Here are some additional links, for those with an inclination, on the Jesus Tomb Circus:
First, James Tabor has offered his justification for seeing the hypothesis as plausible. He promises fleshing out in days to come.
Second, Ben Witherington offers a nice review of the situation, including some reflection on Tabor's apparent switching of positions on this matter.
Third, Darrell Bock offers some analysis similar to Witherington's.
All should note the importance of mega-scholar Richard Bauckham to the whole matter of using the frequency of Jewish names for analyzing the significance of the Talpiot Tomb. We once again acknowledge with gratitude the enormity of his erudition, applied judiciously to many important matters.
4 comments:
This illustrates again the importance of texts relative to material remains. What most counts against the dogma of the perpetual virginity of Mary is the clear, natural, unaffected statement of the Synoptic Gospels that Jesus had "brothers" (Matthew 12:46; Mark 3:31; Luke 8:19). Whether Ben Witherington was overly enthusiastic about the James ossuary or not is at best a distraction from the real issue about which you seem to be concerned, Anonymous.
How's this for a non sequitur: "If you believe the church enough to trust its decision on canonicity, why won't you believe it on matters of interpretation?" (Quote taken from an official "Catholic Answers" site on the issue of the immaculate conception).
You see SWNID, it's just that you're interpreting those texts incorrectly. If you could only open up the eyes of faith wide enough to see the truth of the Church in these matters. Sheesh, you act like you don't even believe in Queen Mary as the Mediatrix of all Graces.
What has this blog come to? How can you take these texts over the word of Iranaeus or the ex cathedra statement of Pius IX? I feel betrayed.
Interesting things about Tabor's comments: He doesn't belief Joseph in the tomb is Jesus' father. So why is Joseph included in the probability calculation?
Any why is Matthew in the probability calculation or press release considering they have no idea / recommendation on who Matthew is (in this tomb), and the Matthew of the Bible is apparently unrelated by marriage to any of Jesus' siblings?
Do they have DNA evidence that Mary is the mother of Jesus (in this tomb)? Apparently not. So Mary could be Jesus' sister or daughter or aunt or niece or grandmother or grandaughter, presumably.
What does "Mara" mean? The juiciness of this scholarly inquiry by the Terminator hatcher depends not just on a dead God, but also a sexual God. Can "Mara" correctly or probably be interepreted as "master" which can be historically tied to "Magdalene" in an ancient text? If not, then half of the juice has been squeezed out of the turnip, and it ain't blood.
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