Mês: janeiro 2008

Stephen Pfann, em The View from Jerusalem, faz hoje um apanhado da abordagem da Conferência de Jerusalém sobre a Tumba de Talpiot pela mídia que, como se vê, não combina com as posturas dos participantes do evento.

The Media and Three Surveys by the Tomb Symposium Participants

Assessment of the Facts: The Media and Three Surveys by the Tomb Symposium Participants

on

The Third Princeton Symposium on Judaism and Christian Origins

“Jewish Views of the After Life and Burial Practices in Second Temple Judaism

Evaluating the Talpiot Tomb in Context”

Jan 13-16, 2008 in Mishkenot Sha’ananim, Jerusalem

An initial assessment of the results of the recent Symposium which was published by the media was quickly rejected by most of the Symposium participants. Most of the media assessments gave a general statement about the conclusions drawn by the “50” participants as a whole. (See conference list of presentations for the participants.)

“Although most of those who spoke at yesterday’s seminar said it was possible the tomb was that of Jesus, Jacobovici’s film was taken with a grain of salt.” Haaretz

“The gathering of world scholars, which some had expected would conclude by dismissing claims linking the tomb to Jesus, wound up inconclusively, but with wide-ranging agreement that the matter required further investigation.” Jerusalem Post

“Until now, international perception of the academic consensus has been that the Talpiot tomb ‘could not be’ the Jesus family tomb. In contrast, 50 of the top scholars in the world now concluded that the Talpiot tomb ‘might very possibly be’ the tomb of the ‘Holy family.’” Marketwire

“Experts Split on Supposed Jesus Tomb: The conference ended with no firm conclusions and with experts divided on the likelihood of the tomb containing Jesus’s family. Charlesworth has not made up his own mind.” United Press International

“After three days of fierce debate, the experts remained deeply divided.” Time Magazine

At times the media became more specific and gave personal statements about the tomb’s historical significance made by individual participants, including the symposium’s chair James Charlesworth (Time), the Jerusalem district archaeologist at the time Amos Kloner (JPost), the tomb’s draftsperson Shimon Gibson (JPost, Haaretz), and historian Israel Knohl (Haaretz).

Simcha Jacobovici’s press representative J9 Communications (see Jim West’s posting on this) singled out a group of four who, they say, had ascertained the identification of the Tomb with Jesus as being “likely”:

“Although some academics continue to deny the possibility, leading New Testament scholars such as Professor Jane Schaberg (Mercy), Professor Claude Cohen-Matlofsky (University of Toronto), Israel Knohl (Hebrew University) and Professor James Tabor (University of North Carolina at Charlotte) all indicated that they thought it was ‘likely’ that the Talpiot tomb was indeed the lost tomb of Jesus.”

(However, the assertions of this report do not at all match the actual statements of Israel Knohl and Jane Schaberg(and not exactly James Tabor) found in the “Fair Representation” survey published in View from Jerusalem).

Three surveys launched by the symposium participants themselves

A large number of participants in the symposium felt disappointed in the media’s portrayal of their view concerning the connection of the Tomb on Dov Grunner St. in the East Talpiot district of Jerusalem to Jesus of Nazareth and his family. In response, they decided to speak out for themselves.

The Fair Representation letter solicited and received the personal statements from a number of participants. The value of this collection is that it allowed the participants to provide a more individualized response, free from the interpretation of the media and the limitations of the general statement.

Two general statements have been published by participants of the symposium:

One general statement was drafted by Professors Jodi Magness and Eric Meyers with the participation of a number of the other participants. The strength of this general statement is that it involved a range of issues treated by an overall group of participants and brought together the signatures of a number of participants who did not find the need to publish their own personal statements.

A general statement by the symposium steering commitee was published on the Princeton Seminary web site. This is valuable since it becomes the official statement by the administration of the Symposium, chaired by Prof. James Charlesworth with D. Mendels, M. Aviam, G. Mazor, S. Gibson and D. Bahat.

A number of participants also provided a more lengthy version of their own statements through their own blogs (or as guests on other blogs), including April DeConick, Stephen Pfann, Christopher Rollston, James Tabor and Joe Zias. If the 25 or so statements (both personal and signatories for general statements) of participants thus far, can be taken to be a fair sampling . . .

The experts are not “split” or “deeply divided” over the issue that the Talpiot Tomb is that of Jesus of Nazareth. Let us be clear on this and to which degree the participants would entertain the possibility of being so.

Who believes that the Talpiot Tomb is actually both the Tomb of Jesus of Nazareth and also his family?

The most positive statement for the tomb being that of Jesus of Nazareth and his family comes from James Tabor who is “convinced that the Talpiot tomb is possibly, and even likely, the family tomb of Jesus of Nazareth”.

Who believes that the Talpiot Tomb is not the Tomb of Jesus of Nazareth but is that of his family or members of the Jesus movement?

According to his public statement at the end of the conference, although James Charlesworth denies that this could be the Tomb of Jesus, he “can’t dismiss the possibility that this tomb was related to the Jesus clan.”

Jane Schaberg stated “In my judgement, the tomb is not the tomb of the family or dynasty of Jesus, but perhaps of important members of the movement.” (including Mary Magdalene)

Among those who remain unconvinced that this tomb is related in any way to Jesus of Nazareth, who would be at least encourage further study of the possibility?

Israel Knohl is not convinced of any of it, since the fact that more evidence is needed encourages further study. “I am not convinced that the Talpiot tomb is that of the family of Jesus. This is a possibility that should be explored with more evidence. ”

Others remain pessimistic:

Geza Vermes (Second Temple historian) stated “Apart from a handful of participants, the large majority of the assembled scholars consider the theory that the Talpiot ossuaries contained the remains of Jesus of Nazareth and his family as unlikely after the conference as it has been before. In my historical judgment, the matter is, and in the absence of substantial new evidence, should remain closed.

Shimon Gibson (archaeologist) stated “In my estimation what came out of the Symposium is that there is no evidence – historical, archaeological, epigraphic, scientific (in terms of DNA and patina studies), architectural/artistic or otherwise – to support the idea that the Talpiot tomb was the family tomb of Jesus. . . . I also repudiate the claim made by the film-makers of “The Lost Tomb of Jesus” that the Symposium had in any way vindicated their argument. In fact, the opposite is true and scholars were hard-pressed to find any evidence supporting the notion of a Jesus family tomb at Talpiot.”

André Lemaire (epigrapher) stated “On the whole, it seems clear enough to me not only that the identification of the Talpiot tomb as the family tomb of Jesus is not probable or even likely but that it is very improbable.”

Christopher Rollston (prosopographer and epigrapher) stated “it is not methodologically tenable to posit that this Talpiyot tomb can be considered the tomb of Jesus of Nazareth.”

Rachel Hachlili (archaeologist and expert on family tombs) stated “The East Talpiyot tomb could not be identified with a tomb of Jesus of Nazareth for a significant reason …”

Stephen Pfann (epigrapher and historian): “I don’t believe there is any case, even remotely, that can be convincingly made for this being the tomb of Jesus of Nazareth and his family.”

The Princeton general statement of the Symposium steering committee (made by J.H. Charlesworth (chair), D. Mendels, M. Aviam, G. Mazor, S. Gibson, D. Bahat) stated: “‘Most archaeologists, epigraphers, and other scientists argued persuasively that there is no reason to conclude that the Talpiot Tomb was Jesus’ tomb.’ Unfortunately, many of the initial reports in the press following the symposium gave almost the exact opposite impression, stating, instead, that the conference proceedings gave credence to the identification of the Talpiot tomb with a putative family tomb of Jesus of Nazareth. As is abundantly clear from the statements to the contrary that have been issued since the symposium by many of the participants, such representations are patently false and blatantly misrepresent the spirit and scholarly content of the deliberations.”

The Duke general statement of participants (signed by M. Aviam, A. Graham Brock, F.W. Dobbs-Alsopp, C.D. Elledge, S. Gibson, R. Hachlili, A. Kloner, J. Magness, L. McDonald, E. Meyers, S. Pfann, J. Price, C. Rollston, A. Segal, C-L. Seow, J. Zias, and B. Zissu) “To conclude, we wish to protest the misrepresentation of the conference proceedings in the media, and make it clear that the majority of scholars in attendance – including all of the archaeologists and epigraphers who presented papers relating to the tomb – either reject the identification of the Talpiot tomb as belonging to Jesus’ family or find this claim highly speculative.”

About half of the participants responded. In the end, nearly all would agree that the identification of the Talpiot tomb with that of Jesus and/or his family is really little more than unfounded speculation.

A Tumba de Talpiot, debatida recentemente por dezenas de especialistas em uma conferência em Jerusalém, continua gerando controvérsias.

Por exemplo:

:: Os comentários (comments) sobre a declaração (statement) dos pesquisadores, publicada por Mark Goodacre no dia 21

:: O post de The View of Jerusalem, publicado ontem, dia 23, Rushing to Press on Ruth Gat

On the last night of the Talpiot Tomb Symposium, the statement by Joseph Gath’s widow Ruth had the archaeological community mystified. She provided the assembled scholars and media with the dramatic story of a conversation with her husband where he expressed his fears that he had excavated the actual tomb of Jesus of Nazareth.

Earlier in the conference, the participants were shown recently revealed receipts for the ossuaries from Mr. Gat, who recorded that only 4 inscriptions in the tomb had been deciphered. With word out among the participants and the media that he had died in the early 1980’s, how could he have been able to arrive at that conclusion before Joseph Naveh had the opportunity to decipher the very difficult “Yeshua? bar Yehosef” inscription?

It was thought that perhaps we heard the widow wrong or perhaps her memory was not as clear as it should be.

On Friday, The Jerusalem Post corrected its first, early ’80’s dating of Gat’s death to the early 90’s:

“He said Gat, who died in the early 1990s (and not soon after the 1980 dig, as erroneously reported in Thursday’s Post)…”

In fact, Amos Kloner clarified to me yesterday, Joseph Gat died on June 14, 1993, only a year before Rahmani’s catalogue was published.

Well then, that changes things. Joseph Gat actually died several years after the “Yeshua? bar Yehosef” inscription had been deciphered by Naveh. This means that he could have heard of the decipherment of the names within the Department and arrived at his own conclusions, voicing his apprehensions to his wife, without revealing them to others.

Apologies may indeed be due to Mrs. Gat, with all due respect! (Even bloggers can rush to press. I have changed this part of my posting “One more nail in the Ossuary” accordingly).

Does this tip the balances toward confirming the Lost Tomb hypothesis of the filmmakers? Not at all.

The observation that Joseph Gat had believed that the tomb was that of Jesus of Nazareth only goes to illustrate that speculation concerning the tomb was already alive and well during the early 90’s, well before Ray Bruce proposed this in the BBC special of ’96. This new piece of history is but a distraction from the current issue since, with the exception perhaps of Joseph Naveh’s tentative decipherment of the “Yeshua? bar Yehosef” inscription, other essential scientific data, available to us today, were unavailable at that time.

Our job as human beings is to treat Ruth Gat’s memories with respect. As scholars our work is to continue to scrutinize the data that is available and to evaluate it carefully, being mindful of our limitations.

:: A declaração de Joe Zias: Deliberate Misrepresentation? – January 23, 2008

The day before the symposium opened I was sent by one of Tabor’s supporters in the US a memo composed by Tabor in which he stated “This is a dream come through (sic) for me and something Simcha and I have worked for, behind the scenes, with Prof. James Charlesworth.” I immediately forwarded it to Professor Charlesworth, believing that this was proof of what I had suspected all along, i.e., outside intervention by Simcha and Tabor in order to distort the agenda and skew the proceedings in a way that was favorable to their pre-conceived plan. Charlesworth, previously unaware of this communication, forwarded it to Tabor. However by this time, many things, we later learned, had already been set in motion. For example, on the first day there was a panel discussion of the Talpiot tomb in which one panelist with no experience whatsoever with the topic or any peer reviewed published research articles appeared as an expert. He, unknown to all of us in the world of archaeology both here and abroad, was the lone supporter of Simcha and Tabor. According to his short resume which was handed out to participants, it would appear that he, like Simcha, is from the world of journalism as his handout mentions “over 1,000 articles in newspapers and magazines” that have nothing to do with Second Temple archaeology. By this time, my worst expectations were coming true as several sound and cameramen with whom I had known previously suddenly appeared on the scene, now working for Simcha Jacobovici.

The Lifetime Achievement Award presented to Mrs. Josef Gat on behalf of her late husband had to be one of the lowest depths to which archaeology has descended in over 30 years. I had known Josef Gat and worked with him in the Dept. of Antiquities until his retirement in 1988. He was a quiet, honest, hard-working man upon whom one could depend. Most of the time, his work was centered in Jerusalem and his job was that of inspector/field archaeologist, which meant following the bulldozers and an occasional salvage excavation. Because Jerusalem was in the midst of an unprecedented building boom and we were always short handed, he on occasion was asked to clear a tomb that had been accidentally discovered by building contractors. Such was the case with the Talpiot tomb. As Josef, despite his many years with the Dept. of Antiquities had solely authored but one very short article and a few popular articles in the press it was a mystery to all of us, why he was receiving posthumously such an award. The acceptance speech by his elderly wife that he had known about the importance of the find and it’s implications but kept quiet, is hard to understand even though the ossuary inscriptions had been deciphered by expert’s years earlier. Josef failed to publish any scientific peer reviewed articles following his retirement in 1988, not only on the Talpiot tomb but other projects in which he was involved. Josef passed away in the summer of 1993 one year before LY Rahmani’s monumental corpus of the ossuaries in 1994 in which the Talpiot ossuaries were first exposed to the public. The cynical use of the Holocaust story as to why Josef kept quiet, over something he was unable to decipher, should be clear to all, the lengths to which the film makers will go in order to be, in the words of Simcha ,”vindicated”, a phrase which was immediately ‘leaked’ to the press. The first media release was, without delay, sent off by an organization J9, which is the same organization, which sent out PR releases on two of his earlier documentaries. The second (“I’m vindicated”) article was written by a long -time personal friend of Simcha’s and it included some rather interesting quotes from an anonymous source quoting the late Amir Drori, supporting his ‘vindication’. So we now have ‘proof’, from two deceased archaeologists and an anonymous source, in the style of the filmmaker Oliver Stone that the whole thing was a conspiracy designed to cover up something, which ‘would harm Vatican relations and promote anti-Semitism.’ Josef Gat, a man of known integrity would have not agreed nor accepted such a cynical award. Now that the damage has been done the sponsors behind the Talpiot tomb publicity stunt are claiming on their blogs that they were misunderstood, ill advised etc. and that the jury is still out on their claim, whereas the truth is just the opposite, the overwhelming majority, if not nearly all scholars present, except one, regarded this as but a shameful and distasteful attempt to achieve fame and fortune at the expense of colleagues, the Holocaust and the profession.

Lastly, James Cameron, The Discovery Channel, Simcha Jacobovici, James Tabor and certain sectors of the media have an enormous financial interest at stake here, not including their tarnished reputations. Moreover, the public should be aware that the first mention of this find in the media surfaced in 1996, (a few years before Dan Brown), in a front page article in the British press, with minimal hype, sans the book, marketing agents, PR firms and mega advances from publishers; it was a dead story within 48 hours until it was ‘resurrected’ by the above. It’s time we rebury the idea, as in the academic world, it was from the beginning but a ‘rehash for cash’ which utterly destroyed the credibility of a colleague or two, who once held promising academic careers.

Mark Goodacre publicou hoje, a pedido dos Professores Eric Meyers e Jodi Magness, em seu NT Gateway Weblog, a seguinte declaração sobre a Tumba de Talpiot e a Conferência de Jerusalém:

The Talpiot Tomb Controversy Revisited
A firestorm has broken out in Jerusalem following the conclusion of the “Third Princeton Theological Seminary Symposium on Jewish Views of the Afterlife and Burial Practices in Second Temple Judaism: Evaluating the Talpiot Tomb in Context.” Most negative assessments of archaeologists and other scientists and scholars who attended have been excluded from the final press reports. Instead the media have presented the views of Simcha Jacobovici, who produced the controversial film and book “The Lost Tomb of Jesus” with Hollywood director James Cameron, and who claims that his identification has been vindicated by the conference papers. Nothing further from the truth can be deduced from the discussion and presentations that took place on January 13-17, 2008…

E, após várias considerações, a conclusão:
To conclude, we wish to protest the misrepresentation of the conference proceedings in the media, and make it clear that the majority of scholars in attendance – including all of the archaeologists and epigraphers who presented papers relating to the tomb – either reject the identification of the Talpiot tomb as belonging to Jesus’ family or find this claim highly unlikely.

Leia o texto completo.

Texto que é firmado por:
Professor Jodi Magness, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Professor Eric M. Meyers, Duke University
Choon-Leong Seow, Princeton Theological Seminary
F.W. Dobbs-Allsopp, Princeton Theological Seminary
Lee McDonald, Princeton Theological Seminary, visiting
Rachel Hachlili, Haifa University
Motti Aviam, University of Rochester
Amos Kloner, Bar Ilan University
Christopher Rollston, Emmanuel School of Religion
Shimon Gibson, University of North Carolina at Charlotte
Joe Zias, Science and Antiquity Group, Jerusalem
Jonathan Price, Tel Aviv University
C.D. Elledge, Gustavus Adolphus College

Na semana passada, de 13 a 16 de janeiro de 2008, vários especialistas (e outros nem tanto), estiveram reunidos em Jerusalém para uma Conferência sobre a Tumba de Talpiot. Tumba que ficou muito conhecida através do filme O Sepulcro Esquecido de Jesus.

O tema da conferência foi Jewish Views of the After Life and Burial Practices in Second Temple Judaism. Evaluating the Talpiot Tomb in Context.

Os debates não podiam deixar de suscitar controvérsias, em matéria tão sensível.

Leia sobre o evento em The View from Jerusalem, e, se quiser, em outros biblioblogs, pois muitos noticiaram e discutiram o assunto.

Leia também em The Bible and Interpretation: Articles on Talpiot.