aren't taking anything on faith when you believe in what science tells you.

You have personally observed atoms, electrons, protons, neutrons and quarks, personally analysed the Bethe Solar Phoenix reaction that powers the Sun, derived the laws of gravity and thermodynamics and/or discovered the germ theory of disease and invented pasteurisation?

You don't take any of those on faith because someone who you consider better-educated than yourself told you they were true?

If you read Oliver Sacks, you may notice Sacks disregards convention by giving a neurological framework for the "immaterialism" George Berkeley proposed 400 years ago.

• Sacks'll have a stroke victim -- a realistic painter of retirement age -- who blows out bean-sized portions on each side of his brain, and who will recover with achromotopic vision: complete b&w color-blindness. He'll observe the patient adjust to a completely b&w world, and come to the conclusion that since as far as we know the brain constructs color -- mechanisms can record the frequency of light as our eyes match it to color, but not color itself -- there's no reason to believe there's really such a thing as color. The implication was that our brains evolved to construct color to allow us to not be overwhelmed by light during the day, and experience darkness at night to allow us to sleep as we do.
• In Awakenings, he mentions a patient who didn't always observe events in chronological order as we understand it conventionally: match is held, match strikes book, match ignites. Instead his patient observed time out of sequence: match is held, match ignites, match strikes book.

Sacks basically said the same thing he said about color -- there's no reason to believe there really is such a thing as linear time. The perception of linear time is just something our brains evolved to construct.

Faith is omnipresent and, in a sense, the medium of human life itself.

while the Romans were awfully bureaucratic, they could be frustratingly skimpy onthe important deatils. We know all sorts of things about Roman battles except the one thing we would really like to know--ow they fought! A Roman was a lot more likely to write a detailed account of the loot taken than go into any detail of tactics. Very frustrating.

In his WW2 book, Up Front, Bill Mauldin says aomething like "...I don't bother doing drawings that show how the rest of the squad cover a grenadier as he moves in to knock out a machine-gun nest, because it never occurs to me that there's anyone who hasn't seen it for themselves..."

Same with the Romans - they knew how the legions did their thing. They were more interested in the results than the process. Modern novels (unless it's important to the plot, or the author is paid by the word and needs to buy groceries) don't describe how you start the engine, manipulate the shift and the wheel and the pedals and so on, they just say "He got in the car and drove to Angie's house..."

If you're familiar with Malcom Gladwell's ideas, you know practicing something until you get it right, and verbalizing that practice, are two different things.

Since the former does not depend on the latter, neglecting the latter probably only served to prevent useless and wrong paradigms from polluting their martial effectiveness.

The Rosewell analogy to the resurrection story is pretty good. Something happens in a distant, not very sophisticated part of the Empire. It takes time to filter to the center and have impact. During this time things get altered and embelished.

The avarege Roman learned about tactics when he served in the army. What he didn't learn he didn't feel he needed to know.

Certainly possible, though did ALL Roman citizens serve in the army?

It just surprises me when you contrast it to the way modern humans are--we have a hunger for the details of war. The number of books written about a single battle in the Civil War can thumber in the hundreds, at least. Considering the detail that Homer goes into during the Illiad, it just surprises me that things get so skimpy during the times of the Romans. But of course there is a lot we don't know about that time--if not for Pompey we would probably be very ignorant of the way the Romans lived, surprising considering the influence they have on us still.

All it means is that a person with a common name, said to be the son of another person with a common name, died and was buried at the approximate time and place Jesus was said to have done whatever he did. DNA evidence, should it be readable, would establish nothing in any direction. If it is human, well, Christians believe Jesus was fully human as well as fully divine - so what? If it contains something non-human, it's old and could be contaminated with God knows what - so what? Mitochondrial DNA might be a bit of a problem for those who believe in the perpetual virginity of Mary, should it match any current strain, but a lineage through sisters or cousins could answer that, probably. I just don't see how anyone can form any conclusions about an old box.

"Certainly possible, though did ALL Roman citizens serve in the army?

It just surprises me when you contrast it to the way modern humans are--we have a hunger for the details of war. The number of books written about a single battle in the Civil War can thumber in the hundreds, at least. Considering the detail that Homer goes into during the Illiad, it just surprises me that things get so skimpy during the times of the Romans. But of course there is a lot we don't know about that time--if not for Pompey we would probably be very ignorant of the way the Romans lived, surprising considering the influence they have on us still."

1) History was written to the elite minority by the elite. Today more people know how to read and write, and print makes production and distrubution more easy.

2) The culture of the common man was passed orally. So even if they spent hours talking about wars and who did what, it left no trace.

3) For the elite, the purpose of history was more to encourage virtue and demonstrate greatness. Talking about something technical like military tactics would have been considerd (I think) below the genre.
When has writing about military tactics become a respectable genre?

4) Different forms of literature in different periods and places have different convention. The Old Testament is very succinct, and has little details about anything. The Iliad is very detailed.

5) The strategy in the Illiad is more about the personal prowess of individals than tactics. Also, it depicts changes in tactics over a long period of time. It has chariots, but the chariots are only used to go to the battle and not in the battle. That's because chariots were new thechnolgy that was introduced into a story that was originally about foot soldiers.

6)Pompey? Are you sure? Did Pompey write anything. I'm not that informed about Roman history, but I think a major source on miltiary tactics is Caesar's book about the Gallic Wars (which i have but have not read). There are also other -- not many -- sources on Rome.

I'd like to cooment on the thread about Lost and Heroes, but I haven't seen this week's chapters yet.

I'd like to comment about Mike's post above. It's an interesting subject, and he's a pretty knowledgable guy. But I'm afraid the discussion will deteriorate very quickly. It's a shame really.

Jeffrey, Cameron's case seems to be based mostly on the claim that all these names were statistically unlikely to appear in one place. But I belong to the 20% of the population who don't believe in statistics. I don't think he has a case. If non human DNA were found that would be really interesting, since it wopuld suggest that the person in the grave was not human, but nor would he be a god. Do gods have DNA?

Micha, I was thinking about the city of Pompey, which I am doubtlessly misspelling. Luigi was actually there, darn him. It's one of the few places I must get to before I die and wouldn't it be ironic if I get there and Vesuvius erupts?

Pompeii, that's how it goes.

The nearby town of Herculaneum was just reported to have some new books discovered. Maybe one of them will be How We Kicked Ass; Fighting the Roman Way.

"The nearby town of Herculaneum was just reported to have some new books discovered. Maybe one of them will be How We Kicked Ass; Fighting the Roman Way."

That would be nice. I should have added to my list that many books probably did not survive. Maybe one of them is the lost book on military tactics. However, I'm sure there are many modern history books about the Roman military in any university library. You're probably familiar with some of them. Here are some:

Brian Campbell, Greek and Roman military writers: selected readings (London : Routledge, c2004).

John Peddie, The Roman war machine (Stroud, Gloucestershire: Sutton Pub., c2004).

Re-enactment as research : proceedings of the Twelfth International Roman Military Equipment Conference, held at the Customs House, South Shields, UK, 24th-26th September 1999, edited by A. T. Croom and W. B. Griffiths (Chirnside, Duns, Berwickshire : Armatura Press, c2002).

C. M. Gilliver, The Roman art of war, 1st paperback ed. (Stroud, Gloucester : Tempus, 2001,c1999)

Antonio Santosuosso, Storming the heavens: soldiers, emperors and civilians in the Roman Empire (Boulder, Colo. : Westview Press, c2001).

Adrian Goldsworthy, Roman warfare, [1st] paperback ed. (London : Cassell, c2000).

John Drogo Montagu, Battles of the Greek and Roman worlds : a chronological compendium of 667 battles to 31 B.C., from the historians of the ancient world (London : Greenhill Books, c2000).

Theodore Ayrault Dodge, Caesar: a history of the art of war among the Romans down to the end of the Roman empire, with a detailed account of the campaigns of Caius Julius Caesar, 1st Da Capo Press ed. (New York : Da Capo Press, 1997)

I have to admit, for me personally, the Christianity Today interview with James Cameron was very enlightening:

http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2007/februaryweb-only/109-42.0.html

Iowa Jim

Iowa Jim, you are aware that article was satirical, correct?

Micha, thank you for the reading tips. Hopefully some are available in audio versions. (The lovely wife got me an mp3 player! Booyah!)

I'd also recommend Garrett Fagan's work. Wonderful stuff.

Bill, I haven't read these books, so I can't recommend them. This is just a sample I found by searching the internet site of the Israeli university libraries. I put the ones that seemed the most useful for your interest and recently published. I'm not familiar with the field, so I can't tell you which ones are the best, and who are the most notable historians in the field. You probably know more about this than I do. There's a guy named Martin Van Krefeld, who is a military historian from the Hebrew University, who, I understand, has international renown in this field, but not specifically about the Romans. However, I haven't studied with him. He probably did deal with Roman military history, because in an non academic article of his he compared Bush's mistakes in Iraq to Augutus's in Germany. I also won't hold my breath for audio versions of such academic books. Maybe there are audio versions of things like the Illiad, Plutarch, San Tzu's The Art of War, Machiavelli's the Prince, and Gibson's The Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire.

Micha, Bill--I have both the Illiad and the Oddessey on audio tape, so at least I know for certain(ish) that they're available.

The evidence here is weak.

The names were scrawled on the tombs with a Sharpie.

Posted by: Bill Mulligan at March 1, 2007 08:23 PM

Micha, thank you for the reading tips.

Yes, Micha, thank you for teaching Bill Mulligan how to read. Next, would you be so kind as to teach him how to eat with utensils? :)

Oh, don't you play the victim with me, Mulligan. That last jab of yours was worth ten come-backs, at least.

When my wife has time to read your post to me, Myers, you're gonna be in trouble.

The more I hear about this "documentary" the less impressed I am. John J. Miller points out that they hired Harvard’s Frank Moore Cross, a scholar of some repute, to read the names on the ossuaries but never get around to asking him his opinion on their central premise. Miller does. The answer:

I am skeptical about Jacobovici’s claims, not because of a faulty reading of the ossuary which reads yeshua’ bar yosep [Jesus son of Joseph] I believe, but because the onomasticon [list of proper names] in his period in Jerusalem is exceedingly narrow. Patriarchal names and biblical names repeat ad nauseam. It has been reckoned that 25% of feminine names in this period were Maria/Miryam, etc., that is variants of Mary. So the cited statistics are unpersuasive. You know the saying: lies, damned lies, and statistics.

Nothing to see here, move along...

It's a little bit like intelligent design. The basic claim of the movie maker is that it is unlikely that these names would appear in the same family in this order of relationships.

I've seen this Jacobovici guy in a documentry aboutt he ten lost tribes, which was also a little fishy.

still, from an interview with the guy, he sure knows how to tell a story well. I'm not very happy that he is israeli born Jewish-Canadian. those damn canadians. The feeling is that the legitimate scholars are very cautious, almost too cautious, while this guy is not cautious enough.

Still, I think Christianity will survive this movie.

About 10 years ago a respected archelogist came out and said that there is no archeological evidence about the Exodus story, and that archeologists don't think it ever happened. Caused a small stir and then it was over.

I have to admit, for me personally, the Christianity Today interview with James Cameron was very enlightening:

Um, Jim, you did see the word "satire" above the headline, right?

Kathleen pointed out an impressive thing: We're 102 messages into a thread about Jesus and it hasn't erupted into a flamewar. Everyone's been really...what's the word...civil. Nicely done, all.

PAD

Posted by: Den at March 2, 2007 08:24 AM

Um, Jim, you did see the word "satire" above the headline, right?

If he did miss it -- and I'm not certain whether he did or he didn't -- I can't fault him. The word "satire" was very, very small and easily missed. In fact, I missed it at first.

If he did miss it -- and I'm not certain whether he did or he didn't -- I can't fault him.

It seems obvious to me that it's satire. But then, I think the size of the word "Satire" itself is large enough, if the actually content wasn't enough to be able to figure it out.

So, I'm also on the "does Jim know it's satire or not?" bandwagon.

But, having written for a satirical website for several years, you can say it in bright neon lights and some people still won't figure it out. Or they'll just get pissed and say they were duped.

Posted by: Craig J. Ries at March 2, 2007 11:34 AM

It seems obvious to me that it's satire.

I thought it was satirical when I read it, which is why I scanned the page a second time for confirmation. But, y'know, all of us have brain cramps and miss the point of this or that from time to time. I try not to be judgmental for that reason.

Anyway, the truly interesting thing about this story to me is the way in which people will latch on to the thinnest of evidence to "prove" something they've already chosen to believe. Could the bones that are the focus of Cameron's documentary be those of Jesus Christ? Possibly. From what I've read so far, I don't think there's enough evidence to rule it in... or out. The passage of two-plus millenia, and what that does to physical evidence and records, makes it impossible to know.

By the same token, I can't rule out the idea that Jesus of Nazareth was the Son of God, who died on the cross, descended into Hell and then rose from the dead and ascended into Heaven in order to conquer death and give us the hope of eternal life. But people would be well-served to acknowledge that there is no conclusive evidence for this either, and that their belief is based on pure faith. After all, how do we know their were 500 witnesses to Christ's resurrection? Because we were told that by the handful of people whose accounts actually survived the ravages of time? That's not much evidence at all.

I realize that for a devout Christian, belief in the divinity of Christ is seen as a pre-requisite for achieving salvation. And I suspect that many might be offended by what I'm about to say, but I think it bears saying nonetheless: in my view it doesn't matter whether the story of Christ's resurrection is true or not. If a belief in Christ brings out the best in you, it's a good belief. If it brings out the worst in you (and let's face it, religion -- any religion -- can bring out the worst in certain people), then it's a bad thing.

Personally, I'm less concerned with the truth of what happened to Jesus Christ after he was crucified, and more concerned with the other truths that I can "test." For example, the Bible asserts that "he who is last shall come first and he who is first shall come last." That truth changed my life. I've learned that humility is not only good for it's own sake, but actually benefits the person who practices it in tangible ways.

But, hey, your mileage may vary. (Can I SAY that any more often...?)

Okay, so I won't forget to put this in later, it could be that Iowa Jim's comment in itself was intended as satire. (If it WASN'T, sorry, Jim.) Satire in the written word is a little harder to recognize than satire of the spoken word or visual medium for some people.

Bill Mulligan's post up there with the Cross quote brings to mind two questions. If the onomasticon(try THAT for triple word score) is so small, in fact, when the ossuary was found, why wasn't that taken into consideration? Thinking that way would lead me, at least, away from thinking that it's Jesus and his family. Is this a case of the researchers keeping what they need and chucking the rest?

Okay, and the second question--if you've got these ossuaries, you think MIGHT hold the bones of Jesus, is your first choice to examine them going to be someone named Cross?

Bill Myers--No. I don't think you CAN say that more often. You've gotten quite enough mileage out of it.

Damn it, you've infected ME now.

Rereading Micha's post up there kinda sums up the whole religion thing well. IS IT TRUE? Well, MAYBE, but is the STORY told well? And as for archaeologists saying that something never happened because there's no evidence for it, to quote Belloq, archaeology is not an exact science. Just because there isn't any evidence uncovered NOW doesn't mean that there won't be more uncovered later. They just found a headless statue of Hera in a Greek wall that apparently went with a statue of Zeus that nobody knew about. There is always more.

Herculaneum--here I thought that was what you make a radiocative Hercules from. Who knew?

I wasn't sure if Jim knew whether or not it was satire, which is why I posed the question. His comment that it was "illuminating" makes me lean towards him not realizing it, but maybe he was being satirical himself. Hopefully, he'll stop by again soon and clarify it.

As for the alleged bones of Jesus, it's going to be impossible to prove one way or another. It's not like we can run a DNA comparison, what with the Shroud of Turin turning out to be only about 500 years old. Even if there are other relics out there that are purported to have a sample of Jesus' blood, it's still scientifically impossible to prove their bona fides. So, we're stuck with the idenfication of the names, which apparently is questionable and the statistical probability of more than one Yeshua bar Yosep's connected to a Miriam from Magdala. From what I've read over the past week, given the limited number of names in circulation at that time and place, it isn't all that improbable.

Posted by: Den at March 2, 2007 01:29 PM

I wasn't sure if Jim knew whether or not it was satire, which is why I posed the question. His comment that it was "illuminating" makes me lean towards him not realizing it, but maybe he was being satirical himself. Hopefully, he'll stop by again soon and clarify it.

Yeah, what Den said.

By the way, Iowa Jim, I know you are a devout Christian and suspect you may have a slightly different P.O.V. than some of the other Christians who have posted here. I'd be interested in your take on all this if you'd care to share it. We're probably not gonna see eye-to-eye but that doesn't mean I don't wanna hear what you have to say.

I realize religion is a touchy subject for some -- and for all I know it may be for you. After all, I don't know you. But the water's nice here and as Peter already mentioned, this thread has been chugging along good and well without any flaming going on. Can't speak for anyone else, but if you're interested in chiming in a bit more I'm interested in reading it.

"Bill Mulligan's post up there with the Cross quote brings to mind two questions. If the onomasticon(try THAT for triple word score) is so small, in fact, when the ossuary was found, why wasn't that taken into consideration? Thinking that way would lead me, at least, away from thinking that it's Jesus and his family. Is this a case of the researchers keeping what they need and chucking the rest?"

When the cave was found back in the 80's, it and its contents were treated with indifference, like any other burial cave. The ossuaries were catalgued and archived. If you are inclined to conspirancy theories, you could claim that they ignored it too much. It's a little bit like he end of Raiders of the Lost Ark. Only in the 90's were these ossuaries described in publication, and without suggesting any connection to Jesus. the person who came up with the idea that it is Jesus's family grave was the film maker, not the archeologits. He came to the Archeologist, who showed him the ossuaries, and he started asking questions and speculating. His theory is based on 3 assumptions:
1) That it is statistically unlikely that a Jesus son of Joseph, two Marys, a Mathew, and another Joseph wil be found in the same grave even if individualy they are common names.
2) That the name Mariamne (spl?) that appears on one of the ossuaries is usued in an ancient Christian text called the Acts of Philliip to refer to Mary Magdalene.
3) That, based on the DNA tyests Mariamne and the Jesus found in the grave were not genetically related, which he interprets to mean that they were married.

It's a nice little hypothesis, but it could never go beyond a speculation. At the end all he has is the statistics.

As far as I can remember, there's nothing in the Bible that says that Jesus ascended into Heavan and STAYED THERE. For all anyone knows, after lifting up to Heavan, he returned to live out his normal human lifespan with his family. Or maybe commuted back and forth.

Yeah, if you'd believe that than you'd be a ... wait, then you'd be a Morman.

"Or maybe commuted back and forth."

So, if He did, think he'd use the HOV lane? Think he'd get a ticket?

Something ELSE I was thinking about. We were talking before about how there isn't much written, and maybe that's because of illiteracy. Maybe, though, there's a simpler answer. It could just be that the intellectuals didn't want to waste their time writing about the military because they were writing for each other, and maybe they just didn't have too much interest in the subject. It's not like most Romans or anybody else had a heck of a lot of leisure time to begin with, so if there's no audience, it ain't getting produced for the audience.

Actually, most scribes wrote about whatever their patron wanted them to write. Caesar, for example, took a scribe with him in his conquest of Gaul to record his victory there.

Doo said: "What difference does it make how he died or if he was mortal or divine? It's the MESSAGE he focused on."

I think that's a valid point, and I've addressed this point in other religious-themed threads. As I've mentioned in those threads, I'll sometimes ask priests or brothers of my acquaintance whether irrefutable proof that Jesus died and stayed dead would negate the significance of his message of love and peace.

Myself, I don't believe it would. Now, if the resurrection didn't happen, then the whole thing about Jesus taking on the burden of our collective sins (stupid, stupid Adam and Eve creatures!) never happened; but that's a separate issue.

I, personally, don't care whether Jesus was really divine, some guy named Karl on a time-travelling search for "truth", or the subject of a bit of posthumous spin by his followers. I'm more interested in what the man had to say (or what was attributed to him). I think one reason people of various religions respect Jesus is because his message of peace and brotherhood was so universal.

Speaking of Karl (the protagonist of Michael Moorcock's Behold the Man), it's interesting how often speculative fiction has addressed religious themes (both positively and negatively). This past summer, I wrote a series of three articles called "Speculative Fiction as Metaphor." Part 2 dealt with SF and religion (part 1 dealt with politics and part 3 with SF as modern mythology).

I seriously doubt we'll ever positively identify Jesus' remains, so the question of his divinity will remain one of faith; but again, I'm more interested in his message than his birthright.

Rick

"It's not like most Romans or anybody else had a heck of a lot of leisure time to begin with."

Actually, many of the cultural acheivements of the Greek and Roman societies was the result of the leisure the rich had thanks to slavery. The greek word for leisure is schola.

It seems likely to me that people like Caesar or historians would focus on things that enhanced the greatness of the great people like Caesar, or of the Roman people as a whole, less than on something technical like routine tactics, which has more to do with common people. Even more so since the Romans, I was told, were pretty conservative on the tactical level. Although, this is only what I suspect, I'm no expert. Still, I'm sure a lot was written about the Roman military by modern historians, and the ancient also refer to it. And the romans and greeks wrote about a lot of things. So there might be more info out there. It is also possible that books written about military strategy were lost in the middle ages -- a monk scratched the last copy of parchment to make room for a religious text. You'll have to do more research to find out about it.

------------------

"Speaking of Karl (the protagonist of Michael Moorcock's Behold the Man), it's interesting how often speculative fiction has addressed religious themes (both positively and negatively). This past summer, I wrote a series of three articles called "Speculative Fiction as Metaphor." Part 2 dealt with SF and religion (part 1 dealt with politics and part 3 with SF as modern mythology)."

I'll be interested to hear more about that. The article itself if you have a link, or E-mail to me. I've read Moorcock, but not the book you mention.

Micha wrote: "I'll be interested to hear more about that. The article itself if you have a link, or E-mail to me. I've read Moorcock, but not the book you mention."

I can E-Mail you a PDF of the article. Just let me know the E-Mail address.

Rick

My address is mroded@yahoo.com

Herculaneum--here I thought that was what you make a radioactive Hercules from. Who knew?

The most exciting part of the city is the villa of papyri: (from wiki)

The most famous of the luxurious villas at Herculaneum is the "Villa of the Papyri" now identified as the magnificent seafront retreat for Lucius Calpurnius Piso Caesoninus, Julius Caesar's father-in-law. It stretches down towards the sea in four terraces. Piso, a literate man who patronized poets and philosophers, built there a fine library, the only one to survive intact from antiquity. Scrolls from the villa are stored at the National Library, Naples. The scrolls are badly carbonized, but a large number have been unrolled, with varying degrees of success. Computer-enhanced multi-spectral imaging, in the infra-red range, helps make the ink legible. There is now a real prospect that it will be possible to read the unopened scrolls using X-rays.[1] The same techniques could be applied to the scrolls waiting to be discovered in the as-yet unexcavated part of the villa, removing the need for potentially damaging the unrolled scrolls.

One can only hope that some of the lost classics will be rediscovered. We know virtually none of Sappho's work and many of the other Greek poets and playwrights are known by mere fragments of their works. It would be wonderful to have these irreplaceable works returned to our consciousness.

I think it unlikely that the Romans were very different from us in the desire to relive days of glory--one imagines that anyone who fought with Scipio at Zama never tired of telling the story of how he helped end the threat of Hannibal. You'd think books on such subjects would be the equivalent of today's best sellers, but so far no luck.

The very idea of ancient hand to hand combat is so horrific that it boggles the mind. What it actually looks like is something that can, thankfully, only be imagined.

Being a Christian, the religion leaves more questions than answers. I have been to many different services, though I have never been to Jewish or Muslim services(Mormons are odd). When I pray to God it feels right. When some preachers have you pray to Jesus, it feels not wrong, but maybe out of place. I truly believe Jesus is the messenger and the road to God. Was he resurrected? (The Muslims beleived he faked his death, so they are probably loving this.) I say yes, because when I doubt miracles and the such I remember with God all things are possible.
Has anybody read Norse myths beyond Thor comic books? I put out the question, Is Balder God? When Ragnarok occurred, was he not resurrected when Hel opened up? Just a question. I have others, too... Were the "gods" fallen angels?
Also, the Troy analogy: read the book, "Where Troy Once Stood".

Bill, you'll have to read about Roman literature and historiography in order to get a better impression of what styles were written, by whom and for whom. This might answer your question and maybe give you a clue to possible primary sources about the Roman military. I don't know if the Romans had action-literatre like the medieval people had, or maybe they got enough action in the gladiator ring and the the theaters. They certainly put much value in the glory of their ancestors, but I don't know if it was written down.

"Were the "gods" fallen angels?"

In the early middle ages Christians thought of pagan gods as actual demons.

In the old testament (Genesis for one) there are references to the Sons of God who marry human women and birth giants.

The Muslims respect Jesus as a prophet but reject the idea that he was god.

I am a Christian, but sometimes (oftentimes?), I find myself embarrassed. Not by Christ, but by his followers. The Reverend Knapp, if he were a thinking man, should realize that the resurrection of Christ is the defining event of the faith. Finding the bones of Christ should be the ONE AND ONLY thing to shake his faith.

From what I have read, this is pop archeology and makes for good television, but not good science, so I'm not worried in the least.

Mr. David, I've been a fan of your Star Trek novels for years. Keep up the great work.

Iowa Jim, you are aware that article was satirical, correct?

Yes. That is why I liked it. The article's sarcasm illustrated the absurdity of what Cameron is claiming. It doesn't disprove it, but it does illustrate why I don't think Cameron has proved his point.

Iowa Jim

By the way, Iowa Jim, I know you are a devout Christian and suspect you may have a slightly different P.O.V. than some of the other Christians who have posted here. I'd be interested in your take on all this if you'd care to share it.

My point of view is simple. I don't blindly accept Jesus died and rose again, but I recognize (as PAD mentions) that it is a bold (some would say absurd) idea. I think there are strong historical reasons to believe it happened, but as with any historical event, it either did or it did not. You have to look at the evidence and decide for yourself. In this case, I believe there is also a spiritual element. As a Christian, I have found this to be true in practice, but obviously that is subjective.

The reality is this is not the first time someone has claimed to find the bones of Jesus. At this point, it would be virtually impossible to prove their case. I am not being stubborn, but just realistic. In this particular case, to say the evidence is weak is to be kind. Thus why I thought the satire was the best response.

Because it is an event 2000 years ago, you can't judge this the same way as whether 9/11 happened (or whether Elvis is still alive). Because of the religious issues, faith (meaning "trust" in both personal and historical evidence, not "blind acceptance") is involved as well. I am convince Jesus is alive, but that is something each of you have to decide for yourselves.

Iowa Jim

Scientific American article.

The statistican really said that there were likely to be 1 in 600 families with that pattern of name. He never gave odds on the likelihood it was Jesus.

I have found two historical figures for the population of Jerusalem around the year 70. Josephus says 3 million. Tacitus 600,000. Using Tacitus' figure, the 1/600 estimate, and a high average of 12 family members, we can estimate 42 families with that name pattern. Since Tactitus' figure is the low figure, and 12 family members is probably high, the number of families with that name pattern is likely higher than 42.

But I like the #42 anyway.

" (or whether Elvis is still alive)."

Some of you might be aware that I make videos. I want to make one, two lovebirds parking in a forest. Suddenly, there's a brilliant blue-white light from overhead. Several greys walk to the car, abduct the couple, then once aboard the ship, the head Grey tells them, "We have a message for your race. You will deliver it to your leaders. Elvis is dead. We don't have him. Get over it."

Gonna make that one of these days.

I loved this whole thing, but I was disappointed in the public media reaction (generally, shock and denial, defensive spin overdrive). I'm Christian, but that means you're following a tradition of thought, not that you necessarily believe a physical body rose from the grave and floated off into the sky never to fall to earth again. This might not be 100% provable, but it's proven to be far, far more likely true than not. The grave itself is like confirmation for me, validation.

All the church's (well, Roman Empire's population control official state religion's and the right wing movements that have built from it's) teaching against Christ's original message can now be debunked. The Gospel of Mary is supported by this find, the Acts of Phillip, generally the teachings of the original (Gnostic) Cristian cult, who were all but hunted to extinction and effectively erased from history for centuries by Constantine's state church, as heretics. This tradition teaches equality and the spirit as universal and personal, rather than as some master with whip and carrot at the top of an Earthly heirarchy, Jesus as a brother of the spirit rather than Lord and Master (freedom from Earthly oppression and rule), and Mary Magdaline as an equal partner (wife, likely, the word translating to "companion", and one of the founders of the first Christian church and missionary) rather than an unclean whore (subjugation of women). If Christians would embrace this rather than attack it and recoil, the perversion of Christianity, that's been used to such vile effect again and again for centuries, could be undone going forward. That's how I feel, anyway, as a Christian. :) I'm happy with this. And, bonus, my birth year is the tomb discovery year. lol

One other thing: Something that just astonishes me is that the documentary also shows the documentarians finding a Book of "Judah" in the tomb when they revisit. I would expect, as this is the book Jesus points to as his message, where one should look for answers and clarity of his teachings, that *somebody* out there would be looking to get back in the tomb to verify that this book of Judah actually is there, or debunk it by proving it's not, and if it is, I would expect there to be serious fervor for the translation and publishing of this book. More strange than anything about this, to me, is that I've yet to hear mention of this claim in the debate at all, either pro or con. Why?

"Because the idea of faith as an alternative to evidence only came after people started doubting the evidence. It was only then that people started saying, look, this is not about evidence and reason, it's about faith."

Physical "Evidence" and spiritual "faith" are conduits for totally different things. Each supports the other and without one the other is totally useless.

Neither is a substitution for the other.

All the things that archeology can prove about Biblical accuracy can't prove anything about how accurate the Bible is or isn't about God or the Messiah, or even whether or not that stuff is hooey. On the other hand, that archeology provides a manner for people of today to believe in the background for the stuff of yesterday makes it easier for people to believe in tales of yesterday, even when the archaeological stuff provides stuff that is less than concrete.

Besides, if there is knowledge that I can't understand or interpret in any given subject, then only my faith in a respective and relevant authority is what allows me to believe the knowledge. For all my personal experience can tell me, Calculus either works or it is a product of a deranged conspiracy. But my faith in math teachers is what makes me believe that Calculus, which I did not learn, is a useful tool for stuff.

History and geography works the same way actually: it's about faith in your sources.

Faith does not support evidence. Evidence rises or falls on its own.

But my faith in math teachers is what makes me believe that Calculus, which I did not learn, is a useful tool for stuff.

Actually, math is a useful tool whether your have faith in your teachers or not. Of course, you have to actually apply it correctly. Otherwise, you get Martian probes crashing. That's beauty of all the sciences. They look at reality and, as someone once said, reality is what still exists even when you stop believing in it.

I always find it amusing when people who insist that a book written thousands of years ago has to be the literal truth, despite all the fossil evidence in front of our eyes, lectures me on how I'm taking evolution on "faith". Um, no, I'm looking at reality. Calling reality "faith" doesn't make it stop being reality.