http://www.archaeologydaily.com/news/201203028007/Doubts-about-the-Jesus-Discovery.html

Doubts about the Jesus Discovery
March, 02 2012

MSNBC

Now that the word about "the Jesus Discovery" is out in the open, outside experts are weighing in and many of them look upon the robotic exploration of a 1st century Jerusalem tomb as a technological tour de force resulting in an archaeological faux pas.

On one level, the "Jesus Discovery" investigators saw this project as a follow-up on the sensational claim they made five years earlier in "The Lost Tomb of Jesus," that Jesus and members of his family were buried in what is now a southeast residential neighborhood of Jerusalem. On another level, they set forth what they said were the earliest known evidence of Christian references in the Holy City - in the form of an inscription referring to resurrection on one casket, and a fishlike design on another casket.

Today, several experts specializing in 1st-century Christianity said the investigators failed to make their case on either level.

"In my assessment, there's zero percent chance that their theory is correct," said Andrew Vaughn, executive director of the American Schools of Oriental Research, or ASOR.

Old and new claims

The main objection to the claims for the Jesus Family Tomb, like the claims themselves, retraces ground that's been well trod since 2007: Just because bone boxes are marked with the name "Jesus" and the names of his brothers and sisters, as mentioned in the Bible, doesn't necessarily mean these are the actual biblical figures.

But what about the inscription in the more recently explored tomb, known as the Patio Tomb? And what about the fish? Rollston said the fish was more probably a type of ornamental design typically seen on Jewish bone boxes, known as a nephesh tower. Where Tabor and Jacobovici saw the "fins" of the fish, Rollston saw the eaves of the tower's roof.

As for the inscription, Rollston said the resurrection connection was questionable. Tabor, Jacobovici and their colleagues suggested that it could be interpreted as reading, "Divine Jehovah (Yahweh), lift up, lift up," or "The Divine Jehovah raises up from ." But Rollston said the first letter in the word that was said to refer to Jehovah - IAEO - looked like a T rather than an I.

"This can't be an iota," he told me, "and that's the one letter that has to be there."

He also questioned the interpretation of the inscription's key word, "UPsOO," or "hupso," which would be a form of the verb "to lift up." Even if one assumes that's what was intended, the word wouldn't necessarily refer to raising up in the resurrection sense, he said.

On the positive side...

Not every outside expert was totally critical: The Israeli newspaper Haaretz quoted Yuval Baruch, an archaeologist with the Israel Antiquities Authority, as saying that Tabor and Jacobovici may well be right about the fish. Baruch noted that the fishlike image was not photographed "in the best light," but added: "If it is indeed a fish, it is fantastic. It has no parallel."