Unruly bridge and tunnel crowd

UNESCO, the Paris-based international culture agency which recently inspected Israel's controversial archaeological salvage tunnel near the Temple Mount, is expected to release its report today, urging Israel to halt its excavation until international experts can oversee it. These United Nations bureaucrats, who were led around by the outspoken Israeli archaeologist, Dan Bahut, seem to be sending a decidedly mixed message, even though local press reports stressed that no official statements about the UNESCO conclusions were expected until next month and that a policy of transparency is accomplished with an online video camera focused at the site round the clock.

Fears that Muslim holy sites were being undermined by Israeli shovels appear to be unfounded. King Abdullah II of Jordan had pleaded last month for restraint by the so-called "Temple Raiders" and Islamic riots resulted in Kashmir when Israeli digging commenced.

After clashes between 3000 security police and Muslim residents of East Jerusalem led to a couple dozen injuries from stun grenades, clubs, and stones outside the Al Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert invited the UN into the fray. The new report, which examined exploratory digs for antiquities which were undertaken to prevent possible damage when Israeli engineers erect new support pillars for a collapsed walkway, seems to be quite cautious. It points out that Israel has not violated any norms. Yet religious sensitivites concerning this locale, where a ramp allows non-Muslims--mostly soldiers, tourists, and settlers ---to ascend and overlook a site which is sacrosanct to three monotheistic religions, are volatile. This was the magnificent Second Temple of Solomon, demolished by the Romans; the same temple where Jesus once threw out the Philistine money-changers; the place where Mohammed embarked on a night ride that revealed the Koran. That's why UN experts recommend scrupulous restraint. Israel is expected to consult with authorities from Jordan and from the local Islamic Waqf board before any further work gets underway on the Temple Mount. Nearly 100 arrests for inciting or participating in violence were made in February. A spy drone hovered overhead on subsequent Fridays, tourist visits were cancelled, and only middleaged Muslims over the age of 45 were allowed to worship. Younger Muslims were prevented from entering, and Islamic schools near the site were closed. A rabbi recently purchased a flock of sheep which he grazes on the grassy slopes outside the walled city; his reasoning reportedly is to be ready in case the temple is re-erected and a call for sacrificial animals results.

Cherrypickers,Gnostic Nasties,Unholy hype

Here is Simcha, the self-dubbed Naked Archaeologist, who insists he found Jesus. Literally. Then got James Cameron in on the deal.

No bones about it, the most hits in the brief history of the Israelity Bites blog came this weekend after Izzy Bee posted that Discovery Channel docu-drama preview of the disputed “Lost Tomb of Jesus” on Friday. James Cameron and Simcha Jacobovici triggered a major cyber-spasm on this site with their claim that a suburban Jerusalem tomb had contained Jesus Christ & son, plus a clutch of other relatives. So the Holy Sepulcher’s not wholly holy? The implication made some clergymen get rather hot under the dog collar. Nuns were having none of it. After all, second Temple-era stone ossuaries, similar to the two caskets unveiled at the NYC public library this week, are so common that Israelis frequently use them as planters for begonias or geraniums. But when a Canadian journo and the Titanic showman teamed up to think outside the box, plenty of people got that sinking feeling.

Hey, I did not intend for my blog to be another conduit for the James Cameron publicity machine, but it turned out to be just the tip of the iceberg. The comments poured in for days and Izzy pored over them in fascination.

They ranged from testimonies of faith, rationalist discourse, gnostic nasties and Monty Python shtick, with some doubting Thomases and furtive freemasons weighing in, too. And all blasphemers were cursed in CAPS by a fire-and-brimstone believer in a vengeful deity. Izzy Bee hopes that after the controversial show runs on Sunday, sceptics and believers will resume their dialogue here. Time to curb your dogma, sharpen your tongue, and go at it with logic and vigor.

This afternoon, Izzy Bee followed the senior archaeologist Dan Bahat through a subterranean tunnel that skirts the sacrosanct Western Wall of the Temple Mount. An Al-Jazeera film crew came along too, trailing the heritage protection team from UNESCO, and after a few snarls from the Israeli security detail, all were allowed inside. Dr Bahat is both a scientist and a religious man, and besides teaching at Israel’s Bar-Ilan University, is on the theology faculty at the University of Toronto. Like most experts on Jerusalem’s past, the professor seemed to be bothered by the sketchy science behind the “Lost Tomb” program. The Talpiyot cave's 10 caskets were catalogued and the bones reburied 27 years ago, so this earth-shattering hypothesis is a non-starter in Israeli scientific circles. The video trailers suggest that evidence was cherrypicked to support the documentary’s premise that the body of Jesus, son of Joseph and worshipped as Christ, was stuffed in a box outside the walled city for 2000 years. This strikes Jerusalem-based scholars as pseudo-science based on conjecture. But interesting if true...

As our group walked past enormous Herodian stone blocks, where Jewish prayers on paper slips were tucked into some ancient crevices, then beside Byzantine arches, Umayyad masonry, old Roman toilets, moats, cisterns and the like, this unholy row over Cameron’s slight-of-hand documentary seemed carefully manipulated for maximum profit. Watch this space.