Comment

Comment by Itamar Bernstein on April 21, 2009 at 8:15pm

Dallas again- I deleted the long post taken from my blogspot, to answer your question "how do they know it was actually JC" as succinctly as possible. I believe the chances of this not being Jesus' ossuary are about 1 in a million. But hey, that's probably better than the chance of anyone resurrecting after death.

Here's what I think the names on the Talpiot ossuaries are:
* 1."Jesus son of Joseph"("Yeshua bar Yehosef" in Hebrew/Aramaic script;)
* 2. "Mary" ("Marya" in Hebrew/Aramaic script);
* 3. "Joseph" ("Yose" in Hebrew/Aramaic script. Precise nickname of Jesus' second brother- cf. Mark 6:3);
* 4. "Mary and Martha" ("Mariame kai Mara" in Greek)-they must have been sisters because Jewish law didn't allow burial together of two unrelated women. Jesus stayed in the house of two sisters named "Mary & Martha" a few days before his crucifixion, and had intimate contact of sorts with Mary. He's also specifically said to have "loved" these same sisters.
* 5. "Matthew" ("Matya" in Hebrew/Aramaic script)- Name of Jesus' first cousin, son of his father's brother Alphaeus/Clophas. As James Tabor suggests in a different context, Matya could also well have been Jesus' half brother, considering a certain specific rule of the Torah (Deuteronomy 25:5-10.) This rule was applied in Jesus time- see Matthew 22:24-28;
* 6. "Judah son of Jesus"("Yehuda bar Yeshua" in Hebrew/Aramaic script.)
* Therefore out of eight names actually inscribed on these ossuaries (including the "Joseph" father of Jesus on the first ossuary) four names undoubtedly relate to Jesus' immediate family, and three other names relate to the same with a somewhat lower probability. In any event, they all relate to Jesus' extended family. Note that first century Jewish family tombs were usually a clan thing.
* The eighth name is "Yehuda bar Yeshua"- must have been the son of Jesus and one of the sisters Mary or Martha. More likely Mary, as explained above.

While the full versions of all these names were indeed common in Jesus' time, the derivatives, nicknames and contractions were not. Thus "Yeshua" for Jesus was less common than "YeHOshua;" ditto "YeHOsef" instead of "Yosef" for Joseph; "Marya" for Mary was extremely rare in Hebrew/Aramaic script; "Yose" for Joseph is unique. Therefore out of these eight names, two are irregularities, one is a particularity, and one a singularity.

In addition, the "Jesus son of Joseph" ossuary inscription is preceded directly with a large mark, that I believe signified messianic expectations in Judaism at least since the 1st century BC. It is also possible that a pottery shard inscribed "Yeshua" inside a drawing of a fish (a known early Christian symbol) originates from the Talpiot Tomb.

Comment by Dallas the Phallus on April 21, 2009 at 2:19pm

Thanks Itamar.

Comment by Itamar Bernstein on April 21, 2009 at 1:20pm

Thanks Dallas. Appreciate your candid comment. As I said, I posted a copy of my detailed explanation because I was under the impression you wanted "the facts." If you don't have the patience to read the whole thing, just read the part detailing the names on the ossuaries, and explaining their family relationships. I don't believe in God, the Messiah or anything of that nature. Besides, I'm Jewish. Thus it goes without saying that I don't believe in Jesus' divinity. But I do believe in his historical existence. That's by far the most logical explanation of the Talpiot Tomb.

Comment by Dallas the Phallus on April 21, 2009 at 12:37pm

@Dre: "If you have physical proof for Christ....you can't believe based on faith, that now becomes evidence and proof." You are so right. This is one of the contradictions that xtians refuse to deal with. Faith is believing without proof, but when they supposedly find "proof", they claim it only increases their "faith". Go figure.

@Itamar: Thanks for your contributions to the conversation. However, I have not read that really long blog post you copied here for us. One, I have not had the time, and two, I am honestly not that interested. Sorry. So I can't really comment on that.

@Josh Murray: I can completely understand your animosity and dismissal of xtian mythology, and how you believe that Itamar's arguements "only serves to perpetuate the lies created by the church and give false credence to nonsense." I get that. But although I did not completely read his comment (as I mentioned above), I think the essence of his arguement is not whether or not Jeebus was divine, but did he ever really exist. Well, I cannot prove or disprove that one way or another. When the dilemma is presented, I think we have three options. 1.) He did not exist at all, 2.) He existed but was just a normal human, 3.) He existed and was the son of God.

To me, options 1 and 2 are pretty much on equal footing. I don't see how archaological evidence can conclusively prove this one way or another. Option 3 is obviously off the table, as it has no more credence than saying that Frodo really did throw the ring of power in to the volcano at Mordor. I'm sure everyone here can agree on that.

I think though that Itamar's claims are that the bible does have some factual evidence in it, becasue we know some of the history and places to be true. However, it also has a lot of mumbo-jumbo in it as well, and I get the impression Itamar want's to look beyone the mumbo-jumbo, and look at the facts presented in it. That's his point, I believe.

Most fundies could not handle Itamar's logic here. But I don't think atheists should be afraid of it either.

Comment by Itamar Bernstein on April 21, 2009 at 2:08am

I did not base anything on the James Cameron documentary. I studied this find and wrote a book about it long before that documentary aired. I don't think very highly of it either. But that's because it misses on some good evidence, and prompts other remote and speculative evidence.
I can understand devout Christians who act like ostriches on this subject because they consider a find of Jesus' actual skeleton refuting a belief they hold essential to their religion, of Jesus' supposed Resurrection and Ascension. But why atheists would refuse to consider facts is beyond me. Seems you've first decided that there is absolutely no historical basis to the Bible, and you just won't let facts interfere with your axiomatic assumption. The truth is that there's some history in the Old Testament, and some myth; and there's some history in the New Testament, some lies and much paranormal BS. In any event, reverting to the Talpiot Tomb, it is real, it is genuine, and it features 8 names, 7 of which can be traced to Jesus' family per the NT and other Christian sources, and the 8th is Jesus' son. There were about 25000 people in Jerusalem at the time, which would have made about 4500 families. What's the chance of having two families with these exact same names documented in the NT? A statistician who checked the probability that this is the real thing for me advised me it's a slam dunk. Even if Jerusalem were five times as large, there would have been only one family with all these names. And he didn't factor other evidence pointing the same way, having to do with symbology.

Comment by Josh Murray on April 20, 2009 at 7:23pm

you provide evidence of nothing. you sound more like xtian thanan atheist in that you provide nothing more than anecdotal evidence and supposition backed up by scripture (other wise known as mythology). you have proven nothing more than a bit of gullibility, especially when you are bilked initially into believing this tripe based on a james cameron mocumentary. cameron is a film maker, not a historian, and not a good one at that.
the reality is that if these fools had found any real evidence to prove jeebus ever existed they would still be trumpetting from the roof tops, but the reality is that real historians pace the veracity of these claims in serious doubt so it remains that you have proven nothing more than a need to continue to grasp at a childhood myth.

Comment by Itamar Bernstein on April 18, 2009 at 12:31am

Aren't you making your atheism a sort of religion too, Josh? My atheism is simply a matter of logic. And logic tells me that when paranormal stuff is sifted out of the NT, it does make sense. There were Millions of other Jews in Judea in Jesus' time, and many were also crucified by the Romans. That doesn't make them duper humans. Jesus was one of them. I detailed the evidence above, and there's even more that I left out. That

Comment by Josh Murray on April 18, 2009 at 12:00am

It's not over anyone's depth, it is simply BS about a person who never existed - period. Jesus is a myth and this type of nonsense does nothing to bring humanity into reality and modern times. It only serves to perpetuate the lies created by the church and give false credence to nonsense. Also, the NT and OT quotes are proof of nothing. Religious texts are not proof of Jeebuses supposed existence. If the NT and OT are proof then we have to accept every single religious text as proof of the reality of their claims as well and that would be insane. Outside of biblical references there is not one iota of proof that the jeebus of the bible was real which makes the claims of religion even more suspect since there is ample proof of less significant personages existence from the same time frame.

Stop perpetuating the myth with this nonsense, it serves no purpose except to fuel the ignorance of religious believers.

Comment by Itamar Bernstein on April 14, 2009 at 12:58am

If that's over your depth, Daniel, don't despair. A short attention span is probably normal for your tender age. I only inserted that detailed explanation because another poster asked for it.

Comment by daniel becker on April 14, 2009 at 12:11am

ahha you have some real balls to actually listen to the guy all the way through. i wouldnt have been able to make it all the way. sounds like the guys a real piece.

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