Friday, May 19, 2017

Report on the Lead Books Centre's AGM

UPDATE: Scholars begin to unlock mystery of lead books ( Paul Handley and Madeleine Davies, Church Times). This is mostly a rehash of the Church Times article noted a few days ago, but it does include some updates on what went on in the AGM of the Centre, which I excerpt:
A summary statement read out at a press conference on Tuesday, answered in the affirmative [that the lead codices are worthy of further study].

[...]

Dr Barker said on Tuesday that she hoped to find a university home for the work in order to engage young scholars, and also to involve experts from a wider range of fields, including astronomy. She would like to see conferences held in Jerusalem and Jordan, and involve people working in the region.

... Dr Barker showed an example of her interpretative process on Tuesday, arguing that the vocabulary emerging referred to passages in Isaiah and Revelation, and Johannine writings.

Dr Barker said on Tuesday that she believed that the books would result in a “paradigm shift” in the understanding of the Second Temple period, as the Dead Sea Scrolls had done.

“The significance for Christians is that we can no longer think that the founders of the Christian faith were humble fisherman in Galilee,” she said. “They were very learned heirs to the Temple tradition.” She referred to Acts 6.7 (“a large number of priests became obedient to the faith”).

The scholars have made several films of their discoveries, which they showed at a press briefing at St Ethelburga’s, London, on Tuesday, and can soon be viewed on www.leadbookcentre.com.
Those are big claims. They require substantial verification.

Beyond that, I refrain from repeating myself. I stand by my detailed statement a couple months ago: The Jordan Department of Antiquities disavows the lead codices. Follow the links there for many, many past posts. And I added a few other thoughts here.

Cross-file under Fake Metal Codices Watch. I acknowledge that various elements of the current discussion may point to some of the codices being something other than fake, but I remain to be convinced. And in any case, I continue to include this cross-file rubric so that all my posts on the subject can be accessed together.