The bulk of my criticism is reserved for Reuters who presumably don’t have the political motivation the TCP might have, but may well have a profit motive inspiring their presenting the story as Jesus-linked.

I don’t see the relevance of the Otzi comparison. Cops found loot in this case, not a body, and they claimed greater age rather than less. Nor was there any confusion whatsoever among the experts who examined the piece.

“I’d suspect that it is most likely to be less than 1,000 years old,” …(attribution followed quote in orginal.)

“After further scrutiny… manuscripts specialist… suggested that the book could have been written a good deal later.”

“The Syriac writing seems to be in the East Syriac script with vowel points, and you do not find such manuscripts before about the 15th century.”

OK, perhaps I am thick, but just what did the Turkish Cypriot police do that was all that bad…ok, they were wrong in claims that this bible goes back to the time of Jesus. Perhaps only to the time of Gutenburg or John Wycliffe…but why the snobbery.

The Tyrolian frozenite – Utzi- was originally thought modern, and only until DNA testing did ANYONE in cultural anthropoloby suggest a far older provenance for this cadaver.

You really missed the boat on this one. (Contact me at bradlaw@cfl.rr.com, I am only an amateur historian, but well-versed and would love to have some feedback, even if critical!).