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Author Topic:   Science proves that the tomb of Jesus (Christ ?)and James the Just have been found.
caffeine
Member (Idle past 1015 days)
Posts: 1800
From: Prague, Czech Republic
Joined: 10-22-2008


Message 24 of 114 (797295)
01-16-2017 1:46 PM
Reply to: Message 1 by LamarkNewAge
01-13-2017 4:29 PM


I'm not a scientists but it is amazing that we seem to have stunning cumulative evidence
Unfortunately, it doesn't appear that we do.
The evidence you're presenting is that an analysis of the patina on the James ossuary suggests it comes from the Talpiot tomb. Now, I don't know anything about the science of analysing this sort of thing, so have no intelligent comment there. Maybe it is from the Talpiot tomb, but there are some problems with this idea. Namely, that the original excavators of the tomb say they did not find an ossuary with this inscription. They could be lying, or they could have somehow failed to see the inscription; despite noting the inscriptions on all the other ossuaries they removed.
Even if they are connected, however, what evidence do we really have? We have a tomb in which people were buried with very common names. Joseph, Jesus and Jude are all in the top six male names found on 1st century Jewish ossuaries. Mary is the most common female name. There's also the fact that epigraphers are not even in agreement that the inscription actually says 'Jesus'.
So, it might not say Jesus, but if it does, and if the James ossuary really comes from the same tomb, then the statistics support the fact that it is almost certainly the Jesus' tomb, yes? Well, no. The problem with statistical analysis of this sort lies in the starting assumptions. I had a look at the article by Kilty and Elliot which Tabor asserts shows 'they are convinced one goes from 48% to 92% probability' with the addition of the James ossuary. Now, as an indication of the importance of assumptions, the authors in that article do mention how one assumption changes their calculations. They figure that the probability of the tomb being Jesus' are 47% (not 48) without the James ossuary, and 92% with, if you assume that Jose (Jesus' brother) is a very rare and uncommon name. If, instead, you assume that it's often used as a nickname for Joseph, the comparable figures are 3% and 32%.
This is just one of the assumptions employed. Others include the fact that 'Marya' is more likely than 'Mariam to be the way Jesus' mother wrote her name. Is it? I have no idea. But if we remove this assumption the probability of course drops.
The most obvious issue with their calculation, however, is how they calculated the prior probability. The prior is the reciprocal of the estimated number of contemporary tombs in Jerusalem. This means that, even if we assume all of their other assumptions to be perfect; their probability calculation is only meaningful if we already take for granted the fact that there is a tomb belonging to Jesus' family in Jerusalem. "If Jesus' family had a tomb in Jerusalem, then this is probably it"; is a radically different claim from "This is probably the tomb of Jesus' family". I see no justfication for the prior assumption.
He also mentions DNA as evidence in the quotes you post, but I am flummoxed as to why. As far as I can ascertain (from my admittedly limited reading) the only DNA evidence presented is that the bones supposed to be Jesus and Mary Magdalene have different mtDNA haplogroups. From this we can conclude that they did not share the same mother. That's not evidence of a great deal. The 'Mary' could be the daughter of 'Jesus'; she could be his father's second wife; she could be his half-sister; she could be an adopted sister; she could be the wife of anyone else in the tomb (the tomb contained the remains of between 17 and 35 people). The best we can say is that the DNA evidence does not falsify the idea that these were the remains of a married couple. Not really compelling.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 1 by LamarkNewAge, posted 01-13-2017 4:29 PM LamarkNewAge has not replied

  
caffeine
Member (Idle past 1015 days)
Posts: 1800
From: Prague, Czech Republic
Joined: 10-22-2008


(2)
Message 52 of 114 (802445)
03-16-2017 2:30 PM
Reply to: Message 48 by LamarkNewAge
03-15-2017 3:41 PM


Re: Is Mary Magdalene called Mariamene Mara (compelling evidence)
I have trouble deciding what of his online works to paste here
Then stop it. The thread might be more interesting if you wanted to discuss something instead of spamming us with everything Tabor's ever written.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 48 by LamarkNewAge, posted 03-15-2017 3:41 PM LamarkNewAge has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 53 by LamarkNewAge, posted 03-16-2017 5:57 PM caffeine has not replied

  
caffeine
Member (Idle past 1015 days)
Posts: 1800
From: Prague, Czech Republic
Joined: 10-22-2008


(2)
Message 102 of 114 (824769)
12-03-2017 1:41 PM
Reply to: Message 95 by LamarkNewAge
11-23-2017 9:50 AM


Re: Science can actually be flawed massively?
This can explain why the scientific tests, regarding the James Ossuary & Talpiot Tomb, don't seem to be recognized as scientific. People seem to be choosing to see what they want to see (even scientists will fail to see the "science" in the story though it is all over it if one knows the details).
I have witness it multiple times on this thread alone.
I can't see that anyone on this thread has questioned the validity of the science involved in the of the patina. As far as I can see the only mention of it that wasn't you was by me. I wrote:
quote:
don't know anything about the science of analysing this sort of thing, so have no intelligent comment there.
The point is that this is only supposed to establish that this specific ossuary comes from this specific tomb. If that's true, it doesn't establish a lot else.
No one has questioned the science presented; only the unwarranted conclusions you're trying to draw from it.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 95 by LamarkNewAge, posted 11-23-2017 9:50 AM LamarkNewAge has not replied

  
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