I'm not talking about religion. & He isn't either from what I read in the article. But maybe that's just me

These scrolls & monuments & pieces of clay have humongous historical value. It's true as well that they have religious value to many but the religious part is beside the point from what I can tell

Just like we'd love to find a first edition of the first time someone wrote down the poems of Homer - in 2018 they found a clay tablet which reportedly "may be the oldest written record of Homer's epic tale, the Odyssey, ever found in Greece" which is the same kind of cool https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-44779492

I love this perspective of his. He just wants accurate data and gives no fucks about the elimination of forgeries beyond that. In the best way possible; What an absolute legendary nerd! I love it!

>Langlois told me that he derives no pleasure from such discoveries. “My intention wasn’t to be an expert in forgeries, and I don’t love catching bad guys or something,” he told me. “But with forgeries, if you don’t pay attention, and you think they are authentic, then they become part of the data set you use to reconstruct the history of the Bible. The entire theory is then based on data that is false.” That’s why ferreting out biblical fakes is “paramount,” Langlois said. “Otherwise, everything we are going to do on the history of the Bible is corrupt.”

This is so cool

YES! THIS!

I have always been the one of my friend groups to take photos & videos of random times together & always got endless amounts of shit for it since the early 2000s.

Now in the 2020s all those same friends are VERY appreciative of the fact that I have all these photos and videos of us from decades past

Super interesting& cool! Thanks!!!

It is of Jesus but isn't from 29 AD more like 1029 AD

"This coin is one of a series of coins that were issued in Constantinople (present day Istanbul) in celebration of the First Millennium of Jesus' birth."

Via Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs archived at Internet Archive Way back Machine and quoted more fully in another comment in this thread or at this linked text

Found info! (Full links for verification at bottom)

>Coin of Jesus found in Ancient Tiberias Excavation

>29 Nov 2004

>A rare Jesus coin was found by volunteers digging at the site of Ancient Tiberias.

>(Communicated by Prof. Yizhar Hirschfeld, director of the archeological excavation)

>An unusual and important find was discovered at the archaeological excavation of Ancient Tiberias being carried out at a site on the shore of the Sea of Galilee in Israel.

>To their great surprise, a group of young people who were participating in the dig discovered a rare coin. On the front of the coin can be seen a somewhat blurred image of Jesus, while on the back, the words in Greek "Jesus the Messiah King of Kings" are engraved very clearly. This coin is one of a series of coins that were issued in Constantinople (present day Istanbul) in celebration of the First Millennium of Jesus' birth.

>It is not uncommon to find this coin in neighboring countries of Israel, such as Turkey, but this is the first time that it has ever been discovered at an Israeli archaeological site.

>Prof. Yizhar Hirschfeld, Director of this excavation, which is sponsored by the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and Brown University, in association with the City of Tiberias and the Israel Antiquities Authority, explains that this coin was brought to Tiberias by Christian pilgrims. Tiberias and the other sites around the Sea of Galilee were the desired destination of Christian pilgrims during the time of Muslim rule in Israel from the 7th to 11th centuries CE.

>The Ancient Tiberias Excavation receives financial support from the Avihai Fund of Jerusalem whose aim is the deepening of knowledge of history on the part of the youth participating in the dig and the residents of Tiberias and its environs.

>Mr. Zohar Oved, Mayor of Tiberias, who stands behind the efforts of this excavation, has stated that the finding of the Jesus coin on the shores of the Sea of Galilee will be a drawing point for tourists from all over the world.

Source: I think I found a pretty decent source for the info on this coin

I found a bit about it on the Jewish Virtual Library websiteJewish Virtual Library website article from November 2004 which referenced info obtained from a piece about it on the Government of Israel's Ministry of Foreign Affairs website but the link was now dead so I found the archived version of the page Internet Archive Way back Machine

Here it is, link to Internet Archive Way back Machine cached version from 2006 of Israeli MFA website article posted in 2004

EDIT: spacing & line breaks for legibility

The way the article refers to the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem as the "Great Temple" & then "Second Temple" leads me to think the article may be an amalgamation of various other articles on the topic lazily copy/pasta together so it mostly makes sense but is somewhat incoherent

Crazy to think they had "customs checkpoints" back then

I wonder if they had protectionist tariffs too