As some of you know who have followed the story, the Dead Sea Scroll exhibit that was earlier at Discovery Times Square in NYC has now moved on to Philadelphia. Few seem to realize that included in this very comprehensive exhibit which was put together by the every talented James Sanna, are not only the Dead Sea scrolls but a trove of other archaeological artifacts from the IAA State of Israel collection, including–you guessed it–four of the ossuaries from the Talpiot “Jesus” tomb: namely Yeshua bar Yehosef, Mariamene Mara, Yose, and Matya. We filmed the ABC Nightline special (link here is you missed it) on the new Talpiot Tomb discoveries back in April in the Discovery Times Square exhibit and it was interesting to watch the droves of visitors in the exhibit hall walking obliviously past the display of the ossuaries, tucked behind a glass window.

Jesus Family Tomb Ossuaries at Dead Sea Scroll Exhibit

Unfortunately, Jude son of Jesus had to stay home as he is on special display in the Israel Museum and Maria is stored in the basement of the museum so far as I know. Other cities are to follow, I think Chicago is next, and it looks like it might be just in time for the SBL/AAR/ASOR/Bible Fest meeting, which could be most interesting. Maybe some of us might end up organizing something around this as there already are some things planned on the various programs dealing with the new Talpiot “patio” Tomb discoveries. I am doing a paper for SBL on both the Jonah image and the Greek inscription, also a lecture with the BAS Bible Fest, and Simcha Jacobovici and I are part of a forum on archaeology and the media hosted by Mark Goodacre, Robert Cargill, and Christian Brady, also for SBL. What would be nice would be some kind of forum/debate on the Talpiots tombs more generally but so far I don’t think anything like that has been included in the program. With the latest publications of the trial evidence on the James ossuary, which few of its naysayers seem to have noticed (see the comprehensive report “Implications of the “Forgery Trial” Verdict on the Authenticity of the James Ossuary” by Rosenfelt, et al. here), and all the other new evidence available for discussion, most of it posted now at bibleinterp.com (search “talpiot”), it would certainly be a topic of great interest. At the same time the comprehensive volume of papers from the January, 2008 Jerusalem conference titled: The Tomb of Jesus and His Family? Exploring Ancient Jewish Tombs Near Jerusalem’s Walls, eds. James H. Charlesworth and Arthur C. Boulet (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2012) will be published and available at the annual meetings in Chicago.

We have just uploaded a dozen or so additional photos of the Talpiot tomb discoveries at our main web site: thejesusdiscovery.org. They are available for both viewing and downloading and can be used freely by anyone. You can find them under the tab: Photos and Graphics.

Some have circulated the charge that we have cropped, altered, manipulated, edited, “photoshopped,” or otherwise adjusted the photos we have released, while others have even suggested the poor quality of the images is a purposefully sinister move on our part since we don’t want the public to be able to see clearly our findings so we can control their interpretation. These charges and innuendos are as false as they are unfortunate.  Here are the facts:

1. No photos of the Jonah image or any other images from the tomb have been cropped, altered, manipulated, edited or adjusted in any way whatsoever. The photos we distributed were precisely what we took from the camera itself, or still shots taken from our monitors.

2. Because there is no single camera shot of the Jonah image but rather hours of camera footage and hundreds of stills, all taken at varying angles with different light, we asked our CGI people to produce a computer generated composite of what the whole image might look like. Our desire is to make this representation as accurate as possible and as time goes on we will continue to make improvements. The image is oriented downward, with the fish’s nose and “head” of Jonah pointing to the bottom of the ossuary, as is discussed and made clear in my preliminary academic report, in the book, The Jesus Discovery, on the ossuary museum model, and at our press conference in NY on February 28th. In fact this downward orientation was one of the reasons we rejected the nephesh or “tower” interpretation of the image, since an up-side-down monument made no sense to us or to many of our academic consultants.

2. In the case of the four line Greek inscription, the name MARA, and the photos of the “fish in the margins” along the top border of the ossuary, we have posted photos that are “lined in” to show how we see the letters or the images. These marks are clear and obvious. They are done by anyone wanting to illustrate something on a complex photo. So long as the original, unlined version is available, so people can make comparisons, marking features on photos, or otherwise highlighting, is certainly not “manipulating” “altering” or otherwise “adjusting” them with an intent to deceive. Recently several have used such marks to point out other features they want to call attention to–including “handles” they see on several of the images from both 1981 and our shots from 2010-2011. This is perfectly fine with us and the debate and discussion is then open as to whether what one “sees” in does in fact represent what one maintains.

3. No photos on the web site have been taken down, altered, manipulated, or otherwise adjusted. When our web person is in the process of arranging or uploading new photos the site remains live so it might appear to a visitor, for a very short time, that this or that has been taken down or added, but everything is up that we put up on February 28th, with more photos now added. We do continually want to correct anything wrong. For example, two of our photos were labeled 1980 rather than 1981, and we have corrected that. We appreciate anyone pointing out any other errors and we will do our best to correct them. I thank Mark Goodacre for his sharp eyes in noticing that one of the figures in my Preliminary Report is misidentified (the inside shot of the ossuary with the bones, Fig. 7 in my Preliminary Report, was incorrectly labeled as ossuary 5 when in fact it is ossuary 4 as our GE camera man has now confirmed). Robert Cargill suggested that the label “composite representation” for the complete Jonah image we produced should be clarified as a CGI representation and not a photo and we agreed and made that clarification.

We hope these additional photos will stimulate more discussion, collegiality, and “good faith” exchange of views. Once the film is aired in early April on Discovery TV we will no doubt have the green light to distribute live video clips of our filming and many other images.

I got the sad news last night at 7:51pm. It beeped in as a CNN bulletin on my iPhone. Steve Jobs, legendary founder of Apple computer, and inspiration behind Mac computers, the mouse, iTunes, the iPod, the iPhone, the AirBook, and most recently the iPad, had died of pancreatic cancer at age 56.

Friends began to shoot me e-mails and text messages. Posts began to appear on Facebook and Twitter and last night Twitter was so jammed, with people posting tributes, you could not get on for over an hour. Steve’s creative genius and love of elegance, his independent spirit and commitment to “whole earth” thinking, his hard work and determination, has truly transformed our world. From music, to photos, to the Web, to writing, e-mail, and a host of amazing “millennial” applications, my world intersects with Steve Job’s creations every day. I wrote all my books on my MacBook and can hardly remember what life was like without these Apple products that have so enriched our pleasure in using technology and brought it to our desk, lap, and hand in such a lovely and convenient way.  Even the PC/Microsoft users, Android people, and a host of other knock offs are largely using products adapted and copied from the original Macintosh, iPhone, or iPod. Jobs was neither engineer or technician. He was a dreamer. But he combined those dreams, and their elegant sense of “taste” and beauty, with hard work, persistence, and a self-demanding style that would never give up. His life, like all of us, was a complex tangle of starts and stops, of breakthroughs and disappointments, but always his bright spirit prevailed in the end.

We will all miss him and I believe our new millennial world will continue to be transformed by his innovations in ways we can only dream of today.

The NYTimes has some amazing coverage this morning if you want to browse a bit, beginning with the front page story by John Markoff. There is lots more in the links:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/06/business/steve-jobs-of-apple-dies-at-56.html?_r=1&hp

James, signing off on his MacBook Pro

Many readers will remember the sensational story that broke into the news in March of this year regarding a series of “lead codices,” that some had claimed dated back to the 1st century and might prove to be some of our earliest Christian documents. Since that time much has been revealed about these artifacts and it appears the preponderance of evidence by qualified experts is these items are fake. As one of the few academics who did not jump on the bandwagon labeling the James ossuary inscription as fake (and indeed it appears it will be vindicated as genuine) I hasten to add that to me these artifacts appeared to be as phony as a three-dollar bill from day one. Nothing I saw, read, or heard about them added up. My initial reaction, without even knowing the whole story, was that they appeared to be fake and whether fake or genuine there was not a chance they could be dated to the 1st century CE.

I wanted to call attention to three items that will bring folks up to date with some of the latest evaluations by scholars:

1) A YouTube video, The Lead Codices that was put together by a team of scholars and “bibliobloggers” who have followed the story.

2) An extensive article by Tom Verenna at the Web site The Bible  and Interpretation, which, I might add, is well worth browsing on many related topics. The site has a good search feature, try “Talpiot tomb” or “James ossuary” for example.

3) An article nicely written, comprehensive article by Prof. Philip Davies published in the Palestine Exploration Quarterly 143, 2 (2011), 79–86, see: PEQDaviesLeadCodices.

Fresco Identified as Paul in St. Tekla Catacomb

I think July, 2010 might be the only blank month in my blogging history that goes back to The Jesus Dynasty Blog that I began with the publication of my book by that name in April, 2006. So why the hiatus? I wanted to take time to explain to my loyal readers who might have stopped by the site numerous times, only to find “nothing new” posted since late June.

The answer is a simple one. Essentially I “went underground” from about June 17 through August 17 writing almost nonstop to complete  my new book on Paul, with trips to Rome and Jerusalem included. As some of you know, Paul has been in the news of late, with stories about his tomb in Rome being validated, as well as the newly uncovered portrait of Paul in the catacomb of St. Tekla. I have been working on the Paul book since late 2008 when I signed a contract with Simon & Schuster. There was a time when I expected it might be out by Spring, 2010 but as I got deeper into my work I began to develop my ideas in directions I had not originally anticipated, so I have ended up taking most of 2010 to complete the manuscript. The book has been listed on Amazon now for over a year with the fetching title: Paul Untitled and still no cover image. I know many of my readers have pre-ordered it, and I appreciate your patience. The pre-orders do count, and when the book is released they can give it a great send-off, so if any of you are willing to “stand in that Amazon line,” I thank you for it. My editors and I are still talking about a final decision on a title, as well as the cover art, and I hope it will appear soon. I will let everyone know.

What I think I can safely say is that the book will be worth the wait! I don’t know of another book on Paul by a scholar in the field that is like this one, either in ideas, approach, or style. I did my Ph.D. dissertation on Paul at the University of Chicago (1982), directed by the incomparable Jonathan Z. Smith. It was published as a monograph in the Brown University Judaic Studies series in 1985 titled Things Unutterable. It has long ago gone out of print though an unbound facsimile edition is available on Amazon. For the past 30 years, teaching at three universities (Notre Dame, William & Mary, UNC Charlotte) I have continued to think deeply about Paul, covering him in my courses at both undergraduate and graduate levels.

So far as books on Paul go, I think they must outnumber the books on Jesus, but almost without exception the academic study of Paul is pretty much an “in-house” enterprise with most of the scholars who specialize and write about Paul producing endless books primarily intended for their colleagues.  Most of the writings on Paul are highly technical, very theological in orientation, and full of jargon particular to the field. “Pauline Studies,” is such a vast field right now it is impossible for all but the most devoted, who rarely work on anything else, to keep up. I am not one of those people and though I have published and written about Paul along the way.  My concentration has been much broader–namely trying to analyze the many ways of understanding “salvation” in ancient Mediterranean religions, particularly in late 2nd Temple Judaism and earliest Christianity–with apocalypticism as my main focus. Such a general description certainly pulls in Paul, but in a broader way that most Pauline scholars deal with him.

What I hope I have produced is a readable and accessible book on Paul, but one that offers an analysis of his mission and message that I have not seen anywhere else. Mine is neither a Paul-bashing nor a Paul-applauding book. I guess you might call it “Paul in His Own Words,” in that I try as best I can to let Paul speak for himself, based on the seven “authentic” letters we have from his hand. And speak he does! I think I have succeeded, at least on an introductory level, to offer readers a clear, refreshing, and provocative look at the Apostle.

I thought I would paste the Table of Contents in here, just to whet a few appetites, and I plan to begin a series of blog posts over the next few weeks that will explore various aspects of Paul and his thinking–as a kind of prelude to the book itself–so check back here often.

Preface: Discovering Paul

Introduction: Paul and Jesus

The Quest for the Historical Paul                                                           

Chapter 1: After the Cross

Chapter 2: Reading the New Testament Backwards

Chapter 3: A Forgotten Brother, A Lost Christianity

Chapter 4: A Cosmic Family and a Heavenly Kingdom

Chapter 5: A Mystical Union with Christ

Chapter 6: Already but Not Yet

Chapter 7: The Torah of Christ

Chapter 8: The Battle of the Apostles

Conclusion: Does God Care for Oxen?