Archeology News Report

[ignorantianescia]

archaeologynewsreport.blogspot.com/

This is probably a blog that would interest some people here. It links to articles about many fields of archeology, but Levantine archeology is featured often in the articles.

[fortigurn]

Thanks, looks quite useful. This post seems particularly interesting, but I have to say I had second thoughts when I saw Tabor is involved.

[sandwiches]

Thank you. I love all that stuff about archeology, whether it's early man in North America or early Christianity

But you have to take some of this stuff with an initial pinch of salt?

For example the item about early "Christian tombs" in Jerusalem cropped up on another favourite blog of my own:


larryhurtado.wordpress.com/2012/03/01/earliest-christian-tomb-this-years-hoo-ha/

Earliest Christian Tomb? This year’s hoo-ha
March 1, 2012

Well, Easter is approaching and so it’s time for someone to declare this year’s fantastic new discovery that will radically re-orient our understanding of early Christianity, Jesus, whatever. And, this year’s contestant is: “The Earliest Christian Tomb,” courtesy of Mssrs James Tabor and Simcha Jacobovici.

The popular press love such stories and duly rush them into print, largely because they know that it will garner readers, whatever the validity of the claims. Here’s an example:

www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2012-02/uonc-ter022712.php

For a sober analysis of these claims, go to the lengthy discussion on the web site of the American School of Oriental Research (ASOR):

asorblog.org/?p=1642

And here’s a response from Prof. Steven Fine to the claim that the tomb has images of fish and Jonah:

asorblog.org/?p=1705#more-1705

Gee, this is all soooo predictable.

From the last article mentioned above:

Comments from Prof. Steven Fine on the “Jesus Discovery”

asorblog.org/?p=1705#more-1705



I was a member of a team assembled last summer by a major media outlet to evaluate this project. Sitting in a stately conference room, Mr. Jacobovici, Professor Tabor and Professor Charlesworth presented their discoveries for the consideration of an internationally renowned group of scholars. The members of the evaluating team then offered our professional evaluations of this project.After a short introduction, my colleagues and I were shown the so-called “fish.” At that point, I opened my Ipad and pulled off the web an article of mine that deals with similar looking artifacts (http://cojs.org/stevenfine/articles_files/Feinberg-Fine.pdf). The article is itself a chapter of my book (Art and Judaism in the Greco-Roman World [Cambridge University Press, 2005, rev. 2011]). I proceeded to show the team of scholars a whole group of Nefesh tombs from Jerusalem, and I pointed out parallels in modern Syria, Lebanon and Pompeii. I noted that this was a very common type of burial monument in the first century.

Most importantly, images of such funerary monuments were often inscribed on the sides of ossuaries—secondary burial boxes used in the environs of Jerusalem. They have been widely published and are very well known (see my article for bibliography and illustrations). This so-called Jonah “icon” (as it has been described in media materials), is nothing more than the image of an ancient Jewish tomb incised on the side of an ossuary. In fact, it is a very nice image of one.

The interpretation presented by Professor Tabor is not grounded in the evidence, nor in even the most basic rules of art-historical analysis. The image has nothing to do with Jonah, Jesus, or Judea in the first century. Elsewhere I have referred to this genre of media-driven discoveries as the “DaVinci Codification” of our culture—the presentation of odd and associative thinking previously reserved for novels as “truth” to the general public (http://sbl-site.org/publications/article.aspx?articleId=655). The “Jonah Fish” is just the next installment in the Jesus-archaeology franchise—timed, as always, to precede a major Christian feast.

I, for one, am wearied by the almost yearly “teaching moment” presented by these types of “discoveries.” I am hopeful, however, that—this time—a forceful and quick display of unanimous dissent by the leading members of the academic community will be taken seriously by the media and the public at large.

Steven Fine, 
Professor of Jewish History, Yeshiva University
Director, YU Center for Israel Studies, www.yu.edu/cis
Co-editor, Images: A Journal of Jewish Art and Visual Culture
Website: yeshiva.academia.edu/StevenFine/About




Possibly an example of the Dunning-Kruger detection kit as referred to in a certain other blog?:

jameshannam.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=science&action=display&thread=1074

[fortigurn]

Excellent link, thanks for the convenient debunk.

[ignorantianescia]

Yes, thanks for the debunking link. That article was indeed suspicious.

On the subject of Dunning-Kruger, some ole commentors on Dr Fine's reply have established that the figure clearly isn't a nephesh either and that their reaction is a knee-jerk response fed by emotion biases. How familiar.

[sandwiches]

Richard Bauckham chips in re supposed early Christian tomb and inscription on one of the ossuaries:

asorblog.org/?p=1848


The Four-Line Ossuary Inscription from Talpiyot Tomb B – an Interpretation

It would seem that the writer of our inscription has copied this pagan style and that the first two lines mean: ‘Belonging to Zeus IAIO.’ .....As far as I know, our inscription is the only extant example of an identification of YHWH with Zeus in a Palestinian Jewish context after the Maccabean period

Conclusion
I propose the translation:
Belonging to Zeus IAIO.
I, Hagab, exalt (him/you).

I do not think the inscription has anything to do with Jesus or early Christianity, but I do think it is one of the most interesting of ossuary inscriptions and that it has a contribution to make to our understanding of early Judaism.

[ignorantianescia]

What Are These Strange Markings Found Near Jerusalem’s Gihon Spring?

Archaeologists from the City of David, Jerusalem, want your ideas

www.biblicalarchaeology.org/daily/biblical-sites-places/jerusalem/what-are-these-strange-markings-found-near-jerusalem%e2%80%99s-gihon-spring/

[sandwiches]

Grooves for fitting something into (probably demanded by someone's wife) or alternatively shortly to be revealed as code for "Here is burial plot of Jesus and Mary Magdalene and extended family". Do I win?

[sankari]

Mar 18, 2012 19:35:57 GMT sandwiches said:

shortly to be revealed as code for "Here is burial plot of Jesus and Mary Magdalene and extended family".

It can only be this.

;D