2011-05-01

Books of Jordan

Jordan Lead Codices

The Jordan Lead Codices, sometimes called just the Jordanian Codices, are a collection of books or codices reported as found in a cave in Jordan. In March 2011 the BBC and other news sources ran stories about the discovery of these books. Several independent scholarly sources have dismissed them as fakes.

Press reports and comment

On 3 March 2011 the Jewish Chronicle ran an article interviewing a metallurgist named Robert Feather, who it stated was trying to authenticate a collection of 20 metal books which, it said, could be linked to the Kabbalah and were in the possession of an Israeli Bedouin farmer named Hassan Saeda, who claimed that they had been found by his great-grandfather in a cave a century ago. It added that a piece of leather from the find had already been carbon dated to 2,000 years ago. The article reported that the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) "absolutely doubted their authenticity," saying the books are a "mixture of incompatible periods and styles without any connection or logic. Such forged motifs can be found in their thousands in the antiquities markets of Jordan and elsewhere in the Middle East". It added that Professor André Lemaire, an epigraphist and director of studies at the École pratique des hautes études, said the inscriptions he has seen make no sense and that it was "a question apparently of sophisticated fakes".

On 22 March 2011 David Elkington issued a press release stating that a hoard of ancient books made of lead and copper, together with other artifacts, probably dating from the 1st century AD, had been found in Jordan, and that they might predate the writings of St. Paul and that "leading academics" believed they might be as important as the Dead Sea Scrolls. Elkington also stated that the items were discovered 5 years ago in a cave by a Jordanian Bedouin and smuggled into Israel, where they were at risk of sale on the black market or destruction. The story was quickly picked up by the BBC, the Daily Mail and other media outlets.

Elkington stated that the find was of "up to 70 ring-bound books (codices) made of lead and copper. Many of them are sealed on all sides. Scrolls, tablets and other artefacts, including an incense bowl, were also found at the same site. Some of the lead pages are written in a form of archaic Hebrew script with ancient messianic symbols. Some of the writing appears to be in a form of code." In the press release he stated that his team included biblical scholars Margaret Barker and Philip R. Davies.

The BBC version of the story stated that the codices had been found in a cave in Jordan, sometime between 2005 and 2007.

The Daily Telegraph added that metallurgical analysis on the books, and carbon dating on a piece of leather found with the collection, suggested that the books could be about 2,000 years old, although it also questioned whether the find was authentic. Elkington, described as a "scholar of ancient religious archaeology who is heading a British team trying to get the lead books safely into a Jordanian museum" claimed that they could be "the major discovery of Christian history", and the director of the Jordan's Department of Antiquities, Ziad al-Saad, said that the books might have been made by followers of Jesus in the few decades immediately following his crucifixion.

The BBC article said that the books consist of between 5-15 leaves or plates each, about the size of a credit card, made of lead and copper, and bound together with lead rings on one side. Many of the books are also sealed with rings on the remaining three sides. Elkington reported that "In the upper square [of one of the book covers] we have the seven-branch menorah", and the text is said to be in archaic Hebrew script (Paleo Hebrew), and some in "code".

Davies is reported as noting the presence of a cross, tomb, and city of Jerusalem depicted in the books.

A news report described Barker as believing that if the artifacts are genuine, they could be Christian texts from as early as 33 AD. A BBC report stated that a line has been translated from the text as "I shall walk uprightly".

The press release and the BBC report on 29 March 2011 indicated that the Jordanian government would make a claim for the ownership of the collection under the treasure trove statutes of Jordanian law.

Further developments

A number of experts urged extreme caution and skepticism on the find until further investigation was conducted.

On 31 March 2011, a letter was published online by Daniel C. Peterson which had been written in 2010 by Elkington. The letter was to Oxford academic Peter Thonemann, sending images of a "copper tablet" and asking for information on Greek text on it. Thonemann replied with details that the item was a modern fake, made in the last 50 years in Jordan and copying an item from the Jordan museum, saying "This particular bronze tablet is, therefore, a modern forgery, produced in Jordan within the last fifty years. I would stake my career on it." Professor Jim Davila also published Elkington's letter and Thonemann's reply. In his letter to Thonemann in 2010, Elkington said that he had been told that the codices were from Egypt, not that the material was from Jordan as stated in his press release.

On 3 April, The Mail on Sunday published an interview with Hassan Saeda, whom it described as a Bedouin trucker, aged 37, including extra images from the material and a story of how they came into his possession. The paper made a claim that a face on one plate "could be" the face of Jesus, but gave no authority for it. On the same day the Sunday Telegraph published an interview with Elkington.

Also on 3 April 2011, historian William J. Hamblin called into question the Jesus image on the tablet, stating it looked a great deal like images of Helios also found on ancient coins.

An article in the Daily Telegraph on 3 April 2011 stated that David Elkington was also known as Paul Elkington, and had a book on the codices which literary agent Curtis Brown would be trying to market to publishers at the London Book Fair on April 11.

On 4 April 2011, Philip R. Davies posted a statement on Sheffield's Biblical Studies blog suggesting that, while he recognized that the images were modern, the codices were probably not a hoax nor 'forgeries'.

On 4 April 2011 an unconfirmed report appeared, dated to 3 April, on the MEMRI website quoting Ziyad Al-Sa'd, director-general of Jordan's antiquities authority, as saying that the items were found in Jordan and sold on the black market to an "Israeli antiquities dealer". There was no indication of whether Hassan Saeda was meant here. Questions were also raised by an Aramaic blogger about the authenticity of the script used on the plates.

Robert Deutsch weighed in on April 5, arguing that the tablets lacked patina and corrosion and, along with others, he noted that all the iconography and script appeared to come directly from coins dating to multiple periods(Hellenistic, Hasmonean, and Bar Kokhba) in antiquity.

On 6 April 2011 Peter Thonemann repeated his statements about a letter from Elkington in 2010 in the Times Literary Supplement,.

On April 6 the Jordan Times published an article describing the codices as a collection of 2,000-year-old manuscripts.

On April 6 Dr. James E. Deitrick suggested that the image on one of the lead plates is a replica of a 3rd c. mosaic portrait dubbed "The Mona Lisa of the Galilee."

On April 9 Prof. Jim Davila published the following summary on his PaleoJudaica blog:

The Greek is lifted nonsensically from an inscription published in 1958. The forger couldn't tell the difference between the Greek letters alpha and lambda. The Hebrew script is taken from the same inscription. The Hebrew text is in "code," i.e., is gibberish. The "Jesus" face is taken from a well-known mosaic. The charioteer is taken from a fake coin. The crocodile has a suspicious resemblance to a plastic toy. This forger was not Professor Moriarty. This forger was a careless bumbler. That makes it all the more galling how readily the media fell for the scam.

On April 11 the Daily Express reported Thonemann's comments together with a response by David Elkington that Thonemann was not a biblical scholar but a Greek scholar.

Also on April 11, Live Science reported that the letter forms were a mixture of old Aramaic and much younger scripts, and that the mixture indicated a modern forgery.

Aftermath

On April 27 a report appeared on Yahoo via Associated Press that the Jordanian police had seized seven metal codices. Further details appeared in the Jordan Times, with further claims.

On April 29 Prof. Jim Davila summarised the case that the items were all fakes on his blog.

References

External links






Retrieved from : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jordan_Lead_Codices
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