Monday, February 27, 2012

Jacobovici and Tabor link burial cave to Jesus' disciples

There have been rumours about the latest project from Simcha Jacobovici for a while (cf. James TaborExploring our Matrix and a new Facebook page, The Jesus Discovery) and now the news is about to break.  So is everyone ready for another round?  I'm not sure that I am, but I'm bracing myself, and getting up the strength.  Here goes.  The first news outlet that I've seen to report on this is Haaretz:

'Naked Archaeologist' finds signs Jerusalem cave was used to bury Jesus' disciples
Simcha Jacobovici, an Emmy-winning documentary director and producer, hopes findings of current explorations will substantiate his earlier theory that Jesus was buried in a nearby cave.
By Nir Hasso
Under an ordinary residential building in Jerusalem's Armon Hanatziv neighborhood, a robotic arm with a camera inserted into a Second Temple-era burial cave has revealed mysterious inscriptions and drawings on ossuaries. 
Simcha Jacobovici, an Emmy-winning documentary director and producer who is best known for his documentary TV series "The Naked Archaeologist," argues that the cave served as a burial cave for at least some of Jesus' disciples . . .
The gist is that this burial cave features an image of Jonah and the fish, and Haaretz does have the image for you to see.  It is not clear from the article where the image appears, whether on one of the ossuaries or somewhere else.  The article also reports a second discovery:
The second of Jacobovici's dramatic finds is an inscription in Greek letters. It can be variously interpreted, but all refer in one way or another to resurrection, he says. 
Jacobovici, along with the experts he has enlisted, claims the words are "God" in Greek, the Tetragrammaton (the traditionally unutterable four-letter name of God in Hebrew), the word "arise" or "resurrected" in Greek, and the word "arise" or "resurrected" in Hebrew.
It is difficult to comment until we know a bit more but no doubt that will be forthcoming.  If there is to be a large website on this find, though, I hope that it will be better researched than the error-riddled Jesus Family Tomb Website (Jesus' Family Tomb Website: Errors and Inaccuracies, 2007, still on the web five years later).  I'll be on the look-out.

Update (Tuesday, 8.51): comments from Michael Heiser and Jim West.

6 comments:

James D. Tabor said...

Mark, a substantial scientific article on the finds will be posted on bibleinterp.com at noon tomorrow. I look forward to having your comments.

Mark Goodacre said...

I'm looking forward to it. (Please sign your posts).

James D. Tabor said...

Sorry Mark...this is me, James Tabor. I thought I had "signed" it by signing into my Google account but somehow it came out anon?? Still can't figure it out...

jaylen watkins said...
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Mark Goodacre said...

Thanks, James, for stopping by. Look forward to reading more. It's just about to come on CNN as I type this.

DDodson said...

A response from the ASOR blog:
http://asorblog.org/?p=1642#more-1642
Section III addresses the newest find.