Saturday, April 21, 2012

Jesus Discovery/Talpiot Tombs latest

ANOTHER ROUNDUP from James McGrath just about covers the latest Talpiot Tombs/"Jonah inscription" developments: From the Talpiot Tomb to the Blogosphere.

In brief: James Tabor has posted a photo that he thinks proves the nun is a single line. No specific response to my challenge to provide contemporary analogues to the letters (and, I should add, to the layout/baseline). Antonio Lombatti surveyed nine professional epigraphers: one sees YONAH, one sees letters, the others are unconvinced that there are letters there at all. Another epigrapher, Ed Cook, thinks there may be letters, but they don't spell YONAH. Possibly YUDAH ("Judah"). MSNBC has picked up the story and is having it both ways. April DeConick is currently leaning toward accepting Tabor's conclusions.

I can add this morning that Fox News has run with the LiveScience coverage of the press release from the University of North Carolina.

I should underline again that all this blogging and press releasing and media coverage is fun, but the real work is the presentation of the theories in a form fit for peer review publication and then the actual publication. That is where developments in the field happen.

Background here and links.