|
|
 When this guy Simca Popolopowiotz (what I've called him) popped up as the director of The Lost Tomb of Jesus,
merry-go-round music played in my head. This guy has been a
regular on Discovery Channel for the past few months, and I've watched
most every episode as he trudges through the ancient world looking for
truth, or something. At some point - I wasn't looking for
anything - at some point I saw a pattern to each of his
adventures. The underlying theme seemed to be discrediting
stories surrounding Jesus Christ. That's not unusual, but this
guy was slick enough that I took him at face value ... some Jewish guy
interested in history, until ... .
The Jewish historian Josephus is THE historical source for that period of time. His published work Antiquities of the Jews contains a passage know as Testimonium Flavianum.
That passage is one of about two references to the historical Jesus
anywhere, and Josephus describes him as the 'Christ.'
When Simca got around to Josephus, and this particular passage, he was
hyper, and found an even more hyper Jewish scholar to call the passage
a forgery, perpetrated by Christians (The passage came under
attack around the 18th century).
I'm not pronouncing one way or another on the legitimacy of Testimonium Flavianum, but Simca's reaction to it was strong enough that I began to doubt his motives. I think my instincts were right.
At any rate, the NBC news story pretty much spells out where this story
is headed. Simca's credibility as an archaeologist is kaput, and
James Cameron (''I'm not trying to undermine Christianity, just the opposite'') is just another Hollywood dickweed in a jungle full of dickweeds
|
By the by - here's some relevant statistics.
|
|
Out of a total number
of 2625 males, these are the figures for the ten most popular male
names among Palestinian Jews. the first figure is the total number of
occurrences (from this number, with 2625 as the total for all names,
you could calculate percentages), while the second is the number of
occurrences specifically on ossuraies.
MEN
|
WOMEN
|
1 Simon/Simeon 243 59
2 Joseph 218 45
3 Eleazar 166 29
4 Judah 164 44
5 John/Yohanan 122 25
6 Jesus 99 22
7 Hananiah 82 18
8 Jonathan 71 14
9 Matthew 62 17
10 Manaen/Menahem 42 4 | Mary/Mariamne 70 42
Salome 58 41
Shelamzion 24 19
Martha 20 17 |
(Source - THE JESUS TOMB? ‘TITANIC’ TALPIOT TOMB THEORY SUNK FROM THE START)
|
|