Doubts over authenticity of 'ancient Christian' booksLet's go with the not.
By Kevin Connolly BBC News, Jerusalem
In the cool living room of a stone-built house in Northern Israel I might just have held in my hands the keys to the ancient mysteries of Christianity.
And then again, I might not have.
With the blinds shuttered against the glare of the midday sun my host, Hassan Saeda, lays out a collection of extraordinary books which he says are about 2,000 years old.It's a real book all right, and it's possible that it's made from ancient lead, but the iconography and writing are modern. All those professors are saying the books are fakes because they are obvious, clumsy forgeries. I have given a detailed account of the evidence here and here.
Flowing of hair and neat of beard, he bears a distracting resemblance to an illustration of Christ from an old children's Bible. It lends the scene an air of extra gravity.
The books - bindings, pages, covers and all - are made entirely of various metals.
They are inscribed - or engraved, stamped or embossed - with various simple pictures and writing in a variety of languages including Greek and Old Hebrew.
[...]
"I spent so much time and so much money to prove these are real. There are a lot of professors and one of them told me that I'm living in a fantasy.
My answer to him was: 'I think you got old and your eyes don't see anything.' I took my book and went away. Many professors say it's a fake. Why? I don't know why. But this is a real book."
[...]
The article also interviews a Jerusalem antiquities dealer and also osteologist Joe Zias, both of whom agree they are fake. This still isn't asking philologists and art historians, but it is progress.
The BBC has known for a long time that the codices are fake. It looks to me as though they are trying to squeeze the last dregs out of the story, while laying the groundwork for eventually correcting it with the truth. They should have done that months ago and their conduct has been reprehensible.
Background here leading back to many links. Also see Thomas Verenna's essay at Bible and Interpretation: Artifacts and the Media: Lead Codices and the Public Portrayal of History.
UPDATE: More from Tom Verenna here.
UPDATE: Mark Goodacre underlines the point and names a name here.
