MORE ON THOSE LEAD CODICES: Scholars begin to unlock mystery of Jordanian lead books, and say they are genuine (Paul Handley, Church Times). The main news in this article is that The Centre for the Study of the Jordanian Lead Books is holding its annual general meeting in London today. The article summarizes the current state of the discussion pretty well. Most of the content is already familiar to regular PaleoJudaica readers. As I have noted before, what "genuine" means here is not very clear. The meeting will include films on the codices which will also be posted on the Centre's website.
Films are well and good, but any real advance on the state of the question needs to come from publications in peer-review venues. As I have said before, the evidence I have seen so far makes me think the codices are clumsy modern productions. I published a detailed statement on them a couple of months ago: The Jordan Department of Antiquities disavows the lead codices. At present I have nothing to add. Follow the links there for many past posts on the subject.
As always, I will have a look at what the Lead Books Centre has to say, but I encourage the members to move the discussion into the realm of real scholarly publications.
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.
