"A firestorm has broken out in Jerusalem following the conclusion of the [Symposium]. Most negative assessments of archaeologists and other scientists and scholars who attended have been excluded from the final press reports. Instead the media have presented the views of Simcha Jacobovici, who produced the controversial film and book The Lost Tomb of Jesus with Hollywood director James Cameron, and who claims that his identification has been vindicated by the conference papers. Nothing further from the truth can be deduced from the discussion and presentations that took place on January 13-17, 2008."

Dr White: I would gladly receive a copy of your book. And I do very much welcome a debate of the evidence (as opposed to some of your original blog postings equating our team to being in league with the antichrist - - and I agree with you, in fact, that anyone who compares his or her DNA to the DNA of "Jesus, son of Joseph" is embarking upon, at best, a foolish adventure).

Francois Bovon and other scholars are still debating the time and place of origin, with regard to certain textural strands that went into the Acts of Philip - and into the canonical Gospels, for that matter.

It is inaccurate to say that if I disagree with Bovon on interpretation of a piece of evidence, that I negate him, or he negates me. This is simply part of the usual scientific discourse, based always on doubt. What's unusual here, is that the points and counter-points are being debated in a fish bowl, with the press looking on and with people of either religious or anti-religious agendas cherry-picking quotes from scientific discourse. The same exact thing is happening with the NASA-ESA Cassini mission to Saturn and its moons.

Away from analogy, and back to ancient texts: My work at Herculaneum and at other extraordinarily well preserved first century AD Roman sites yields the overwhelming impression that people were not living under our usual "Dark Age" assumption of widespread illiteracy. In Herculaneum, even slaves were quite often educated. Being able to read and write appears to have been more rule, than exception. This would probably have been even more so in Jewish communities. From Pompeii's Number 11 House, we even have prayers, dating to AD 79 or earlier, and praising "Maria," the mother of Jesus.

Dr White: I have already addressed the Bovon point above, under Item 2, in my initial post in this review thread, dated 27 April, 2007, and again in the second paragraph of my 28 April post. As you may already know, this tomb is a subject bound to be under investigation for decades to come: Acquaintances in the Catholic Church (and, for the record, a Franciscan and a Jesuit are on my list of the top 20 most brilliant minds I have known) - have reversed their initial condemnation of the Tomb project, and say that there is information here meriting further inquiry; and the Israel Antiquities Authority is organizing a major scientific symposium devoted entirely to the Talpiot Tomb.

In this debate, however, Bovon has never "backtracked" on his interpretation that "Mariamne," the sister of the apostle Philip, is, in the Acts of Philip, the Mary Magdalene known from the New Testament and from other early Christian traditions.

As I have said, Francois Bovon disagrees, on the basis of legitimate scientific skepticism, with the Mariamne-"Magdalene" of the Talpiot Tomb being the Mary Magdalene known from the Christian Bible. As for the question of a Mary named "Mariamne," Dr. Bovon has said, of the woman apostle described in the Acts of Philip and even in Church history (Hippolytus, Refutations 5.2): "And this apostle, Mariamne, is attested to in ancient Christianity as a Greek formulation for Mary Magdalene."

Professor Bovon has not backtracked on the identification of Mariamne-as-Magdalene in the Acts of Philip (see also Hippolytis' Refutations 5:2 - 2nd century text identifying Mariamne as the woman who took charge of Jesus' "discourses" [secret knowledge] about the time of the death of James the brother of Jesus). As I have said, Dr. Bovon and I are of differing opinions (based on interpretations of the same evidence) about the historical relevance - and let me re-empasize: about the historical relevance - of certain apocryphal texts. What matters, in this discussion, is that Francois Bovon's opinions are the rational expressions of someone who is trying to probe the truth. Indeed, he makes some valid points and his opinions cannot be ignored, in our search for answers - and, most importantly, in our search for the right questions.

These are the heads of very numerous discourses which (the Naassene) asserts James the brother of the Lord handed down to Mariamne. In order, then, that these impious (heretics) may no longer belie Mariamne or James, or the Saviour Himself, let us come to the mystic rites (whence these have derived their figment),—to a consideration, if it seems right, of both the Barbarian and Grecian (mysteries),—and let us see how these (heretics), collecting together the secret and ineffable mysteries of all the Gentiles, are uttering falsehoods against Christ, and are making dupes of those who are not acquainted with these orgies of the Gentiles. For since the foundation of the doctrine with them is the man Adam, and they say that concerning him it has been written, “Who shall declare his generation?” learn how, partly deriving from the Gentiles the undiscoverable and diversified generation of the man, they fictitiously apply it to Christ.

These are the heads of doctrine advanced by them, as far as one may briefly comprehend them. They affirm that James, the brother of the Lord, delivered these tenets to Mariamne, by such a statement belying both. (10:5).

Stephen Pfann stands in stark contrast to Francois Bovon. His suggestion that the Mariamne inscription was made by two different people, with two different pressures and stroke styles, simply flies 180 degrees in the opposite direction of all forensic archaeological evidence. Fact-based comparisons are not very difficult (stylometrically or otherwise), given two words, inscribed on wet chalkstone in Greek, beginning, each of them, with the same three letters. (This is not rocket science - and as someone who designed nuclear propulsion systems before I went into forensic archaeology and deep-ocean biomedical research, I know rocket science.) Additionally (as can be easily seen by referencing the photos in the color section of the book), both the "stroke" or "eta" immediately preceding the word, "Mara," and the first stroke of the second "M" following the "eta" were cut in the same srtoke style and direction, with the same amount of hand pressure (consistent with the same exact hand). Pfann, of course, has presented pictures with the vital punctuation (distinguishing two names for one person) brushed out - which is, naturally, the only way available to him, to argue that some of the best epigraphers in the world were unable to read simple Greek, and were according to Pfann too stupid to figure out that the name referred to two separate women buried in the same ossuary. This view also fully contradicts the signal of only one person's DNA in the biological residue and bone fragments from the bottom of the Mariamne ossuary; but according to Pfann, the top paleo-DNA experts on the planet are not as bright as he, either.

Dr. Pellegrino, I wonder if you would be kind enough to comment on the fact that your work depends very heavily upon a 4th century Encratite text that Francois Bovon himself admits does not provide us with historical information about Mary Magdalene (his connection between Mariamne and Mary Magdalene is strictly literary, not historical, as he himself wrote to me. I provide his e-mail in _From Toronto to Emmaus_, pp. 66-68). Coupled with the far better readings of the ossuary inscription provided by Pfann and Robinson, does it not follow that the theories presented in the work should be abandoned?
James White
www.aomin.org

   Dr White: I have already addressed the Bovon point above, under Item 2, in my initial post in this review thread, dated 27 April, 2007, and again in the second paragraph of my 28 April post. As you may already know, this tomb is a subject bound to be under investigation for decades to come: Acquaintances in the Catholic Church (and, for the record, a Franciscan and a Jesuit are on my list of the top 20 most brilliant minds I have known) - have reversed their initial condemnation of the Tomb project, and say that there is information here meriting further inquiry; and the Israel Antiquities Authority is organizing a major scientific symposium devoted entirely to the Talpiot Tomb.
   Professor Bovon has not backtracked on the identification of Mariamne-as-Magdalene in the Acts of Philip (see also Hippolytis' Refutations 5:2 - 2nd century text identifying Mariamne as the woman who took charge of Jesus' "discourses" [secret knowledge] about the time of the death of James the brother of Jesus). As I have said, Dr. Bovon and I are of differing opinions (based on interpretations of the same evidence) about the historical relevance - and let me re-empasize: about the historical relevance - of certain apocryphal texts. What matters, in this discussion, is that Francois Bovon's opinions are the rational expressions of someone who is trying to probe the truth. Indeed, he makes some valid points and his opinions cannot be ignored, in our search for answers - and, most importantly, in our search for the right questions.
   Question: On what scientific basis is it written, "the far better readings of the ossuary inscription provided by Pfann"...?
   Stephen Pfann stands in stark contrast to Francois Bovon. His suggestion that the Mariamne inscription was made by two different people, with two different pressures and stroke styles, simply flies 180 degrees in the opposite direction of all forensic archaeological evidence. Fact-based comparisons are not very difficult (stylometrically or otherwise), given two words, inscribed on wet chalkstone in Greek, beginning, each of them, with the same three letters. (This is not rocket science - and as someone who designed nuclear propulsion systems before I went into forensic archaeology and deep-ocean biomedical research, I know rocket science.) Additionally (as can be easily seen by referencing the photos in the color section of the book), both the "stroke" or "eta" immediately preceding the word, "Mara," and the first stroke of the second "M" following the "eta" were cut in the same srtoke style and direction, with the same amount of hand pressure (consistent with the same exact hand). Pfann, of course, has presented pictures with the vital punctuation (distinguishing two names for one person) brushed out - which is, naturally, the only way available to him, to argue that some of the best epigraphers in the world were unable to read simple Greek, and were according to Pfann too stupid to figure out that the name referred to two separate women buried in the same ossuary. This view also fully contradicts the signal of only one person's DNA in the biological residue and bone fragments from the bottom of the Mariamne ossuary; but according to Pfann, the top paleo-DNA experts on the planet are not as bright as he, either.
   The key observation is that, for one motivation or another (and I suspect Pfann's recent self-description as a Catholic Evangelist might provide motive insight), Pfann has presented pictures, at a "scientific press conference," with key elements of the Mariamne inscription redrawn, using "special effects."
   Where I come from, we call that, at best, rewriting the inscription until it says what the protagonist wants it to say - and at worst, fraudulently manipulating the evidence.
   Moreover, when Pfann held his international press conference, presenting his pictures of the inscription sans its vital punctuation marks, he simultaneously propped up the credibility of his pictures by presenting himself as a professor representing a major "university." To most of the world, a name like "Jerusalem's University of the Holy Land" automatically evokes an image of a campus, with multiple professors, each teaching a specialized course curriculum in one of several specific departments. No reasonable reader could have been expected to know, from face value of the word "university," without taking the extra step of Googling Pfann and his university, that the Administrative Building was a post office box... that the full curriculum for the last semester included only five courses taught by only a single full-time professor - Pfann... that, though Pfann spoke to the world like an expert on subjects of scientific importance, his university taught no science courses at all(only French, Greek, English, creative writing, and theology). The reasonable reader would have been shocked to know the truth - and the reasonable reader was shocked, when I revealed it. Pfann, too, appears to have been shocked and even angry; but I do not know for sure. The only reply I received came via his wife. It was a sort of "how dare you?" letter, castigating me for mentioning the true dimensions of Pfann's "University of the Holy Land," and declaring that size really does not matter.
   Only in the hands of a Kurt Vonnegut Jr. or a Philip K. Dick, could much of the above have been made believable as fiction. I'm afraid reality becomes even more farcical; and perhaps even more dangerous as well.
- - C.R.P.

Regarding Catholic responses to the Jesus Tomb story, that's another example of laughable scholarship, so the most common Catholic response has been to laugh it off.