Q: Some general questions:
1. What was the population (roughly) in the general vicinity of the "city/suburbs" in Jesus' time? Not trying to debate the city sprawl -- see next questions.
2. How many "families" would there be in that area?
3. What % of families are thought to have had tombs? Most were built in side of hills weren't they (rather than digging deep below the ground)?
4. How many tombs have been uncovered in the area? How many ossuaries would that make in total ?
5. The Jesus tomb looked large inside (maybe just camera made it appear that way).
Why only 10 ossuaries (amongst 6 short tunnels) in such a large space?
Does the typical tomb have this much central-square space?
Was the tomb meant for many more ossuaries (maybe from the community/general geographic vicinity)?
6. I believe the ossuaries found in 1980/81 in that tomb are from Jesus' time period. What about DNA testing on other ossuaries (on the program they showed only Jesus & Mary Magdalene's)? on the bones/skulls found?
7. It is a shame that the IIA made them seal up the tomb. It would have been good if they were allowed to take very bright lights into the tomb and see what else was there. Any hope of that happening in the future?
8. What about the second tomb 20 meters away - anything in that tomb?
9. Aggregation of scriptures/writings. It seems the Catholic church (was raised Catholic) made the bible primarily out of 4 gospels. Other gospels have been located. Is there a central resource/library where these gospels from all over the world have been linked in chonological time?
For example, the gospel mentioning Jesus' brothers (was never taught this in Catholic church or school), the gospel(s) in Greece refering to Mary Magdalene.
Whether or not the tomb is of the Jesus family, I do believe the Catholic church has edited/modified the events. Empires, societies, civilizations, etc have stages of growth and decline -- where is religion (religious movements) headed over the next 25, 50, 100 years?
Carroll Quigley, Georgetown D.C. professor, wrote "The Tragedy and the Hope" in the 1960's which talked about the rise and fall of civilizations, etc. The length of a civilization/movement/empire has shortened over time (Roman Empire, some Asian dynasties, etc lasted hundreds of years but other movements have had far fewer years). So where are things headed civilization wise in the current cycle in the world (civilizations are less in isolation today given technology advances)?
Political power wise, it seems China is growing in strong force with it's 1 Billion people (India has 1 Billion as well but doesn;t seem to have exerted its voice as strongly as China) and more countries these days are wanting to consider things more versus just accepting, say, a US-way of doing things.
Relgious power wise, how many people (roughly) are in, say, the top 10 faiths? and what are the rates of growth of these religions?
It would be good if there was something central to bring together people of the world. Anyways, appreciate any answers.
Name:guahould •
Date: 03/08/07 15:43
A: Everyone should just start living for today and stop looking to some glorious afterlife that will not be taking place.. We have been graced with this life to enjoy for the now. Some believers may ask what non believers purposes in life is ,, well guess what?? it is to live now and enjoy this life for all we have of it!!! Just what will their purposes be once they reach their place of hope??? notta!!!! zilcho!!!! nothingness!!!! NO PURPOSE!!!!!
Name:KRS •
Date: 03/08/07 16:14
A: I won't deal with the late paragraphs, as to your questions,
1. I don't have a source handy, my copy of Bruce's NT History (where I usually start on those kinds of queries) is out of state, but if I recall, there are a lot of different population estimates that vary somewhat widely.
2. Again, the different estimates makes this hard to answer definetively.
3. Probably a relatively small one, tombs were expensive.
4. We have over 10,000 ossuaries from hundreds of tombs; one catch, though is that most bear no inscription.
5. tombs had large areas where bodies were allowed to decompose before the bones were put on an ossuary.
6. They only did DNA on the two (which was my first question, that's poor technique - but there was a lot of that here). There are also questions about how they gathered those samples - they apparently gathered the DNA from scrappings (which means it is also highly probable that the DNA they tested actually belonged to someone who has worked with the ossuary in recent times).
7. I hope they will do so to put all this to bed.
8. The tomb is intact, the orthodox community forced them to close it up (this wasn't listed in the documentary).
9. Only on the internet (to my knowledge) and those dates are suspect; most of the gnostic works have a potential date of more than century in variation. Only two or three are estimated by any scholars as being first century, and most of these are dated from AD50-200 (which means it could have been written anywhere in between there). I would tend to rate them later because the groups of gnostics that the fathers identify as early are quoted as using the canonical gospels instead of the gnostic gospels. Most of the gnostic works span a period from the mid second century to the late third. As to the canonical gospels, the theological left dates the synoptic gospels (Matthew, Mark and Luke) to around AD 80, and John to around AD 90. Theological conservatives tend to date the synoptics to between AD 50-60 and John to around AD 80. The difference is largely based on whether one believes it is possible that Jesus prophesied the fall of Jerusalem in AD 70.
