Let’s question the “common-sense” double-standard.
Folks, I was reading this article published today in Time Magazine online, entitled, The Burial Box of Jesus' Brother: A Case Against Fraud, because the controversy has been around for a while and of course, because of the significance of the artifact were the claims to its authenticity be proven beyond reasonable doubt. Nevertheless, the introductory paragraph disappointed me, although I am already used to this case of disappointment coming from the so-called mainstream experts. Check it out:
The world of biblical archaeology was stirred in 2002 by the unveiling of a limestone burial box with the Aramaic inscription Yaakov bar Yosef akhui di Yeshua ("James, son of Joseph, brother of Jesus"). Allegedly dating to an era contemporaneous with Christ, the names were a tantalizing collation of potentially great significance: James was indeed the name of a New Testament personage known as the brother of Jesus, both ostensibly the sons of Joseph the carpenter, husband of Mary. If its dates were genuine, the burial box — or ossuary — could well be circumstantial evidence for the existence of Jesus of Nazareth, a tenet supported only by gospels and scripture written, at the earliest, a generation after his crucifixion and, of course, by the faith of hundreds of millions through 2,000 years.
What are the unspoken assumptions here? One, that the New Testament is not a reliable source to prove the objective historicity of Jesus of Nazareth and two, that all we have is that meager evidence supplemented by the ultimately insubstantial faith of millions. Hence, the need for external evidence such as this ossuary to substantiate – or not – the story.
Those who cling to these assumptions probably willfully or unwittingly ignore the fact that, if they were to apply the same standard of suspicion and doubt other documents received from antiquity and recognized as recording true history, they would not stand either. The following table illustrates and compares the antiquity and amount of New Testament manuscripts with that of other documents from antiquity commonly accepted as “historical.” Particular attention is paid to the time elapsed between the historical facts they record to the time they were set in writing (Source: The New Evidence That Demands A Verdict 
AUTHOR | BOOK | DATE WRITTEN | EARLIEST COPIES | TIME GAP IN YEARS | NO. OF COPIES |
Homer | The Iliad | 800 BC | c. 400 BC | c. 400 | 643 |
Herodotus | History | 480-425 BC | c. AD 900 | c. 1,350 | 8 |
Thucydides | History | 460-400 BC | c. AD 900 | c. 1,300 | 8 |
Plato | Complete Works | 400 BC | c. AD 900 | c. 1,300 | 7 |
Demosthenes | Complete Works | 300 BC | c. AD 1100 | c. 1,400 | 200 |
Caesar | Gallic Wars | 100-44 BC | c. AD 900 | c. 1,000 | 10 |
Livy | History of Rome | 59BC-AD 17 | 4th century (partial) mostly 10th century | c. 400-1,000 | 1 partial |
Tacitus | Annals | AD 100 | c. AD 1100 | 1,000 | 20 |
Pliny the Younger | Natural History | AD 61-113 | c. AD 850 | c. 750 | 7 |
New Testament | 27 books and letters | AD 50-100 | c. 114 (fragment) | +50 | 5,366 |
You will not see any time soon Time Magazine’s “experts” denying wholesale the historicity of Herodotus, Thucydides, Plato, et al and begging for some outside artifact substantiating the meager manuscript evidence and the sustained “faith” of some hundreds of classical scholars. To push it further, you won’t find any Time Magazine or for that matter, any reporter for any major publication who would dare explore the literary dependence of the Koran to ancient Syriac Christian lectionaries, it’s just not safe to do so. Nope, they hold a double standard, one for the New Testament, and one from everything else.
Folks, we don’t need the so-called James Ossuary to be “the real thing” in order to have a rational, historical basis for our faith. We already have plenty, thank you very much Mr. Kalman of Time Magazine. We have plenty of reliable literary evidence.
- Read also On the patristic witness to the integrity of the New Testament, the next post on this mini-series.
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14 comments:
We don't need evidence of the truth in our faith, but where is the faith in the truth?
Thousands of politicians flaunt their sin in the face of the church and it is silent while millions wait for the leadership to actually enforce the truth in regards to communion and excommunication.
So the Lay people will have to police the church because as it has been shown before, through the molestation issues and more, it may know the truth, but it cares not live by it anymore than the others that say one thing but do another.
Great article, perhaps it will be a starting point for the sluggish and apathetic.
I am certain the main thrust of asserting the historical reliability of the James Ossuary is to discredit the perpetual virginity of Mary.
Nicely put. I'm sure that the table of authors, texts and dates will be quite useful to me. Thank you.
Even though the oldest historical evidence of Christ is the New Testament, for most of the others the oldest historical evidence about them does not come from a book written by the person in question. It's a bit of a stretch to claim that Julius Caesar is best attested in history as an author, The Roman Empire was littered with monuments to him and documents about him which are at least as proximate to him in time as the New Testament was to Christ.
For that matter, of course, although the New Testament is inspired by the Third Person of the Holy Trinity, it was not written by the Second Person, but by the Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Paul, Peter, etc. The only writing by Jesus we know of is that He wrote in the sand when the woman caught in adultery was brought before Him. You are holding these other figures to a much more rigorous standard, one which completely discounts the historical evidence for those people who did not write books.
No: the best "historical" evidence for the reality of Jesus is the fact that the enemies of Christianity called Him a criminal or a fraud or a magician, but they never simply denied that He existed.
Hi Howard, first, thank you for your comments. I'm with you here and what I want to say about these words should not be miscontrued as an all-out disagreement, but simply as a different perspective.
It's a bit of a stretch to claim that Julius Caesar is best attested in history as an author, The Roman Empire was littered with monuments to him and documents about him which are at least as proximate to him in time as the New Testament was to Christ.
The table I present here does little justice to the underlying argument: that in order for us such a huge amount of very early manuscripts, we need to posit that the texts upon which these manuscripts are based had been in circulation far and wide before they were first placed into collections. What the table summarizes is in fact these first efforts at collecting the "Christ-event."
Also consider this, please: most of the books and letters of the New Testament were born within a society and a culture that was very reticent to represent any human figure in paint or in sculpture for fear of breaking the first commandment. What was left to them was the preaching of the oral Word and the recording of this Word in written form. This profusion of manuscripts are, in effect, the equivalent of thousands of near-contemporary sculptures of the face of our Lord, closer to their subject than what other uncontested manuscripts are to theirs.
You are right, of course, when you say that the best evidence "for the reality of Jesus is the fact that the enemies of Christianity called Him a criminal or a fraud or a magician, but they never simply denied that He existed." I may argue this very point in a future post. Thank you!
-Theo
The so-called archeologist added on "brother of Jesus" to the artifact, esssentially ruining it. Why ANYONE would ruin a valuable artifact is beyond me.
Learn more here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Ossuary#Brother_of_Jesus
Like I keep telling my fellow Catholics: "Quit going bonkers over this. It's false evidence. Just point out the fact that he added 'brother of Jesus' to the artifact and show the evidence."
The James ossuary is a fake. The box is old, but the brother of Jesus part is a modern addition. This was demonstrated in 2003. I don't know why this nonsense is coming up again.
Theo, I hate to butt in on this serious conversation, but I just hate it when I'm ignorant. What is that flag waving on your sidebar?
Penny
The Holy See's (the Vatican's).
I think Liam got it right that "the main thrust of asserting the historical reliability of the James Ossuary is to discredit the perpetual virginity of Mary". The scripture tells us that Jesus was buried wrapped in a linen cloth and not in a box. So, the discovery for me is not reliable. Another thing to note is that Teofilo, is against any external source in studying the bible. Even if silence reigns on the historical nature of those ancient scripts, it does not diminish the fact that the bible does not enjoy the modern quality of history however, it merits it judging by the standard of the time of its writing. Even today, no history exists in a chemically pure state. It is always a reflection on past events at the backdrop of cause and effect and vision of the future. No history is therefore free from prejudice. In studying any historical work, scholarship demands that we move beyond the text at hand. The bible is not an exception. Extra biblical materials are invaluable sources in biblical study and exegesis.
I also tell Panzer that we need not only faith in the truth but also the truth in the faith. Our faith demands both practical and intellectual justification. Teofilo is right in defending his faith. However, I think that he accentuated the secondary though important and left the primary and essetial.
Stanley Ekwugha.
Thank you, Stanley for your comments.
But the ossuary discussed here allegedly belongs to James, not to Jesus. You are confusing it with that other one popularized by Simcha "The Naked Archeologist" Jacobovici and James Cameron a while back. Two different things.
An ossuary should not be confused with a casket either. First century Jewish burial practice - for the wealthy, that is - consisted of allowing the body to decay naturally on a stone "table" and then collecting the remaining bones into an ossuary. Had Jesus not risen, this is what would have awaited his remains, which was precisely Jacobovici's and Cameron's thesis. But again, this is to be distinguished from the alleged James' Ossuary described here.
What Liam is that the words "James, son of Joseph, brother of Jesus" are meant to discredit the Blessed Mother's perpetual virginity by reading the inscription to imply that James was a son of Joseph and of Mary. Then again, that's arguing from silence. If the inscription were authentic, all it says is that James is a son of Joseph, not of Mary.
Of all people, Anne Rice worked out a plausible scenario to this in her two novels on Christ, Out of Egypt and The Wedding at Cana. Considering the mortality rate of women giving birth in those times, is perfectly plausible that Joseph may have been married before and then widowed before he married the Blessed Mother. In this case, James would have been Jesus' blood brother through and through. There's nothing wrong to speculate in this way. It robs nothing from the dignity of St. Joseph or from the Blessed Mother's.
-Theo
As you mention, the Apostolic Fathers are an excellent witness. The 1st c. Didache corroborates Gospel passages. Moreover, if you took all the Scriptural citations from the 2nd c. Fathers (especially St. Irenaeus) you'd have a very significant portion of the New Testament.
Your comment on the Koran is also dead on. Also, isn't it interesting that Koran means "recite" and not "book" or "writings" (kitab).
Finally, how come no one ever points out that Buddhism's text are written 100's of years after Buddha, who incidentally never claimed divine inspiration?
Of course, the main difference between the New Testament authors and the other authors that you reference is that none of the others (except Homer which is understood to be a myth) claimed to be telling the story of supernatural beings. The more ridiculous the claims of the authors, the more reason historians have to be skeptical. And, let's face it, the NT is full of ridiculous claims.
Of course, the main difference between the New Testament authors and the other authors that you reference is that none of the others (except Homer which is understood to be a myth) claimed to be telling the story of supernatural beings. The more ridiculous the claims of the authors, the more reason historians have to be skeptical. And, let's face it, the NT is full of ridiculous claims
Really? Haven't read much of Plato, eh? Anyway...
If you're a convinced materialist, you will biased against the historicity of the New Testament and will feel very comfortable dismissing it as "ridiculous" - which means, "laughable." But if you were a less-biased historian, you would have to consider the NT history as something to be given serious consideration.
In my years of talking to haughty skeptics I have discovered that their rejection of the New Testament's veracity has little to do with any concern to ascertain its "ground truth," but out of a morbid fear of the consequences, particularly the moral consequences, of the events narrated in the NT were these to be considered reasonable and true. In my experience, contemplating the consequences is too much for the skeptic, who feels much cozier and secure embracing unbelief and skepticism than answering honestly the question once posed by Christ "Who do men say I am"?
Such conversations are always circular. I don't bother with them any longer but you, of course, are welcome to your opinion and to express it here. Thanks!
-Theo
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