Jesus Tomb Found

i can't even begin to describe how frustrated i am that people are going to not only believe, but BUY this drivel.this is not a question of religion. people might take it as evidence that jesus as real. people might take it as evidence that christianity is bunk. that's not the issue. the issue is that people are going to take it as evidence, when it will simply be nothing more than distortions, lies, speculation, and mental gymnastics.it's already known that part of the documentary relies on the james ossuary -- a known forgery. jacobovici admits that the 1970 photos of it in the residence of an infamous forger kind of limit its authenticity as an artifact "discovered" in 1980 -- but purports the pictures were simply printed on old paper. yeah, backflip on that one.

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on an lj community, i made the following predictions wrt to the "documentary:"

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it will present no new material (even the material it presents as new). it will muddle time lines. it make a number of logical fallacies. and it will generally distort evidence.

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i've got another one, based on this, and jacobovici's last film. it will quotemine actual authorities on the subject, who will then be forced to speak out against the inaccurate way in which they were presented on screen.

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well, confirming two dubious artifacts with each other is shaky at best. however, i wanted to point out something interesting: finding a shroud and a tomb separately isn't especially a big deal. first century jews typically buried people in shrouds until they decomposed, and then moved their bones to ossuaries. what they did with the shrouds afterwards, i don't know, and it might vary from case to case.this is not to back up either. i suspect the shroud is a forgery, and the tomb is being misrepresented. jesus is supposed to have been buried in jerusalem, according to the nt. but i agree, it doesn't make sense. jacobovici does not appear to think it's a forgery. even though we know who forged it and when. no, actually, i'm not so sure. i think it might be a desperate attempt to validate some kind of belief. the last program they did went to great lengths to support the exodus, misrepresenting everything they could in the process to make things work. and that included the bible -- a number of objections to the program were biblical. they wanted for it to be real so badly that they were willing to betray the very source they were defending.i suspect this is no different. jesus's body might disprove some christianity, but it would at least verify that he was a real person. this seems like another gambit, to me.but i could be wrong. james cameron strikes me a christian, but simcha jacobovici is an israeli jew. so perhaps it's a divided attempt to prove to things, from very strange bedfellows.

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well, that's because he's specifically seeking to demonstrate that things like the exodus are plausible.but time-travelling cyborgs, who have to travel naked? superintelligent underwater space aliens who control the world's oceans? jamie-lee curtis in her undies being sexy? the ship that could never sink hitting and iceberg and sinking... oh wait, i guess that one's kinda plausible.

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“On the eve of the Passover, Yeshu was hanged. For forty days before the execution took place, a herald went forth and cried, ”He is going forth to be stoned because he practiced sorcery and enticed Israel to apostasy. Any one who can say anything on his behalf, let him come forward and plead on his behalf. But since nothing was brought forward in his favor he was hanged on the eve of the Passover.”

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the sanhedrin wrote in hebrew. jesus's name in hebrew is yehoshua. "yeshu" is the aramaic derivation, a nickname, but in hebrew "yeshu" is '' and abbreviation for — yemach shemu v'zikro, meaning "erase his name and memory."basically, it's reserved for criminals who commit such greivous sins that their name is blotted out. ie: sorcery. you'll also note some inconsistencies with the passage and jesus. jesus's trial did not last 40 days. he was neither hanged nor stoned, he was crucified by romans, not by the sanhedrin.Edited by arachnophilia, : subtitle

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i am not aware of such a practice. perhaps someone else might know better?

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no offense meant, but that's strictly catholic dogma. it has no foundation in the bible, and actually requires misreading a number of texts.

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Mat 13:5516 Is not this the carpenter's son? is not his mother called Mary? and his brethren, James, and Joses, and Simon, and Judas? And his sisters, are they not all with us?

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this is clearly about joshua ("jesus") and his family: joseph (the carpenter), and mariam ("mary") are his parents. he has brothers named jacob ("james"), joseph ("joses"), simeon ("simon"), and judah ("judas"), and he has sisters too. i assume you're referring to the above passage, since the greek word adelphoi appears. but they are clearly talking about his lower class family, from context, and "adelphoi" DOES mean "brother" quite literally. these don't appear to be the disciples. that they're the same names as some is not surprising. in the 12, we have two simons ("peter" and "zealotes"), at least two (maybe three! four?) judases ("iscariot," judas didymos thomas, the brother of james, and "st. jude"), two jameses, etc. pretty common names, really.but THIS group in the verse above appears to be about the family of jesus.

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thank you, i didn't know that. it provides some much needed context to the original passage.

they're interchangeable.there are at least two other biblical books named after a jesus, the book of joshua, and the apocryphal book of the wisdom of jesus ben sirach ("ecclesiasticus"). there's elymas bar jesus in acts, and jesus ben ananias who prophecied about the destruction of jerusalem around the time of the rebellion against rome in 66.it was a pretty common name.

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i should have been more clear. it's when they've completely decomposed, and only bones are left. they did this for space -- not a lot of room in family tombs, and they had to fit in every member of several generations. ossuaries are pretty small: you can't put a whole body in one. just bones. well, yes. but it still doesn't make sense -- if there was a jesus ossuary, it would have been carried back to nazareth for permanent burial. heck, during the exodus, they did this with jacob's bones, right? it's something of a pattern for this guy. there's a program on the history international channel (digital cable) called "the naked archaeologist." i caught part of an episode previously, but last night i caught a whole one, and realized the host/narrator/person occupying the most screentime was simcha jacobovici.and it's filled with the same jumps in logic, distortion of dates, and misrepresentations. to be fair, this program at least gave some screen time to his critics -- one of whom basically called him a crackpot to his face. i dunno about "usurping" but the rest seems to be true. i'll be sure to voice my impressions when i see it, but i am no nt expert.

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i'm skeptical. i'll look it up when i get home from work, maybe. the nt portrays jesus's execution as immediately following his arrest. the last supper is either on passover or the night before. and jesus dies during the passover weekend. the span from gethsemane to resurrection is no more than 4 days.

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i don't think the first account (about stoning, hanging, and 40 days) has anything to do with jesus at all. and the number 40, associated with time, is quite common in judaism and christianity. 40 days and nights of rain, 40 years in the sinai, 40 days tempted by satan, etc.

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ah, ok. fair enough.

well, it does seem to be jesus's ossuary. and jesus ben joseph, at that. the question is really whether or not this jesus is the jesus of the new testament. i don't think the case is very good. call me heretical, but i'm unconvinced that jesus made a significant stir in his own lifetime. sure, he pissed of the religious authorities, which seems to have gotten him killed... but i don't think his name was going around the average household. he'd show up in town squares, and talk to peasants here and there, maybe even gather a crowd from time to time. but his strict following seems to have been only about a dozen men, and a few women.really, it's the name and the legend of jesus christ that changed the world. the evangelism of luke and paul. the underground church in rome -- and emperor constantine. but while he was alive, he was a lowly carpenter's son. i doubt many would have cared where he was buried, except his family. and his family was from nazareth. please take the time to read some of chris heard's critique of his last program, exodus decoded, over at higgaion. and if you can find the documentary, watch that too, but very skeptically. like i said, i normally don't like ad hominems, but with as much dishonesty as i've seen from him before, and the facts that i've never seen anything BUT dishonesty from him, and that there is every indication so far that this is nothing but the same (ie: james ossuary)... well, i'm not going to expect to be wowed with sudden academic sholarship and well-reasoned factual arguments.

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Main Entry: apoc·ry·phal
Pronunciation: -f&l
Function: adjective

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1 : of doubtful authenticity : SPURIOUS
2 often capitalized : of or resembling the Apocrypha

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synonym see FICTITIOUS

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your point is correct: it's not in the apocrypha. but you worded that badly. as an adjective, "apocryphal" generally means something else -- the first definition. saying something is "not apocryphal" would imply it's genuine. which is probably not what you meant to do.

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