A: Dr Fida Hassnain Author of IN SEARCH OF A HISTORICAL JESUS
Suzanne Olsson author of JESUS LAST KING OF KASHMIR
From the above link. COMMENTS
Dr Fida Hassnain Author of IN SEARCH OF A HISTORICAL JESUS
Israel-born Simcha Jacobovici and James Cameron have prepared a film, claiming that they have found the Tomb of Jesus Christ and his family, at Talpiot in a suburb of Jerusalem . The basis of their tall claim is deciphering and reading of the wedge-shaped cuneiform marks scratched on the ossuaries made of lime mortar. Both of them are not experts in the science of reading ancient Semitic scripts, like Aramaic, Kharooshti, Syriac, Siniatic or Arabic. The net result has been that they have jumped to pool their intentional conclusions.
I, the author of a Search for the Historical Jesus (www.amazon.com.) and the Fifth Gospel (www.bluedolphinpublishing.com) would like to draw the attention of the archaeologists, historians and the Bible scholars to the following:
1. In March 1980, during construction of a building the archaeologist found 10 ossuaries and 3 skulls. The skulls and the bones were buried quickly by the Jewish authorities. As such, all the 10 limestone empty boxes remained in charge of the Israeli authorities, up till now.
2. In 1996, BBC produced a film on these ossuaries, but it could not incite any reaction, from the academic field. Now in March 2007 the $ 4 million film (Jesus Family Tomb) was shown on Discovery Channel.
3. The above would reveal that for the last 27 years none from the academic world made any claim to have deciphered the name of Jesus Christ, on any ossuary.
4. The ossuary said to belong to Jesus Christ is made of lime mortar, and given shape into small rectangular box, with imprinted design and pattern on the top lid only, as detailed below:
i) An engraved fringe at the sides
ii) 2 circles bifurcated by a fringe, each containing 6 triangles in the shape of a flower.
iii) 2 circles divided by 3 strips of s fringe decorated by 3 small circle each.
5. There is no inscription engraved on the 6 sides of this lime plastered box. It only carry scratches to look like a inscription, which has been done some time after the manufacture of lime box, by the use of some sharp-edged iron tool.
6. Out of the 10 ossuaries, 6 carry cuneiform scratching or marks. These cuneiform scratches can be assumed to read as incibed alphabets from Kharoshti, Aramaic, Hebrew, Syriac and Arabic.
7. The claim made by the film makers that the words on one ossuary can be read as in Aramaic Yeshn bin Yossef is totally rejected due to the following reasons:
a) Bin is used by the Arabs, depicting parentage. As such the relatives of Yeshu or Jesus knew only Aramaic and not Arabic.
b) It is possible that some a curio dealer has got etched these words on the lime plaster, for the sake of money.
c) Jesus was never known as Yeshu, nor his father was never known as Yossef during their life time.
d) The so called inscription Yeshu son of Yossef shows that the alphabets have been altered on the right side, for it shows deeper inside incised cuts. In fact the last 3 alphabets have been changed in a crude way by first marking it with ink, then water and then erased with a sharp edged tool. Thus, it is a mutilated inscription.
e) On the left, the deep horizontal asterisk mark and the two dots down side have also been made by the use of water and a steel spoke.
8. Jesus belonged to a poor family of Nazareth and it was not possible for his descendants to build a family Tomb in Jerusalem , far away from the town of his birth.
9. Roman Paganism prevailed in Roman Empire ( Palestine included in it ) till 312 AD. Jesus at the time of his meeting with Paul, in 36 AD. 6 years after his crucifixion, tells him that the Romans are persecuting him (Acts 9:3-4). How could the Roman allow Jesus to be buried in a tomb in Jerusalem , when they were searching him in later years.
10. The Jewish brain has exploited archaeology for political ends to overthrow the Muslim presence from the Temple site in Jerusalem . It is yet to be proved that the etchings made on the lime ossuaries are as old as the ossuaries itself. The film maker is a Jew. The question arises as to why have they waited for 30 years to prove that it is Jesus Christ’s family tomb. There is some political agenda behind this wild claim.
11. when the Tomb is supposed to belongs to one family, then why the inscriptions have been made to appear in Latin in case of Maria, in Greek in case Mary, and in Aramaic in case of Jesus who lived in the same period i.e., first century AD.
12. My study tells me that the genuine parts of etchings and scratching pertain to pre-Christ period, sometime between 330-559 B.C. It will take sometime for me to decipher and read these names.
Professor Fida Hassnain
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Suzanne- Olsson author of JESUS LAST KING OF KASHMIR
Dear Friends,
The recent announcement about the discovery of a tomb for Jesus in Jerusalem is very exciting to researchers, and very disappointing to those who believe the real tomb is in Kashmir .
For those who believe the real tomb is in Kashmir, I wish to say that I believe the evidence is still overwhelming in favor of the Kashmir tomb.
Having the ossuaries, even analyzing the DNA from the bone fragments contained in them, does not make the information about Kashmir ‘false’ or irrelevant. I covered the issue about ossuaries in my new book in a way that explains why the Talpiot and the Kashmir locations can both be correct.
I am working hard to get this book out to you in the next few weeks. It explains all of this quite clearly. The release of the news about the Talpiot tomb came just in the nick of time and I was able to update that chapter of my book to include the new information.
My personal belief is that Talpiot will prove not to be the actual tomb of Jesus, but rather a gathering place for bone relics from several widely dispersed family tombs. I have covered this in my book and provided the historical examples for this, including the reburial of the apostle Thomas from India to Chios and beyond. As you may recall, his bones were also moved several times after his death.
I am delighted to know that researchers like Dr. Tabor and others are still in search of the truth. Let’s all pray for the day when those truths are uniformly agreed upon.
Meanwhile, happy researching, all you enquiring minds!
Best wishes,
Suzanne Olsson
Name:Schwar3Kat •
Date: 03/15/07 7:53
A: @Perceptions (and Nate Spain in another blog)
While there may certainly be some truth in the Hassnain report it is absolutely not scholarly and can not be trusted. It appears to be a conglomeration of content scrounged from other unreferenced sources.
There are some glaring inconsistencies when comparing this report to Rahmanis catalogue descriptions, photographs of the ossuaries and Amos Kroner, "A Tomb with Inscribed Ossuaries in East Talpiyot, Jerusalem", 'Atiquot (Jerusalem), vol. 29 (1996).
Some of the more troublesome statements:
3 - This statement is deliberately misleading nobody ever translated the inscription as Jesus Christ. The original Rahmani catalogue shows the current Yesua bar Josef. (Jesus son of Joseph).
7 a,b,d - These statements are incorrect as they apply to the controversial James ossuary not the Jesus ossuary as implied. The quotes refer to the fraud trial.
7 e - This statement may apply to the Jesus ossuary but why is it thrown in with the James stuff and it is irrelevant how the mark was made because it is on the lid possibly to mark the opening end not a part of the inscription. (I can find no reference to it having been made in the manner described).
The Jesus ossuary was never in the hands of a curio dealer and was never coated with varnish. (Neither was the James ossuary coated with varnish although it does have a dubious history).
At face value this looks like veiled anti-semetic / anti-western propaganda.
Name:TheNakedBoneHunter •
Date: 03/15/07 20:54
A: VERY IMPORTANT - SEE BELOW - email of JOE ZIAS, March 1, 2007 - CAN SOMEONE VERIFY THIS AS BEING THE GENUINE EMAIL FROM JOE ZIAS, if it is, then this is critical news ( Note: I am not the author of the following excerpt , The Naked Bone Hunter )
Time magazine again reports: "Asbury Theological Seminary professor Ben Witherington, a early Christianity expert who was deeply involved with the James Ossuary, says there are physical reasons to believe it couldn't have originated in the Talpiot plot." Following the lead of Time, I did my own detective work and checked out Ben Witherington's blogspot (see, www.benwitherington.blogspot.com).
Witherington claims: "Joe Zias is a fine archaeologist of long standing and good reputation. He is the person who catalogued the ten ossuaries from the Talpiot tomb, and personally catalogued the tenth ossuary. He worked with Amos Kloner as part of the team who made the original discovery. In two emails this morning to someone I have been talking to he made crystal clear that the tenth ossuary was blank, certainly was not the James ossuary at all despite the assertions of those involved in making the (Vision TV) special. These emails have been sent along to me, and I will let them speak for themselves.
Joe Zias [email protected]: Subject: Re: Jesus Tomb Sent: Thursday, March 1, 2007 6:02 AM
"Amos Kloner is right as I received and catalogued the objects, the 10th was plain and I put it out in the courtyard with all the rest of the plain ossuaries as was the standard procedure when one has little storage space available. Nothing was stolen nor missing and they were fully aware of this fact. It just didn't fit in with their agenda." Shalom, Joe.
The filmmakers were fully aware that the tenth ossuary in the so-called "Jesus family tomb" was blank, but it didn't fit in with their agenda. So they deliberately misled viewers with a spurious assertion that this was the James ossuary
END OF EXCERPT
