Sunday, January 20, 2008

JAMES TABOR was at the Princeton symposium on the Talpiot tomb and he has a report up on his Jesus Dynasty blog here, here and here. Excerpt:
There was no official “conclusion” made by the participants, nor were any polls taken, other than the agreement at the end that there should be further examination of the tomb itself in the future. My sense is that a few would say this tomb can not be the tomb of Jesus, but that the vast majority would say that although it might be possible, there is no compelling evidence, given what we now know or possibly can know, and for some, there is evidence pointing against such an identification. Since there are no bone reports, or apparently, the possibility of full DNA testing, we seem left with what we have. A very few of those who think it might be possible would go on to say it has a probability of being the Jesus family tomb. Still, to be fair here, of those who are not convinced, I would say most find the evidence in favor to be flimsy at best. Language here can be tricky of course. For example, Shimon Gibson said at the conclusion of the conference that based on all the evidence he “does not think this is the Jesus tomb,” but that should not be taken to mean he would say it is impossible, which I have never heard him say. He simply, like most, does not find the evidence compelling enough to move to the “probably” side of things.
For my part, things that "might be possible" (of which there are all too many) are much less interesting to me than things that are supported by the balance of evidence. That said, I fully agree that further work on the tomb as well as on any nearby tombs is worth carrying out. We're bound to learn something interesting.