More on visions and the rising from the dead issue among scholars.
Here we see that the late Marcus Borg accepts the visions as something that are historical.
quote: Marcus Borg, Liberal Scholar on Historical Jesus, Dies at 72 - The ...
https://www.nytimes.com/...l-christian-scholar-dies-at-72.ht... Jan 26, 2015 - Marcus J. Borg, a scholar who popularized a liberal intellectual approach ... Professor Borg became, in essence, a leading evangelist of what is ... Missing: cnn
quote: The following "facts" about Jesus would be affirmed by most history scholars, Borg said: • Jesus was born sometime just before 4 B.C. He grew up in Nazareth, a small village in Galilee, as part of the peasant class. Jesus' father was a carpenter and he became one, too, meaning that they had likely lost their agricultural land at some point. • Jesus was raised Jewish and he remained deeply Jewish all of his life. His intention was not to create a new religion. Rather, he saw himself as doing something within Judaism. • He left Nazareth as an adult, met the prophet John and was baptized by John. During his baptism, Jesus likely experienced some sort of divine vision. • Shortly afterwards, Jesus began his public preaching with the message that the world could be transformed into a "Kingdom of God." • He became a noted healer, teacher and prophet. More healing stories are told about Jesus than about any other figure in the Jewish tradition. • He was executed by Roman imperial authority. • His followers experienced him after his death. It is clear that they had visions of Jesus as they had known him during his historical life. Only after his death did they declare Jesus to be "Lord" or "the Son of God." http://www.livescience.com/3482-jesus-man.html
Then James Tabor (the fundamentalist turned liberal Christian)who Pat questions the motives of)
Is Mary Magdalene called “Mariamene Mara” (compelling evidence)
This is from part of Tabor's "There’s Something About Mary . . . Magdalene (Part 2)" article from a year ago (there were 4 parts under the same title, and this was part of his second Jan 10 2016 article). I find it to be interesting to say the least. He has endnotes referencing the academic sources. Understand that this is a fairly recent discovery on Tabor's part. He just never quits and his indefatigable efforts keep on bearing fruit and adding to the total sum of human knowledge. I have trouble deciding what of his online works to paste here. I want to keep the pastes to a minimum. I often wonder if new areas of science have been created in order to test this provocative Tomb theory in a falsifiable fashion.
This is not a scientific angle here (either through older DNA, Patina, etc. or newer issues like chemical composition of narrow Jerusalem soil areas), but the whole database search issue was really enlightening for me to read.
quote: As many of my readers know the name Mariamene Mara is inscribed on one of the ossuaries or bone boxes in the Talpiot “Jesus” tomb. This ossuary, as well as the one inscribed “Judah son of Jesus,” is elaborately ornamented and the inscriptions are elegant and more formal in appearance than the graffiti like name tags that many ossuaries exhibit. The inscription Mariamene Mara is even more fascinating with regard to the mistaken assertion that the names in the Jesus tomb are exceptionally common. Clearly it is some form of the common name Mary or Mariam/Mariame in Hebrew—but what about its strange ending? And what is the significance of Mara?
Of the six inscriptions from the tomb this is the only one in Greek. In contrast to the ossuaries of Jesus, Maria, and Yoseh, which are plain, this woman was buried in a beautifully decorated ossuary. The venerable expert, Levi Rahmani had first deciphered her inscription in his Catalogue of Jewish Ossuaries published in 1994. For most of us Rahmani has become the “Bible” for the study of ossuaries and their inscriptions. His keen eye and uncanny ability to decipher some of the most obscure inscriptions is legendary.
Rahmani read the inscription as Mariamene Mara. No one questioned his judgment for thirteen years—until the publicity about the Talpiot “Jesus tomb” hit the headlines. Suddenly everyone was scrambling, it seemed, to come up with arguments against those that Simcha Jacobovici had put forth for the first time in his 2007 Discovery Channel documentary, “The Lost Tomb of Jesus.” There he had suggested, based on Rahmani’s reading, which no one had disputed at the time, that Mariamene was a unique form of the name Mary that was used by Jesus’ first followers when referring to Mary Magdalene.
Several scholars have subsequently suggested that Rahmani misread the Greek, and that it should read Mariame kai Mara—Mary and Martha, referring to two individuals, perhaps even two sisters buried together in this one ossuary.[viii] Since Mariame (without the final stem ending “n”) is the most common form of the name Mary in Greek, any argument about uniqueness would thus evaporate. The Mary in the tomb might have been any Mary of the time and she would be impossible to identify further. And her sister Martha would be equally unknown.[ix]
I find this new reading unconvincing and remain impressed with Rahmani’s original transcription. The inscription itself appears to be from a single hand, written in a smooth flowing style, with a decorative flourish around both names—pointing to a single individual who died and was placed in this inscribed ossuary. According to Rahmani, Mariamene is a diminutive or endearing variant of the common name Mariame or Mary.[x] Mariamene—spelled with the letter “n” or nu in Greek, is quite rare—only one other example is found on an ossuary.[xi] There are no other examples from this period—or as I have now discovered, in the entirely of Greek literature down through the late Middle Ages.
A couple of years ago I ran an exhaustive computer search of the Thesaurus Linguae Graecae, a comprehensive digital database of Greek literature from Homer through 1453 CE. To my surprise I only found two ancient works that use Mariamn—with this rare “n” stem ending and both texts specifically referred to Mary Magdalene!
The first text is a quotation from Hippolytus, a third century Christian writer who records that James, the brother of Jesus, passed on secret teachings of Jesus to “Mariamene,” i.e., Mary Magdalene.[xii] There it was, in plain Greek—this unusual spelling of the name Miriame or Mary—precisely like the spelling on the ossuary. How could this be, since the ossuary was from the 1st century and Hippolytus was writing at least 150 hundred years later? According to tradition Hippolytus was a disciple of Irenaeus, who was a disciple of Polycarp, who was a disciple of the apostle John—who of course knew both Mary Magdalene and Jesus. Perhaps it is this link of oral teaching, through three generations, that somehow had preserved this special name for Mary Magdalene. Its diminutive ending makes it a term of endearment—like calling someone named James “Jimmy,” or an Elizabeth “Betty.”
The second text that had uses the name Mariamene was a rare 4th century CE Greek manuscript of the Acts of Philip, dated to the 3rd or 4th century CE. Throughout the text Mary Magdalene is called Mariamene—again the precise form of the name found on the Talpiot tomb ossuary.
Some critics have argued that one has to jump to the third or fourth century to find a parallel to a 1st century name on an ossuary in order to try and argue it belongs to Mary Magdalene. Quite the opposite is the case. What the ossuary preserves is a rare endearing form of the common name Mariame. What should surprise us is that it shows up, out of the blue, in Hippolytus and the Acts of Philip—two centuries later, when referring to Mary Magdalene. They could not know anything about the ossuary or these inscriptions—so where did they get this tradition of the rare form of the name? That this rare form appears in these later sources strengthens rather than diminishes the argument here. If Mariamene is a late form of the name, only found in these 3rd and 4th century texts, as some have asserted—what is it doing on the Talpiot tomb ossuary?
It strains any credibility to imagine that Rahmani, who was unaware of any association whatsoever between his transcription of this ossuary inscription and identifications with Mary Magdalene in these later texts, would have mistakenly and accidently come up with this exceedingly rare form of the common name Mary. It seems clear to us that Rahmani’s keen eye and years of experience have unwittingly provided us with one of the most important correlations between the names in this tomb and those we might expect, hypothetically, to be included in a Jesus family tomb—a name uniquely appropriate for Mary Magdalene. Does it make any sense to think a misreading of the name in this inscription would end up producing two hits for Mary Magdalene? The force and implications of this evidence is so strong that a few scholars have even suggested that the text in Hippolytus somehow got corrupted. Again, it strains all credulity to maintain that mistakes, misreadings, and scribal areas would just happen to produce a match for an ossuary inscription in a 1st century Jerusalem tomb. What are the chances?
On another issue, I think this link, below, might supplement the double burial issues (and be relevant for the resurrection). I meant to include it at the end of the last post. The resurrection issues are important to get straight, because many will otherwise think that this type of research somehow is an attack on the Christian faith. Not only is it NOT anything of the sort, but actually Tabor's research (and specifically as it relates to the Tomb) seems to back up "Christianity" as it originally was.
2) That parts of the Gospel of Peter (which I incorrectly said earlier had the Christological view of Islam in it, actually I think it was the Coptic Apocalypse of Peter but I'm not sure and that isn't the issue here) date to the 50s CE.
Here is a relevant quote by a (outstanding)conservative evangelical scholar on the issue.
quote: Jesus and Gospel Graham Stanton p.88
Even the Jesus Seminar accepts as authentic only five of the Logia of Thomas which are not found in the canonical four. And, for the complete gospels, are any earlier than the canonical four? Surely J. D. Crossan is exercising a vivid historical imagination when he claims that an early version of the Gospel of Peter was written in the fifties, perhaps in Sepphoris.
Here is Tabor responding to a good question, from a late friend and fellow scholar, on the issue of how Jesus could have only resurrected spiritually yet the Gospels say his body rose.
3) That The Dead Sea Scroll community believed in a resurrection. (which he was something of a trailblazer on since he published the very text in 1992 that started to turn the tide) (he and Marty Abbeg were attacked for publishing it FIRST in a popular publication then a journal slightly later in 1992)
link escapes me.
4) That Jesus thought himself the Messiah. (he bases his view on new Dead Sea Scroll Discoveries and 2 leading scholars published trailblazing work at the same time a while back)
quote: In my post on “That Other King of the Jews,” I stressed my own conviction that Jesus of Nazareth thought of himself as much more than a teacher, prophet, or healer, but rather that he understood himself to be nothing less than the “one to come,” the Davidic Messiah or King of Israel. For most Christians such a messianic claim by Jesus is self-evident since it lies at the heart of all of our Gospel accounts, which are, as Mark puts things: “The good news of Jesus Christ the Son of God.”
In contrast, many of my academic colleagues in the field of Christian origins would argue that the identification of Jesus as the Jewish Messiah was one put on Jesus by his followers after his death, as part of their recovery of faith following the unanticipated shock of his crucifixion, not something he claimed himself. According to this understanding the scene in Mark where Jesus is confessed as Christ or Messiah by Peter is projected back into the life of Jesus, implying that he both anticipated his death and understood himself in the role of a “suffering Messiah”:
.... The vast majority of critical historians dealing with Christian Origins have taken the former position, put so succinctly by Rudolf Bultmann over a generation ago: the scene of Peter’s confession is an Easter story projected backward into Jesus’ lifetime (Bultmann, Theology of the New Testament, I: 26). That Jesus himself ever claimed to be the Messiah is considered unlikely,
Predictably one of the more controversial topics in my book The Jesus Dynasty is my discussion in chapter 3 titled “An Unnamed Father of Jesus?” in which I treat the “Jesus son of Pantera/Pantira” traditions. The topic has generated more than one sensational headline as well as lots of disdainful treatment, particularly from evangelical Christian readers and reviewers. As my colleague Prof. Ben Witherington dismissively phrased it in his four-part 28 page single-spaced Blog review of my book, “Tabor trots out for us the shop-worn tale of Mary being impregnated by a Roman soldier named Pantera” (Witherington on Tabor’s Jesus Dynasty)
He has scholars like Richard Bauckham agreeing with parts of his theory. See my Mary link in post 48 too see non-hostile see first century Rabbanical sources that are relevant. Hegesippius is also very important.
6) He recently found the evidence too strong to ignore relative to Jesus being married to Mary. He didn't hold that view when he wrote Jesus Dynasty in 2006
Re: Is Mary Magdalene called “Mariamene Mara” (compelling evidence)
Well, I didn't mention anything but the Talpiot tomb issue (plus bare links that helped people read his reasons for understanding that the early Jesus community didn't have a bodily ressurection). Then I showed evidence that centered around the identification of the Mary tomb with the female that witnesses the risen Jesus according to the Gospels AND THAT did use a Tabor paste. Tbeodoric and Jar said he was a crank who can't back anything up. So I simply let people become aware of some of his disputed stances and offered mostly bare links in an effort to help people understand Tabor's difficulties in the endlessly complex researches he has undertaken. Alot of the things he works on are standalone issues and people think that shooting down one defeats every other issue he takes on. I need people to understand that Tabor and other scholars get their ideas rejected on a case by case basis, and actually the best of them fail to "seal the deal " with their colleagues more often than not WHEN MAKING PROPOSALS. There is a tentative nature to this whole scholarly enterprise and it can get rough when there is usually no hard science available to come to the rescue. Tabor is trying hard though and he will put his theories to any available scientific test. I wonder if the chemical composition test was a brand new spinoff that has no antecedent in scientific history. Regardless of the novelty, Tabor's theory passed the scientific test and infact the Jesus son of Joseph, Brother of James tomb does indeed come from The Talpiot Tomb.
Origen of Alexandria on the defensive against the pagan Celsus.
I love this evangelical conservative scholar Stanton. I think the issues that the third century scholar and apologist Origen covers ( in his pre 250 BCE defense against the 2nd century pagan critic Celsus ) are relevant today.
quote: Jesus and Gospel Graham Stanton Pages 151 to 152
Celsus' Jew advances vigorously the theory that the followers of Jesus 'saw' their recently crucified leader in a dream or hallucination. Origen's response is not very persuasive: 'Celsus's idea of a vision in the daytime is not convincing when the people were in no way mentally disturbed and were not suffering from delirium or melancholy. Because Celsus foresaw this objection he said that the woman was hysterical : but there is no evidence of this in the scriptural account ' (11.60).
This discussion reminds us of the ultimate futility of trying to seek proof one way or the other. 'Vision' or 'hallucination', how can one decide? Surely the matter can be settled only on the basis of wider considerations, which are theological rather than historical or psychological.
....
Origen knows full well that proof of the historicity of an incident in the gospels is difficult and in some cases impossible (1.42). He knows that he cannot sidestep allegations that the text of the gospels has been tampered with (11.27) and that the resurrection narratives contain discrepancies (v.55-6). He repudiates 'mere irrational faith', and insists that readers of the gospels need an open mind and considerable study. 'If I may say so', he writes, 'readers need to enter into the mind of the writers to find out with what spiritual meaning each event was recorded.' Is this the way faith and reason should be held together in discussion of the resurrection narratives? Is there still a place for discerning 'spiritual meaning' by Origen's own method of allegorical interpretation? If so, what criteria will guard against 'irrational faith'?
Why is it that believers are skeptical about evidence but not about unevidenced beliefs?
I cannot speak for all believers of course but one reason may be that some of us do not trust the motivation of those who go out of their way to gather evidence against the plausibility of Jesus existing, for example. They never get this bent out of shape over other historical and/or mythological characters.
I recently read a good article, Forget Santa Claus, Virginia. Was there a Jesus Christ? Theodoric mentioned three scholars who, according to this article based on their approach are labeled as The New Atheists. Faith mentioned Bruce Metzger, of whom one of his best students was Bart Ehrman. Ehrman is an agnostic who has an impressive scholarly background and who supports the idea of a Historical Jesus...whereas many of the new atheists deny even that.
quote:I consider them atheist fundamentalists. They're anti-religious, and they're mean-spirited, unfortunately. Now, there are very good atheists and very dedicated people who do not believe in God. But you have this aggressive and militant phase of atheism, and that does more damage than good.— Paul Kurtz
To their credit, the New Atheists oppose religion blending with politics.
The Guardian writes:
What's clear is that this wave of New Atheism is deeply political - and against some of its targets even a devout churchgoer might cheer them on. What they all have in common is a loathing of an increasing religiosity in US politics, which has contributed to a disastrous presidency and undermined scientific understanding. Dennett excoriates the madness of a faith that looks forward to the end of the world and the return of the Messiah. What Dawkins hates is that most Americans still haven't accepted evolution and support the teaching of intelligent design; according to one poll, 50% of the US electorate believe the story of Noah. He argues that "there is nothing to choose between the Afghan Taliban and the American Christian equivalent ... The genie of religious fanaticism is rampant in present-day America."
This debate is far from over, but I fear that the Christians have few intellectual weapons on their side. Ehrman, an agnostic, actually makes the most sense in my mind.
Ehrman writes:
Believers and skeptics can argue with each other, and among themselves, about exactly who Jesus was and what he meant, Ehrman said in an interview. But arguing that Jesus did not exist “is such a ridiculous proposition.”
Ehrman said beyond the non-Christian references to Jesus from the era, scholars can plausibly trace elements in the Gospels to shortly after the time Jesus was killed. That fact, and the historical details in the Gospels have convinced “virtually every scholar … in the Western world” that Jesus existed. He also noted that while the Apostle Paul never met Jesus in the flesh — a point the Jesus deniers often make — in his many New Testament writings Paul mentions that he does know Jesus’ brother, James. “If Jesus didn’t exist, you’d think his brother would know about it!” Ehrman said with a laugh. But to Ehrman, the most convincing argument that Jesus was a real person is that it would have made no sense to invent a crucified messiah because that is the opposite of what everyone was expecting at the time. In other words, it wasn’t a good sales pitch.
Besides, if Jesus was the product of a conspiracy, one would think that the conspirators would have gotten their stories straight and not have left lots of conflicting details.
Some of these arguments mirror our arguments here at EvC. Their thesis generally includes a number of arguments:
The Gospels were written decades after Jesus supposedly lived.
They are unreliable because they were written by promoters of the Christian myth.
The Gospel accounts are suspiciously incomplete, with few details of Jesus’ life.
Many elements of the Gospels conflict or contradict each other.
There are no contemporary references to Jesus from non-Christian sources.
The death and resurrection of Jesus mirrors other pagan myths of the time.
It is ironic that an agnostic can defend the Christian position better than believing Christians can!
Chance as a real force is a myth. It has no basis in reality and no place in scientific inquiry. For science and philosophy to continue to advance in knowledge, chance must be demythologized once and for all. –RC Sproul "A lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes." –Mark Twain " ~"If that's not sufficient for you go soak your head."~Faith Paul was probably SO soaked in prayer nobody else has ever equaled him.~Faith :)
I cannot speak for all believers of course but one reason may be that some of us do not trust the motivation of those who go out of their way to gather evidence against the plausibility of Jesus existing, for example. They never get this bent out of shape over other historical and/or mythological characters.
You're projecting. YOU wouldn't get bent out of shape if somebody suggested that George Washington mistreated his slaves, would you? You'd want to know the truth, wouldn't you? So why do YOU get bent out of shape if people want to know the truth about Jesus?
Phat writes:
It is ironic that an agnostic can defend the Christian position better than believing Christians can!
What's ironic is that "believing Christians" are the ones who want to throw the message away if the messenger doesn't measure up to their expectations.
Suppose your postman was cheating on his wife. Would you tear up the cheque he brings?
Suppose your postman was cheating on his wife. Would you tear up the cheque he brings?
Let's get our metaphors straight. A postman is a messenger who delivers messages originating from others. Jesus is more than just the messenger. In my belief, of course. Metaphorically speaking, I would be the postman's wife whom he was cheating on, in which case I dunno what I would do!
Of course, if we base the Bride of Christ metaphor on only the church we then circle back into our sheep and goats judgment. Imagine how the Bride(goats) would feel if her husband was cheating on her with *gasp* atheists and Wiccans!
Chance as a real force is a myth. It has no basis in reality and no place in scientific inquiry. For science and philosophy to continue to advance in knowledge, chance must be demythologized once and for all. –RC Sproul "A lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes." –Mark Twain " ~"If that's not sufficient for you go soak your head."~Faith Paul was probably SO soaked in prayer nobody else has ever equaled him.~Faith :)
Re Richard Carrier: Mary Magdalene called “Mariamene Mara” (just read link)
I missed this amazingly untrue article from Richard Carrier (it wasn't loading on my friend's computer back when I was in New York)
There are LATE 2nd century (or early third) orthodox Christian's who use the word "Miriamene" when describing early Gnostic texts (from 150 or earlier) that discuss James the Just and a Mary (spelled Miriamene!), plus other texts that actually spell Mary Magdalene as such.
Carrier takes issue with the reading in the tomb.
quote: It’s even more discrediting that Tabor still stands by the “Jesus Tomb Wingnut Team” interpretation of an inscription in the other Talpiot tomb as “Mariamene” (as supposedly a variant of Mariamne, supposedly a distinctive spelling of Mary Magdalene), when it is unmistakably Mariamê kai Mara, “Miriam and Mara,” one very common Jewish name, the other unconnected to Jesus. An earlier epigrapher confused a single letter as nu (N) which is actually kappa [K], the one being an upside down version of the other (a common mistake even for an expert to make who might be getting tired trudging through hundreds of inscriptions). This is so glaringly obvious there can be no reasonable dispute in the matter. Yet he keeps on claiming it says Mariamene. Lately he has been willing to allow that it “might” say Mariame kai Mara…after I pointed this out. But why didn’t he notice it before? The many statistical analyses run for the names in the tomb are also horribly fallacious (the conjunction of names there given the actual population in the tomb is simply not improbable enough to ensure this tomb has any connection with Jesus), but he can’t be expected to understand that (he’s not a mathematician and hasn’t studied statistics or statistical logic). But surely he can read Greek properly. He seems more inclined to stick to the guns of a bizarre theory than actually admit it’s too bizarre to be credible. That was not the “lost tomb of Jesus” ; and neither is this “new” find connected to Christianity.
The lesson to learn here is never to trust the media, much less the rumor mill, when claims of an amazing new find like this crop up. Wait for the evidence to actually be presented, for many independent experts to actually analyze it. Then see what survives. Usually, nothing.
First of all the the supposed inscription "kai" is not obvious because that so-called "a" isn't what an "a" looks like in standard written Greek (kai makes up like 10%-12%+ of all Greek words in the New Testament, literally in every sentence, so anybody can check a Greek text and be assured to see the word in just about every sentence. Notice that it is not "kai" if written Greek is the standard.
2:
Inscriptional Greek isn't the same thing as written Greek, the letters are written differently (and though there is some debate, the difference is monumental).
3:
Let me quote Carrier with his reference to Rahmani
"An earlier epigrapher confused a single letter as nu (N) which is actually kappa [K], the one being an upside down version of the other (a common mistake even for an expert to make who might be getting tired trudging through hundreds of inscriptions). This is so glaringly obvious there can be no reasonable dispute in the matter."
There wasn't anything like this account by Carrier (though Rahmani DID EVENTUALLY - a fair ways later - changed his mind and concludes that his earlier reading was perhaps wrong). There was a slow progression. Rahmani told James Charlesworth (after the explosive publication of Tabor and Simch's Talpiot Tomb issue) that he stood by his conclusion that it was Miriamenou (roughly means "of Miriamene"), NO DIFFERENT THAN he presented in his book (the book Rahmani made his reading and translation was BEFORE the controversy). Rahmani sent an email to Tabor, responding, "of course I still stand by my reading" (or a quote very much like that).
The issue is whether it is an N or a K (plus other inscriptional letter disputes).
Here is a scholar who stands with the reading of Miriamene as the basic name (before the genitive inflection alters the spelling a bit)
Richard Bauckham is Professor of New Testament Studies and Bishop Wardlaw Professor, St Andrews University, Scotland. He has a Ph.D. from Cambridge University. Published works include Jude, 2 Peter, Word Biblical Commentary, volume 50 (Word: 1983), God Crucified: Monotheism and Christology in the New Testament (Paternoster, 1998), James: Wisdom of James, Disciple of Jesus the Sage (Routledge, 1999), Gospel Women: Studies of the Named Women in the Gospels (Eerdmans, 2002), and Bible and Mission: Christian Witness in a Postmodern World (Baker, 2003).
Editor's note: This article is Dr. Bauckham's March 1, 2007 guest posting at Chris Tilling's blog Chrisendom. Visit the blog for updates.
Now Bauckham's words
quote: As I understand it (I have not yet seen the film itself) the Discovery Channel programme “The Lost Tomb of Jesus” claims that a tomb discovered in the Talpiot area of Jerusalem in 1980, containing ten ossuaries, is the tomb of Jesus’ family and contains some of the remains of Jesus himself. If my memory serves me correctly the same claim was made in a British television programme, fronted by Joan Bakewell, just a few years ago. However the Discovery Channel programme claims to have new evidence and arguments.
The basic arguments concerning the names on the ossuaries seem to be two (1) The names, including ‘Jesus son of Joseph,’ ‘Judah son of Jesus,’ Yose, Mary and Matthew, are the names of key figures in the New Testament Gospels. Some statistical arguments are alleged to show that the odds are hugely in favour of the view that the names on the ossuaries in fact refer to the figures known from the New Testament. (2) The form of the name Mary (in Greek) is the distinctive Mariamenou. This, it is claimed, is the same form of the name as Mariamne, which is the name of the sister of the apostle Philip in the fourth-century Acts of Philip, presumed to be Mary Magdalene.
I wish to stress at the start that the issues raised by this proposal are complex and difficult. My first reactions to what I was told about it by journalists were too little considered and I had not then had time to track down all the relevant evidence and study it carefully. So I made some mistakes. (I recommend that no one pronounce on this matter without having the relevant pages of Rahmani’s catalogue of ossuaries actually in front of them. My initial lack of access to them misled led me at some points, even though I was told quite carefully what they contain. They can now be seen on the Discovery Channel website.) I am fairly confident of what I’m now saying here, but ossuaries and onomastics are technical fields, and I’m open to corrections from the experts. I’ve no doubt that refinements of the argument will result from further discussion of the issues.
I shall divide my discussion into the matter of the names on these ossuaries in general, and a longer consideration of the name alleged to be Mary Magdalene, since this requires quite careful and detailed consideration. (I have refrained from using Hebrew and Greek script, and have tried to make the argument intelligible to people who know no Greek. Unfortunately at the moment I don’t have a functioning transliteration font: hence the overly simply transliteration of the names that I’ve had to use.)
The names in general
The six persons named in the ossuary inscriptions (Rahmani 701-706) are: (1) Mariamenou-Mara (the first name is a unique form of the name Mariam, Mary, and will be discussed separately below). (2) Yehuda bar Yeshua (Judah son of Jesus) (3) Matia (Matthew) (4) Yeshua bar Yehosef (Jesus son of Joseph) (5) Yose (a common abbreviated form of Yehosef) (6) Maria (a form of Mariam, Mary) All the inscriptions are in Aramaic except the first, which is Greek.
the inscriptions are in Aramaic except the first, which is Greek.
We should note that the surviving six names are only six of many more who were buried in this family tomb. There may have been as many as 35. The six people whose names we have could have belonged to as many as four different generations. This is a large family tomb, which would certainly have been used for quite some time by the same family. We should not imagine a small family group. Some members of the family of Jesus we know lived in Jerusalem for only three decades (from the death of Jesus to the execution of his brother James in 62). None of our other evidence would suggest that there were so many of them as to require a tomb of this size.
Only three of the six named persons correspond to the names of known members of the family of Jesus: Jesus son of Joseph, Maria (Jesus’ mother or his aunt, the wife of Clopas), Yose (Jesus’ brother was known by this abbreviated form of the name Joseph: Mark 6:3). In a family tomb only members of the family (members by birth or, mostly in the case of women, marriage) would be interred. The fact that one of Jesus’ close disciples was named Matthew has no significance at all for identifying the person in the ossuary labelled Matthew. We shall discuss Mariamenou-Mara below, but it cannot be stressed sufficiently that there is no evidence at all for the conjecture that Jesus married Mary Magdalene (and note that an extra-marital affair, which some postulate, though again without evidence, would not qualify Mary Magdalene to be in the tomb of Jesus’ family). Similarly, there is no evidence at all that Jesus had any children. (If he really had a son named Judah, would he not be mentioned somewhere in the ancient literary evidence? He would have been a useful figure for a Gnostic wishing to claim esoteric teaching of Jesus handed down from someone close to him, but he goes unmentioned in the Gnostic Gospels that do make such claims for other figures and unmentioned also in the church fathers who relay information about Gnostic claims.)
All of the names on these ossuaries were extremely common names among Jews in Palestine at this period. We have a great deal evidence about this (the data is collected in the enormously useful reference book: Tal Ilan, Lexicon of Jewish Names in Late Antiquity, part 1 [Mohr-Siebeck, 2002], and also analysed in chapter 4 of my recent book Jesus and the Eyewitnesses [Eerdmans, 2006]). We have a data base of about 3000 named persons (2625 men, 328 women, excluding fictional characters). Of the 2625 men, the name Joseph (including Yose, the abbreviated form) was borne by 218 or 8.3%. (It is the second most popular Jewish male name, after Simon/Simeon.) The name Judah was borne by 164 or 6.2%. The name Jesus was borne by 99 or 3.4%. The name Matthew (in several forms) was borne by 62 or 2.4 %. Of the 328 named women (women’s names were much less often recorded than men’s), a staggering 70 or 21.4% were called Mary (Mariam, Maria, Mariame, Mariamme). (My figures differ very slightly from Ilan’s because I differ from a few of her judgments for technical reasons, but the difference is insignificant for present purposes.)
I am not a mathematician and do not know how to get from these figures to calculations of odds. I must leave the assessment of Feuerverger’s case to others. But it seems to me incredible.
The name Mariamenou-Mara
The Hebrew name Mariam was very popular among Palestinian Jews at this period, though hardly used at all in the diaspora. It was usually rendered in Greek in one of two forms: Maria and Mariamme (or Mariame). It could, of course, be simply written as Mariam in Greek characters (and this is the practice of the Septuagint, the Greek Old Testament, when referring to Mariam the sister of Moses, called Miriam in English Bibles). But we know only four cases in which this was done with reference to a living person of the early Jewish period. (One of these is Luke 10:39-42, referring to Mary the sister of Martha, though there is a variant reading Maria).
Much more popular were the forms Maria (the form used everywhere in the New Testament, except Luke 10:39-40, for all the various Maries it refers to) and Mariamme/Mariame (used, for example, by Josephus). Both give the name a more Greek form than the simple transliteration Mariam. Palestinian Jewish women who themselves used a Greek form of their name as well as a Semitic form (a common practice) would be likely to have used Maria or Mariamme. This accounts for the fact that the Greek form Maria is often found on ossuaries transliterated back into Hebrew characters as Mariah. (Odd as this practice might seem, there are examples for other names too.) This is what has happened in the case of the woman called Maria (in Hebrew characters) on one of the ossuaries we are studying.
It is worth noting that this Greek form of the name Miriam has nothing to do with the Latin name Maria, which also existed. The coincidence is just a coincidence. It was, however, a coincidence that Jews living in a Latin-speaking environment could have exploited, just as Jews in Palestine exploited the coincidental near-identity of the Hebrew name Simeon and the Greek name Simon. The woman called Maria in Romans 16:6, a member of the Christian community in Rome, may have been a Jew called Mariam in Hebrew (an emigrant from Palestine), or a Gentile with the Latin name Maria, or a Jew living in Rome who had the name Maria precisely because it could be understood as both Hebrew and Latin.
In the Gospels Mary Magdalene’s name is always given in the Greek form Maria, which is the New Testament’s standard practice for rendering Mariam into Greek, except for Luke 10:39-42. As we have noted it is standard Greek form of Mariam. However, from probably the mid-second century onwards we find some references to Mary Magdalene (often identified with Mary of Bethany and/or other Gospel Maries) that use the alternative standard Greek form Mariamme (or Mariame). These references are all either in Gnostic works (using ‘Gnostic’ fairly loosely) or in writers referring to Gnostic usage.
We find the form Mariamme in Celsus, the second-century pagan critic of Christianity, who lists Christian sectarian groups, including some who follow Mary (apo Mariammes). These may well be the group who used the Gospel of Mary (late 2nd century?), a Greek fragment of which calls Mary Magdalene Mariamme. This form of her name also appears in the Coptic (a translation from Greek) of the Gnostic Work the Sophia of Jesus Christ (CG III,4). The usage may have been more widespread in Gnostic literature, but the fact that we have most Gnostic works only in Coptic makes it hard to tell.)
This tradition of using the form Mariamme for Mary Magdalene must have been an alternative tradition of rendering her name in Greek. It most likely goes back to a usage within the orbit of Jewish Palestine (since the name Mary in any form was very rare in the diaspora and Gentile Christians would not be familiar with the name Mariamme ordinarily). But so does the usage of Maria in the New Testament Gospels, at least one of which is at least a century earlier than any evidence we have for giving her the name Mariamme. It would be hazardous to suppose that Mariamme was the Greek form of her name use by Mary Magdalene herself or the earliest disciples of Jesus.
This tradition of using the form Mariamme for Mary Magdalene must have been an alternative tradition of rendering her name in Greek. It most likely goes back to a usage within the orbit of Jewish Palestine (since the name Mary in any form was very rare in the diaspora and Gentile Christians would not be familiar with the name Mariamme ordinarily). But so does the usage of Maria in the New Testament Gospels, at least one of which is at least a century earlier than any evidence we have for giving her the name Mariamme. It would be hazardous to suppose that Mariamme was the Greek form of her name use by Mary Magdalene herself or the earliest disciples of Jesus.
The Gnostic use of Mariamme is also reported by Hioppolytus in his Refutation of All Heresies (written between 228 and 233). He says that the Naassenes claimed to have a secret teaching that James the brother of Jesus had transmitted to Mary (5.7.1; 10.9.3). What is especially significant is that the manuscript evidence is divided between two forms of the name: Mariamme and Mariamne (note the ‘n’!). It is probably impossible to tell which Hippolytus himself wrote. However, it is easy to see that, in a milieu where the name Mariamme was not otherwise known, the usage could slip from Mariamme to Mariamne.
These variant readings in Hippolytus are the first known occurrences of the form Mariamne (which the Discovery Channel programme claims is the same name as that on one of the ossuaries). Since it occurs in Hippolytus as a variant of Mariamme, and since the latter is well attested in Jewish usage back to the first century CE, it seems clear that the form Mariamne is not really an independent version of the name Mariam (independent of Mariamme, that is). But a late deformation of the form Mariamme, a deformation made by Greek speakers not familiar with the name. This must also then explain the usage in the apocryphal Acts of Philip (late 4th or early 5th century), where Mariamne is consistently and frequently used for the sister of the apostle Philip, apparently identified with both Mary Magdalene and Mary of Bethany.
We can now turn to the inscription on the ossuary, which has, in Greek: MARIAMENOUMARA. The two words Mariamenou and Mara are written consecutively with no space between. This makes it rather unlikely that two women are named here. But Rahmani takes a small stroke between the last letter of Mariamenou and the first of Mara to be a Greek letter eta (long e). He takes this to be the relative pronoun he (eta with a rough breathing), reading: ‘Mariamnenou who [is also called] Mara.’ (Note that this is different, it seems, from what the Discovery Channel do when they read the eta with a smooth breathing, meaning ‘or’.) There are parallels (I gather from Rahmani) to this abbreviated way of indicating two names for the same person.
The form of the name on the ossuary in question is Mariamenou. This is a Greek genitive case, used to indicate that the ossuary belongs to Mary (it means 'Mary's' or 'belonging to Mary'). The nominative would be Mariamenon. Mariamenon is a diminutive form, used as a form of endearment. The neuter gender is normal in diminutives used for women. But the name Mariamenon is found only here in all our evidence for ancient Jewish names. It is, of course, a specifically Greek formation, not used in Hebrew or Aramaic.
This diminutive, Mariamenon, would seem to have been formed from the name Mariamene, a name which is attested twice elsewhere (in the Babatha archive and in the Jewish catacombs at Beth She’arim). Mariamene is an unusual Greek form of Mariam, presumably invented because it has a rather elegant hellenized form. When I first looked at this issue I was rather persuaded that the form Mariamne was a contracted form of Mariamene (which I think is what the Discovery Channel film claims), but I then found that the second and third century evidence (reviewed above) makes it much more plausible that the form Mariamne is a late deformation of Mariamme that occurred only in a context outside Palestine where the name was not known. So the Discovery Channel film’s claim that the name on the ossuary is the same as the name known to have been used for Mary Magdalene in the Acts of Philip is mistaken.
But we must also consider the rest of this inscription. The Discovery Channel film proposes to read Mara as the Aramaic word ‘the master’ (as in Maranatha). But, since we know that Mara was used as an abbreviated form of Martha, in this context of names on an ossuary it is much more plausible to read it as a name. This woman had two names: Mariamenon and Mara. It could be that the latter in this case was used as an abbreviation of Mariamenou, or it could be that the woman was known by Mariamenon, treated as a Greek name, and the Aramaic name Mara, conforming to the common practice of being known by two names, Greek and Semitic.
If the woman, for whatever reason, is given two different names on the ossuary, it is very unlikely that she would also have been known as Mariamene, even though this is the form of which Mariamenon is the diminutive. One other point can be made about Mariamenon. As a term of endearment it would be likely to have originated in the context of her family. But in that case, we probably need to envisage a family which used Greek as an ordinary language within the family. This does not mean it did not also use Aramaic, which would probably be the case if the names on the other ossuaries are those of family members closely related to Mariamenon. The family could have been bilingual even within its own orbit. Alternatively, the ossuaries in Aramaic could come from a branch of a big family or a generation of the family different from that of Mariamenon, such that their linguistic practice would be different. In any case, it is unlikely that the close family of Jesus would have spoken Greek within the family, and so it is unlikely that Mariamenon belonged to that close family circle.
The conclusion is that the name Mariamenon is unique, the diminutive of the very rare Mariamene. Neither is related to the form Maramne, except in the sense that all derive ultimately from the name Mariam. There is no reason at all to connect the woman in this ossuary with Mary Magdalene, and in fact the name usage is decisively against such a connexion.
(1) To understand why and how Hebrew names acquired Greek forms, it helps to know that Greek nouns never end in consonants other than n, r and s. So ‘Mariam’ in Greek looks barbaric (hence Josephus, e.g., never uses it). Maria and Mariamme are obvious ways of adapting the name to a more Greek-looking form.
(2) I made a mistake about the NT’s use of Mariam and Maria (that’s the danger of doing this sort of work in a hurry). The NT in fact uses both quite often. It’s virtually impossible to be sure of the figures because for most occurrences of one there are variant readings giving the other. For the same reason it is difficult to discern any rationale for the choice of one rather than the other.
But a couple of points are interesting. First, it is clear that Luke calls the mother of Jesus Mariam throughout chapters 1-2. This suits very well the ‘Hebraic’ atmosphere that Luke is evoking in those chapters. Second, in the UBS text Mary Magdalene is always Maria except in Matt 27:61; John 20:16, 18. The former, if correct, is just anomalous. But in John 20:16 it is Jesus who addresses Mary as ‘Mariam,’ to which she replies ‘Rabbouni’. For Jesus to use her Hebrew name here is obviously appropriate, and that usage in then continued in v 18 (whereas in vv 1, 11 she is Maria). Incidentally, my mistake about NT usage in my original post makes no difference to the rest of my argument there.
(3) I should have mentioned the inscriptions on the ossuary that Rahmani numbers 108. Across the lid of the ossuary, the name Mariame is written twice (in Greek), while on the underside of the lid is written (in Greek) first Mariamnou (but the last letter is not certain), then, under it, Mariame. Rahmani takes Mariamnou to the genitive of Mariamne, and so finds an early instance of this form of the name. However, the correct genitive would, of course, be Mariamnes. It seems easier to suppose that the nominative would be Mariamnon, which would be another instance of the diminutive that appears as Mariamenon on ossuary 701 (the alleged Mary Magdalene ossuary). Rahmani himself takes Mariamenon on that ossuary to be a diminutive of Mariamene.
Mariamnon would be a contracted form.
(4) Apparently some manuscripts of the Acts of Philip (sometimes?) have Mariamme rather than Mariamne. Bovon makes this point, but I have not found it in the apparatus of his edition. If accurate, it strengthens my case.
This is not some "wingnut" issue to see the actual tomb name as Miriamene.
The "K" carrier think is so obvious escaped the leading experts even after much consideration.
And even if it is a "K",we still have the fact that the word for AND - "kai" - is not there on the tomb for certain (unless one wants to assume that the "A" is written extremely different in inscriptions when compared to paper/papyrus texts)
The question remains: What would you do with the cheque?
I would cash it of course. The morality of that particular messenger does not concern me so much as his ability to do his job well, which is to bring me my cheques. *********************************************** LamarkNewAge, I attempt to read your lengthy cut & pastes in the interest of determining whether or not you have a sound argument. I must say, however, that I don't follow your deductive reasoning as easily as you yourself do, and I suspect that nobody else does either. It is a strange way to learn about things...googling, and letting a search engine bring stuff up. It almost seems like you have a conclusion in mind before you even google--otherwise, how would you know which search terms to put into the engine?
Granted I don't particularly like Richard Carrier---I honestly think that some of these learned types have a major axe to grind with Christianity and Jesus Christ, and I dont trust the validity of much of their conclusions.
Its hard for me to get a handle on what your personal beliefs are, however. The answer is not found through search engines, in my opinion...but perhaps you can enlighten me on your personal belief and philosophy regarding this overused tool of discovery and where the search ends.
Chance as a real force is a myth. It has no basis in reality and no place in scientific inquiry. For science and philosophy to continue to advance in knowledge, chance must be demythologized once and for all. –RC Sproul "A lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes." –Mark Twain " ~"If that's not sufficient for you go soak your head."~Faith Paul was probably SO soaked in prayer nobody else has ever equaled him.~Faith :)
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