Miriam daughter of Yeshua son of Caiaphas, priest of Maaziah from Beth Imri

(HT to Joel and Jim West who has the press release.)

"Israeli scholars say they have confirmed the authenticity of a 2,000-year-old burial box bearing the name of a relative of the high priest Caiaphas of the New Testament. The ossuary bears an inscription with the name “Miriam daughter of Yeshua son of Caiaphas, priest of Maaziah from Beth Imri.” An ossuary is a stone chest used to store bones. Caiaphas was a temple priest and an adversary of Jesus who played a key role in his crucifixion. The Israel Antiquities Authority says the ossuary was seized from tomb robbers three years ago and has since been undergoing analysis. Forgery is common in the world of biblical artifacts. The IAA says in Wednesday’s statement that microscopic tests have confirmed the inscription is “genuine and ancient.”"

Now the image that was released is tricky to pull anything off of due to its resolution, but I can see enough of the inscription to tentatively say it matches what they say it does. But let me see what I can do...

UPDATE: Here's what I was able to pull off at first glance:


(Note: Please excuse the typo. Where the illustration is correct, the transliteration should read ישוע not יושע. I'll post an updated image later. Image updated.)

Of course, this is a bit of "reading into" the inscription on a low-res photo. Once higher-resolution photos are available, I could be completely wrong in portions.

UPDATE: Antonio Lombatti seems to agree with my reading here:

Recita:

מרים ברת ישוע בר קיפא כהן דמעזיה דבית עמרי

Maria, figlia di Gesù figlio di Caifa sacerdote di Maaziah di Bet ‘Imri

UPDATE: Robert Cargill has a higher-resolution image of the inscription that is much clearer than the image I had to work from and he managed a much better job sketching the text out. :-)

(click on it to expand)

Peace
-Steve

Lead Codices: British Archaeology Magazine Gets It Right

Over on Unsettled Christianity, Joel noted that British Archaeology Magazine ran an article about the Lead Codices and actually got it right. The article also mentioned some of my work in connection with it, too. :-)

Peace,
-Steve

The Comprehensive Aramaic Lexicon is Up

Blogger is behaving oddly, so I'll make this brief.

Here's the official announcement about what happened to The Comprehensive Aramaic Lexicon:

A Note to our users: We apologize for the unavailability of our system during the six weeks between early May and mid-June, 2011. The CAL server was struck by a hacker from an ISP in London, UK precisely on the day that Dr. Kaufman left the country, apparently simply because he or she wanted a complete copy of our online version of Sokoloff's DJPA and wanted to save the $100 for the second edition and received instead an early draft of the first edition, while totally comprimising the system. There is no indication that the identity of any of our users was looked for or their own privacy comprised in any way. The length of the delay is a direct function of the fact that we have failed to have any NEH funding renewed for many years now and the CAL continues on solely as a labor of love without any paid researchers.

If I find out who did this, it may not be pleasant.

Now off to get some queries done... :-)

Peace,
-Steve

Aramaic News About the Blogosphere

I've been busy as anything the past few days, so I have not had the time to report directly about these, but here's some fresh Aramaic-related news:

• Jim DaVila reports about the graffiti deciphered in Israel noting a small goof in how Aramaic is related to Hebrew and Arabic.
• Also from Jim, a new book on Jewish Babylonian Aramaic has been published by Eisenbrauns.
  
• H. H. Hardy, noting this trend in mistaking Aramaic's place on the linguistic tree, discusses the relationship between Aramaic and Hebrew.

Re: the Aramaic misclassification: Who in the press is checking their sources nowadays? Not as bad a blunder as some of the Lead Codices related nonsense, but it's still irksome.

Peace,
-Steve

The Jordinian Lead Codices... Expressing My Raw Feelings

Sometimes a picture is the only way I can express how I feel.

But if you want more words, this is what I have to say.

Peace,
-Steve

The Jordinian Lead Codices... Again...

(Kudos to Jim West for the photos.)

I have been holding back on commenting because I am getting a bit more than irked about this story and the gross oversights by both the press and the "authorities" who are handling it. Now the Jordinian Department of Antiquities has announced that, via carbon dating, they believe that the codices they have date back to the early 1st century.

Here's quick list of prominent voices over the Biblioblogosphere:

1. Jim Davila
2. Jim West (x2)
3. Mike Heiser
4. Tom Verenna (x2)

And here's my two cents, some of which I repeat and endorse from other Bloggers, and some of my own observations:

Obviously they weren't dating the plates, themselves, as you cannot carbon date lead. Why did they not use lead isotope dating? The plates are made of lead. Lead isotope dating is perfect for dating lead. Where is the disconnect?

Secondly, the more images I see of the script on the plates, the more I am convinced that it is not Hebrew or Aramaic. I'm still waiting to hear back from a few scholars who study Coptic. Perhaps now is the time to give them a poke.

UPDATE: Tom Verena has done a character chart of his own on the new images as well as analyzed the coin iconography.

Peace,
-Steve