Comments on: Talpiot Tomb: Reviewed, Part II

By: archaeologyknits

archaeologyknits — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 23:10:22 +0000

BTW, I would like to add a question about your closing.
Skeptics should not play the lottery?
The fact is that skeptics understand the very small chance that this is the Jesus tomb, from various historical, theoretical, and archaeological positions.
It seems to me that believers should avoid the lottery, since they think a one in a million chance is sufficient to guarantee a win.

By: archaeologyknits

archaeologyknits — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 23:07:59 +0000

A couple notes here.
1) you don’t actually outline your methods of simulations, making them useless (are they random or properly weighted?)
2) You seem to come from the position of purely random name selection, this is an assumption that is actually very unlikely.
3) You seem to assume equal favor of all names, also very unlikely.
4) Your position comes to the conclusion that this combination can never happen again. Actually, the fact that it happens once, means it can happen again. If a combination of names is possible once, uniformitarianism tells us it is possible again.
5) You only illustrate that the name group may have been unlikely (a conclusion I still doubt, and would actually debate as being more likely than many other possible arrangement of names), you fail to show why this proposed rarity has any value. ie. just because it is rare, does not mean it is the tomb of historical Jesus, a conclusion completely absent from your comment. (A conclusion I should also note is made relatively unlikely by the inclusion of names outside of the Jesus family. Is a 1 in 600 chance more likely than a 0 in 1 chance?)
6) You have a very positivistic approach that ignores any of the advances in archaeological theory made since the late 1970s. Sorry, until it stands up to the last 30 or so years of theory and methods, it doesn’t cut the mustard.

By: David Belz

David Belz — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 22:27:05 +0000

Talpiot Tomb – Random Name Simulation
Sceptical critics of the Talpiot Tomb discovery object that inscribed names found there were common in first century Judea, and could be expected in any such tomb. Obviously they’re not in the habit of purchasing Lotto tickets or Football coupons; It is easy to get a few numbers right but more difficult to obtain a winning combination.
Not one of my three simulations of 1000 tombs, each containing 7 names of first century Palestinian Jews, came up with the combination found at Talpiot. Frequency of names used corresponded to databases published by either L Y Rahmani or Ben Witherington, both harsh critics of the significance of Talpiot.
In none of the simulated 1000 tombs did all 5 distinct names ever appear – there was always a non-qualifier. Despite 7 trials in each tomb, non-appearance of at least one of the qualifying names was common exceeding 50% of all tombs: Mary (618), Joseph (609), Judah (624), Jesus (768), Matthew (822).
Combinations of names that occurred were: Joseph & Jesus (85); Mary & Jesus (73); Jesus, Mary & Joseph (25); Jesus, Mary, Joseph & [Judah or Matthew] 6. The combination of all 5 distinct names did not occur.
Including the name of James, increased the number of trials in each tomb to 8. Repetition of names was fairly common, but seldom with any other names of interest. For example, 1 tomb had 4 Mary’s and 11 had 3 Mary’s; 13 had 3 Joseph’s, and 24 had 2 Jesus’. Actual repetition of names in a family tomb might be expected to occur seldom, depending on cultural practices of handing down names to progeny.
In the James trials, 39 tombs had Jesus, Mary & Joseph; No tomb had Jesus, 2 Mary’s & 2 Joseph’s as occurred at Talpiot. There were 19 tombs with Jesus, Mary, Joseph and one other qualifier, 2 tombs with at least 2 other qualifiers. These last two tombs gave: Run 497 – Jesus, Mary, Joseph, Judah, James, 3 non-qualifiers; Run 854 – Jesus, Mary, Joseph, Judah, Matthew, James, 2 non-qualifiers. These last two results were the best that could be attained.
The conclusion must be that despite the prevalence of the individual names, their combination is very rare, and the full combination did not occur in any of the simulations. In view of the three independent simulations of 1000 tombs, the stated probability of 1 in 600 would seem to be extremely, even unnecessarily, conservative.
Regardless of the actual identity of the occupants, the combination of names is unique and would never have been found in any other tomb, even if every ossuary found had been inscribed, and even allowing that many tombs have been despoiled and looted. My advice to the critics is “Don’t purchase Lotto tickets, you don’t understand the game, and you’ll lose your money!” Whereas any Ops Stats 101 student can do a like simulation.

By: Jonathan Jarrett

Jonathan Jarrett — Sat, 29 Dec 2007 16:06:22 +0000

I just want to add my thanks for going through this stuff for us. When people ask me, as some kind of professional of the past if you see what I mean, what I think about such stories, it’s really useful to have people like yourself out there telling me where I can go look stuff up…