(HT Daniel Peterson and Bill Hamblin) Peter Thonemann at Oxford has staked his career on the conclusion that the lead codices being discussed recently are forgeries executed within the last 50 years. The following is an exchange that took place between him and David Elkington late last year (Dr. Thonemann has confirmed to me that this exchange is authentic):
Lead Codices, or: One Born Every Minute
Over the past few days, you may have seen a spot of press attention about a cache of lead codices ‘from a remote cave in the north of Jordan’, which allegedly have some connection with early Christianity etc.:
http://www.thejc.com…a-mid-east-cave
http://www.dailymail…ears-Jesus.html
http://www.bbc.co.uk…e-east-12888421…and so forth.
On 15 September 2010, I received the following email out of the blue from a certain David Elkington (whose name you will find in all these various news reports) – I’ve edited out only those bits which would reveal the mutual acquaintance:
“Dear Dr. Thonemann,
In relation to a discovery that I have been investigating in the Middle East I was given your email address by a friend […]. I am a biblical historian and specialist in the field of Christian and Hebrew origins. I’m working with Prof. Philip Davies of Sheffield University and Dr. Margaret Barker on a discovery that I made a few years back of a cache of ancient metal codices. They are comprised of lead and of copper – it is one of the copper codices that brings me to you. We think that it has a possible origin in Alexandria at the beginning of the 1st millennium AD – (the Bedouin who brought them to me said that his father found them in northern Egypt). It has an inscription in Greek along the top. A putative investigation has failed to find the meaning, dialect or type of Greek used and we are seeking to find an expert who might help in determining what it says.
Would you have the time and the knowledge to be able to help?If you can I would be terribly grateful – I could email you a photograph of the codex as soon as you would like, however I would very much like to discuss it in person if at all possible […].
I look forward to your reply
Best Wishes
David Elkington”
I replied that I would be delighted to have a look. (Possibly worth noting in passing that in this email, the codices are said to come from “northern Egypt”; in the current press coverage, they are said to come from “a remote arid valley in northern Jordan”.) I received on the 13 October the following three photographs of this ‘copper codex’ from Mr Elkington:
As you will see, the ‘codex’ concerned is identical in fabric and design to the ones being touted on the BBC and elsewhere; the Greek lettering is very similar in style to the ‘Hebrew’ on the codices depicted on the BBC news website. There can be no reasonable doubt that it forms part of the same ‘cache’ from the Jordanian desert (or Egypt) – note especially the metal ‘ties’ at the left of the last photograph.
After having a close look at the photos, I replied later that same day:
“Dear David,
A surprisingly easy task, as it turns out!
The Greek text at the top of your photo no. 0556 reads: ΛΛΥΠΕΧΛΙΡΕΛΒΓΛΡΟΚΛΙΕΙΣΙΩΝ, followed by ΛΛΥΠΕ in mirror-writing.
This text corresponds to ΛΛΥΠΕ ΧΛΙΡΕ ΛΒΓΛΡ Ο ΚΛΙ ΕΙΣΙΩΝ, i.e. ἄλυπε χαῖρε, Ἀβγαρ ὁ καὶ Εἰσίων, followed by the word ἄλυπε again, in mirror writing. The text at the bottom of your photo no. 0532 is the first part of the same text again: ΛΥΠΕΧΛΙΡΕΛΒΓ, i.e. [ἄ]λυπε χαῖρε, Ἀβγ…
The text was incised by someone who did not know the Greek language, since he does not distinguish between the letters lambda and alpha: both are simply represented, in each of the texts, by the shape Λ.
The text literally means ‘without grief, farewell! Abgar also known as Eision’. This text, in isolation, is meaningless.
However, this text corresponds precisely to line 2 of the Greek text of a bilingual Aramaic/Greek inscription published by J.T. Milik, Syria 35 (1958) 243-6 no.6 (SEG 20, 494), and republished in P.-L. Gatier, Inscriptions grecques et latines de Syrie XXI: Inscriptions de la Jordanie, 2: Region centrale (Paris 1986), no.118. That inscription reads, in its entirety, as follows,
1 Σελαμαν χρηστὲ καὶ
2 ἄλυπε χαῖρε, Ἀβγαρ ὁ καὶ Εἰσίων
3 Μονοαθου υἱὸς υἱῷ τειμίῳ τὸ μνῆμα
4 ἐποίησεν ἔτους τρίτου ἐπαρχείας’For Selaman, excellent and harmless man, farewell! Abgar, also known as Eision, son of Monoathos, constructed this tomb for his excellent son (i.e. Selaman), in the third year of the province’.
This is a stone tombstone from Madaba in Jordan, precisely dated to AD 108/9, on display in the Archaeological Museum in Amman.
The text on your bronze tablet, therefore, makes no sense in its own right, but has been extracted unintelligently from another longer text (as if it were inscribed with the words: ‘t to be that is the question wheth’). The longer text from which it derives is a perfectly ordinary tombstone from Madaba in Jordan which happens to have been on display in the Amman museum for the past fifty years or so. The text on your bronze tablet is repeated, in part, in three different places, meaningless in each case.
The only possible explanation is that the text on the bronze tablet was copied directly from the inscription in the museum at Amman by someone who did not understand the meaning of the text of the inscription, but was simply looking for a plausible-looking sequence of Greek letters to copy. He copied that sequence three times, in each case mixing up the letters alpha and lambda.
This particular bronze tablet is, therefore, a modern forgery, produced in Jordan within the last fifty years. I would stake my career on it.
All good wishes,
Peter Thonemann”
Well, he can’t say I didn’t warn him
UPDATE: Between April 2 and 5 I updated the introduction to the email exchange and added the entirety of it. The original post on March 31 quoted only Thonemann’s response to Elkington’s email and stated that I could not verify the authenticity of the exchange.
March 31st, 2011 at 4:56 pm
[…] Peter Thonemann on the Lead Codices. […]
March 31st, 2011 at 5:30 pm
Nice!
March 31st, 2011 at 7:46 pm
Interesting. I only just heard about these within the last couple of days.
March 31st, 2011 at 8:28 pm
Thanks for these! I’ll add this link to my recent post on the subject here. If these are the same as those discussed in the press release, that would change things substantially I would think. And not in a positive way for Elkington and party.
March 31st, 2011 at 8:33 pm
These are clearly fakes indeed – the borrowed text from the top is also reproduced in part at the bottom of another “page.” The artwork looks similar to the images shown with the BBC article about the lead plates, and so it seems like they may be photos of the same collection or at least books that are the work of the same person. Thanks for sharing this!
March 31st, 2011 at 8:35 pm
I think you’re correct James; it depends on the authenticity of the email as well, but those plates do look faked.
April 1st, 2011 at 12:32 am
I received an email from Dr. Thonemann confirming the authenticity of the email. Nice and official sounding, huh?
April 1st, 2011 at 2:47 am
[…] Daniel McClellin has the content of an email that was sent by Peter Thonemann at Oxford to David Elkington (the archaeologist who is leading the investigation into the plates) in which Thonemann demonstrates how the (one) bronze tablet that he was shown was apparently made rather recently by someone who did not know Greek, as there are errors in the writing that suggest to Thonemann that the writer didn’t even know the Greek alphabet. Furthermore, the writings don’t make sense as they stand and appear to have been copied from known Greek inscriptions. You can read the full email at Daniel’s site: https://danielomcclellan.wordpress.com/2011/03/31/peter-thonemann-on-the-lead-codices/ […]
April 1st, 2011 at 4:18 am
I also heard back from Margaret Barker; she informed me that she was not quoted correctly in the news articles either.
April 1st, 2011 at 4:54 am
[…] email from Peter Thonemann, posted over at Daniel O. McClellan’s blog is indeed authentic. This severely hurts the case for the tablets authenticity and makes […]
April 1st, 2011 at 5:25 am
[…] top of that Daniel O. McClellan has informed us that the email from Peter Thonemann, posted over at Daniel O. McClellan’s blog, is indeed authentic. This severely hurts the case for the tablets authenticity and makes […]
April 1st, 2011 at 10:03 am
[…] Dan McClellan […]
April 1st, 2011 at 11:14 am
Dude with probably at the least get death threats from the fanatics over this. Such is the world.
April 1st, 2011 at 11:19 am
Maybe. I don’t think this story got out there far enough and deep enough to elicit that kind of reaction, though. I don’t know what kind of ideological connection could be made between the plates and someone’s relgiosity that would do it, either.
April 2nd, 2011 at 7:12 pm
Daniel,
I can guarantee that even if these were real (which I think they might be), why are we throwing all of our eggs in one basket? One person (Peter) says they aren’t real, so we all just blindly follow? Huh? Any chance Peter is a right-wing pro-Christian trying to keep the dead horse under wraps?
April 2nd, 2011 at 7:45 pm
How could Peter’s or anyone else’s assumptions or ideology undermine the fact that the text of the bronze plates was copied, by someone who couldn’t even distinguish Greek letters, and that the lead plates were made using the same cast mold as the bronze ones? it seems as clear evidence as one could hope for.
April 2nd, 2011 at 8:32 pm
I like how one’s response to hard evidence is always conspiracy. Right, because Christians would hate it if lead tablets dating to the contemporary life of Jesus were brought to light.
April 1st, 2011 at 11:44 am
[…] The backlash begins! […]
April 4th, 2011 at 6:51 pm
Lead Codice Questions
1. Of all metals, why thin soft heavy lead – why not copper?
(to mass produce leaves from a mold?)
2. Why credit card size – to fit easily in pocket
(did tunics have pockets?)
3. For what purpose – certainly not to preserve knowledge.
( daily hymnals? – that’s a joke)
4. Is there any similar technology any where in the world?
stamped monetary coins are closest match
(well yes, linotype press 1700 years later)
5. it is a short step from mass produced raised impression plates
to inking and pressing raise text onto parchment
6. Why would there be 5 rings. 1 ring ,at most 2 rings
would hold the plates in a book. Why use the extra lead ?
Why waste the space on the page for ring holes?
7. The technology involved does not match the time frame
8. The technology is unique – and apparently purposeless
9. The technology is heavy and inefficient for one production
10. No obvious innovations proceeded from the technology
11. More books can be made to expand to the gullible market.
How did anyone make the connection between these plates and Jesus/Christians anyway – The Christians communities were not endemic to that area
This whole concept is pure NUTS.
April 1st, 2011 at 11:56 am
See: Second Book of Esdras – Chap.14 – Verses 46-47. = Apocrypha Scripture in regard to 70 books/tablets.
April 1st, 2011 at 12:37 pm
I’m confused, can someone clarify this? Aren’t the Jordan Codices described as being made of lead and of the size of a credit card? Why is he talking about bronze tablets in that email? Is he referring to something else perhaps (or were bronze tablets discovered along side the lead codices?)
April 1st, 2011 at 12:47 pm
The first question one has to ask is Who claims to have found a hoard of totally unique plates that turn out to be forgeries, only to turn up a year later with another hoard of totally unique plates that turn out to be authentic? The plates pictured above make it impossible that the plates being discussed now are legitimate. First, there’s no indication the current plates were not a part of the collection Elkington claimed to have a year ago. There hasn’t yet been a clear description provided of all the plates that Elkington claims to have, as far as I know, but the photos that have been circulated of them show a variety of shapes, sizes, and scripts. Second, some of the iconography on the plates is identical. This first image is the old plate. Notice the tree. The second is a photo recently provided by the BBC of one of the new plates. The tree is identical. The plate has been cast from the exact same mold.
April 1st, 2011 at 2:35 pm
Excellent work in uncovering these fakes, as usual sound logic and reasoning win out every time.
April 1st, 2011 at 5:13 pm
[…] Peter Thonemann on the Lead Codices (HT Daniel Peterson and Bill Hamblin) Peter Thonemann at Oxford has staked his career on the conclusion that the lead […] […]
April 1st, 2011 at 8:12 pm
[…] developed language could be wrong? Dr. Goodacre have a post up which relates to several more about the debunking of this.The debunking is centered around Dr. Peter Thonemann‘s email to Elkington about the […]
April 2nd, 2011 at 4:56 am
[…] Peter Thoneman concludeert op basis van foto’s dat een vervalser een oude tekst uit het Amman Museum nogal onintelligent heeft overgeschreven. Een Griekse tekst overigens: dat stond niet in de artikelen die ik hierboven citeer. Zie ook hier. […]
April 2nd, 2011 at 6:47 am
[…] För att åskådliggöra detta bättre ska jag vända mig till Peter Thonemann i Oxford som har satsat sin karriär på att det är förfalskningar utförda någon gång under de sista femtio åren (Daniel O. McClellan, Peter Thonemann on the Lead Codices) […]
April 2nd, 2011 at 7:02 am
[…] Daniel O. McClellan: Peter Thonemann on the Lead Codices […]
April 2nd, 2011 at 7:54 am
[…] Peter Thonemann on the Lead Codices refutation here. […]
April 2nd, 2011 at 7:22 pm
[…] Thonemann responded that it was a forgery, produced in Jordan within the last fifty years (cf. https://danielomcclellan.wordpress.com/2011/03/31/peter-thonemann-on-the-lead-codices/ and ref. […]
April 2nd, 2011 at 8:09 pm
The_truth-
Thanks for commenting. We’re not just blindly accepting Peter on his authority. He pointed out facts that have been published in two different venues. It’s those facts that show the forgery, not Peter’s authority. The inscription was lifted from an inscription on display at a museum. The inscription makes little sense out of its context, and it was clearly executed by someone who didn’t know the language. As my other post on the topic shows, the iconography on the forged bronze plate was produced by the exact same die or mold as at least one, and probably two, other lead plates whose photographs have been circulated. The facts all but preclude the plates’ authenticity. I see no reason to oppose that conclusion.
April 2nd, 2011 at 10:10 pm
Bam! Terrific work by Thonemann. If only all forgeries were dealt such a powerful blow.
April 2nd, 2011 at 11:45 pm
Another point to consider: Elkington in his letter to Thonemann made the statement “1st millennium AD”. No scholar has used “AD” for decades. That causes me to wonder if he has any valid credentials at all.
April 3rd, 2011 at 7:32 am
No, he does not. He is trained as an artist and has not, to my knowledge, published anything even remotely close to the subject in any academic journal or series. But just to be clear, some scholars still use AD.
April 3rd, 2011 at 3:41 am
Thank heavens for Dr. Thonemann and Mr. McClellan! I listened to an interview with David Elkington and when he spoke how the LDS scholars were so interested in these codices, intimating that they supported their position I became certain he was NOT what he purported to be… Joseph Smith’s infamous “creative license” with the scriptures has been proven by the Dead Sea Scrolls, in particular the Book of Isaiah. I also had to chuckle at how Elkington is described by so many different publications: Egyptologist, Archeologist, Expert ancient linguist, Biblical historian and specialist in Christian and Hebrew origins? If he indeed was any of his many monikers then he himself could have easily translated the text on the forgeries. I’ll say this about Elkington… he is very smooth and quite convincing; their will be many people who will believe his story without proper prudent investigation. Thank you for exposing this fraud!
April 3rd, 2011 at 9:00 am
[…] “Peter Thonemann at Oxford has staked his career on the conclusion that the lead codices being… The Greek text at the top of your photo no. 0556 reads: ΛΛΥΠΕΧΛΙΡΕΛΒΓΛΡΟΚΛΙΕΙΣΙΩΝ, followed by ΛΛΥΠΕ in mirror-writing. […]
April 3rd, 2011 at 10:13 am
Why do we assume these are cast in a mold with inscriptions on them? If someone went through the effort to produce a mold with inscriptions in the mold it would tend to imply mass production. Why inscribe into a mold which is a harder material than the substrate itself, like stone, if you are only making one copy (or especially a forgery)? Most likely the creator would use some kind of stamping or impression making with a hammer, which is a much easier process to setup and offers more control. We could easily find out by looking at the obverse of the plate
We could consider other possibilities, such as if these had been in a family possession for some time there are possibly fake ‘additions’ to the original find. Also what’s depicted in these photos are obviously not the purported 2000 year old lead plates, so interesting to see what happens
April 3rd, 2011 at 10:32 am
The point is that the inscription is copied from a book of inscriptions, with mistakes in similar-looking Greek letters (which would not confuse anyone who actually knew the language, obviously).
April 3rd, 2011 at 10:48 am
Thanks for the comments, Marlon. I don’t know why someone would add fake additions to an original find and then send out photos of the fake additions for authentication, only to ignore their falsification and again send out pictures of the fake additions for publicizing. Next, people who create molds for mass production are those concerned about efficiency. Forgers aren’t concerned with efficiency. In fact, forgery often involves excruciatingly inefficient processes. Notice, however, that I say the two plates come from the same “die or mold.” The copper plate image has rounder edges and may have been pressed or stamped, but the lead plate image has much sharper edges, and is more likely to come from a mold. I don’t know for sure, though, which is why I leave it open. What’s clear, however, is that the copper codex is a forgery and at least one of the lead codices shares the same provenance.
April 3rd, 2011 at 12:58 pm
[…] Peter Thonemann at Oxford University has staked his career on opining that the codices are not what … […]
April 3rd, 2011 at 1:23 pm
[…] Dan McClellan broke the news, also reported by Jim Davila and then circulated by countless other bloggers, that the lead plates that have been in the news lately are indeed fakes. Tom Verenna wrote to Margaret Barker and got a reply which indicates that she has been misquoted in the media about them. And Ferrell Jenkins mentions other earlier forgeries – the Kinderhook Plates – which from the description sound a lot like these. […]
April 3rd, 2011 at 7:00 pm
[…] do we know the discovery is a fraud? Well, for one thing, as Peter Thonemann at Oxford has pointed out, the Greek text was written by someone who apparently doesn’t know the Greek alphabet! Most […]
April 3rd, 2011 at 7:02 pm
[…] but that they have begun to reflect upon the possibility that there are indeed fakes in the lot. Daniel McClellan has argued, in my opinion persuasively, that it makes no sense to send the modern fakes (which […]
April 3rd, 2011 at 9:40 pm
[…] authenticity was simple. After viewing images of the relics, Oxford Prof. Peter Thonemann concluded: The text was incised by someone who did not know the Greek language, since he does not distinguish […]
April 4th, 2011 at 2:00 am
[…] authenticity was simple. After viewing images of the relics, Oxford Prof. Peter Thonemann concluded: The text was incised by someone who did not know the Greek language, since he does not distinguish […]
April 4th, 2011 at 6:45 am
[…] the existence of Jesus. Only it’s all a pack of lies. They were written by someone who didn’t even know the language! Possibly within the last fifty […]
April 4th, 2011 at 6:50 am
[…] Daniel O. McLellan quoted Peter Thoneman’s analysis of one of the ancient texts: […]
April 4th, 2011 at 9:05 am
[…] https://danielomcclellan.wordpress.com/2011/03/31/peter-thonemann-on-the-lead-codices/ […]
April 4th, 2011 at 10:52 am
[…] do we know the discovery is a fraud? Well, for one thing, as Peter Thonemann at Oxford has pointed out, the Greek text was written by someone who apparently doesn’t know the Greek alphabet! Most […]
April 4th, 2011 at 12:34 pm
Apparently there are two duplicate casts of at least one of the pages. One in lead/copper, and the other in either bronze or copper. I have been unsuccessful at finding much materials analysis of the second one.
Does anyone know of a citation on that artifact?
April 4th, 2011 at 1:55 pm
I don’t have any info on that, sorry.
April 4th, 2011 at 1:34 pm
[…] This post is revealing: Peter Thonemann on the Lead Codices By Daniel O. McClellan […]
April 4th, 2011 at 2:32 pm
[…] authenticity was simple. After viewing images of the relics, Oxford Prof. Peter Thonemann concluded: The text was incised by someone who did not know the Greek language, since he does not distinguish […]
April 4th, 2011 at 3:42 pm
[…] Peter Thonemann staking his career that the codices are forgeries […]
April 5th, 2011 at 1:10 am
[…] well, it’s looking like these books are, in fact, fakes. Here’s one account. Share and […]
April 5th, 2011 at 3:18 am
[…] 2 zile de la publicarea articolului pe site-ul BBC, s-a dovedit ca e o facatura. Share this on del.icio.usShare this on FacebookDigg this!Share this on RedditAdd this to Google […]
April 5th, 2011 at 8:28 am
[…] developed language could be wrong? Dr. Goodacre have a post up which relates to several more about the debunking of this.The debunking is centered around Dr. Peter Thonemann‘s email to Elkington about the […]
April 5th, 2011 at 10:58 am
[…] […]
April 5th, 2011 at 6:00 pm
The Books were orginally “discovered ” by a Bedouin from Shibli who worked with Hassan Saida. He bought them from a Jordanian Taxi Driver he was friendly with. Later the two Bedouins Paid vast sums of money to Elkington and Feather and the like to get the works authenticated. During this time not one of them tried to hand the works to any authority. On the contrary they obtained an export license under false pretences. ( the books already being in Europe) When a dead end was reached and not willing to hand over more money to the publicity seeking Elkington the Bedouins stopped all contact and hence his own campaign ” to do the right thing started” He was NEVER THREATENED! just IGNORED
many serious far more discreet scholars have seen the works and the real finder and owner is more than happy to supply photos free of charge and to be interviewed.
There is NO secret or conspiracy
The books ( and there are not 70!) are made of ancient metal and what is of interest more than content is the fact they ARE ONE OF THE FIRST BOOKS TO BE PRINTED
April 5th, 2011 at 7:18 pm
If the owner is happy to supply photos free of charge then I’d like to request them. Please send them to the email address listed in the “About Me” page of this blog.
April 5th, 2011 at 8:53 pm
One of the first books to be printed? What do you mean? That doesn’t make any sense. The first book to be printed in the western world is the Gutenberg Bible. The oldest known book to be printed in the eastern world is the Vajra Sutra. As for metal plates, be they gold, silver, copper or oddly lead, such “books” are not all that rare. Every news report and blog has claimed that these plates date back to the 1st century CE which would hardly make it the first (nor even “one of” the first) books printed. Israel Antiquities has proclaimed them a fraud, and that settles it for me because they have extensive experience with identifying fake artifacts which are on the order of several thousands. It’s a booming business.
April 5th, 2011 at 11:34 pm
Eric, those “printed books” are many hundreds of years after the first century CE, as I assume you know. I think the point was that they were cast and not inscripted, and therefore easily replicable, much like later printed books. Is that a difficult concept to grasp? I do not believe they will prove to be genuine, but I understand that point if they do prove authentic.
April 6th, 2011 at 10:57 am
Perhaps my point wasn’t adequately made. It seemed to me Ilan was suggesting the plates are authentic. His statement that they (the plates) are “ONE OF THE FIRST BOOKS TO BE PRINTED” doesn’t make any sense. What I was trying to say is that regardless how one uses the word “printing” these plates – if they proved authentic – could in no way be interpreted as the first printing of anything, whether it be paper, vellum, papyrus, clay, stone, metal, et. al. because books were made/produced/printed for millennia before these plates are alleged by Elkington to have been produced.
April 13th, 2011 at 10:18 am
If these ‘molded books’ were a multiple produced form of communication made around 100 BC, it would have lead into a printed form of vellum, or papyrus printed with inked lead plates within 200 years. The concept of multiple production did not occur in Europe until more than 1000 years later. The ‘technology’ of multiple printing simply is not a valid model for this time period. The whole concept of these ‘books’ is FAKE.
April 6th, 2011 at 11:56 am
[…] Elkington to help determine the meaning of some Greek text on a few of the codices. Thonemann responded with the following […]
April 7th, 2011 at 10:37 am
[…] fakes (for the full email exchange and images of the photos which were sent to Mr. Thonemann, see here). His email response was the following: After having a close look at the photos, I replied later […]
April 8th, 2011 at 5:03 am
From the numismatic horizon: One of the plates have details made using a modern fake turist coin.
http://www.mynthandeln.com/ [2011-04-08]
Case closed.
April 8th, 2011 at 7:31 am
[…] Goodacre at NT BlogDavila’s Random Thoughts on the Fake Metal CodicesDaniel O. McClellanPeter Thonemann on the Lead CodicesIan Paul at Psephizo » Biblical StudiesSwinging the lead: codices are fakeTom Verenna at The […]
April 8th, 2011 at 8:01 pm
holy shit that gray text on gray background is hard on the eyes — bet you said some good stuff but I’ll never know cuz I had to quit by the third paragraph
April 9th, 2011 at 10:44 am
[…] Peter Thonemann on the lead codices. “Peter Thonemann at Oxford has staked his career on the conclusion that the lead codices being discussed recently are forgeries executed within the last 50 years.”… “The only possible explanation is that the text on the bronze tablet was copied directly from the inscription in the museum at Amman by someone who did not understand the meaning of the text of the inscription, but was simply looking for a plausible-looking sequence of Greek letters to copy. He copied that sequence three times, in each case mixing up the letters alpha and lambda.” […]
April 11th, 2011 at 4:37 pm
Daniel,
I am putting something together on this and I wonder if you can clear something up for me.
Elkington mentions copper and lead codices and says he’ll send photos. Then Thonemann responds with comments on bronze tablets. So what artifacts did Thonemann actually examine and how does that relate to the codices reported in the MSM?
I would like to use Thonemann as a reliable authority on the refutation of the authenticity of the codices, but my friend thinks some may consider him unreliable if his criticisms are about bronze books, when the ones Elkington (and the MSM) is referring to are apparebtly copper and/or lead.
Also, is there a catalogue available that describes what each of the codices is made from? I assume that some are made from lead, some copper, and some bronze?
Thanks for your help.
April 11th, 2011 at 4:48 pm
Hi Duane. Thanks for the question. Thonemann’s response to Elkington actually has to do with copper codices. Several sites online called them bronze accidentally and I did it a couple times too. I have a post up showing the obvious relationship of the copper codices examined by Thonemann to the lead ones currently being publicized, based on identical iconography:
https://danielomcclellan.wordpress.com/2011/04/01/on-the-lead-vs-bronze-codices/
Additionally, Steve Caruso’s recent analysis of the script of the different codices shows the same hand is responsible for the paleo-Hebrew looking characters on the copper and the current lead codices:
http://aramaicdesigns.blogspot.com/2011/04/lead-codices-on-livescience-and-my.html
http://aramaicdesigns.blogspot.com/2011/04/lead-codices-character-sheet.html
There is of yet no catalogue with detailed descriptions of all the plates, since Elkington is being super secretive (because he doesn’t have the plates anymore and has burned bridges between him and the people who currently have them), but they’ve been described as lead and copper, with Greek and “paleo-Hebrew” characters and “messianic” images (Elkington’s imagination is responsible for the notion of “messianic” images). There are some scrolls of lead or copper as well, but no good photos have been shared yet of them.
April 12th, 2011 at 6:32 am
As far as I can tell, most of the discussion leading to the conclusion that the lead plates are forgeries is based on Thonemann’s analysis of the copper plates he received a year prior to the enveiling of the lead ones. While not irrelevant, the fact that these are forgeries does not necessarily imply that the lead ones are. My analysis that the plate containing the image of Jesus is a forgery is conclusive evidence that at least one of the plates is of recent provenance, a fact supported by McClellan’s analysis of the script. Where evidence is available to points to certainty rather than probability, it makes more sense to go with the certain knowledge. There is no room for doubt. The supposed image of Jesus is replicated from the photo of the Mona Lisa. Replicate my findings for yourself or wait a bit and I will post more detailed images to my blog. Right now, I’ve got classes to teach.
As far as I can tell, then, there is one piece of incontrovertible evidence that one of the lead plates is a forgery, and that evidence is posted to my blog. The rest is probabilities.
April 13th, 2011 at 12:32 pm
This takes away from time that could be spent reading the Necronomicon. We have such little time left…
April 14th, 2011 at 1:42 am
Yes, is a modern forgery!
Kind regards,
Georgeos
April 14th, 2011 at 3:36 am
[…] andere bibliobloggers hun wantrouwen niet onder stoelen of banken staken. Zo bleek dat de classicus Peter Thonemann enige tijd terug was gevraagd om naar foto’s van koperen codices te kijken. Hij kwam er al […]
April 14th, 2011 at 1:28 pm
[…] Peter Thonemann on the Lead Codices […]
April 16th, 2011 at 9:52 am
The language deficiency seems to be a weak argument. Could this not be a case of an individual living in the first century who was dispossessed of a total schooling in the Greek language the same way, say, a lot of Americans were in the 19th century with the English language? Yet, if we find a letter written during the American Civil War containing bad grammar, vocabulary, etc., we don’t necessarily jump to the conclusion that it is fake.
April 16th, 2011 at 9:58 am
Thanks for commenting, JP. The main argument is not that there is a language deficiency. The main argument is that the text is demonstrably copied from another text. The language deficiency only shows that the copying was done by someone who couldn’t read Greek. It’s not entirely outside the realm of possibility that someone long ago copied down the text from this tombstone now on display in Jordan without understanding a word of it and then used portions of that text to produce these plates, but it would be absolutely ludicrous to conclude that that scenario comes close to making as much or more sense than simply concluding the codices are forgeries. The fact that the chariot scene in the upper left corner of the copper codex happens to have come directly from a modern forgery of an ancient genre of coin completely eradicates any possibility that these plates are authentic.
April 29th, 2011 at 2:52 am
[…] hanno battuto sul tempo i media tradizionali: il 31 marzo un resoconto dello stesso Thonemann («Peter Thonemann on the Lead Codices»), più dettagliato di quello pubblicato dal TLS, è apparso sul blog di Daniel O. McClellan. Il […]
May 7th, 2011 at 5:36 pm
[…] what do actual biblical scholars say? Well, Dr. Peter Thonemann, university lecturer in ancient history, Forrest-Derow Fellow and tutor in ancient history, Wadham […]
June 24th, 2011 at 11:40 pm
[…] after beginning my coverage of the Jordan Lead Codices topic on my blog, a comment appeared on this post from someone identifying themselves as Ilan Shibli and purporting to be one of the Bedouins […]
August 18th, 2011 at 5:52 pm
[…] Peter Thonemann on the Lead Codices refutation here. […]
August 23rd, 2011 at 11:54 am
[…] 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 […]
August 23rd, 2011 at 12:14 pm
Hey nice post. I have a question, even though you have great information how can you be sure about all of this?
August 23rd, 2011 at 12:17 pm
Which part are you wondering about? Elkington has acknowledged that he sent the photos to Thonemann. I’ve seen photos of the inscription from the Amman museum and have shown the very clear relationship between it and the codices. I’ve also shown the direct genetic link between the copper codices and the other lead ones. The evidence for forgery far outweighs what meager considerations have been forwarded in defense of the codices’ antiquity (namely that the lead is ancient, which doesn’t really bear on the date of the texts and iconography).
August 25th, 2011 at 4:08 pm
[…] 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. […]
December 23rd, 2011 at 3:28 pm
[…] https://danielomcclellan.wordpress.com/2011/03/31/peter-thonemann-on-the-lead-codices/ […]
August 27th, 2012 at 7:12 am
[…] Spännande läsning och länkar till ytterli-gare fördjupningar och illustrationer – bl.a. bloggaren Daniel i Washington State, USA. Och där fanns en bild med en detalj jag genast kände igen; den där […]
May 4th, 2013 at 5:56 am
[…] Daniel O. McClellan: Peter Thonemann on the Lead Codices […]
September 29th, 2013 at 10:53 pm
[…] Even leek het erop, maar het bleek een vervalsing: lees maar hier, hier, hier, hier of hier. De publicatie van de weerlegging verhinderde niet dat het non-nieuws opnieuw in de pers kwam […]
January 20th, 2014 at 10:49 pm
I would like to know what Greek the scientist is basing his report upon.. As there are only 2 type of Greek that we get our biblical manuscripts from.. One is from ANTIOCH where over 4500+ manuscripts support the original hebrew .. And then there is the Alexandrian GREEK … The corrupt greek that the roman church embraces.
May 23rd, 2014 at 1:36 pm
[…] said that, on April 1, 2011—less than a day after my original posting of Dr. Peter Thonemann’s correspondence with David Elkington—I pointed out that the […]
May 10th, 2016 at 5:54 am
[…] Photo credit: Daniel O. McClellan/Peter Thonemann […]
December 11th, 2016 at 1:30 am
What is shown is simple…been an amateur coin collector and have seen these faces…center: alexander the great wearing horn of Amman, scorpion (egyptian), Pharoah chariot with six horses, Marc Anthony, Cleopatra, the face in the upper right still unknown.
February 22nd, 2024 at 1:22 am
[…] the existence of Jesus. Only it’s all a pack of lies. They were written by someone who didn’t even know the language! Possibly within the last fifty […]