Viewers Guide to Understanding the Talpiot Tomb
‘documentary’ to be aired on the Discovery Channel
Deconstructing the Second and Hopefully
Last Coming of Simcha and the BAR Crowd
Cast of Characters- Short Bios
A. J. Cameron, award winning film maker who for some unknown reason decided to make a film on the world of Biblical Archaeology- Producer
B. Simcha J. Canadian film maker
who produced the documentary on the James son of Joseph, brother of Jesus
ossuary which was deemed to be a forgery by the Israel Antiquities Authority
and other experts. The criminal trial is still in progress and SJ testified in
C. The Biblical Archaeology Review crowd hereafter referred to as the BAR crowd. This is a collection of individuals who have been deeply involved with BAR, mainly textual scholars who pose from time to time, when convenient, as archaeologists. Several appear prominently both in the Hebrew and English version of the film.
D. The films ‘experts’ several of whom hold academic positions with proven
track records in every field except Biblical Archaeology. Most experts however
have no creditability within the profession. Charles Pellegrino is an example of
this. His past books are The Ghosts of Atlantis, Ghosts of Vesuvius, Rtn to
E. Experts II, those individuals and colleagues who appear in the film, totally unaware of the premise of the documentary, all of whom I have contacted are totally opposed to the evidence as presented, out of context as well as edited in such a way as to give the false impression that they are in agreement with the film. Seems we are more difficult to fool.
F. The Others- a host of individuals and colleagues connected to the profession whom have not only been supportive but have supplied much of the information for the viewers guide. To them, I am indebted.
THE FILM
The Hype Hyped upon the unsuspecting public as a documentary with a budget of over 4 million dollars (may be Canadian) produced over a period of 4 years.
The Reality One of the main reasons that the film took years
to produce is that many individuals and organizations here in
Secondly, the film is not a documentary in the strict sense of the word as many scenes and sets are totally reconstructed even though Cameron et al try to present it as such.
Thirdly and perhaps more important, this is basically a re-hash of the 1996 story by Ray Bruce, a British film maker, somewhat re-written, to present the views of the author of The Jesus Dynasty who figures prominently in the film. The first version was better. This author, though well known for his support of the BAR position on the James Ossuary, is not an archaeologist in any sense of the word, which may account for many of the short comings in the film. Textual scholars posing as biblical archaeologists, several which appear in the film and on the Discovery panel discussion are one of the biggest problems within the profession which has, according one noted scholar, has set back trust and creditability in the profession, decades. In fact, in one scene with SJ walking past the ossuaries stored in the Israel Antiquities Authority he acts as if he has suddenly has this epiphany, he, with absolutely no archaeological training, suddenly discovers the names of what for him then becomes the Jesus Family. The truth is, that a journalist told him about the tomb long before.
THE “EXPERTS” A
QUESTION OF CREDITABILITY
DNA. The DNA expert from
“The only conclusions we made was that these two sets were
not maternally related. To me it sounds like absolutely nothing.”
ScientificAmerican.com March 2, 07.
Absolutely nothing, Simcha presented it a bit differently as if
this was the smoking gun, hard science which proved their agenda!!
PATINA- This is a natural geological process which occurs over time. The
forensic people involved in this segment have no experience whatsoever with
local materials, in fact, one of the specialists’ forte is in automobile
crashes of which I’m sure he is very capable. There was one Israeli involved in
this, behind the scenes, who was asked to obtain patina samples for the show. Sometime earlier, he pronounced a metal
sheeting found at
STATISTICS- Whereas their attempt as probability looks impressive, a 600 to 1 chance this it is the ‘Family’ it falls flat when one realizes that the info. given to the statistician was that of a nuclear family of ca 10 people whereas the truth of the matter is that the family of 10 is an extended family of maybe 50 or more comprising 4-5 generations, as a result it simply cannot be computed. They knew this and I have the feeling that this info. was not divulged to the mathematician. In fact, I published in 1992 a tomb with 15 ossuaries, 88 people and one name. The one person, one ossuary scenario is how the film makers present their findings whereas in an article I published in ‘Atiqot XXII, three of the ossuaries had the remains of a minimum of 6 people. There has been an enormous amount of discussion on the web dealing with the probabilities of this being the family, which I suggest the viewer read, all of which totally dismiss the statistics as of no value whatsoever.
For a more detailed explanation on how they rigged the statistics see the following:
http://ntgateway. com/weblog/ 2007/03/correct- interpretation-
of-dr-andrey. html
http://ntgateway. com/weblog/ 2007/03/statisti cal-case-
for-identity- of-jesus. html
THE NAMES For
those of us familiar with ossuaries and ossuary inscriptions this is, despite
all their hype, totally unconvincing as all the names were very common. The
ratios of names for that period are as follows: Joseph/Jose 8.3 %,
The important thing to remember here is that individuals
outside of
THOSE UNUSUAL SYMBOLS- Quadruplicity vs duplicity. According to SJ the symbol on the tomb façade is used astrologically to represent something called quadruplicity, or the quality of cardinality. I would argue that its more in the realm of duplicity. This is where the media hype goes totally out of control, seems the BAR Crowd had been reading too much Da Vinci Code. If there is anything which suggests deliberate manipulation of the data it is here. For example, in the film, one of the main ‘experts’ from the BAR Crowd suddenly discovers on camera the fact that a inverted V is scratched on an ossuary as if it has some deep hidden mystical meaning. Had the ‘expert’ read the catalogue of LY Rahmani (pg.19) on ossuaries, he would have seen that 40 % of ossuaries have markings! In fact, this deliberate attempt to fool the public reaches a new height when SJ then goes to the Jewish tombs of Dominus Flavit and proclaims that those ossuaries discovered decades ago with X’s scratched on the lid and body, are ancient Judeo-Christian symbols. Scholars have known for decades that those X’s and cross like markings on ossuaries mean one thing and one thing only, the sliding lid goes this way! Reverse the lid and it will not fit. Duh…so much for Judeo-Christian symbols, a fact that all of them should have known, particularly the BAR Crowd, seems it didn’t go well with their agenda.
Throughout the film as well as the marketing circus, one sees prominently on the façade of the tomb, the dot within the triangle, minus the base as if this is some mystical Judeo-Christian symbol. Had they simply taken the time to scan photos in the catalogue of Jewish ossuaries by LY Rahmani, they would have seen that many ossuaries with triangular lids have decorative elements or functional elements serving as handgrips to raise the lid, which resemble the ornament on the tomb façade. Thusly, the façade motif could easily be seen in and of itself to resemble an ossuary lid with the tomb itself serving as an ossuary. A black and white photo of one of the ossuaries in the catalogue is reproduced for viewers here.
Alternatively, the circular object within the triangle can be interpreted as either a patera or a wreath, both which appear on a number of ossuaries as well tomb facades such as the Tomb of ‘Absalom’. Alternatively if you are in the world of film marketing and media hype, it’s the mystical Vonage symbol-reversed. (Apologies to Vonage)
THE SECOND TOMB - There appears in the film a very long and boring segment whereby Simcha and Co. attempt to lower a camera into a plastic pipe which for religious reasons has been inserted into the tomb in the 1980’s. When they finally succeed with the help of a plumber (sic) they are able to film the tomb and its contents. They attempt to pass onto the unsuspecting public that this is a Jewish tomb which they have discovered, undisturbed for 2,000 years whereas the tomb was known to the archaeologists in 1980. In fact, Prof. Amos Kloner was in the process of removing the ossuaries when the ultra-orthodox arrived on site and forced its closure. Kloner however was able to remove one of these ossuaries before the arrival of the ultra-orthodox.
THE ‘MISSING OSSUARY’
The film makers try to fool the
public into believing that as ten ossuaries were discovered in the tomb and
only nine were published by Kloner that the tenth ossuary was the controversial
James son of Joseph, brother of Jesus ossuary which was declared to be a
forgery by a panel of experts. The attempt to deceive the public can be clearly
seen here in terms of an ‘agenda’. Two members of the BAR Crowd who appear prominently in the film had earlier declared
that the ossuary had originally come from a robbed tomb which they had
cleared a few years ago in Silwan and not purchased by the collector decades
earlier as he claimed. They clearly had
attempted to draw media attention to their robbed tomb in Silwan and when the
media attention flagged they now suddenly claim that they were mistaken and the
ossuary no longer comes from Silwan but from the Talpiot ‘Jesus Family tomb excavated in 1980 by the
Israel Antiquities Authority! Well, last week ago a small problem suddenly
arose when Oded Golan the owner of the ossuary in question, who is on trial for
forging objects, produced a photograph of the ossuary with a time stamp 1976,
four years before the Talpiot tomb was accidentally discovered! Moreover, they
maintained that the missing ossuary, their James son of Joseph brother of Jesus
ossuary was of the same identical dimensions as the ‘missing’ ossuary from Jesus
Family tomb at Talpiot. Sounds
convincing until an enterprising skeptic here in
THE TRUTH OF THE
MATTER The truth of the matter is
that the missing ossuary was never missing, never stolen from the IAA, nor
stolen from the Talpiot tomb. Plain ossuaries which bore no inscription, nor
any ornaments were automatically placed in an inner courtyard in the
CONCLUSION- All of this can be neatly summed up in the following opinion piece (edited) by a SC biblical scholar (Byron. McCane) who wrote in today’s paper, what I believe pretty much speaks for all of us involved, enraged and fed up with the current wave of pseudo science posing as biblical scholarship, foisted upon the public, by our colleagues.
"The publicity for the Discovery
Channel documentary “The Lost Tomb of Jesus” has a disturbingly familiar ring.
First came the James Ossuary; then The DaVinci Code, next the John the Baptist
cave, and now “the lost tomb of Jesus. The two archaeologists involved in “The
Lost Tomb of Jesus,” for example, already have a well-known track record for
sensationalism. These programs go for the quick buck. Everything is
crafted to generate interest, to make sales. The disturbing trend in recent
documentaries toward profit-driven sensationalism, however, is an insult to all
concerned, and especially to those of us who are scholars of these
subjects. And that is why it is scholars who should bring this train of
sensationalism to a stop." Slight correction- make that one archaeologist and one biblical scholar.
Joe Zias
