The Jesus Dynasty / James Tabor

Dr. April DeConick of Rice University has posted more details on her popular Blog, Forbidden Gospels, regarding the upcoming international conference in Jerusalem dealing with the Talpiot Tomb in historical and archaeological context. She is obviously impressed with both the agenda and the participants. This conference, organized by Prof. James Charlesworth, of Princeton Theological Seminary, is precisely what various leading scholars called for months ago–among them Michael Stone of Hebrew University and Eric Meyers of Duke University, namely a sane, sober, academic consideration of all aspects of the Talpiot “Jesus” tomb in its wider context. This is in contrast to the near hysteria and dearth of accurate factual information on the subject that flooded the print, TV, and Internet media back in the Spring. I post here Dr. DeConick’s comments:

In case you haven’t heard yet, Professor Charlesworth, for the Third Princeton Symposium on Judaism and Christian Origins, is holding a three-day conference in Jerusalem called “Evaluating the Talpiot Tomb in Context.” Dates are Jan 13-16, 2008. The provisional agenda that I was sent looks outstanding in terms of coverage and folks involved. Actually amazing might be closer to the mark.

Topics to be covered in special sessions:
Ancient Beliefs about the Afterlife and Burial Customs
Tombs, Ossuaries, and Burial Practices: The Archaeological Evidence
Burial Beliefs and Practices: The Textual Evidence
Onomastics and Prosopography in Second Temple Judaism
The Talpiot Ossuaries and their Epigraphy
Paleo-DNA and its Archaeological Applications
Patina Testing and its Archaeological Applications
The Talpiot Tomb in March 1980
Mary Magdalene in Early Christian Tradition
Relating Tomb Archaeology with Historical Figures: Possibilities and Problem Discoveries
The Palestinian Jesus Movement: Correlating Textual and Archaeological Evidence for Jewish Christianity
The Burial of Jesus, the Empty Tomb, and the Jesus Family
Statistics and the Talpiot Tomb

This is exactly the kind of academic forum that I suggested (on this blog) was needed when all the media hoopla engaged the Talpiot Tomb. I am looking forward to participating in the Jerusalem conference, and want to thank Professor Charlesworth for organizing it.

The program is still being finalized but most of the leading scholars involved in these topics have been invited and many have already confirmed their participation. I echo Dr. DeConick’s thanks to Prof. Charlesworth for putting together such a timely conference. When full details become available I will post them here.