Ok, there has been a lot of stuff going on in the world of academic blogs concerning the recent Talpiot Tomb conference, and I thought I would bring up some important updates.
First (alternative site), a number of scholars have, in an effort becoming known as the Meyers/Magness statement, a group of scholars have signed on stating that they do not agree with the media’s general portrayal of support for the Jesus identification of the Talpiot Tomb. Included in the statement is the problems these authors see with the current assessment, including, the issue with the Mariamne inscription (which readers can find in my review of Stephen Pfann’s paper), problems with DNA tests used to suggest Jesus had a wife in the Talpiot Tomb (which certainly wouldn’t be evidence of any tie to the biblical Jesus), lack of evidence in ties to the “James Ossuary”, the lack of canonical parallels, and the questions about Ruth Gat’s statement. The signors are
Professor Mordechai Aviam, University of Rochester
Professor Ann Brock, Iliffe School of Theology, University of Denver
Professor F.W. Dobbs-Allsopp, Princeton Theological Seminary
Professor C.D. Elledge, Gustavus Adolphus College
Professor Shimon Gibson, University of North Carolina at Charlotte
Professor Rachel Hachlili, University of Haifa
Professor Amos Kloner, Bar-Ilan University
Professor Jodi Magness, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Professor Lee McDonald, Arcadia Seminary
Professor Eric M. Meyers, Duke University
Professor Stephen Pfann, University of the Holy Land
Professor Jonathan Price, Tel Aviv University
Professor Christopher Rollston, Emmanuel School of Religion
Professor Choon-Leong Seow, Princeton Theological Seminary
Mr. Joe Zias, Science and Antiquity Group, Jerusalem
Additionally, Dr. James Tabor has an discourse concerning these issues same issues. I certainly find some points to agree with here, especially his assessment of Gat’s statements to his wife as not being evidence of the Talpiot Tomb’s resident being biblical Jesus. However, Dr. Tabor does present one statement that is absolutely false in his response to the Meyers/Magness statement’s concerns for the statistics of the Talpiot Tomb:
This is decidedly not the case, as has now been pointed out by several statisticians who have already commented on the Duke University and Goodacre Web sites. Based on the calculations of Elliot and Kilty, whose paper is up on the Web, and as discussed by Camil Fuchs, who along with Andrey Feuerverger, sat on the panel dealing with statistics. The name cluster, even leaving Mariamene out entirely, with no assumptions regarding Mary Magdalene, show a probability factor of .48. This result is far from “virtually nil,” in fact it is very close to 1/2, meaning if we had two tombs to examine, one of them would be the Jesus tomb. My understanding is that Fuchs will clarify this in his published paper.
In such a situation with a nearly 50-50 chance, or exactly a 50-50 chance, possessing two tombs does not mean that one is definitely the tomb of the biblical Jesus. Since both have a 50-50 chance, both can be other tombs (though obviously they both could not be the tomb of Jesus). This is similar to flipping coins (since we do not know how many tombs remain out there undiscovered that may be Jesus or that he actually had a tomb). Think of heads as being equivalent to finding the tomb of biblical Jesus. If, one flips a coin the first time and gets tails, in this case meaning the tomb is not that of Jesus, the next toss could still be heads or tails, Jesus or not Jesus.
Of course its even more complex than this, and I will beg my reader’s patience with a bit of post modernism. Let’s say that you have two tombs, both with a 50-50 chance of belonging to the biblical Jesus. If we again break out the coins, and for the first tomb flip up a heads, we are left with a situation where there is one tomb that is Jesus’ and another that still has a 50-50 chance of being his. The astute reader will obviously say that the second tomb cannot belong to Jesus, if the first one did. While this is true, if both offer an equal chance based on comparable evidence, we are lamentably left with the post modern conundrum that both tombs could be interpreted as belonging to Jesus.
Of course, the final conclusion will always be more complex than this. In current situation, as with any situation questions will remain. Among these would be, are their other tombs we have yet to discover that are better matches?
In short, Dr. Tabor’s statement that the Mariamne inscription may not be the linchpin some have made it out to be, and we should wait on more statistics for this, but his assessment of the use of statistics in archaeology is false, and reflects that which has plagued the study of the Talpiot Tomb all along.
Filed under: Archaeology, Archaeoporn, Pseudo-Science, Religion, Talpiot Tomb | Tagged: Eric M. Meyers, James Ossuary, James Tabor, Jesus Tomb, Jodi Magness, Meyers/Magness, Talpiot Tomb
[...] concerning the statistics that show a failure on his part to understand the statistics, here and here. His claims concerning the meanings of a .48 chance shows a clear overemphasis on the results that [...]