Mark Goodacre's academic blog. Professor of New Testament and Christian Origins at Duke University, in the Religious Studies Department. Visit my homepage, follow me on twitter, or contact me by email.
Tuesday, July 03, 2012
A New Interpretation of the Greek Ossuary Inscription in Talpiyot Tomb B
Richard Bauckham has written a new piece on the inscription in Tapiyot Tomb B and I am happy to be posting it here. It's a PDF file available here:
I posted at greater length about this on my blog, but here are my thoughts:
If the scribe really did make a mistake writing δυσ for δοσ in the first line, then it seems to me that αγβ could be a slip of the mind and/or hand for γαβ, which would correspond pretty nicely with Geb (κηβ and κοιβ notwithstanding).
The inscription would then, when corrected, read Δοσταιου Ψωγαβ.
The stunning silence of the mainstream Christian community leads me to question their commitment to reason. At the very least a vehement defense should have been exercised. The implications of this find are that Christianity is just another mythology, yet the response has been one of avoidance. I think it is inherent in Christianity that suspension of reality is necessary to cover oneself in the blanket of belief. What that implies is that no matter what is found, Christianity has a vested interest in its belief system and will not give it up simply because the facts do not support it.
4 comments:
On first reading, this proposal, in the three name version, seems plausible.
Do you have any comment on the proper statistical analysis of the last tomb brou-hah-hah?
http://freethoughtblogs.com/carrier/archives/1539
I posted at greater length about this on my blog, but here are my thoughts:
If the scribe really did make a mistake writing δυσ for δοσ in the first line, then it seems to me that αγβ could be a slip of the mind and/or hand for γαβ, which would correspond pretty nicely with Geb (κηβ and κοιβ notwithstanding).
The inscription would then, when corrected, read Δοσταιου Ψωγαβ.
The stunning silence of the mainstream Christian community leads me to question their commitment to reason. At the very least a vehement defense should have been exercised. The implications of this find are that Christianity is just another mythology, yet the response has been one of avoidance. I think it is inherent in Christianity that suspension of reality is necessary to cover oneself in the blanket of belief. What that implies is that no matter what is found, Christianity has a vested interest in its belief system and will not give it up simply because the facts do not support it.
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