Jordan demands that Israel return ‘stolen artifacts’

***COMMANDER*** · 04-04-11, 12:58 PM

Experts divided on whether "ancient Christian" codices are authentic or fake; Jordanians say artifacts rival importance of Dead Sea Scrolls.

Britain’s Daily Telegraph reported that carbon dating showed a piece of leather found with the books to be just under 2,000 years old, placing it in the same time period in which Jesus is believed to have lived. An examination of the metal slabs showed them to be very old as well, the Telegraph reported.

“As soon as I saw that, I was dumbstruck. That struck me as so obviously a Christian image,” Davies said. “There is a cross in the foreground, and behind it is what has to be the tomb [of Jesus], a small building with an opening, and behind that the walls of the city. There are walls depicted on other pages of these books, too, and they almost certainly refer to Jerusalem.”

You should read the entire article, if you know anything about the dead sea scrolls, or want to learn. If it is authentic, it is probably one of the most historical finds ever.

**shoi** · 04-04-11, 01:14 PM

probably fake

The only possible explanation is that the text on the bronze tablet was copied directly from the inscription in the museum at Amman by someone who did not understand the meaning of the text of the inscription, but was simply looking for a plausible-looking sequence of Greek letters to copy. He copied that sequence three times, in each case mixing up the letters alpha and lambda.

This particular bronze tablet is, therefore, a modern forgery, produced in Jordan within the last fifty years. I would stake my career on it.

Peter Thonemann on the Lead Codices « Daniel O. McClellan
Peter Thonemann

too bad, history interests me