Simcha Jacobovici, is my co-author of The Jesus Discovery and producer of the forthcoming film on Discovery TV and Vision Canada that will air in April. He was also recently appointed a professor in the Dept. of Religious Studies at Huntington University in Ontario.  Jacobovici has just written the following response to the media and academic coverage of our new discoveries since their unveiling last week. I thought I would share it with readers as it offers an interesting perspective I had not heard before. Here are his unedited comments:

I have had a chance to peruse the responses to our press conference and book launch (The Jesus Discovery, Simon & Schuster) for the first time. I am preparing a longer article, but in the meantime I just wanted to contextualize the discussion.

I am not surprised by the quick and personal attacks by various scholars i.e., accusing us of “hijacking” archaeology, “sensationalism” etc. We’ve heard it all before and I guess some people can’t get off that track, including the accusation that we released our book to coincide with Easter–never mind that it was released in February and Easter is in April. Frankly, what surprises me is how quickly the negative tone was diffused and how the discussion is veering towards scholarly debate instead of ad hominem slander. The reason I’m surprised is because, generally, there is an iron rule that applies to Jesus related archaeology: everyone is wrong, about everything, all the time. Some would like to portray the controversy over the “Jesus Family Tomb” in Talpiot as one between serious scholars and sensationalists such as myself. But let’s put this into a historical context.

Prof. Tabor and I are not the first people to connect Jesus to Talpiot. In 1945, Eleazer Sukenik, who was the first to identify the Dead Sea Scrolls as being authentically from the Second Temple Period, discovered a tomb off Hebron Road in Talpiot, approximately 1,000 meters from the now famous “Jesus Family Tomb.” In the tomb, there were two ossuaries with the word “Jesus” inscribed on them in charcoal. According to Sukenik, one inscription read “Jesus Woe” and the other “Jesus Aloth,” which Sukenik interpreted as lamentations for the crucifixion of Jesus. Immediately, the scholarly and Christian community was up in arms. It turns out that Sukenik was wrong on both counts. The ossuaries were not referring to Jesus of Nazareth. Rather, there were two guys named Jesus buried right next to each other. And the first ossuary did not say “Woe,” it said “Ju” which was an unfinished version of “Judah.” Moreover, “Aloth” did not refer to lamentation but to “Aloe.” Maybe the person interred in the box was in the Aloe distribution business. As for why a scholar of Sukenik’s stature got it so wrong, just recently I heard a top scholar say in a room full of other scholars “Sukenik’s wife needed a refrigerator.” So I guess he just sensationalized for the purpose of making money.

In 1973, Prof. Morton Smith–arguably one of the top New Testament scholar at the time – claimed to have found a previously unknown letter of Clement of Alexandria that quoted an unknown version of the Gospel of Mark. Smith had found the fragment years before and had worked on it for over a decade, making sure that he lined up top scholars prior to publication. But that did not help him. His career went down in flames and he was accused of forging the document. As recently as 2010, York University in Toronto sponsored a conference dedicated to the question of Smith’s possible forgery.

Franciscan archaeologist, Bellarmino Bagatti, pointed to much “Judeo-Christian” archaeology in Jerusalem e.g., at the site of Dominus Flevit, but each assertion was met with universal disdain. Like Sukenik and Smith before him, Bagatti was wrong about everything all the time. Not only that, every reading of any inscription that can be linked to Jesus is retroactively changed once a connection with Jesus is established. So, for example, the ossuary that reads “Shimon bar Yonah” i.e., the disciple Peter’s name, sits neglected in the Franciscan museum at the second station on the Via Dolorosa. After I publicized its existence in a 2007 film, scholars began to debate whether, in fact, it says “bar Yonah” after all. In the 1970s Prof. Pau Figueras published an inscription on a small fragment on an ossuary in the IAA warehouse of unknown provenance. It has the name “Jesus” inside a fish complete with tail and mouth. He was immediately roundly attacked. It turns out the “Jesus” in this inscription is not Jesus of Nazareth but, rather, another Jesus buried in the ossuary. And the fish is not a fish, it’s not even a Nephesh tower or an amphora or even a perfume bottle, it’s merely a carelessly drawn circle. As for Prof. Figueras’ interpretation, well, in Levi Rahmani’s words “…the inferences drawn by Figueras [are] excessive.”

When it comes to crosses, the story is the same. No cross is a cross if it’s connected to Jesus. For example, one of Sukenik’s “Jesus” ossuaries had charcoal crosses on all four sides. As it turns out, these are not crosses. They are “mason’s marks.” Never mind that masons work in stone, not charcoal. Nevermind that a mason’s mark on an ossuary is meant to line up a lid to a box and serves no purpose on all four sides. Sukenik didn’t know the rule. When it comes to Jesus, everyone is wrong about everything all the time.

Which brings us to our latest discoveries and some of the over-the-top-criticisms. In 2007, when we investigated the “Jesus Family Tomb” we were criticized for doing it in the context of a film and not a proper dig. This time, our investigation was under an excavation license issued by the IAA. We had not one but two sponsoring universities – UNC Charlotte and the University of Nebraska. There was an IAA archaeologist on site all the time. The license was jointly held by not one, but two scholars, Prof. James Tabor and veteran Israeli archaeologist Rami Arav. All under the sponsorship of Prof. Janet Levy, Chair of the Department of Anthropology at UNC Charlotte and Chair of the Archeology division of the American Anthropological Association. Pretty solid I would say, but not good enough for some of the contributors to this site who continue to accuse us of “sensationalism” and other badly motivated behavior. Last time we were accused of not having a peer-review process. This time, Prof. Tabor published an academic article on bibleinterp.com and at least 10 academics made formal reports on our findings prior to publication. We incorporated all of their suggestions in our book, upcoming film, website and press material. Not good enough. In fact, some of the very academics that were consulted have revised their opinions and are now attacking us on the internet and in media interviews.

The fact is that what we found is unprecedented whether you call our Jonah image a pillar, an amphora or a perfume bottle. In the words of Yuval Baruch, Jerusalem District Head of the Israel Antiquities Authority, “there’s nothing else like it on an ossuary.” We also found a statement of faith. But even if you say it’s not about resurrection, but some kind of exaltation or testament to an ascension of some kind, there is simply nothing like it on any of the thousands of ossuaries cataloged so far. Again, those are the words of Yuval Baruch. It doesn’t help to say that many Jews believed in resurrection. They didn’t record their statements on their ossuaries. The statement is unique. Furthermore, the archaeological context is attested. Like it or not, these two tombs are linked and set apart from the rest of the Talpiot necropolis. That’s not my opinion, that’s the opinion of Dr. Natalie Messika, an expert in archaeological mapping often under contract with the IAA. As for the linkage to early followers of Jesus, the fact is that whoever made those pictures and wrote that inscription was sectarian and not normative. Jews did not–and do not–write the Tetragrammaton on a bone box filled with “tumah” or impurity. I know that there is an attempt to re-read the second line in the inscription, but the reading was confirmed repeatedly by major scholars, including Prof. Rollston who is now revising his opinion. It’s OK to change one’s mind. All I’m saying is that the vast majority of scholars see the ineffable name inscribed in the second line.

Had we found a cross we would have been told that the cross is not a Christian symbol in the 1st century. The fact is we found a 1st century cross! Had we found nothing else we would have been told that we should have found a fish, if we thought the tomb was linked to the early Jesus movement. But we found a fish! If that’s all we had found, we would have been told that we should have found a “Jonah.” We found a Jonah!  But for some, the iron rule is the golden rule. When it comes to Jesus; everyone is wrong about everything all the time. So the cross is not a cross, the fish is not a fish, the Jonah is not a Jonah and now even the “Jehovah” inscription doesn’t say “Jehovah.”

For the record, we spent 5 years and a lot of money and effort to excavate this tomb. Never before have the IAA and the Haredi activists agreed to work together on the excavation of a 1st century Jerusalem tomb. We built a robotic arm that has pushed the envelope of Jerusalem based archaeology. We had absolutely no guarantee that we would find anything, but we did. And now it’s time for a reasoned and scholarly debate. Many top scholars have weighed in stating that this is a very significant find including Prof. James Charlesworth and Prof. John Dominic Crossan. If scholars stop attacking each other personally, more will go on record. Furthermore, it’s time to review, in light of the new findings, the archaeology previously dismissed. Maybe everyone’s not wrong about everything all the time. Maybe we actually found something significant this time. And maybe significant archaeology related to the early Jesus followers has been hiding, for decades, in plain sight.

Simcha Jacobovici, filmmaker
Professor, Religious Studies, Huntington University

The discussion on the ASOR site of our “Jonah and the big fish” image (as we have identified it) has moved, as of yesterday, from a pillar (nephesh) or funerary monument to a glass perfume flask–technically called an unguentarium. Joan Taylor has some nice images in her post putting forth this interpretation.In our discussions and consultations over the past year with our eighteen outside academics, a few of whom had suggested the “tower” idea, the possibility of an amphora or specialize vase had also been raised. I cover this in my article with some examples of such images on ossuaries. In the end we rejected this interpretation in favor of the fish with Jonah spewed out of the mouth. Frankly I found the pillar idea completely far-fetched–for one thing it would be up-side-down, but in shape, form, and details there is little to nothing about this image that resembles these typical monuments (see Rahmani, CJO, pp. 31-34). In contrast the amphora idea is one we carefully considered, since there are some clear similarities, though we found no amphora images that we thought really matched our ossuary “fish” image closely.

1. The “tail” of our image is sharply pointed and quite elongated on the left side. In fact, when we first got a glimpse of the partial image we thought it was the prow of a boat! In contrast, the mouths of amphora and perfume bottles are round and quite symmetrical.

2. The clear stick figure in our image with the enlarged “ball” or head at the bottom seems to be in contrast to the typical flattened or knob like ends of some perfume bottles. The arms of the figure are positioned in a classic eastern pose (oaanes), in contrast to what we find in the west–the orans position of supplication with both arms raised. This is a major point and we are presently preparing a special paper dealing with the motifs associated with the various sea-man figures of the eastern Mediterrean world in this period. The “head” itself has a very distinctive pattern on it which we have taken to be the artists attempt to represent seaweed “wrapped about my head” as mentioned in the text of Jonah (2:5). The “eye” of the fish is also etched on the lower right side, with a curved line. We are not yet certain what the Etruscan “F-like” marking is to the left of the figure’s body as it is now oriented but our guess is it has to do with an eastern mythical hero motif and several suggestions have been made by two of our ancient art historians.

3. The patterned body of the “fish” with its scale/tile like patterns, which led some to conclude it was the brickwork of a tower, we understand to be akin to the armor of the mythical fish Leviathan (aka Behemoth, Rahab, etc.)–which in modern Hebrew still means “whale.” In Jewish tradition this unique sea creature represents “death” and the righteous are to eat its flesh in the last days, thus “swallowing up death” forever (Isaiah 27:1; 25:8; Baba Bathra 74b). When this happens the “dew of light” will shine on the world of the death and those in the land of shades will live or be resurrected (Isaiah 26:19).

4. The downward orientation of our fish image, which some have taken as an objection to it being a fish, is to the contrary just what one would expect, as we understand Jonah is being spat out on land in this depiction. To have the nose of the fish oriented upward (heavenward), or to right or left, would be to spit him into the waters of “chaos,” which he is now to escape, by being vomited on dry land. The head of our “Jonah” figure is actually touching the border of the bottom of the ossuary, which seems to represent that land.

The creator of the Jonah image is taking his or her cues from the text of Jonah itself—not from a pattern of evolving types—since we have no extant Jonah images from this period, or for that matter, any biblical scenes at all. This would be a first. The text of Jonah seems to provide the clues and that is how I have interpreted its several features as I explain in my paper:

I called out to Yahweh, out of my distress, and he answered me; out of the belly of Sheol I cried . . . Then I said, ‘I am driven away from your sight; yet I shall again look upon your holy temple.’ The waters closed in over me to take my life; the deep surrounded me; weeds were wrapped about my head at the roots of the mountains. I went down to the land whose bars closed upon me forever; yet you brought up my life from the pit (Jonah 2:2-6).

We are convinced that these detailed features resemble much more closely a fish than the mere similarity in shape to an amphora. After all, even though an amphora, or especially an alabastron, might be somewhat cylindrically “fish like” in shape, no one would mistake a flask or perfume vial for a fish–and we think something in the reverse is working with this latest suggestion. Lots of inanimate objects can “look like” animals…but usually in art history we can easily tell the “beast” from the thing…

Our interpretation is further supported by the other fish motifs on the ossuary itself, as mentioned in my paper, particularly the six little fish along the top border of the ossuary as if they are swimming along a canal or river, the cross-like gated “bars of death” on the right side panel (compare Rahmani, CJO, Plate 7: 46F and Hachlili, Jewish Funerary Customs, plate III-7a), and the half-fish or tail, on the right end. We see this as representing a patterned narrative.  Even though its elements might be lost to us we think the general motifs are clear–namely entrance into “death” and chaos and being “brought up” from the “pit” or Sheol–presented by both the waters and the great fish.

When the research on our robotic arm discoveries at the Talpiot “patio” tomb was published just last Tuesday, within two days six of my colleagues (Meyers, Magness, Rollston, Cargil, Fine, Jensen) had posted responses on the American Schools of Oriental Research blog.  They denounced our interpretation of an iconic image on one of the ossuaries in the tomb as that of “Jonah and the great fish,” and questioned our evaluation of the Greek inscription found on a second. In fact, the executive director of ASOR, Andy Vaughn, who has been quoted widely as saying our thesis has “zero chance of being correct,” less than 24 hours after after he received the paper, asked two of these scholars (Meyers and Rollston)  to moderate a series of posts on the ASOR blog throughout the month of March on these discoveries. The consensus was that the tomb contained nothing out of the ordinary and that my report was “much to do about nothing,” to quote Eric Meyers. What I found particularly interesting was that all six supported the position, some more adamantly than others, that the “Jonah” image was in fact a pillar/tower or funerary monument–called in Hebrew a nephesh. It is rare that one finds such a consensus among a group of my peers in this field. We had considered that option initially, but rejected it upon further study, as I explain in my own piece at the ASOR site posted yesterday. It is covered in our book, in the forthcoming film on Discovery TV, and on our web site.  We concluded that there was simply no good case that one could make that this unique image had any resemblance to images of tomb monuments found on ossuaries. Frankly, I was rather amazed that all six of these scholars would support such an idea, first suggested by Steven Fine in academic consultations a half dozen of us had last May.

Just yesterday a “new” proposal began to surface on the “biblioblogosphere,” and Cargil and several others have now taken it up with some enthusiasm–namely that the image is an amphora or vase. I predict that in a matter of days a host of others will take up this idea. Our team considered this option as well and in the end rejected it for the reasons I mention in my ASOR post referenced above–in favor of the Jonah/fish interpretation. I think I was the first one to suggest we consider it and it is included in my research paper, with the same illustrations several bloggers have now posted on their web site. It is also up on our web site with comparative images side by side. Unlike the nephesh idea, it seemed to me initially that the amphora might offer at least a possible parallel. At least two of the scholars who worked with us on the project as consultants found the “amphora” possibility convincing. I mention all this just to say that we carefully considered all possible evidence in coming to our present position that the image is that of Jonah and fish. We have discussed the possibilities endlessly and we re-examined every ossuary image in the entire Israel State Collection, as well as those in the Israel museum and private collections. We are convinced there is nothing like the image we have identified as Jonah and the fish. If we are correct, and the debate has just begun, we do indeed have something truly unique in this tomb.

In addition to the Jonah image there are a number of other very fascinating features in the tomb, including the four-line Greek inscription. We have offered an extensive technical discussion of our own analysis in my paper, and also a more accessible non-specialist version on the web site. Once others begin to offer their own alternative proposals I look forward to discussing them here. So far we only have Chris Rollston, whose specialty is epigraphy, stating that he thinks we made serious mistakes in reading several of the letters but we are looking forward to his  full critique as well as his own proposal as to its transcription and translation.

Our exploration of this second Talpiot tomb (i.e. the “patio tomb”) was in response to an informal but unanimous vote of approximately 47 scholars held at the end of the 2009 international Jerusalem conference “The Tomb of Jesus and His Family? Exploring Ancient Jewish Tombs Near Jerusalem’s Walls: The Fourth Princeton Symposium on Judaism and Christian Origins,” organized by James H. Charlesworth. The papers from that conference are forthcoming in 2012 with Eerdmans press. As a group we agreed on little else, but all of us affirmed that exploring the nearby “patio tomb,” less than 40 meters from the so-called “Jesus” family tomb, might potentially yield more scientific information that would shed light on both tombs (and a 3^rd “ruined” tomb) nearby—all located on an ancient estate along the ancient road in the present area known Armon HaNetziv (the Promenade is meters away).  I thank Simcha Jacobovici and his amazing team for providing both the funding and the expertise to make such an exploration by robotic camera possible. We have described in our book the many seemingly insurmountable challenges we faced and overcame. It is all quite an extraordinary story. Rami Arav and I were granted the excavation license for both tombs by the Israel Antiquities Authority in 2009 (renewed in 2010, 2011) under the supervision of Janet Levy, chair of Anthropology at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. Our operations were thoroughly professional and carried out according to IAA specifications with normal IAA supervision. We decided to concentrate first on the “patio” tomb that had been briefly examined in 1981 by Amos Kloner and his assistants in behalf of the IAA. All this is described in detail in both the book and the paper mentioned above.

The tomb contained a number of interesting features, as all tombs of this period and provenance do, but two ossuaries in particular drew our special consideration—nos.  5 and 6 (kokh 1) on our published map. No. 5 had inscribed what we have tentatively identified as a “Jonah and the great fish” image and no. 6 a fascinating 14 letter, four line inscription in Greek. Both of these are described in detail in my paper and several potential readings of the inscription are explored. These two finds in particular were the subject of a cordial but intense discussion and analysis sponsored by the National Geographic Society on May 19, 2010. Participants were: James Charlesworth, Steven Fine, Simcha Jacobovici, Robin Jensen, Chris Rollston, and me.  Eric Meyers and Rami Arav were invited but unfortunately could not attend since they were in Israel at that time. I later met with Eric Meyers and summarized for him what we had covered. Due to the sensitivity of the finds and the funds invested in the investigation by National Geographic (and now subsequently Discovery Television), we had all signed non-disclosure agreements which all of us have strictly abided by until released this week. Once the project was acquired by Discovery TV we brought in eight other scholars as our consultants, among them Richard Bauckham, Greg Snyder, and Dom Crossan. Since the others have not yet spoken publically I will not mention their names at this point. Taken together our consultants represent a distinguished and balanced group of art historians, textual experts, and scholars of early Christianity and ancient Judaism.

Just this week Eric Meyers has offered the following analysis in his essay on the ASOR blog forum:

“In fact, the image in the book is so poorly reproduced in my copy that one suspects it has been intentionally altered so that no one could see what the image really is. Indeed, the image actually seems to resemble a nephesh, or tomb monument, like those found in many places in Jerusalem in the first century CE and depicted on ossuaries of this very period (so for example in fig. 13 or 30 of Rahmani’s A Catalogue of Jewish Ossuaries, 1994). A nephesh is the above-ground monument of a tomb that marks the tomb below and the one(s) buried there.”

I will ignore the insulting insinuation regarding deliberate alternation but Eric Meyer’s suggestion, now supported so far as I can tell by Steven Fine (who first suggested this in D.C.), Jodi Magness, Chris Rollston, and Bob Cargill, Robin Jensen, and a chorus of others, that what we have called a “Jonah” image is in fact a nephesh, or tomb monument. This seems to be the main alternative put forth so far by various comments on the Web during the first 48 hours of our release. We considered this alternative at the time of the discovery, along with others (i.e., vase or amphora), as I have mentioned in my academic paper but for the reasons I will enumerate here we found the nephesh possibility decidedly unlikely.

1.  The disputed figure occupies the left panel of the front of the ossuary. The orientation of the figure, as shown in the photo in my book, is with what we identify as the tail of the fish at the top and the head of the figure pointed down, barely touching the bottom incised border of the ossuary. If this image is a nephesh it would be upside down—with its highly irregular “base” in the air, unlike any other example on ossuaries of which I am aware—and I would of course welcome any examples of anything close to this. Using Cargil’s example of the well known “Absolom pillar,” you would turn it on its head and it would be “leaning” over like our proverbial Pisa tower. The museum at Discovery Times Square, where the current Dead Sea Scroll exhibit is on display, has constructed two very lovely museum quality reproductions of both of these ossuaries and they are on display there now in a special exhibit. Since our photos were necessarily limited by our highly challenging circumstances—even with the amazing technical capabilities of the robotic arm—seeing the ossuary as it would look if we could bring it out of the tomb I think helps to orient oneself—especially regarding this idea that we are looking at a funerary monument or pillar. The craftsmen who constructed this replica tried to present most of the features accurately though one should not rely on this but our published photos for details (available at thejesusdicovery.org).

Museum reproduction of ossuary 6, Talpiot “Patio” Tomb

I should point out here that the right side of the front panel is only hypothetically drawn in here since it is blocked by the adjacent ossuary (see our map of this kokh published in my article and in the book). The square temple-like figure has some kind of pattern inside—probably a square within a square, but we can only see the portion showing here—that looks like a “gallows.”  The image we identify as a fish, however, is completely visible in the photos, though you have to put several together to get the composite view. We have done the best with what we have and I commend our team for its exceptional work, though there is no claim here that these museum reproductions, done by Discovery Times Square, are precise and accurate reflections of the ornamentation and images. They are close of course, but differ somewhat from our actual photographs. There are six little fish-like images incised along the upper border, and what appear to be a “half fish” on the right end, as if it is diving into the water (some have argued it is some kind of vessel but it makes no sense to draw it have way down in this way–it seem purposeful and resembles the tail and lower body of a fish diving under. The left end, as seen here, has an entrance like barred doorway. Seen in this perspective I think the hypothesis that this is a common, ordinary, nephesh is simply untenable and I am frankly surprised that anyone would seriously suggest it.

2. In both orientation and form I have seen nothing resembling this. Even the “curved” nephesh that Rahmani reproduces only has that appearance because it is squeezed between two rosettes—as Rahmani clearly explains—not because it represents the style of a nephesh. The same is the case for the images produced by Hachlili, Figueras, and others. Unfortunately that ossuary is not extant but its curved sides are exceptional—in contrast to the straight pillar-like shape that is normal. Our ossuary 6 image is free standing, so that in both shape and style it is clearly something quite different. Steven Fine was kind enough to provide me with all his published articles related to this question, including the one he posted today in this forum, and there is nothing even close to this figure in any of his examples, despite his claim in this regard. I challenge readers to take a look for themselves.

3) I am convinced, as are several others we consulted, that what we clearly have here is a “great fish” drawn in an eastern style. The oannes-like “stick figure” is quite clear, with two arms carefully postured, and two legs. We will publish a full paper on this shortly. As one of our consultants pointed out—the artist who draw this image is likely reluctant to represent a clear human figure in graphic form in this funerary context. The eye of the fish is clearly visible on the right side. I am not sure what the detached ｦ-like etching to the left of the figure might represent and I would welcome any suggestions. The head of the figure is being spat out onto land, wrapped in what we take to be the seaweed mentioned in the book of Jonah—thus its downward orientation to the border of the ossuary, representing land. If this is in fact a Jonah image its creator is taking his or her cues from the text of Jonah itself—not from a pattern of evolving types—since we have no Jonah images, or for that matter, any biblical scene from this period. The text of Jonah seems to provide the clues and that is how I have interpreted its several features as I explain in my paper:

I called out to the LORD, out of my distress, and he answered me; out of the belly of Sheol I cried . . . Then I said, ‘I am driven away from your sight; yet I shall again look upon your holy temple.’ The waters closed in over me to take my life; the deep surrounded me; weeds were wrapped about my head at the roots of the mountains. I went down to the land whose bars closed upon me forever; yet you brought up my life from the pit (Jonah 2:2-6).

The half fish on the right side represented being taken under the waters; the door-like bars are the “bars of Sheol,” with the ossuary full of bones representing death, the fish expelling the stick-like human figure representing being brought up out of Sheol—again all taken from the text of our biblical book of Jonah. It is possible that the square-like structure on the right side represents a temple or hekalot idea—also mentioned in the text of Jonah.

I find this interpretation, that has been supported by a number of our consultants, to be much more compelling than the assertion that this is a common ordinary “pillar”—which I am convinced is simply is not the case. My sense, regrettably, is that personal issues, as reflected in the sometimes sarcastic and disrespectful tone of many of the reactions to our work have played a factor in shaping what could otherwise be a most profitable discussion of this fascinating ossuary.

My main purpose in this brief article has been to offer these brief observations on the discussion so far of ossuary 6, but since we also have a lovely museum reproduction of ossuary 5 as well I thought I would present it here so readers can orient themselves to just where the four-line Greek inscription appears on that ossuary.  Those living near or visiting New York can see these reproductions at the museum through April 15^th.

Finally, I must say that I am quite surprised at Eric Meyer’s assertion that even if this inscription does have to do with life after death it would represent nothing unusual on an ossuary. There are less than a dozen epigrams or epitaphs among the more than 600 ossuary inscriptions we have (Cotton, et al., CIIP) and all of them, with maybe one exception, have to do prohibitions against moving bones.   Whatever this one says it seems that it is anything but common—as all our consulting scholars initially agreed in the D.C. meeting. I anxiously await Chis Rollston’s translation since he too, if I understand him correctly, has now changed his mind and thinks this inscription is quite ordinary as is everything else found in this tomb.

Museum reproduction of ossuary 5, Talpiot “Patio” Tomb

If you are interested in keeping up with the Talpiot tomb discussion don’t miss the comment by Kilty and Elliot on the mistaken idea, repeated by so many scholars, including those on the ASOR blog right now, that the Talpiot tomb names are common.It is one of the comments on my article on our recent Patio Tomb investigation that is posted on that site. They take Chris Rollston to task for ignoring the fallacies of the shop worn “the names are common” refrain–see  bibleinterp.com. By the way, if you are one of the 18,000 that have downloaded that article in the last two days take a look again at the picture in the appendix–we have added the museum reproductions of the ossuaries.

For some odd reason all too many of my colleagues love to repeat the idea that Simcha Jacobovici and I are out of touch by once again raising the 2007 “Jesus” tomb for discussion when responsible scholars have long ago dismissed it by showing the names are common. Anyone who has really kept up with the discussion knows that such is not the case. Just see the posts I list below in a recent on this blog: Keeping Up with the Latest on the Talpiot Tomb. Frankly I find this frustrating but also a bit irritating. It seems those who speak with such authority should have done their homework on the latest research. I can’t tell you how much I constantly see repeated by very reputable scholars who have not kept up with even the basics posted on the Bible & Interpetation site.

I truly long for a time when personal innuendos and ugly charges about greed and corruption will cease. As Dom Crossan told me today–they are neither helpful nor humane…I thought that was really well put. Mark Goodacre and I were also writing back and forth on this today and he confessed to me that he is really embarrassed much of the time by the conduct of our colleagues. Fortunately, there are a few in our ranks who always write with respect and professionalism even in heatedly debated areas. I hope I have been one of those and God knows, I have been maligned and attacked more than most and so far as I remember I have never lashed back. Let’s restore some grace to the academy and respect our fellow human beings.

I ask my fellow bloggers in our field to circulate this call for a change in our tone and approach to one another. Enough is enough and those who are the most offensive in these areas know who they are…