Can Someone Explain to Me the Latest Jesus Tomb Controversy?

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stephan happy huller
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Re: Can Someone Explain to Me the Latest Jesus Tomb Controve

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Yes I put a thumbs up sign on his Facebook page for this when it came out. Good work
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Re: Can Someone Explain to Me the Latest Jesus Tomb Controve

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Peter Kirby wrote:Goodacre offers something to chew on:

http://ntweblog.blogspot.co.uk/2013/11/ ... -6-of.html

The coin from the Bar Kochba era looks telling.
I just posted this on the blog:
Point 1: The "cross" does look like a doorway, although I wonder why the doorway doesn't rest on the floor but seems to be in the center like some kind of window on a wall. But the temple in Jerusalem is not the only structure that might have a door. How about a Synagogue? The image of the Bar Kochba coin does not appear to show a doorway between the pillars but the plan of the interior of the temple (as if seen from above). Yet there is nothing particularly priestly about the man, and certainly no temple structure.

Point 2: The fish image. While it is rightly pointed out that the vessels depicted on the coins of the first Jewish revolt have lips wider than the width of the vessel proper, they both show something the "fish" image does not. A pedestal to allow the vessel to be set on a flat surface and remain upright. The fish lack this feature. If it is supposed to represent a vessel, at best it is an amphora. The little circle that is at the base could be water dripping from a nice fresh fish being displayed for sale at a market. The rectangular structure next to the fish on the long side of the replica ossuary image is what? A fish monger's place of business? Now an image of a window makes more sense. The squares do not represent panes in a window, but they could depict the shutters of a display window (closed, apparently, after the man's demise).
Doesn't anyone pay attention to these little inconsistencies anymore, but have to force a preconceived POV? If someone wants to really be convincing, at least to me, s/he would have to compare these images to images of temple entrances, vessels and fish on other Jewish ossuaries. I suggested the man whose bones were in that box was a fish monger, even though the area is not close to a sea or lake, as the location of a family tomb is not necessarily the same as the location where the person lived while alive. In this country a person who dies in Billings, Montana, may be buried in a cemetery in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, because that is where mom, dad and other family are buried? Bones can be transported.

DCH
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Peter Kirby
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Re: Can Someone Explain to Me the Latest Jesus Tomb Controve

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DCHindley wrote:Doesn't anyone pay attention to these little inconsistencies anymore, but have to force a preconceived POV?
Doesn't anyone nitpick anymore without having to make sweeping generalizations that are negative about the character of others? :roll:

Honestly, who cares... no, really, that's a point, who cares? You're implying people care about a "preconceived POV" here, which is pretty bold considering what a bullshit little subject this is, without any real bearing on anything (exactly what kind of scribble is on this thing?).
"... almost every critical biblical position was earlier advanced by skeptics." - Raymond Brown
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DCHindley
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Re: Can Someone Explain to Me the Latest Jesus Tomb Controve

Post by DCHindley »

Peter,

Plenty of people care about details.

My point was that all those 42 or so comments were from folks who were adamant that the Windows Logo thingy or the fish like thingy MUST BE this or that, and that whoever cannot see what IS PLAIN AS DAY must be congenital IDIOTS, out to make a quick buck or quash an interpretation in which Jesus was a human being who may have happened to die.

Exactly the same sort of highly polarized diatribe will form if someone talks about the origins of the Dead Sea Scrolls. They MUST BE this or that, or it will somehow pull the rug from beneath the extraordinary complex houses of cards people have formed to make these things less scary for themselves or more scary for others.

The Windows Logo thingy in the center of an arched structure can be lots of things, although I doubt one of them is the cross upon which Christ died, simply because the proportions are almost like a modern "plus" mark, something which is more likely to be an architectural feature of a building in my view. The fish-like thingy cannot reasonably be a wide lipped container like those on the 1st revolt coins because there is no pedestal. If it isn't a fish, it is an amphora used to ship things in antiquity.

If the fish thingy is actually an amphora, the guy was a merchant selling wine, oil or whatever else is shipped via amphorae. If a fish, he was a fish monger. To me, the guy appears to have been a shop keeper, and apparently rather successful at it based on his ossuary.

Did I just hear a bubble pop? Thank the gods, another useless kerfuffle averted!

DCH
Peter Kirby wrote:
DCHindley wrote:Doesn't anyone pay attention to these little inconsistencies anymore, but have to force a preconceived POV?
Doesn't anyone nitpick anymore without having to make sweeping generalizations that are negative about the character of others? :roll:

Honestly, who cares... no, really, that's a point, who cares? You're implying people care about a "preconceived POV" here, which is pretty bold considering what a bullshit little subject this is, without any real bearing on anything (exactly what kind of scribble is on this thing?).
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Re: Can Someone Explain to Me the Latest Jesus Tomb Controve

Post by Peter Kirby »

I see. Yes, people can get dogmatic over anything.

I thought that was directed at Goodacre (or at me for linking the article).

cheers,
Peter Kirby
DCHindley wrote:Peter,

Plenty of people care about details.

My point was that all those 42 or so comments were from folks who were adamant that the Windows Logo thingy or the fish like thingy MUST BE this or that, and that whoever cannot see what IS PLAIN AS DAY must be congenital IDIOTS, out to make a quick buck or quash an interpretation in which Jesus was a human being who may have happened to die.

Exactly the same sort of highly polarized diatribe will form if someone talks about the origins of the Dead Sea Scrolls. They MUST BE this or that, or it will somehow pull the rug from beneath the extraordinary complex houses of cards people have formed to make these things less scary for themselves or more scary for others.

The Windows Logo thingy in the center of an arched structure can be lots of things, although I doubt one of them is the cross upon which Christ died, simply because the proportions are almost like a modern "plus" mark, something which is more likely to be an architectural feature of a building in my view. The fish-like thingy cannot reasonably be a wide lipped container like those on the 1st revolt coins because there is no pedestal. If it isn't a fish, it is an amphora used to ship things in antiquity.

If the fish thingy is actually an amphora, the guy was a merchant selling wine, oil or whatever else is shipped via amphorae. If a fish, he was a fish monger. To me, the guy appears to have been a shop keeper, and apparently rather successful at it based on his ossuary.

Did I just hear a bubble pop? Thank the gods, another useless kerfuffle averted!

DCH
Peter Kirby wrote:
DCHindley wrote:Doesn't anyone pay attention to these little inconsistencies anymore, but have to force a preconceived POV?
Doesn't anyone nitpick anymore without having to make sweeping generalizations that are negative about the character of others? :roll:

Honestly, who cares... no, really, that's a point, who cares? You're implying people care about a "preconceived POV" here, which is pretty bold considering what a bullshit little subject this is, without any real bearing on anything (exactly what kind of scribble is on this thing?).
"... almost every critical biblical position was earlier advanced by skeptics." - Raymond Brown
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Re: Can Someone Explain to Me the Latest Jesus Tomb Controve

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Peter Kirby
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Re: Can Someone Explain to Me the Latest Jesus Tomb Controve

Post by Peter Kirby »

Thanks, Diogenes. (I just realized that clicking on the image in the article blows it up.)

I'm also interested in knowing whether other ossuaries have anything that can shed light on this.
"... almost every critical biblical position was earlier advanced by skeptics." - Raymond Brown
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Re: Can Someone Explain to Me the Latest Jesus Tomb Controve

Post by julianmontague »

silly question my first ....can someone explain to me why the Pilate sealed stone was moved ? if the biblical account is correct the risen lord would have had no problem walking through stone walls, i believe it states some where in the gospel of john that the risen Jesus entered a locked and sealed room. discounting angelic intervention which is more to do with belief than actual fact one has to assume that the stone was rolled away from out side of the tomb, on whose authority was this allowed? The only logical person to order such a thing would be the roman commander and yet to what purpose, has anyone out there deduced a relationship between this roman and Mary M ? or am i just out of my depth here...
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Re: Can Someone Explain to Me the Latest Jesus Tomb Controve

Post by Peter Kirby »

Over ten years ago I wrote an essay on the assumption that there was a historical Jesus:

"The Historicity of the Empty Tomb Evaluated"
http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/ ... irby/tomb/

The conclusion that I found most probable, other than the empty tomb hypothesis itself (and arguably more probable than that), is that Jesus was buried by those responsible for his crucifixion, not in a tomb but rather in the dirt or sand, in a location unknown to his followers.
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Re: Can Someone Explain to Me the Latest Jesus Tomb Controve

Post by Diogenes the Cynic »

julianmontague wrote:silly question my first ....can someone explain to me why the Pilate sealed stone was moved ? if the biblical account is correct the risen lord would have had no problem walking through stone walls, i believe it states some where in the gospel of john that the risen Jesus entered a locked and sealed room. discounting angelic intervention which is more to do with belief than actual fact one has to assume that the stone was rolled away from out side of the tomb, on whose authority was this allowed? The only logical person to order such a thing would be the roman commander and yet to what purpose, has anyone out there deduced a relationship between this roman and Mary M ? or am i just out of my depth here...
The only apologetic answer I've seen for this is that the stone was removed not to let Jesus out, but to reveal to the visitors that the tomb was empty. Kind of lame, but there it is.
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