Todd Bolen has a sweet post over at his Bible Places blog. I highly recommend it. Here’s one paragraph:
In a nutshell, the problems with this discovery include the facts that (1) we don’t know who owns the artifacts; (2) we don’t know where they were found; (3) the artifacts were not excavated by archaeologists but stolen by thieves; (4) nearly all information about the discovery so far has come from a single source of dubious reliability; (5) claims have been made that this find is more significant than the Dead Sea Scrolls; (6) the source of information appears to be positioning himself for fame and fortune.
Nice, succint and to the point. It crystalises nicely the unease that I have felt with this one. We all hope that it’s genuine … but ….
In addition to the points he brought up in his article, these lead pages appear to be covered with rust… I thought since lead was a non ferrous metal that it cannot rust???
This will be amusing.
Thanks for posting,
Rebecca
true (and to anonymous below); part of the article notes some leaves are copper and has leaves at Jordan and another location — inconsistencies.
Lead does indead oxidize, have you seen old lead sinkers with that white dust on them? The white dust is lead rust…