FAKE METAL CODICES WATCH: Last March I noted the report of the founding of a Centre for the Study of the Jordanian Lead Books, chaired by Margaret Barker. The Centre now has a website here.
As I said in March, I think it is a positive development to have a group of serious scholars evaluating the Jordan codices. I still think the objects are modern productions, but how, why, and exactly when and where they were made remain potentially interesting questions for someone (other than me) to follow up. I certainly have no objection to people studying them, if they want to. And, as I have said often already, if anyone still wants to argue that some of the codices are genuine artifacts from antiquity, the case should be made in the peer-review scholarly literature. That has not happened — I think because there is no such case to be made. But if someone wants to prove me wrong, that is the place to do it.
PaleoJudaica posts pertaining to the Jordan codices published after the announcement in March are here, here, here, and here.
