TECHNOLOGY WATCH:
NAZARETH TABLET HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH JESUS, BELONGED TO GREEK TYRANT, SCIENTISTS SAY. (Hannah Osborne, Newsweek).
The Nazareth Tablet, long thought to have been created after the disappearance of Jesus' body, has nothing to do with him or Christianity, scientists have said. Instead, the mystery marble tablet more likely belonged to a Greek tyrant called Nikias, whose grave was desecrated after his death, around 30 to 20 B.C.
[...]
For background on this artifact, see
here.
The Newsweek article is based on a scholarly article published in
Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports 30 (2020) 10228:
Establishing the provenance of the Nazareth Inscription: Using stable isotopes to resolve a historic controversy and trace ancient marble production (Kyle Harper, Michael McCormick, Matthew Hamilton, Chantal Peiffert, Raymond Michels, Michael Engel). I have linked to the pdf. It looks as though the article is open access.
As the Newsweek article indicates, this new research, although valuable in itself, does not prove that the tablet was not displayed in Nazareth. The marble could, for example, have been imported from Kos. But it does raise significant doubt about the Nazareth connection and, therefore, any connection with the burial of Jesus.
This is another example of why we should be cautious about drawing conclusions from unprovenanced artifacts.
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