Hoax. Stuff like this pops up all the time and is generally debunked pretty thoroughly by actual biblical archaeologists. Remember the "James Ossuary" from a couple years ago?
Nikos Kazantzakis got there first.
Should be an interesting presser tomorrow.
You didn't know this, Ogged? Jesus' son escaped from Judea and went on to found the Merovingian dynasty in France. The secret has been protected by an elite fellowship for centuries, and was only uncovered by James Cameron when he was wandering around the Louvre one night...
The main revelation here is that Cameron is even more of a tool than I thought.
I'm most interested in his "little-known brother," Jofah Christ.
I imagine producers and writers all over Hollywood are trying to figure out a way to cash in on The Great Awakening 3: The Stupiding.
The suppression of the Cathars could be nicely bloody.
There's a huge hoax-artifact industry in the middle-east. Some of it is very well done indeed.
1: I know the Israeli Antiquity Authorities ruled the James Ossuary a fake, but I didn't think the matter was settled. (He says, having just watched a documentary on it a few weeks back.)
Thinking about this more, I'd have preferred if the tomb of Jesus and Jesus when he was a small boy were allegedly discovered.
10: The rationale behind their decision. They "decided," but didn't share their criteria with academics like they normally do. According to the documentary, the reason they didn't is because it would've alerted forgers to the reason the ossuary convinced so many academics of its authenticity...but from the academic perspective, such an explanation is obviously suspect.
I'm not saying it's real or fake, only that the IAA didn't behave like it normally did and won't explain why. Which, I admit, is suspicious.
Have members of the IAA been mysteriously disappearing?
I once asked my semi-devout friend if there were copralite relics from Baby Jesus anywhere, and if not, why not.
And also, why doesn't "copraphage" mean someone who eats dried coconut, like Mounds bars for instance?
I haven't seen anymore on television since, so I shouldn't specu--yes.
It's a common misspelling of "coprophage", that's why. Someone who eats Mounds bars is, in fact, a copraphage. So it was coprorelics I was asking about.
12: While it's true that the IAA didn't reveal their reasons for concluding it was a forgery, there were other scholars who pointed out various problems. The Wikipedia article accords with my recollections of how the story turned out. Note that the only people still defending the ossuary are associated with BAR and the ROM, both of which have a clear interest in its authenticity.
The part about the bubble wrap was a dead giveaway. Bubble wrap was invented only much later, by the Goths in the 4th century AD.
#7 is a fine, fine comment.
Wait, how did that happen? #19 is referring to #4, not #7 (also posted by Mike D and as such, just great, but not in the same weight class as #4.)
Wait, what's going on here? #7 is by Jackmormon. Could somebody quit moving the signatures around?
Thanks.
Yours,
Clownae
copralite relics
I think fossilization takes longer than 2 millenia.
Maybe not if you're dropping divine poos.
(also posted by Mike D and as such, just great, but not in the same weight class as #4.)
You hurt me Clownæ, hurt me deep.
Given that Josh & Mary were very popular names in those days, could be anyone's burial plot with non-faked coffins.
OTOH, in the Holy Land, forging antiquities is a common occupation, as tourists are incredibly gullible.
I myself have a genuine Nabatean lion head on my wall; I know it's genuine, because I watched my father make find it. Yup, dig it up out of a tomb, indeedy.
What are you complaining about #24, it should be Jackmormon to take a fence if anybody's going to do it, your comment #4 was the one I thought would last for the ages.
Um, "take a fence", Clownae? What with that and mixing up the numbers and posters, I'm beginning to worry about you . . . .
I just read an article -- I can't seem to find the link right now -- that says they finally found God's grave, somewhere in Outer Mongolia, vindicating certain claims of Nietzsche that many scholars had attributed to syphilis.
In the interests of all round tastelessness, Peter Cook#'s take on the problem:
CHRIS MORRIS - Good evening, Sir Arthur. I'm sorry I'm late. I've got a rather tough schedule at the moment.
SIR ARTHUR STREEB GREEBLING - Yes, well I've made myself at home here.
CM - Well, that's good. You've got lots of time and I haven't because I'm quite busy, and I've got a lot of important things to do. It must be rather nice not having important things to do, and generally having a lot of time to fritter away. Sorry. You were saying?
SASG - I was just saying that today we could start on the subject we mentioned last week but didn't get around to, which was bee-keeping. I've got quite a few anecdotes because I started off with just one bee and used it to atttract another bee, and eventually got a swarm going... and it's quite an interesting anecdote.
CM - It sounds dull to me actually.
SASG - Well it's very lifelike.
CM - Well, perhaps you'd like to start it off then.
SASG - Yes, well if you ask me a question, a simple introduction, like 'tell us about the bee-keeping' or something.
CM - Alright, I'm not really very interested, but hello, Sir Arthur, how are you?
SASG - Fine. I had some bees in my youth and put them to work making honey.
CM - ...Now in your address to the Royal Society tomorrow, you intend to reveal the fossilised remains of the infant Christ. How do you feel that will go down?
SASG - Well, it is a remarkable discovery. A group of us were up in the promised land, as I believe it was called. We were just rooting around for some sticks to start a fire with, and by some accident this tiny little form had been preserved perfectly. So Ipicked it up, put it in my knapsack and brought it home and had it scientifically examined at my institute. It's Christ at the age of about nine months. Just beginning to walk - more crawling than walking. Crawling across the desert in search of followrs, really, and then of course he died.
CM - So what are the implications then, if Christ was fossilised when he was that small?
SASG - He was practising resurrection. Because if you're going to resurrect yourself in front of thousands of people, and found the whole religion on it, you don't want to make a cock-up, do you? So from a very early age he was dropping dead and resurrecting himself. There's probably thousands and thousands of bodies of Jesus and this is just the youngest one.
CM - A series of larvae?
SASG - Almost, yes. Pupae. In fact he never really got it right at the end. I mean, not as if he was pronounced dead on the cross and then flew up and flapped his wings and said, 'hello boys.' He did it in rather a complicated way, had to be put in a cave, a boulder put in front of it. I mean, Paul Daniels could do that. So I think he never really quite got the hang of it.
CM - Could you tell how quickly these practice resurrections happened?
SASG - It took about six months. He died, as planned. Then, just as he was passing away, he suddenly forgot how to do it, but instincts carried him through, and gradually he resurrected himself, by which time he was under the sand because of the wind, and he had not only to resurrect himself, he had to fight his way to the surface. He would of course have died while doing that.
CM - Suffocation?
SASG - Suffocation, smothered by sand, so he died again. And there's some controversy about whether my tiny Christ is in fact the nine-month old TC or the nine and a half month.
CM - This fits in with your theory that as Christ practised resurrection throughout his life, he didn't do it flawlessly, did he? He produced several of himself at once.
SASG - Well there was a time when he overdid it and reproduced eighteen other Christs, so he had to wipe out seventeen of them.
CM - But he had to stop them resurrecting themselves once they'd done it.
SASG - Yes, he had to keep them under order. I think St Paul mentions it in passing.
CM - Now have you spoken to the Vatican about this?
SASG - I've had words with their envoy over here, the special enunciate, and he's absolutely thrilled to bits, and has suggested a venue where we might put it up and have it start earning its keep.
CM - But does he know you intend to clone from its tissue?
SASG - I haven't gone into that with him because frankly it's none of his business. And it is a business.
CM - Who's putting up the money for this?
SASG - Honda.
CM - Now when or if this is successful, what do you feel the result of it will be?
SASG - Well, I'm very much hoping to be the first to shake Jesus by the hand and say 'well done'.
CM - How far are you prepared to take this? Say the experiment is four-fifths successful and you end up with some animated tissue which is not particularly man-like, would you allow that to carry on living?
SASG - Well I think one would go on the gut reaction. I think if one had three-quarters of Jesus, you would know it was Jesus, and I would settle for that.
CM - What diagnostic signs are you going to go for that make it Jesus?
SASG - Just breathing.
CM - A voice?
SASG - A voice, yes, maybe. But he could sign his message. He could wave his hands around like they do on Channel 4.
CM - Who will provide the words in that case?
SASG - Well then we'd pre-record something, with Martin Jarvis or John Hurt or somebody suitable to do the voice-under.
CM - Project a little sort of moving shape over his mouth?
SASG - Probably just with an elastic band you could get some movement. Oprah Winfrey's interested. Oprah has lost a lot of weight, hasn't she? And gained a lot of weight. One moment anorexic, the next moment bulimic - and in between regressing to child abuse.
CM - And where would the words come from?
SASG - Oh, we'd just do whatever he said in the Bible. The same stuff, just recycle it a bit. What he said was perfectly good.
CM - I think you know what I'm getting at. I'm actually trying to find out whether you will be using him as some sort of conduit for your own warped ideas.
SASG - No, no, no. It will be his warped ideas, not mine.
CM - And what role do BMW play?
SASG - They're refurnishing the vehicles.
CM - Will he not be frightened by modern transport?
SASG - Yes. The Sony corporation are interested in a sort of hover-donkey. They can move at about a hundred and ten miles an hour.
CM - Now I'm told the Japanese are more seriously involved than that.
SASG - In the miniaturisation of Jesus, yes - given his consent of course.
CM - And what will the Japanese do with these miniature Christs?
SASG - They will market them in the normal way, because there's a lot of people out there, people who are yearning to find Christ, and who don't have time to go out and look for him in person, who would like to have Christ through the letterbox.
CM - How will they eat?
SASG - Who?
CM - These micro-Christs.
SASG - Conventionally, I think, through a tiny little tube which will be supplied.
CM - And how wil you guarantee their safety agauinst...
SASG - Theft?
CM - And dogs?
SASG - Well, showing a tiny Christ to an Alsatian is like showing a red rag to a- whatever they're called, those big things with horns?
CM - Bishops.
SASG - Bishops, yes. There are no guarantees. You've got a tiny Christ, he's six inches high, he's about three centimetres deep, and he has all the organs.
CM - Where do they come in?
SASG - Look, I don't want to... You're rather pre-empting my address tomorrow.
CM - Alright, well let me put it to you like this. Don't you think that if you clone Christ, he will in some way want to remonstrate with you as soon as he can?
SASG - Well, that's up to him, but he'll be pretty lost without his batteries.