zias

8/7/2019 zias

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A PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT:The $ons of Darkness and The Wicked Priest$; all hustling Jesusplates, Jesus scrolls and the fast buck

Joe Zias

When I first became aware of this latest scam, sans the photos, and those promoting it, I automaticallyknew from past experience that something was truly amiss. The first individual who brought this topublic attention in the British press was none other than an Englishman named Robert Feather, whoclaims to be a metallurgist. i When I worked briefly with the BAR crowd at Qumran, along with Freund,of (Natl. Geo.- Atlantis fame), Feather was a co-director with the team excavating that summer. Whenthey claimed that they had found a lead coffin in the cemetery, fragments of which incidentally hadbeen first ‘discovered’ by H. Shanks, the owner/publisher of BAR a short time earlier, I was skeptical asthe metal was ca. one-two mm in thickness. The two ‘metal experts ’ directly involved (Bauman andFeather) were later alerted that Shanks lead ‘coffin’ was actually zinc; so much for their expertcreditability in the world of metallurgy. Baumann incidentally, like Feather had no academic affiliation,is with Komex of Canada, a company which searches for lead and zinc mining deposits around theworld! ii One would think that he along with the ‘metallurgist’ Feather should be able to tell thedifference between the two or was it simply a pure coincidence that an individual searching for lead andzinc deposits around the world, with little if any archaeological experience now is reported as the onewho discovered this ‘one of a kind object ’?

Also, where was Shanks in all of this, as it was he alone who first discovered that it was fragments from alead coffin in an allegedly robbed tomb, iii in an attention grabb ing article entitled “Jews, save the bonesof your ancestors” in Qumran. Having received a substantial ($200,000) donation from the MerrillFoundation, Shanks , like GW B ush with his ‘mission accomplished ‘ remark, now becomes quiet andMerrill, well, he lands a position as contributing editor with BAR which he holds until today.

Following their report in Dead Sea Discoveries in which the zinc coffin now morphs into a wood coffin

covered with a zinc cover, it then reverts back to a zinc coffin in the BAR article which appearedsometime later.( 1) Moreover, the zinc report which appears in the DSD appendix ( 2) shows that the zincis almost pure zinc, which immediately should have made it clear to the so called ‘metallurgists’ that aspure zinc is a relatively recent phenomenon, the ‘coffin’ must be of recent origin.( 3) Furthermore,attempting to bolster their argument that the metal was from antiquity, the ‘experts’ write (footnotenumber 38), “the corrosion of these zinc fragments is consistent with that of other zinc finds from theRoman period ”. This may sound impressive to the layperson except that the article shows that the threezinc objects cited for comparison are not Roman, but from the Hellenistic period several hundred yearsearlier. ( 4) In the same footnote, (38) the authors state “the tests showed that the zinc contained tracesof lead and iron, (quoting one of the co-directors Robert Feather), which excludes a modern form of processing zinc and points to the coffin’s antiquity” . Such reporting, particularly when the zinc analysis

appearing in the appendix, shows no lead nor iron , calls into question the purpose of this entire

(1) Cf. M. Broshi and H. Eshel, Whose Bones?, BAR Jan/Feb. 29 (2003) 26-33, 71.(2) Cf. E. Izraeli, “Appendix B: Test Results from the Metal Coffin,” Dead Sea Discoveries 9 (2) p.164.(3) A.W. Cramb, A Short History of Metals. The Chinese knew zinc as a metal, as opposed to zinc as a pigment, inthe 14 th century, however according to Professor Cramb it was not imported to the west until 1738 after which itbecame common. Http://neon.mems.cmu.edu/cramb/Processing/history.html(4) Eshel et al., “New Data on the Cemetery East of Khirbet Qumran,” p.144, 146.

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archaeological undertaking ( 5) and the integrity of those involved. To make matters worse, the ‘2,000year old’ coffin lid, was later found to have been coated with Barium-titanium paint, first patented in the20 th century to prevent corrosion. So much for the experts from Komex, Robert Feather and the BARcrowd who recently went on to ‘discover ’ Atlantis in Spain for National Geographic television.

Now, in one of their latest press releases the British team of ‘wannabe archaeologists’ write that ‘Initialmetal tests indicate that the codices made of lead (I hope that they got it correct this time) could datefrom the first century based on the form of corrosion which has taken place.’ As a former curator withthe IAA for 25 years the alleged corrosion in the photos both lead and copper does not look like anyancient piece in the state collections, in fact, it appears to be modern. What forgers will do is to takeancient metals, and recast them, create a faked patina, thus when a metal analysis is done, the resultswill indicate that the lead may be ancient, nothing more. Furthermore the Israeli lawyer they reportedas heading the legal team presumably in order to make sure that the lead codices do not fall into thewrong hands, does not appear in the list of lawyers in the Israeli Bar Association. Seems he may notexist, at least as a lawyer; or like the metal analysis they again got it wrong.

Prior to the Qumran excavation, Robert Feather who first brought these Jesus codices’ to mediaattention refers to himself as a metallurgist turned journalist and the author of The Copper Scroll Decoded (HarperCollins 2000) in which he claimed to have located the actual treasures mentioned in theCopper Scroll as well as believing that the 200-300 yr old Bedouin skeletons buried east-west, facingMecca, are actually thousands of years earlier and are gazing at the pyramids of Egypt. No seriousscholar accepted his views. H owever in today’s world of Biblical Studies where anything goes; he founda publisher and an agent. As he was one of the co-directors of the BAR funded iv Qumran excavations andclaimed to be a metallurgist, (who was unable to tell the difference between ancient and modern, orzinc and lead) he then published an additional book on his work at Qumran, The Secret Initiation of Jesusat Qumran in which he describes the finding the body of John the Baptist by the French in the 1950’s ,which had never been publically reported. Prior to its publication Feather contacted me about this and Iagreed to have dinner that evening with him as I knew the cemetery material quite well. When he told

me in which tomb John appeared sans his head, having heard the information from one of the priests(Fr. Milik) at the Ecole Biblique excavating there in the 50’s , now deceased, I promised to be back intouch with him. The following morning I dropped off at the King David hotel copies of photographs anddrawings of the grave in question, clearly showing that the supposed skeleton of ‘John the Baptist ’ waswith his head which had not been decapitated. I never heard from Mr. Feather again and the book waspublished claiming that John the Baptist was found there lying in the Qumran grave. v

While Feather clai med that the French had opened the grave of ‘John’ in the 50’s , Freund, a prominentmember of the BAR crowd and ‘archaeological adviser’ to the Naked Archaeologist Simcha Jacobovici(neither are archaeologists) claimed that he had also found the tomb of John the summer of 2002.Could there have been two John the Baptists? Perhaps so, as the BAR crowd has in the ensuing years,‘discovered’ a cave of John the Baptist and an additional two tombs of Jesus, one in Talpiot and anotherin Safed, thus bringing the number of Jesus of Nazareth tombs to four, three in Jerusalem and one inSafed. To make things worse the long standing member of the BAR crowd, the department head at the

(5) Robert Feather, who refers to himself as a metallurgist turned journalist, is the author of The Copper ScrollDecoded (HarperCollins 2000) and claims to have located treasures mentioned in the Copper Scroll. He also statesin an interview given to HarperCollins (the publishers of his book) that the Bedouin skeletons buried east-westfacing Mecca are actually from thousands of years earlier and are gazing at the pyramids of Egypt. See:www. HarperCollins.com.au .

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University of North Carolina-Charlotte, claimed that the hyped but bogus Cave of John the Baptist inTzuba may have been a place in which Jesus himself baptized followers. Now that they have the rightreverend John Hagee pushing it on American TV , it just may morph into another ‘holy spot’ of dubiousauthenticity thus bringing tombs of John to two at Qumran and places of baptism to four (three on theJordan River and one in Tzuba). Along with this, the Tzuba/BAR crowd recently fact checked for a UNCauthor a book entitled The Jesus Scroll in which it was claimed that Jesus was present and perhapsburied at Masada. Sounds like the BAR crowd is starting to franchise holy places.

As the Qumran excavation license that summer was granted to colleagues at Bar-Ilan University, Icontacted the academic dean there to see what their policy on academic fraud was as not only had thezinc ‘2,000 year old’ coffin with 20 th century paint been planted by someone, but a handful of humanremains c-14 dated to the late pre-historic period as well. No reply was received so I had a meeting withthe chairman of the dept. who later claimed that there was no basis to my claim that objects were beingplanted for NOVA despite the 20 th century coating on the zinc and pre-historic human skeletal remains.NOVA and BAR were elated. Today they are still ‘pimping’ the metal coffin at American Universitiesdespite the fact that there are two scientific articles attesting to the fact that 20 th century Barium-Titanium paint was discovered on the metal object, probably a Bedouin watering trough.

While the reader may think that the above is a bit of an exaggeration let ’s see what the BBC had to sayabout Feather and the BAR crowd at Qumran in the summer of 2002. The BBC reporter covering the2002 excavations wrote that “these days, it is hard to distinguish the smell of sulfur from the rottenstench of claims, counterclaims and accusations emanating from the nearby site of Qumran”, viUnlikemany other journalists taken in by the lure of Qumran and the Dead Sea Scrolls, Goldberg quickly sizedup the situation and portrayed the reality of the excavations. Now, compare the world of the BBC in2002 and today some nine years later in their report on the lead/copper plates. It looks like theprofession is losing its credibility and its scientific integrity. In a way, we have but ourselves to blame.Like his cohort Robert Feather, a search on Google Scholar is silent as to whether Elkington ever

published any scientifically reviewed scholarly articles.

As for the Elkington’s ‘Lead Codices’ , vii the British couple hustling this nonsense and their claim of beingshot at while searching for the cave in Jordan, well, without any proof the public is forced to skepticism.And that skepticism is only reinforced when you pick up a copy of his book In the Name of the Gods: TheMaster of Resonance and the Pre-historic Messiah published in 2000 and for sale on Amazon for$187.40. The fact that it was published 11 years ago and no reader has bothered to review it, speaksvolumes about this ‘scholarly ‘work. As for his scholarly credentials, one finds them quite impressiveand wide ranging; he appears in fact to be a genius in the world of multi-tasking - e.g a web sitedescribes him as follows “For 20 years David has been led on a revelatory trail through world mythology,

linguistics and philology into geophysics, architecture, acoustics, music, neuro-physiology, theology andstill further into the all-encompassing, resonant atmosphere of the planet. According to one blog hisnew and latest book The Lead Codices will be coming out soon. I can’t wait. ..

As for my role in all these ‘biblical archaeology’ schemes, I asked one of the co -directors that summer atQumran ,why one of those holding the license was so much against me being there as anthropologicaladviser for the cemetery, he replied “they can’t control you”. I took it as a compliment, ‘walked ’, andJohn the Baptist was soon discovered again, in another tomb. He gets around.

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i Despite him claims of founding scientific journals, expertise in metallurgy etc., a search on Google Scholarprovided no scientific peer reviewed articles under his name..ii See http://meg.calgary.ab.ca/2002MEGprogramapril12.pdf .Komex.. combining Remote Sensing Technologies to

explore for lead and zinc.iii The robbed tomb actually was a tomb excavated by Solly Steckoll under Jordanian license prior to 1967 whenQumran fell into Israeli hands.iv BAR received a $200,000 US donation that year from John Merrill, of which $80,000 was given to the BAR crowdat Qumran. It should be pointed out that IRS records show that Shanks’ financial support from his highly profitable‘non -prophet ’ (sic) organization the last 40 years for an excavation, other than a few hundred dollars here andthere, is rare. As I had been involved to a limited extent that summer I felt obligated to alert Merrill over thispossible academic fraud, however he was not interested. Shortly thereafter he landed an administrative positionas contributing editor with Shanks/BAR which he holds today. In fact, his book The Sons of Light was reviewed andhighly praised in BAR by guess who, Richard Freund, whereas he returns the favor by reviewing and praising thearticles and books of his employer H. Shanks.v In the course of his investigations Feather claimed that he met with Father Jozef Milik, a former Catholic Priestand one of the scholars who worked on deciphering the Dead Sea Scrolls in the 1950s. It was a revelation. Duringhis work somewhere near the Qumran ruins, Milik had excavated a headless corpse that he believed to be that of John the Baptist. Feather tracks down the site of this grave and finds physical evidence that leads him to draw thesame conclusion - that it is the final burial place of John the Baptist. The Secret Initiation of Jesus Christ at Qumran,(2005)vi Ari Goldberg. BBC News World Edition 27 August 2002.vii A true Renaissance man, and I must add, albeit with a slathering of sarcasm, that I’m glad that the lead/coppercodices at least fell into his ‘scholarly’ hands. http://www.lauralee.com/elkington.htm

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