Hi Hip- Hooray for Cameron - man that really brought out the Jesus freaks LOL - That discovery also formed the basis of Kathy Reichs' last book Cross Bones. It's a fascinating discovery and if the DNA evidence can prove the expected familial relationships between all the remains, then that combined with a statistical analysis of the probability of all those names being in the correct sequence and all in the same family should provide the clearest proof yet of the silliness of Christianity.

Thanks for the reminder. I haven't read any Reich recently.

That Jim Zumbo business is truly fascinating... I never realized that gun owners came in such disparate flavors: skeet and trap, target shooters (of many different kinds), historical re-enactors, hunters (trophy and meat -- big difference), and finally, the one that the media mostly covers: the poor white trash Rambo-wanna-be, Soldier Of Fortune-reading, bona-fide gun-nut.

the NRA has a lot of power. But the story above about the hunter highlights 2 things: (1) how afraid the NRA and gun manufacturers are about people noticing that you dont need high scope rifles that can shoot a mile for hunting a deer and (2) that large companies like Time Warner are not beyond the scope of control off the NRA.

one thing I also wanted to add, I think its interesting that the NRA managed to push past congress and pass a bill that prohibits suing gun manufacturers in tort. As far as I know its the only business to have such an exception. All other manufacturers have to pay for the social costs they create as a result of their product defects and improper use.

"the clearest proof yet of the silliness of Christianity."

If "The Lost Tomb of Christ" presents the most damning evidence yet against Christianity, then the critics of the Christian narrative are much worse off than I thought. The 'discovery' is at least ten years old, and was immediately criticized by archeologists as soon as it was brought to light.

The documentary also commits the same fallacy that many Christian devotional "archeologists" do. For these Christians, the remains of any first century boat around the Sea of Galilee must be from Peter's fishing boat! Any 1st century cup from Jerusalem must be the Holy Grail! And for Cameron, apparently any first century tomb bearing the name 'Jesus' must have the remains of the alleged savior.

If Christianity is a fraud, then it was a fraud from the beginning. The empty tomb was not in doubt--what was in doubt was whether the disciples stole the body in an effort to perpetuate a fraud, or whether Jesus rose from the grave and walked out. Yet Cameron expects us to believe that the disciples simply left the body in a tomb clearly marked "Jesus". Just like the Da Vinci code, Cameron wants to rely on tradition as evidence for the existence of various characters in his story--e.g. Mary Magadalene: there is no independent archeological evidence such a person existed--but then show us some old bones to re-tell the story in the way he likes.

Thanks Dende for bringing that up. If this is the same little mortuary box that came to light about a decade ago then it is much ado about nothing at all.

That box, which was much talked about in Christian circles at the time, as proof for the existence of Jesus. There were a number of problems with that stone box, including serious problems with the info carved on the box being carved by at least two, possibly three carvers, working at different dates.

It proved to be an embarrassment for all concerned. However, I am not sure this is the same box and find being discussed here. So you may be right and wrong at the same time. As I recall, it was originally purported to be the burial place of James, the supposed brother of Jesus.

I'm not sure this is the same find. I must dig into this a bit. Thanks for bringing it up Dende.

Hi Thomas, were you refering to this mortuary box?

Israelis Say Burial Box of Jesus' Brother Is Fake, 19 Jun 03

By GREG MYRE www.nytimes.com/2003/06/19/international/middleeast/19ISRA.html

JERUSALEM, June 19 — Israel's archaeological experts declared today that an ancient limestone burial box, which bears an inscription suggesting it held the remains of Jesus' brother James, is a modern forgery. When the existence of the burial box, or ossuary, was announced in October, it stirred great excitement as potentially the earliest historical artifact linked to Jesus. But Israel's Antiquities Authority said it had found overwhelming evidence that the inscription on the box was a fake produced in modern times. "The bottom line is that every single scholar who examined this came to the conclusion that the inscription was not authentic," said Dr. Gideon Avni, director of excavations and surveys for the Antiquities Authority. "It was done recently by a very skillful artist." The authority also said a small stone tablet, purported to be from the ninth century B.C. and containing Hebrew-language instructions on maintaining the First Jewish Temple in Jerusalem, was also a fake. The tablet had linguistic mistakes and Hebrew words of modern origin that could not have been used at the time, the authority said. An Israeli collector, Oded Golan, had possession of both items, and had tried to sell the tablet for $2 million, said Shuka Dorfman, head of the Antiquities Authority. Mr. Golan rejected the findings. "I am certain that the committee is wrong regarding its conclusions," he was quoted as saying by The Associated Press. The police have been investigating the case with the help of the Antiquities Authority, but no arrests have been made. The 20-inch-long ossuary, common in Jewish burial ceremonies in the first centuries B.C. and A.D., has an inscription in Aramaic reading, "James, son of Joseph, brother of Jesus." The New Testament on several occasions says Jesus had a brother named James, who became a leader of a Christian group in Jerusalem after the crucifixion of Jesus. James was executed by stoning in A.D. 63, according to the first-century Jewish historian Flavius Josephus. The scholars concluded that the ossuary was an original dating back 2,000 years, but that the inscription on it was much more recent, though they could not pinpoint the date. The inscription had been partly filled in with dirt, carbon and small flecks of gold in an attempt to make it look ancient, the officials said. Also, the latter part of the inscription, which refers to Jesus, is in a separate style of writing, the Antiquities Authority said. Scholars have been debating the authenticity since the ossuary became public last October, and some leading experts said they believed that it was genuine. Mr. Golan said he had bought the ossuary from an antiquities dealer in Jerusalem's Old City in the mid-1970's, but did not know the name of the seller or the place where it had been excavated.