Jordan Codices Photos

Following are all of the photos I have found of the Jordan Codices. They are of varying size and quality. Elkington has claimed the two longer and thinner codices are forgeries, but you can see clear relationships between some of the iconography on one of the two codices and on others. The rest, as far as I know, are claimed to be genuine by Elkington. Some are likely new to you, and some you’ll have seen many times. This adds up to around 38 over 40 distinct codices, which provides a pretty representative portion of the original hoard. I haven’t been able to look closely at all of them, either, so any observations you think are noteworthy are welcome. If anyone knows of any that I’ve left out, please let me know.

Larry Hurtado on Scripture and Canon

(HT Michael Heiser) Larry makes an important distinction between the two. Too many scholars and lay people fail to do so. See here.

Steve Caruso Beats Me to the Punch and More

Check out Steve’s new analysis of the texts of the Jordan Codices. I’ve been working on the same patterns, but Steve was quicker on the draw (this isn’t over, Steve). The use of a number of stamps has been suggested in the past based on the frequent repetition of the menorah, the two different styles of trees, etc. See also the two different versions of the “Christ” face:

You can see the mold was manipulated somewhat after the stamp impression was made and before the casting was done. The images are not identical, but come from the same stamp. I cannot agree that this impression comes from a Mona Lisa image, though. This would require the forger created a three dimensional copy of the Mona Lisa image for the stamp. It would have been much easier to us an existing stamp image, and the helios coins are obviously the closest match (although I have not found an exact match). In the copper codex that was falsified by Peter Thonemann the stamps were just fake ancient coins. Earlier Robert Deutsch felt he identified the exact fake for the chariot scene:

But on the codex the head of the second horse from the right is longer and actually has a more vertical orientation compared to the other horse heads to its left and right. The horses’ knees are also not in line on the codex:

This is the fake used in the impression. The difference is pretty minute, but it is there:

The fake coin used to produce the profile of Alexander the Great with the lion’s skin has also been identified. Here’s an overlay of the copper codex image and the fake coin:

For those who want to go digging for a source, a page shared in Prof. Davies’ editorial reproduces a photo given him by David Elkington of a codex with the impression of a clearly modern coin/plaque of some kind. I know I have seen this face before before, but I cannot place it at the moment (it is presumably supposed to be Jesus). If anyone reading recognizes the man in the codex, please let us know:

Long ago I pointed to the very clear iconographic relationships shared by the copper codices and the lead codices. The exact tree image found on the copper codex is found on about a dozen different lead codices being promoted as genuine by Elkington, as well as the same lettering and ornamentation. More evidence for this has come forward, such as the Herodian symbol found on the codex Elkington himself is flaunting as a forgery. As Steve very perceptively notes in his new post, we have yet to see a photo of a codex that does not bear clear indications of forgery. If Elkington has genuine codices, he’s hiding them. Note also Steve’s comment about the hammering out of the images on the one codex from the Facebook page. This is especially important because Elkington claims on that page that there is no iconography on that side of the plate because it is the “back page.” This is rather transparent deception on the part of Mr. Elkington. There is more deception in his attribution of several texts on that page to “experts,” “third party journalists,” and “professors,” when the texts are very clearly written by Elkington himself (note phrases he uses repeatedly in his own writing, like “at the highest level,” “of ancient provenance,” and “meaning and/or interpretation”). He’s trying to build up some authority around his fraud, but it’s painfully transparent that he alone is responsible for all of it.

Finally, just today Elkington put a link on the Facebook page to a blog called Heavenly Ascents, by a friend of mine named David Larsen (PhD candidate at St. Andrews). I don’t think Elkington has read all David’s posts on the codices (he cites me and Peter Thonemann, for instance), but for now he recommends it as fair and balanced. That’s a step forward from deleting and barring all posters who challenge Elkington’s claims.

Guardian Article on Academic Publishing

Jim West and the Abnormally insightful Duane Smith have commented on The Guardian’s recent article, which argues convincingly that academic publishing is far too restrictive in its cost. It points out, among other things:

Academic publishers make Murdoch look like a socialist.

It’s a good read that will unfortunately likely fall on deaf ears (I know Brill vehemently defends their exorbitance).

An Indication of Forgery on the Jordan Codices

Steve Caruso has identified the source of a sequence of letters on one of the codices. It is the phrase “council (of) the” found on a couple of coins minted around the second century BCE. There is no sign the broken phrase is properly contextualized on the codex, and the scripts around it are of varying provenances. As has been stated before, the forger is simply lifting examples of texts from multiple different sources. There is little reason to conclude an ancient author would conflate so many different scripts drawn from multiple sources and combine them nonsensically on such complicated productions as these. Fame and fortune are certainly significant enough motivations for a modern forger, though. Keep in mind that Elkington suggested Caruso was incompetent enough to be confused about whether or not the script (which Elkington confused with a language) was Aramaic or paleo-Hebrew. Here is Steve’s description of the relationship:

Quotable: Jill Middlemas

I think this quote is relevant for those who would dogmatically assert either the historical inerrancy or inaccuracy of the biblical texts. From The Templeless Age (Louisville, Ky.: Westminster John Knox, 2007), 10:

[T]he purpose of the Hebrew Bible is not to record history, but to preserve an interpretation of events from the perspective of the interaction of a people and their god.

More Dishonesty from Jordan Codices

The admin in charge of the Jordan Codices Facebook group has posted four pictures from what it claims are forensic tests of the codices. He states:

This set of photographs are some examples we took during our forensic work on the codices.

It’s my contention that the photos show no such thing. These are publicity photos taken by Elkington himself (or associates) and passed off as scientific. He claims each codex was “numbered and measured for record,” but look at how the numbering takes place in the following two photos:

In the first photo, the vast majority of the codex has been obscured by the portion of torn-off loose leaf notebook paper. What value does this photo have for a researcher? Absolutely none. In the lower picture a smaller piece of loose leaf notebook paper has been torn off to allow for the visibility of the tree image (and the numbering system is different). This is simply not how artifacts are photographed by professionals. Elkington is obscuring those parts of the codices that have text on them so that people who have the ability to analyze the texts for themselves cannot do so. He wants you to see the tree, though, since it’s pretty and it cannot be shown to be unintelligible.

On that Facebook page you can also find an email exchange between Elkington (posing as one of the professors involved, in my opinion) and the BBC complaints department as well as the following comment, which misrepresents and marginalizes the work of Steve Caruso:

 

 

EDIT: It should also be noted that one of the photos the Jordan Codices page suggests was taken during “forensic work” is not new to this story (it is the only one without a crudely made number plate):

It also happens to have been a photo David Elkington has been offering for license since this whole story began back in March:

Note how the rings used to bind the plates were cropped out of the Facebook photo, perhaps to avoid showing that this “forensic work” included destroying the original binding of the codex. Including the bowl of pistachio shells (ubiquitous in forensic laboratories the world over, you know) was a bit of a boneheaded move, but it helped bring what appear to be Q-tips partially into the photo. How scientific! In addition to throwing even more doubt on the claims being made, I think this also leaves little doubt that David Elkington himself is behind the Facebook group.

 

 

 

A Preliminary Translation of the Jordan Codices is Offered

Of course, the codices are forgeries and there’s nothing intelligible on them at all, but the Lead Codices page on Facebook is making the claim that translators are furiously working to establish the proper “context” in order to “get it right.” They’ve offered the following translation as a teaser:

Now keep in mind the person putatively responsible for translation is a professor emeritus at a “leading university,” and is, according to Elkington (see here), one of four or five people in the world who can read paleo-Hebrew. Here is the text being referenced (between the wreath and the menorah – and it does not quote Prov 10:9):

This text under this menorah appears several times in the codices. The admin of the Jordan Codices Facebook page (whom I believe to be Elkington himself) is insisting the text above reads as follows:

אלך בתם

Now, before my comments were all deleted from the Facebook page (see them all here), I repeated the transliteration of this text as “elek batom,” and the Jordan Codices admin corrected me, explaining that it was specifically Elek ba tom, “not batom”:

This isn’t good Hebrew, though. “Ba Tom” uses as the preposition what’s called an inseparable prefix, namely the letter beth (ב). In order to mean “in uprightness/perfection” it cannot be separated from the word (hence, “inseparable” prefix).

This reading understands the following letter as an aleph:

This letter appears all over the codices, though, facing both directions and in many different styles, and it shares the most consistent similarities with an archaic style of yod (see Steve Caruso’s analysis of the script here and his chart here). There are very few styles of aleph that at all resemble this letter in  either direction.

The next letter appears to be a reversed lamed, which agrees with the Lead Codices admin’s transcription. The following is asserted to be a kaph, but again, the style is much more consistently aligned with another letter, namely waw/vav:

The next letter also is problematic. The admin for the Facebook group says it is a beth, but it bears striking resemblance to the mem on the end of the text, and is therefore more likely a nun (which is only a slight modification on the mem):

Again, the form of the letter does not correspond with the reading. The top loop of the beth is always closed. Taken together, in order to assert the Facebook admin’s reading, we would have to posit some of the most rare forms of these letters, gathered from disparate places and times (there is no single script where each of these forms appears). If we did accept the identification of these graphemes, then we would expect other texts to be intelligible where their current identifications render them unintelligible. This is not the case, though. For instance, the top three lines of text on the following image are no further clarified (the portions that are legible, anyway):

It reads as follows with the Facebook admin’s reading:

. . . לגלשאגתלאלגלגבשאגתל . . .
. . . מבתבלאגתלגשבתבלאגתבב . . .
. . . מסרשאלגבבמסרשאלגת . . .

A small collection of letters are simply being nonsensically repeated (with the occasional accidental word appearing). It is difficult to make out in the photo above because of the blurring, but the first roughly half of the bottom three lines are repeated in exactly the same shape and orientation in the second half of the text. Whatever mold or die was used to create the first half of each of the three lines was simply used again for the second half. Philip Davies’ recent PEQ editorial, available for free here, mentions this repetition and calls the lettering “mostly purely decorative.” This rather conflicts with Elkington’s claim to have the world’s top paleo-Hebrew mind reaching a breakthrough in translation (unless, of course, Elkington doesn’t think Davies is one of the five who can read it!). Davies, who tries to avoid coming down too definitively in one direction or another, also states the following:

One respected academic colleague has identified the words ‘lk btm (‘I will walk uprightly’). Though I personally have been unable to verify this reading, that may yet confirmed by others.

The same style and limited pattern of letters appears in the text on the left side of this codex:

It would appear to read (following Elkington’s reading):

. . . שאגתל
. . . בלאג
. . . שא
. . . אגל
. . . אגתל
. . . לאגת
. . . שאלג
. . . גלגב
. . . בל
. . . אש
. . . גג

Or something close to this. Again, a very limited set of graphemes are just being repeated over and over. The possibility of fudging an actual sentence into this text does not serve to alleviate the problems with the rest of the texts. They’re simply gibberish, and David Elkington is spreading lies by insisting there are only a few people on the planet capable of understanding the text. It bears repeating that the stylized palm tree on the plate above is absolutely identical to the same tree on the copper codex exposed as a crude forgery by Peter Thonemann.

In conclusion, I disagree with the reading offered by the admin of the Lead Codices Facebook page and I would venture to guess that there is no eminent professor emeritus behind it. It makes much more sense to me that someone forged the codices (which has already been established for several codices) and just indiscriminately copied down a bunch of letters. Someone else came by and with a rudimentary grasp of Hebrew and a lexicon was able to squint hard enough to make sense out of a portion of it. I believe the Facebook page and the idea that an announcement is imminent from the Jordanian government are attempts to drum up hype so that Elkington’s book can sell more copies whenever it actually manages to hit stores. Unfortunately, as Jim West has pointed out, by promulgating this story, even to falsify Elkington’s claims, we do him a favor. I think, however, it’s more important to expose this hoax than to try to prevent a profit from being made. I’m prepared to be wrong about this, but up to this point I’ve not seen any indication that such is the case.

For all the known photos that have been put online, see here.

David Elkington’s Take on Paleo-Hebrew

I have been asking some pointed questions of the admin for a new Facebook group called Jordan Codices, but my comments were all recently deleted (so were Steve Caruso’s). I am suspicious David Elkington himself is the one in charge of the group, and I decided to check on the radio interview posted on the page. It’s an interview of Elkington, and in it Elkington makes a number of assertions that I just find utterly ludicrous. For those familiar with Hebrew and the Dead Sea Scrolls, this short excerpt will require a strong constitution. It runs from the 13:51 to the 15:31 marks on this video (the topic of the codices begins at the 7:39 mark):

-       Elkington: Um, we, we’re–we’re–we’re performing more analysis now on the translation and the decipherment of the language. A lot of people have said, “Oh, I’ve seen these things on the web, the, uh, language is–is–is–it’s gibberish; it–it makes no sense. It’s a very odd form of Aramaic.” Well, um, actually the news is this: it isn’t Aramaic. The script is a square script, which means it’s Hebrew, and the form of Hebrew that it is, is called paleo-Hebrew, which is very, very ancient indeed, and there are only four or five people in the world who are familiar with it. And we’re working with one of those, uh, professors at the moment, who thinks he’s on the edge of a breakthrough with the language.

-       Interviewer: Wow.

-       Elkington: Some of it’s translatable, but a lot of it is still yet to be, uh, deciphered.

-       Interviewer: Ok, but paleo-Hebrew would date to a specific time that would, at least in my understanding, would come a long time before–before Christ and the Hebrew of the–of the first century as we­–as we know it. Is that not true?

-       Elkington: Yeah, that’s very true. That’s a very astute observation, if I may say so. Um, the use of paleo-Hebrew is extraordinary. It would be rather like you and I using Latin today.

-       Interviewer: Right, exactly.

-       Elkington: It would really make no sense to the large majority of people, but what, actually, it shows, is paleo-Hebrew may well have been the language of Moses, um, Moses on the mountain collecting the ten commandments. So, therefore, the use of it states that it really is like an official temple language, and that they’re using the original words of God, which makes this all the more extraordinary.

First, scholars have been pointing out it seems to be a meaningless mixture and adaptation of scripts, not just that it is “a very odd form of Aramaic.” Next, a “square script” does not indicate Hebrew, and his claim that the script is paleo-Hebrew actually precludes it being a “square script.” Next, there are far, far more than four or five people in the world who are familiar with paleo-Hebrew. This is the most stunning and flagrant lie of the entire interview. Further, though, the use of paleo-Hebrew actually does not indicate great antiquity, since paleo-Hebrew is actually a comparatively modern adaptation of the Old Hebrew script used specifically in texts considered particularly sacred or important. Multiple manuscripts from the Dead Sea Scrolls were written entirely in paleo-Hebrew, and the Tetragrammaton appears in several regular manuscripts in paleo-Hebrew. The Bar Kokhba coins, struck during the revolt of 132–136 use a paleo-Hebrew script that is very similar to that of the codices (except the codices reverse several letters, confuse others, and are missing others). The Samaritan Pentateuch preserves a heavily adapted version of the paleo-Hebrew script. The use of paleo-Hebrew is not particularly unusual. Lastly, the notion that paleo-Hebrew indicates anything at all about Moses is utterly asinine. Even if these texts were from the turn of the era (and they demonstrably are not), that would not bear in the least on the language of Moses.

Feel free to log whatever other observations you want to about this excerpt or the rest of the interview (which I could not finish), and feel free to spread this information as far and wide as possible. This dishonesty, dilettantism, and manipulation should not be allowed to be perpetuated any further, especially in light of Elkington’s quite obvious avarice (how much do you want to bet the release of the translations, etc., will always be dated to just the other side of the publication of his book?).

Jordan Lead Codices on Facebook

As Joel Watts pointed out a couple days ago, an anonymous person who claims to be part of the “team” investigating the Jordan Lead Codices has begun a Facebook group dedicated to them. As you might expect, the page presupposes the antiquity of the texts on the codices and asserts that the only people on the planet who are capable of reading the script (totaling five in number) are producing translations as fast as they can. “Stay tuned!” they advise.

The most recent update is the claim today that the plate shown in this post is a forgery produced by Hassan Saida, the very Bedouin from whom the “authentic” codices came. Here is the post in full:

Approximately two months ago, Hassan Saida, the Israeli Bedouin who smuggled the Jordan Codices into Israel, telephoned to inform the team that he and his cohorts had made 500 forgeries of various of the codices and put them into the Jerusalem market.   We didn’t think too much of it as he tells lots of tales; however, one of team members was sent these two photographs by someone who purchased them in Israel. To those who have seen the real McCoy, these were obvious forgeries.   However, even comparing them to the posted photographs, the difference is all too apparent.   Below are some observations made by one of the metal experts assisting the team.  We expect more will materialise in due course.

1.  The holes are too clean.

2.  The beige ‘corrosion layer’ looks like it has been sprayed on and then cleaned off.

3.  The holes have raised edges and looks like they have been punched hard all together against a die with a slightly larger diameter.  Not like the originals.

4.  The drawing on the tree is too fine and crisp – the detailing seems wrong – it is almost like they have been cast onto a harder material than the originals.  It is also possible that these have been pressed and then distorted – the best indication would be a view of the reverse of each sheet and seeing if there is variation in the thickness of the metal from casting.

5.  The edges look like they have been cut round the pattern very closely – particularly the dots – not the same as the previous ones which were not cut cleanly around a pattern.

6.  The format looks wrong – too long and thin.

7.  The seals – look like they have been struck at the ends – like coins.  I didn’t see any of that before.

8.  The background colour looks like it has been blowtorched – it is less rusty looking than most of the originals

9.  They do not have the same build up of accretions of scale and calcium.

10.  There is little or no evidence of wear or pressure based slow distortion – although there are a few damaging marks.  Some of the wear may have been introduced on the mould.  Unlike the originals, which looked like they were cleanly cast and then deteriorated over a long time.

11.  The seals have been put on after the corrosion layer has been sprayed on and cleaned off.  There should be layers of corrosion sealing them in to the surface.

12.  The wires look hammer beaten – not a bad representation.

13.  There are a few areas where the ‘blue’ of the lead shows through.

I can’t see the backs but your sealed books were sealed a very long time ago and opened up to clean and shiny lead – I bet these don’t.

I wonder if there are any rotational tool marks or bypass shear ‘seams’ along the edges where they have been cut.

The handwriting is very different and looks a bit too random.  I haven’t attempted to look at the symbols – although they are more ragtag.  I would say that a different person did the drawings from the script – they just look different.

The 8 pointed stars have 12 or 16 points.  Some of the other symbols are slightly different and may have a completely different meaning or interpretation.

I would also reckon on the metal still being malleable.  Not hard, flakey and cracking.  I expect they also smell and taste different.  These may have been dipped in acid and coloured with mineral pigments.

OK, I might be taken in if I hadn’t seen all your photos.  But they don’t look right to me.  A good mishmash of some of the symbols and text on the photos you and others have published on the Internet.

Several things are problematic with this development, as other bloggers have already noted. In addition to these concerns, though, it seems off to me that the metals expert quoted in the post is ostensibly commenting authoritatively on the script as well, stating that the symbols “may have a completely different meaning or interpretation” (as if forged symbols mean something different), and that the “handwriting is very different and looks a bit too random.” There is no tree and there are no symbols on the plate in the photograph, though. The post states two photos were provided the “expert,” but only one appears on Facebook. Perhaps there is another we’re not being shown.

Is this an attempt to account for the exposure of other codices as modern forgeries? If so, it falls well, well short of explaining the numerous genetic relationships shared between the script and iconography of the Thonemann codices and the others being promoted as genuine (see my discussion here and here). It also produces a rather unique codex that has little relationship to the other demonstrable forgeries. I can’t say the “team” involved in the promulgation of this hoax is impressing me with their craftiness.

EDIT: The Facebook page now has the second photo, with the symbols on it. Note that much of the script on this codex is actually quite similar to the script on the majority of the other codices that are being promoted as genuine (so are the rectangular patterns). THe iconography is much different, but I would argue it is intentionally so: