Tabor Responds to My Earlier March 24 Entry – March 24
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.
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.
Darrell, permit me a few comments. There is no fudging with the facts on my part, in fact, I have presented more of the facts, through a thorough analysis of the original dig reports, than anyone I know of, see my detailed and fully documented Blog entry: http://jesusdynasty.com/blog/2007/03/21/passover-1980/ for a summary of my findings, based on Gath’s original excavation notes and his report. My intentions are to get to the truth about these matters, just as I think yours are. What Kloner’s original notes tell us are two data: the dimensions and the one word "plain." That is it. What Kloner used to write his report was Gath’s notes. Rahmani’s catalogue does not list the 10th "missing" ossuary, and Kloner’s article offers what he knows–the two data. The IAA inventory sheet lists nine not ten ossuaries. Zias told me, contrary to his present memory, that you have quoted on your Blog, that he had no recollection of what happened to the 10th and he offered three possibilities, that it was broken and discarded, put out in the courtyard behind the Rockefeller, or just that it is misplaced and lost in the warehouse. Zias never noticed or focused on these ossuaries until 1996 when he, with the BBC crew, on camera, is as surprised as they are at the interesting cluster of names. In fact, he says, on camera, "these are so significant that were they not from a documented excavation I would assume they were forgeries." I have to disagree with you that I am ignoring key facts or details and I think if you read my entry cited above you will find more details about the week of the excavation than you can obtain anywhere else.
(2) There also is the note that this is the only tomb where we have found a Yeshua son of Joseph inscription. This also is playing with the edges of the facts. Only is a very technical sense is this accurate, and what is left out is important. In Rahmani’s catalogue, ossuary 9 has "Yeshu, son of Yehosef" (where Yeshu is a clear contraction for Yeshua as Rhamani notes because the full name Yeshua appears elsewhere on the ossuary). So the find is not as unprecedented as Tabor suggests. The selective use of names and their contractions, along with the failure to mention clearly related details in describing pieces of the evidence, is another feature of the discussion that is frustrating to many scholars.
I mention the other Jesus son of Joseph ossuary often, on my Blog, in my book, so you know I am making no attempt in any way to play on the edges of the facts. If you look at what I said I was talking about the inscription "Jesus son of Joseph" occurring in a cluster of names, which we could compare, analyze and perhaps do some statistical analysis of, and as I go on to show, names that fit amazingly well with the pre-70 AD intimate family of Jesus. Unfortuantely, we don’t have that with the Sukenik ossuary. I dearly wish we did. My guess is that the names clustered in the tomb from which that ossuary came would have no correspondence whatsoever to these, judging from the stats, but we will unfortunately never know. I challenge you to page through Rahmani (I think you said you had ordered it), page after page, and you will not find anything even close to this cluster of names, with or without a Yeshua inscription. The same is the case for the many family tombs that Rachel Hachlili surveys in her monumental study, Jewish Funerary Customs. There is nothing even close. I simply do not think your characterization of of me is correct here. We have not found all the tombs or all the names, of course, but you know, when you have opened about 1000 tombs at random, from a tight chronological period, statistically speaking it is a pretty good indication of the kinds of things one might find in the others.
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My comments: The dispute over the Rahmani’s catalogue rotates around the sentence that introduces the entire East Talpiot find under 701 that says that the Department retained nine ossuaries. The language does indicate there were more found or else why mention retention (versus found). The IAA list of nine ossuaries reflects this fact about retention. Note that Rhamani’s catalogue (1994) predates the 1996 BBC special. No one disputes the cluster of names here is unusual; the debate is over what its significance is, given how common all the names are (and the questions over whether the name identifications fit and related name repetitions allow one to calculate the numbers as the special has claimed. Obviously, these are two of the key issues in the discussion). Finally. the observation that all Kloner’s notes tell us is the dimensions and the description as "plain" is not all that is significant with this piece of information. By indicating the plain nature of that tenth ossuary, we have explained why it was not "retained." The fact that Kloner and Zias have spoken to this is consistent with the data we have (I am not in a position to sort out what to say about whether Zias has changed his story). Tabor showed me the J. Gath report he alludes to at the taping of the Koppel special (Gath is no longer alive). This report was why I asked Kloner about this ossuary and the dimensions in my oral interview with him in the attempt to sort this out.
