Short Video on Jordan Codices

Tom Verenna has a video up on the Jordan Codices that explains a few of the more critical problems with the claims being made by Elkington through Facebook:

Here is a more detailed explanation of the manipulation that has taken place with the Oxford materials report. This is a claim that Elkington made on the Facebook page regarding the Oxford materials report (it is a response to a post that has been deleted):

The metal was re-melted in antiquity. If you read the report carefully, it states this fact. It then concludes that the metal is of ancient provenance and that the corrosion is uniform across the entire surface.

Does the report support this claim? This is the scan of one of the pages from that report that Elkington has placed on the Jordan Codices Facebook page:

Here is his transcription of this page:

The third sentence under the Corrosion section would seem to support Elkington’s claim that analysis suggest an ancient provenance:

Most of the other leaves show a surface which flakes off quite easily and can expose a very clean and just slightly oxidized surface with the characteristic of lead that has been buried where it would be expected that the surface crust would be thicker and that there would be greater penetration of the metal leaving, at least, a pitted surface.

If the syntax of this sentence seems off to you, you’re not alone. The second half of the sentence seems to be describing a situation that is expected but not observed, rather than a situation that has been observed. According to the sentence above the “where” is to be understood locatively, but it seems to be operating as a subordinating conjunction. A closer look at the scan, which has been intentionally made virtually illegible by Elkington, solves the problem:

The highlighted sentence reads:

In the present writer’s view this is not characteristic of lead that has been buried where it would be expected that the surface crust would be thicker and that there would be greater penetration of the metal leaving, at least, a pitted surface.

Elkington’s transcription removes the last portion of the sentence prior to the highlighted text and combines the resulting fragment with the second half of the highlighted sentence. Basically, the word “characteristic” in the highlighted sentence is moved back and replaces the word “characters” in the previous sentence, removing the portion of the report that conflicts with an ancient provenance for the codices. Will Elkington argue for haplography as a result of homoioarcton? Possibly, but it can be no coincidence that the edited text supports a fundamental claim that Elkington highlights and emphasizes elsewhere. Elkington has demonstrably altered the report to support his assertions. This is flagrant and egregious deception, and it shows quite conclusively that Elkington is willing to lie and to openly and transparently manipulate scientific data to make his codices appear ancient. They simply are not. Elkington is a demonstrable fraud and a dilettant (he is monstrously ignorant of basic principles of Greek and Hebrew). His deception needs to be exposed. Too many innocent people have been taken in by this man’s baseless claims, and they will soon begin to line his pockets with book royalties.

PS – A link to the video above was posted on the Jordan Codices page a few minutes ago by Mark Goodacre, associate professor of New Testament at Duke University:

It has already been removed by Elkington, along with the other comment (which Elkington does not seem to understand):

PPS – Since Dr. Goodacre’s post, two more professors, Jim West of Quartz Hill School of Theology and James Davila of St. Andrews University have posted the link, only to have it unceremoniously removed. Dorothy Lobel King, an actual archaeologist, pointed out that Elkington cannot, by law, claim copyrights on photos of the artifacts. That comment was also removed:

 

 

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