July 17, 2005

• wow. scholarly. But tasty.
• Damned intersting post (as usual)! Gives me ideas - if I can just get this rare item I've been holding on to published before I slap it up on ebay... Aaah, watch my profit margin soar! Yes! There must be underground schools that teach the delicate ways of making fine forged antiques. It seems so widespread nowadays. I've often imagined - these fake things made to resemble something that is valued - being found far into the future (obviously by another species of life, surely better than what's roaming the planet these days!) and assumed to be the accurate representation of our culture. Ok, perhaps that is silly nonsense speaking from the unfiltered wheat beer I just drank, but the issue of historical evidence raised by this particular biblical essay has merit. I'm not in any means familar with BAR, but it would be interesting to see if the publication does in fact learn from hindsight.
• A couple of years ago a student told me she was going to study Biblical archeology. How is that different from regular archeology? I asked. Do you start with your conclusions and look for evidence? "That's right!" she answered brightly, "we prove the Bible!"
• /brays
• Well, actually, biblical archaeology has done more to blow open belief in the historical accuracy of the bible than anything else. There are, of course, lots of 'religious' biblicists, but there has been so much dispute among them all that basically they've done the critics work for them.
• I'd like to go to one of these underground schools, learn how to forge archeological items, then make them and sell them as reproductions or art. And wheat beer is a refreshing change to barley, but could never replace it, IMHO.
• Good post, thanks.
• "Albright is dead you know, he died two deaths. And his children war amongst themselves."
• I remember when the James ossuary hoax stink hit the news, interesting. I'm not sure if we will ever learn from hindsight though, scientific hoaxes and antiquities forgeries have gone on since forever, and respected(or otherwise) journals will continue to fall prey. I was reminded of the Tasaday hoax ... even the National Geographic had a cover story about this alleged "Stone Age Tribe discovery", which later turned out to be a big fraud.
• I'd like to go to one of these underground schools, learn how to forge archeological items, then make them and sell them as reproductions or art. Chaucer wrote a lot about that. I love the whole pigs' bones as saints' bones gig that was going on at the time. Of course, they were not sold as reproductions, but what did it matter then? Supply and demand, you know.
• That was a long time ago.
• Yeah, but people haven't changed much since then. Look at all the people who make pilgrimages to Virgin Mary sightings around the world.
• There are far less than there were in the 14thC, percentage wise! ;)
• Nah, I'd bet there are just as many, percentage wise. Remember that the majority of people alive on earth today (such as those in China, India, and other over-populated and under-liberated* countries) are not privy to many of our westernized goodies, like information. Those many people are just as likely to be swayed by superstition today as they would have been centuries ago. I don't necessarily believe that modern society has made the masses at large more savvy about reality. But, like anything else I say, your mileage might vary. ---------------------------- *[this word brought to you by the Freedom-Loving Liberationmongers for Global Meta-Manifest Destiny]
• Shut up. I'm trying to get rich, here.