nice follow up to your previous article on the Topic, great to see some of the math laid out in simple fashion

funny , you didn't even get into the rest of the names found, and what that does to the odds, much less the implications of some of the inscriptions being Greek...and what THAT little variable adds to the overall equation

far too many on both sides of the discussion have a clear, vested interests to protect...

i know!

the solution is to turn it all over to Buddhist scholars who have no axe to grind!

Well done, Bob.

>>The likelihood of a married couple with the names Joseph and Mary producing a male child is then 0.0174 x 0.5 = 0.0087, or 0.87%. <<

You are assuming here that each marriage produces exactly one child, of which half are male (or, alternatively, that every child of a given marriage is the same gender). If a couple has more than one child, the probabilities increase that at least one child is a son. With two children, for example, there's a 75% chance at least one is a boy (boy-boy, boy-girl, girl-boy, and girl-girl being equally likely). So .0174 x 0.75 = .01305, or about 1.3%. With five children (not unreasonable in a preindustrial society), it's .0174 x .96 = 0.016704, or 1.67%. With possibly several sons to name, it also becomes more likely that one is named Jesus.

None of which proves or disproves the claim, of course.

Yes, that's right, I *did* assume 1 child, and should have remarked that. In the case of 5-6 children, your factor grows so close to the value of 1 that you might as well ignore the calculation altogether. In that case, the final odds for those specific names in that specific combination of relationships rises to about 1:7500 (very conservatively).

I'm also embarrassed to note that I used the expression "male son" several times, as though there might be more than one gender of son from which to choose.

Editing yourself is *much* harder than editing other people.

still have not seen the definitive calculation on ALL the names being in the same burial chamber, with the relationships listed

i have my own figures on it, but i'm no real statistician

much to ponder and look forward to on the subject

That's what's so much fun about stats: you can make them say anything you want, if you're good at it. I once watched a real whiz of a statistician "prove" by statistics that blue-eyed men were responsible for the economic problems of the US auto industry. I wish I could remember how he did it; it was fascinating, a graphic demonstration of how stats can be made to support any premise you want, no matter how absurd.

As for this Jesus stuff, I don't care personally, & as far as the 'professional' exploiters of religion are concerned I think putting them out of business would be a boon to humanity, but I do hate to see how distressed a lot of good, simple folks like my neighbors are by all this.

By my back-of-the-envelope calculations, I come up with something closer to 1 in 2500 tombs containing a married couple, their son, and their daughter-in-law.

Absent any evidence to the contrary, Josephs and Marys were no more likely to be maritally ineligible than Eleazars and Salomes, so the proportion of married couples named Joseph and Mary should be roughly equivalent to the proportion of people named Joseph and Mary in the general population, as well as to the number of Josephs and Marys who became parents. So of all married couples who produced children, about 1.74% are likely to be named Mary & Joseph (assuming Witherington's numbers are accurate).

Assume an average of 5-6 kids per couple. I'm too lazy to do all the math, but somewheres around 10% of those couples will have a son named Jesus. (The math is complicated: there's a 3.38% chance the first son will be named Jesus, but if the first son is named Simon it becomes more likely that a younger son will be named Jesus, since Simon has been all but eliminated from the pool of possible names, whereas if the first son is named Jesus the likelihood that a younger son shares the name is very low--I picked 10% as a ballpark.) .0174 (all couples) x .1 (sons named Jesus) = somewhere around 0.0017, times .21 (number of Marys) = 0.00036, [0.04%, or about 1 in 2500].

Of course, changing any of several assumptions would completely alter the results. Moreover, the paleographers are still arguing about whether they've read the names right, much less whether they've correctly inferred the relationships. It's an intriguing story, but I don't see that the information available thus far can prove or disprove anything at all.

nicely done , Chris...

i think i was not clear...my ponderings had to do with the probability of ALL the names found with the relationships form the inscriptions (the National Geographic link i put up earlier in the thread hasthe full listing, and shows what the inscription differences are, and by whom)

you are using just the three, you have to factor in...the wife's name (greek "Mary, known as the Master"...a possible HUGE coup for the Gnostics and the Gospel of Mary) Matthew, and DNA from the son's ossuary should be compared to the "Jesus and Mary" samples...

full comparison analysis among all the available samples is compulsory, as well as more complete probability analysis before any kind of theorizing can go further in many ways...

i can completely agree with all this neither proving or disproving anything...just another bit of data for processing, but one must admit it is a fascinating subject of study, especially due to the possible implications

I won't waste time on your stats for their truth or falsity. You can all figure the odds of names in this country 2,000 years ago to your heart's content and I'll not complain.

I will make one note to you all. There were never "Palestinians" by the name of Jesus, or Mariamme, or Shimon or Haim or Hananiah. There were Judeans or Jews. And the name of the country was Ivdaea in Latin, or Judaea in the later English.

I guess I resent being tagged with the name of my persecutors - be they the ancient Romans who tried to erase our exixtence in a holocaust 2,000 years ago, or of Arabs who want to erease our existence today.

If your going to dabble in history, at least get the names of the peoples you write about straight.

Ruvy...just for you a text link you might find interesting

the entire website is a very solid resource to some things you may or may not be Aware of

but it could well be considered pertinent to the Thread as a whole, in a very broad sense

For Ruvy, and those it may interest.

The problem with the calculations here is that you assume that you know that one of the Mary's in the tonb was married to the Joseph who is the Jesus's father, and the other Mary in the tomb was married to the Jesus. You don't know that, unless you are already sure that this is the family of Jesus AND that Jesus was married to Mary Magdalene.

(Note: In fact the Joseph in the tomb is not even thought by the producers of the show to be the Joseph who married Mary. Rather he is thought to be one of Jesus's brothers.)

But the evidence you actually have is this: there are some people named Jesus son of Joseph, Mary, Mary, Joseph, Matthew, and Judah son of Jesus. (Plus three more unnamed people.) You know these people are all in the same extended family, possibly spanning several generations, and you know that the Jesus son of Joseph does not have a maternal ancestor in common with one of the Mary's.

That's it. You have to calculate the odds of a family with those names. For all you know the Judah son of Jesus is the Jesus son of Joseph's grandfather (and the son of a different Jesus from the one in the tomb). For all you know the Jesus son of Joseph and non-blood related Mary are brother-in-law and sister-in-law, and the Jesus son of Joseph was actually married to nobody at all (but the Mary was married to his brother). If the Joseph in the tomb is Jesus's brother, then if the Jesus isn't blood-related to the Mary, neither will the Joseph be blood-related to the Mary, so who's to say which one if either she was married to? Perhaps the first Mary and the Judah son of Jesus are the parents of the second Mary, and the Jesus son of Joseph is the father of the Judah son of Jesus with an unnamed woman in one of the uninscribed ossuaries. and so on.

The point is: it's one thing to calculate the probability of two people Joseph and Mary being married to each other, it's another thing (and will yield a much higher probability) to calculate the likelihood of a Mary and a Joseph being simply members of the same extended family (which is all you can deduce from the inscriptions unless you already know that Mary is the mother of Jesus son of Joseph, which again assumes what you're trying to prove.)

From the post: "This doesn't, I should hasten to add, make Cameron's case. Are the relationships among the persons in the tomb as Cameron speculates? We don't know, and too little DNA has been recovered to tell us."

The relationships I looked at are the relationships posited by the producers of the documentary; I am sure that was clear to most readers.

You say in you last paragraph that your argument "discount[s] the objection from the professionally-obliged-to-be-critical that the names are common, as if there are probably tombs with that combination of names in those relationships all over the place". But that's not the objection with which you begin your piece. The objection, is rather that tombs with simply "that combination of names" (no relationships specified) would be rather more common than your calculation allows. That's all that Gary Habermas says in the quote you give from him: "But Gary Habermas, a professor at Liberty University who specializes in resurrection research, said finding burial boxes with those names doesn't establish anything." You, however, move to a different problem when you say "we aren't interested in calculating the odds of a particular man named Joseph marrying a particular woman named Mary. What we want to know is what is the likelihood of any man named Joseph marrying any woman named Mary." Habermas didn't say anything about marriage, and so your calculation doesn't address his objection.

Or to put it another way, what really is the interest in calculating the probability of that combination of names in those relationships? Calculating that proves nothing at all, since we don't know we have that combination of names in those relationships. There is in fact not any evidence at all that there is even one tomb with "that combination of names in those relationships."

Re comment #10.

I read the posted link once (when somewhat tired) and will read it a couple of times more when more mentally refreshed and give more intelligent comment on it.

Thanks!

glad you liked it, Ruvy...

that entire website is a treasure trove of obscure reference material...and i find Bishop Hoeller's audio lectures (they are free on the website) to be quite entertaining as well as an insightful source of info on some of these subjects

but i thought you might enjoy the Read

the Tao of D'oh.

The question you're looking at is this: "What is the likelihood of 10 randomly selected bodies from the Jerusalem morgue having that combination of names?"

This is a family tomb, however, and there are family relationships, and so you have to look at the likelihood of encountering those names in certain combinations. It's one thing to randomly select 10 bodies and get 2 Mary's, for instance, and an altogether different thing to get 2-Mary's who happen to be a mother- and daughter-in-law.

I am thinking of my visit to the Virgin Mary's final home (on the coast of Turkey). When she died there, would her body have been transported all the way back to Jerusalem? Joseph died (I assume) around 20 years before Jesus was crucified (and presumably in Nazareth his adopted hometown).

I think, given even just these two pieces of info, that this whole tomb scenario seems less likely. Ideas?

There's money to be made, bones to be picked and graves to be robbed. Cameron is adept at all three. Why is anyone surprised?
No, nothing is sacred...except profit, of course. Damn the facts...

Victor...there was no "Nazareth" during that time period, been proven.

thec honest mistake comes from a mistranslation a long time ago...it's not "Jesus of Nazareth" ,but "Jesus the Nazarene"...a sect that is postulated to be related to /part of John the Baptists Essene sect

some think that the Nazarene is a high order of the Essene, but i am unaware of anything conclusive so far

There is one big problem in the statistics. From what I have read about the "discovery" all they found from the DNA is that one of the Mary ossuaries showed that the DNA in it was not related by heredity to the one which purports to have Jesus (it is questionable as to whether this is a correct interpretation) name on it. The problem is that they did not do DNA analysis to see whether any of the DNA for the ossuaries matched the one with Jesus name on it. Moreover, we don't know if the Mary one was a daughter, aunt, counsin, sister or mother of one of the inhabitants of the other ossuaries or whether the Joseph one was the father, brother, uncle or son of one of the other ossuaries. There are too many assumptions. Moreover, the claim that James ossuary came from there is dubious and even if it is, it is likely a forgery or at least the last part of the inscription identifying it with Jesus. I will trust the eye witness accounts instead of statistics that rely on too many assumptions. I wonder why they did not test or publish results pertaining to the DNA from the other Mary ossuary? Perhaps it did not match the Jesus one or matched the Joseph one or the other Mary one. That would be really interesting.

ok, actually watched the program last night, and have a few Thoughts to toss out for chewing upon that i thought were significant

many have tried to discount the statistical evidence (notice my choice of words, evidence is NOT proof) due to the names being very common in the first century in the geographical area

but what those detractors toss aside, are some of the unique details about the names which make the probabilities MUCH greater than the very conservative numbers put out in the program

examples: Jose, Mariah, and Marianme

Jose - is considered a diminuative of Joseph, which is a very common name then, but the spelling of said diminuative NEVER occurs in ANY other ossuary in all of Jerusalem...which is significant because it only appears in the Gospels referring to ONE individual, Jesus' brother...making this a very high probability of a match

Maria - a latinization of Miriam(Mary)...while Mary is indeed common, the latinized spelling is NOT...this is bolstered by the Greek written original Gospels referring to here in the same latinized manner, as well as other early scriptures which do the same (some like to discount it all because of the "Matthew" buried there, and his name not being among the Jesus direct geneology as laid out in the Gospels, they forget that Matthew is a VERY common name on Mary's side of the family...again, check your geneology...)

Marianme - again, this is tossed aside due to it being translated as just another "Mary", that name being common to about 1 in four women at the time in Jerusalem based on archeological evidence...what it fails to take into account is the linguistic unusualness of it being a unique spelling but also it being Greek...which fits with someone from the trading town of Magdalene
the VERY big thing here is that there is only ONE instance of anyone being called such in scriptures, the Acts of Philip, written by Mary Magdelene's brother...discount the veracity of this text all you like, it's provenance is accepted by all biblical scholars, and copy in the best condition refers to Mary Magdalene with that EXACT use of a name

the James ossuary - this is a separate thing that does appear to fit due to spectrograph evidence involving the residue patina on the ossuaries having identical properties...which NO other sampled ossuaries had even a resemblance to

when taking ALL of these names into the calculation, even using the very conservative methodology...the statistical analysis becomes far too convincing to be discounted easily

what would be required to further the case would be complete DNA testing of all the occupants of the tomb, to see is everyone except Marianme shares maternal DNA and if Judah (some of Jesus and Marianme) does indeed carry both Maia and Marianme's genes...

such would be about as conclusive as possible,and would show that the Iraneus tradition was false in some instances (bodily ascension into Heaven), but tend to bolster the Valentinian school of early Christian thought (Enlightened/Gnostic)

Good synopsis of some of the salient issues, jaz.

I have one problem with the whole thing. Both you and B White mention this above, but what I don't get is why they didn't do the DNA tests on the remaining ossuaries before producing the program. Koppel asked Jacobovici about this during the post-show discussion, and I didn't hear much of an answer except that the other ossuaries appeared to have been vacuumed clean or something. In my opinion, the entire presentation suffered from this one (what seems to me) essential point, and Jacobovici seemed evasive -- "I'm not a scientist, I'm a journalist, I'm a film maker...", etc. I can't believe that time or money would have been an obstacle. Do you (or anyone else) have any other information about this?

no info, and the lack of the definitive DNA tests i mentioned bothered the hell out of me

the ending of the program might hold some clue, they were made to close up the tomb by Israeli antiquities authorities...

this could be a clue that once it was discovered what they were doing and why, their access was curtailed...but no sure answer, pure speculation

i sure as hell do want to see those tests done, as it is, a pretty compelling case so far....not definitive proof, but enough evidence to hold water as a Theory for certain, imo

Dear Statisticians,

What are the odds that someone scratched those names on the ossuary at a later date?

: P

Thanks in advance,
S

PS: Gotta run! Headin' off to see the Cardiff Giant exhibition!

decent Question, O hungry, finny One...

provenance fo the tomb and ossuaries, there si some indication the tomb was entered around the 4th century...

best way to tell would be testing the patina inside the scratches to check consistency with the outside coatings

neener neener nyah nyah! (ancient chant to ward off Cladoselache)

Jaz, in Shark's World, provenance is everything.

========


late thought:


RE: "...James Dobson's Focus on the Family cites a Liberty University professor..." from the original 'essay' --

Saying "a Liberty University Professor" is akin to saying "an antarctic saguaro cactus".

Just tryin' to be helpful,
S

understood, SHARK...mine as well, which is why the caveat about the James ossuary and those possibilities

just to be clear, i neither believe nor disbelieve all of this, i just think it's worth the Study...especially in light of the implications

it would be nice to dispel Myth, and show a great Teacher for the Man that he was

but i'm silly like that, and will reserve final Judgement until more Facts are in

What I find mind boggling is in 1980/82 they found a tomb with bone boxes inscribed with all of those possibly Jesus family related names on them and they didn't keep even save a small sample of bone from each box for subsequent DNA testing. They handed the remains over to some religious group that re-buried them somewhere.

I saw the Tomb last night & think that science could prevail over politics here if science could prevail over politics here...
If a fraction of the $ garnered by the film were allowed (by IAA &??) to be used for full DNA & chemical signature testing on both relevant & irrelevant (for control) ossuaries, and a neutral-as-possible panel of paleologists & statistitians were put to work on the questions, the evidentuary truth would out.

I also think politics & bias are stronger than truth. At least they have been for the last 2500 years!

So, just where are the bones.... which might have lots more DNA available than the scrapings off the bottom of the boxes? Gone forever with no hope of science getting at them?

the bones were buried in 1980 according to Jewish tradition, in unmarked graves...so are now completely unavailable to researches...the only material available is residue in the ossuaries

"""The bones contained in the boxes have long since been reburied, according to Jewish custom, in unmarked graves in Israel."""


FIND THE BONES STUPID PEOPLE !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!