Here is the latest from Turkey on details about the massacre which have been verified as exaggerated. This report comes from some people closest to the events who examined the bodies and want accuracy in the reporting. They want to get the correct story out and give their take on what is taking place. Here is the report with names removed (and the description brother placed in its place), except for the victims.

Another update from my contacts in Turkey.

This one is about the tensions tied to the election of the President, which is really complicated becasue of the Turkish Constitution, which requires a secular Turkey.

Here is the update:

Please pray for our Nation.

The number of participants in a Rally in Istanbul yesterday show the great uproar against events that loom ahead of us this week.

What is happening in Turkey continues to develop.

The tension you see between the military and secularists and the prospective President is significant.

Turkey was founded as a secular Islamic country by Ataturk after WW 1. This involved a huge cultural revolution that moved the country into the modern age and closer to Europe. It has been held onto with constant tension with more religious Muslims for sometime. The current leading candidate belongs to a religious Islamic party. The secularists marched today in Istanbul. They are nervous, so nervous the military (which has staged coups at certain points in modern history to protect this approach to the nation) warned about the outcome, something Europe and the US warned the military about. So the situation there is tense.

Here is the latest from Turkey.

FLASH from COMPASS DIRECT NEWS
News from the Frontlines of Persecution

Summary:
ISTANBUL, April 27 (Compass Direct News) – Police jailed four Christian street evangelists in Istanbul for "missionary activity" this week, even as government officials openly defended the right of all religious groups to carry out evangelistic work in Turkey. Officials released U.S. citizen David Byle this evening, more than 48 hours after he was arrested along with a Korean and two Turkish Christians, his wife said. Christian sources maintained that Turkey plans to deport the Korean believer, though further details remain unknown. The four men were detained Wednesday afternoon (April 25) while sharing their faith with passersby at a park in Istanbul's Taksim district. The arrests occurred in the midst of tense national debate over the legitimacy of Christian missionary activity, sparked by the gruesome killing of three Christian men in southeastern Turkey last week. "Missionaries are more dangerous than terror organizations," Niyazi Guney, Ministry of Justice director general of laws, reportedly commented only a day after the murders.

Gang:

The John Ankerberg shows on the Tomb and other related Jesus issues are up on the web.

There are four shows toal. Two deal with the tomb, the others with Jesus issues in general, including the latest on the Gospel of Judas. The book by "Benedict Iscariot" (really a member of the British House of Lords) and Frank Moloney is the topic of the third show, and the latest book by Elaine Pagels and Karen King on Judas is also treated.

The original letter that was here has been updated with more accuracy. It can be found with the entry entitled at the start "Clarification" from May 1. I have received more than one email asking about the source of the May 1 clarification. It comes from the same sources that originally gave the first letter who are in touch with those who at the original scene who themselves had access to better information. So the better information about this incident is found there.

There was an event last week that barely ticked the radar screen that is pretty significant.
Three Christians in Eastern Turkey were brutally martyred (literally mutilated with knives) for the faith at a church office that also was a publishing house. One of the murdered was German. Eleven people have been arrested but what makes this significant is that Turkey is trying to get into the European Union and those countries that are hesitant to permit it are nervous about the genuine presence of religious freedom in the country, something the EU requires. Add to this elections approaching there and the situation is worth keeping an eye on. For those who wish to catch up on the story and the dialogue, here is a good summary article:

First, let me begin by apologizing for the blog being down for about 36 hours. Just one of those things.

We were down but not out. So now we are back up and running.

I have returned from presentations at Southeastern Baptist and Beeson Divinity School. My thanks to both schools who were great hosts. The Southeastern visit was to be on a panel of experts discussing the short versus long ending of Mark 16 (I hold the short ending was original). The Beeson visit was on Jesus in the High Definition Public Square. This evaluated how Jesus is being presented to the public and how churches can get preapred to respond by gaining some understanding of these issues. Most of the Jesus material will appear in a book that I am doing with Dan Wallace to be released around Christmas time. I am finding there is a great deal of interest on this topic as I travel-- and frankly -- most in the church have little idea what is going on or how to discuss the issues that are raised. Our hope is that works like The Missing Gospels and the book to come will be of real help to the average person who wants to discuss these topics and can get them started without requiring a degree in rocket science!

For those who want a sustained look at the issues tied to the tomb, the John Ankerberg show started airing last night. It will be four shows. The first is up and is available over the Net.

Try this URL:

www.johnankerberg.org.

Then look for the broadcast of the last week. It is up now for the first week's show. This works through the names on the ossuaries in detail. For friends who are interested in details it is a concise 23 minute presentation.

Jim Tabor has recently posted a blog denying a connection between the first tomb of Jesus and Jospeh of Arimathea's tomb.

Now there are some interesting things going on here. He mentions Mark and John, but minimizes Matthew (as well as not handling Matthew consistently as a source).

Matthew 27:57-60 reads, "Now when it was evening, there came a rich man from Arimathea, named Joseph, who was also a disciple of Jesus. He went to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus. Then Pilate ordered that it be given to him. Joseph took the body, wrapped it in a clean linen cloth,and placed it in his own new tomb that he had cut in the rock. Then he rolled a great stone across the entrance of the tomb and went away."

We are still in the Easter season and so the release of books tied to the season continue. I told my Sunday School class today, one more week and then maybe things will settle down. There are three books to note here under "the latest" for this season. It may be appropriate to post this on April Fools.

(1) Some of you may have seen some reports on a "secret" Gospel of Mark. This is another old story, going back to 1958 and Columbia Professor Morton Smith. Now two books have thrown down the gauntlet and challenged the work. A littel over a year ago came “The Gospel Hoax” by Stephen C. Carlson (Baylor University Press, 2005). It is subtitled “Morton Smith’s Invention of Secret Mark.” Peter Jeffery had finished writing “The Secret Gospel of Mark Unveiled” just published by Yale University Press, before receiving a copy of Mr. Carlson’s book.

Easter is drawing near and so specials are the works.

While I was in Jerusalem I did some taping with CBN (Christian Broadcasting Network). They will air a special on the resurrection at Easter.

Today, I am in Chattanooga, Tn. Tomorrow will be spent taping three John Ankerberg shows dealing with issues tied to recent public square issues tied to Jesus. These also will air starting with the Easter season.

Here is my response to Tabor's list of five points on hypothetical fits. Numbered entries are his. My responses follow one point at a time.

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Tabor 1. The father Joseph would not be buried in this tomb as he would have died earlier and been buried perhaps in Galilee, so the Yose is likely not the father of the Yeshua bar Yehosef.

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My comment on this one: This is a reasonable inference.

Randy Ingermanson has revisited the issue of statistics with all the variables in place. It can be found at:

http://www.ingermanson.com/jesus/art/stats2.php

The key portion of the five options treated is posted below:

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Results

The technical article associated with this page shows how to put everything together into a final answer. There are a number of unknown parameters that go into this, but once you specify each of these, our equation uses Bayes' Theorem to combine the numbers into an ESTIMATE of the probability that the Jesus of the tomb is Jesus of Nazareth.

Here is a fine blog by Robert Gundry on 1 Corinthians 15. It appears at:

http://normtroubles.blogspot.com/2007/03/robert-gundry-on-physicality-of-jesus.html

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Robert Gundry

There’s an element in the current discussion of Jesus’ family tomb, so-called, that needs more scrutiny, it seems to me. I have in mind the agreement or disagreement between the earliest oral and literary traditions of what happened to Jesus’ corpse, on the one hand, and the interpretation of an ossuary found at Talpiot as having contained the secondarily buried bones of Jesus of Nazareth, on the other hand. If I understand Professor James Tabor correctly, he believes:

Now we look at Tabor's remarks about the inscriptions. Here is his summary:

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The Inscriptions: There were ten ossuaries in the Talpiot tomb with six inscribed. This is actually a rather high percentage, as normally only about 20% of ossuaries have names on them. It is not the case, as has been reported, that the remains of up to 35 additional individuals were found in this tomb. The only records we have regarding bones found outside the ossuaries are the official reports of the excavator, the late Joseph Gath, who indicates two or perhaps three other individuals at the most. The Talpiot tomb is a small, modest pre-70 CE family burial cave with a dozen or so individuals buried inside, six of whom we can know by name. Here are the ten ossuaries with their inscriptions in their transliterated Aramaic and Greek forms:

I now look at the Tabor entry on the issue of the statistics, which bears much of the weight of the hypothesis:

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Statistics: Although the names are “common” as is so often pointed out by so many, it does indeed seem to be the case that the statistical grouping of these particular names in this particular tomb is far from common. This is confirmed by the mathematical probabilities based on name frequencies, or more directly, by looking at the names in tomb after tomb of which we have record. Nothing like this occurs anywhere else. This is, after all, the only tomb known with a “Yeshua son of Joseph.” Even if the probabilities were 50/50 the tomb would be of great interest and worth examining in this regard. As it stands they are surely much higher than that. Statisticians often point out that “common sense” when it comes to probability theory, is often quite misleading. What we have to ask is what are the probabilities of these six names occurring together in a 1st century Jewish family tomb, namely: Mary, a second Mary, Jesus son of Joseph, Jude son of Jesus, Joseph, and Matthew. I have independently consulted with several statisticians who work with demographics and probability theory with the following results.

I plan now to respond to Jim Tabor's summary one point at a time. Today I look at his remarks about the historical context.

Here is Tabor's summary on this point:

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The Historical Context: I do not find it unlikely or improbable that the family tomb of Jesus might be found in the Jerusalem area. I have argued elsewhere that neither the social status of Jesus and his family, nor their Galilean origins, stand contrary to the idea. All our evidence points to Jerusalem as the center of the Jesus movement after his death, with James and the family taking up permanent residence there. The tomb itself is small and very modest, quite plain, as are most of the ossuaries, and it is away from the city on the road to Bethlehem. My understanding of the Nazarene movement, as it began to thrive in the 40s through 60s CE, is that one would expect, rather than doubt, that the inner family wouldreceive such an honored and traditional burial somewhere in Jerusalem. If, as seems likely, Jesus’ body was taken from the temporary rock hewn tomb used for emergency purposes the Passover weekend he died, and he was subsequently moved to a permanent place of honorable burial, a tomb like this one in east Talpiot makes sense. One would expect then, as other intimate family members died, they would have likewise been placed in the same small tomb. Our earliest Gospel, Mark, knows of no “resurrection appearances,” and many scholars see his proclamation that the disciples will “see him in Galilee” as a reference to a “second coming” or Parousia. Some have scoffed at the very possibility of “finding the tomb of Jesus” as sensational and ridiculous nonsense. It is much like someone claiming to have found the “ark of the covenant” or any other Indiana Jones type nonsense. My view is that regardless of films, books, or hype, the tomb is a material reality that is worthy of full academic discusison [sic].
____________________

Here is Jim Tabor's response to my earlier post today. I simply post it below as is. The numbered paragraphs are mine. His response is below.

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(1) Tabor still insists that ossuary no. 10 is "missing, described as plain." As all the reports of those involved have indicated, this ossuary is not missing. It was catalogued, noted and described in the original offical reports (as Rhamani's catalogue and Kloner's article shows), and treated as all such plain ossuaries were: set aside with all such plain ossuaries, since it had nothing of special value to note. In fact, I saw Kloner's original notes on this when I was in israel. He showed them to me. It is this kind of "fudging" with the facts (or at least not noting key details tied to the find) that have left many others so frsutrated with how the documentary has presented its case.

Jim Tabor, the biblical scholar and historical consultant on the Lost Family Tomb Documentary and Professor at the University of North Carolina (Charlotte), and I have been emaling back and forth privately about the evidence for the last few weeks. Today he emailed me his currect take on the evidence for the tomb belonging to Jesus' family which he has posted on his web site.

I note the URL, as the text is full and is best read in context.

François Bovon of Harvard has spoken out on the Society of Biblical Literature web site on his role in the special. It is a pretty straightforward account of what took place and how he sees the discussion:

Here it is:

"As I was interviewed for the Discovery Channel's program The Lost Tomb of Jesus, I would like to express my opinion here.

"First, I have now seen the program and am not convinced of its main thesis. When I was questioned by Simcha Jacobovici and his team the questions were directed toward the Acts of Philip and the role of Mariamne in this text. I was not informed of the whole program and the orientation of the script.

This post is thanks to a tip from Danny Zecharias and his blog that has a response from Craig Evans (http://www.deinde.org/story/2007/3/2/203419/9162). This URL has the entire article.

In this part of the blog, Evans discusses the Chevron, reinforcing our earlier post today.

It goes:

"And finally, there are no Christian markings or inscriptions in the Talpiot Tomb. Moreover, there is no indication that this tomb was ever venerated or visited by pilgrims (e.g., in contrast to the "House of Peter" in Capernaum). Absence of such evidence argues against identifying the Talpiot Tomb as the Tomb of the Family of Jesus. In the documentary much is made over the chevron (or upside down V), beneath which appears a circle. It is suggested that this is an early Jewish Christian symbol. However, this design appears to reflect the circles (probably handles) that appear on the ends of several ossuaries. Many of these ossuaries have gabled lids. When viewed from the end one sees a chevron above a circle (see Rahmani, nos. 251, 408, 473, 596, 597 especially; there are other examples). R. Kirk Kilpatrick has called our attention to the chevron-circle pattern and the Jerusalem temple, depicted on coinage, as in the example below [Place URL in your browser for image of the coin]:
http://bp1.blogger.com/_O3dXyVqV9Mo/Rex5TL_PrtI/AAAAAAAAAAk/-nB-u9EHWTw/s320/coin_philip_bm.jpg"

We have said little about the "chevron," th epart triangle witht he circule underneath that the Special claimed was a secret symbol.

Now Joe Zias, at www.joezias.com, has come forward ot note what this symbol is.

Here is what he says. SJ is the filmmaker The BAR crowd is how he links those who did this speicla with those who broke the James ossucary story:

"THOSE UNUSUAL SYMBOLS- Quadruplicity vs duplicity. According to SJ the symbol on the tomb façade is used astrologically to represent something called quadruplicity, or the quality of cardinality. I would argue that its more in the realm of duplicity. This is where the media hype goes totally out of control, seems the BAR Crowd had been reading too much Da Vinci Code. If there is anything which suggests deliberate manipulation of the data it is here. For example, in the film, one of the main ‘experts’ from the BAR Crowd suddenly discovers on camera the fact that a inverted V is scratched on an ossuary as if it has some deep hidden mystical meaning. Had the ‘expert’ read the catalogue of LY Rahmani (pg.19) on ossuaries, he would have seen that 40 % of ossuaries have markings! In fact, this deliberate attempt to fool the public reaches a new height when SJ then goes to the Jewish tombs of Dominus Flavit and proclaims that those ossuaries discovered decades ago with X’s scratched on the lid and body, are ancient Judeo-Christian symbols. Scholars have known for decades that those X’s and cross like markings on ossuaries mean one thing and one thing only, the sliding lid goes this way! Reverse the lid and it will not fit. Duh…so much for Judeo-Christian symbols, a fact that all of them should have known, particularly the BAR Crowd, seems it didn’t go well with their agenda.

Here is a full email from Joseph Zias, one of those who worked on this tomb about the 10th tomb.

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"
If there is one thing that angers academics here in Jerusalem, directly connected to the story, it is how Cameron and the BAR crowd have willfully manipulated data in a most dishonest and cynical way to sell the their film, book as well as the book called The Jesus Dynasty upon which much of the story is based.
One can see this manipulation and deliberate deception in the following posting by someone from Toronto (surprised ?) supporting the premise of the film and the books. He writes as follows when questioned about the film:

I am now back in Dallas. Things appear to be settling down on the tomb front. No real new information or responses to report.

The process of public vetting seems to be playing itself out. We are in a time when such disclosures directly to the public mean that the public will have to allow the public vetting process to take place before embracing or rejecting such directly made claims. What iis so interesting about this particular example is the near unanimity that this claim has little substance to it, given that there are so many points in the linkage to get to the conclusion that are suspect.

Independent interviews are starting to come in now. Two of the most important involve Shimon Gibson and Joe Zias on the Vision media site.

Both worked on ossiaries for the Israeli Antiquities Authority and with the team of Amos Kloner.

You can check out their latest take at:

http://www.vision.org/visionmedia/blog.aspx?id=2492
\

The two key elements in play in these interviews involve the fact that multiple people could be in a single adult ossuary and that extended family could be found in such a tomb. This complicates the DNA testing because one can't know whose DNA is being tested. So these are significant observations.

Richard Bauckham has just sent me notice that he will be posting information on tying names to literary figures. This will appear soon on Chris Tilling's blog (http://www.christilling.de/blog/ctblog.html).

This is a helpful treatment and he notes the best cases for solid indentification so far. Here is a key section of it:

_________
. In my judgment the list below is of the ones for which there is a good case. I have given references (pages in E or H) to useful discussions in these books: Craig E Evans, Jesus and the Ossuaries (Baylor University Press, 2003); Rachel Hachlili, Jewish Funerary Customs, Practices and Rites in the Second Temple Period (Brill, 2005). The latter, by the way, is a very informative work that I have not seen referred to in this debate; it has much more about tombs, ossuaries and inscriptions than the title might suggest (but frustratingly lacks proper indices).

I am now in Chicago. The audio interviews we discussed with Stephen Pfann and Amos Kloner are now up and running.

These interviews were conducted becuase those interviewed wanted to set the record straight about the "Jesus Tomb" documentary. It is full of observations and also shows where some scholars legitimately engage each other with some distinction of opinion. One thing they agree on is that this tomb is not as significant as the documentary claimed.

Beware the Ides of March! I depart Israel having had a wonderful time at Ben Gurion University, where the lectures on the Missing Gospels were well recieved and many of the Israeli listeners made comparisons to issues dealing with orality and tradition in the Old Testament. It was a great time of interaction and I thank the Department of Bible, Archaeology, and Ancient Near East and the Deichmann Lectureship program for being such warm hosts. Tal, Anna, Kana, Zipi, and Roland all deserve special thanks. Keep up the good work and study. My thanks also to Stephen and Claire Pfann, Amos Kloner and Tal Ilan, for agreeing to be interviewed. Finally, thanks to Stephen Bramer, colleague and trusted guide for my first trip to Israel.

Dr. Stephen Pfann, whose audio taped interview can be found here, is arguing the Mariamne inscription has been misread. Here are parts of the story.

JERUSALEM (AP) - A prominent scholar looking into the factual basis of a popular but widely criticized documentary film that claims to have located the tomb of Jesus said Tuesday that a crucial piece of evidence filmmakers used to support their claim is a mistake.
Enlarge this Image
Jesus Family Tomb
(Photo: AP / Kathy Willens)
Investigative journalist, director, producer and writer Simcha Jacobovici, left, points to an ossurary - a small casket to store bones -- he and others say may have once held the remains of Mary Magdalene, beside another that may have held the remains of Jesus of Nazareth, right, during a news conference in New York, Monday, Feb. 26, 2007.