Statistical analysis of an archeological find

DOI10.1214/08-AOAS99zbMATH Open1137.62092arXiv0804.0079OpenAlexW2093089783WikidataQ29037678 ScholiaQ29037678MaRDI QIDQ2482965FDOQ2482965

Authors: Andrey Feuerverger

Publication date: 30 April 2008

Published in: The Annals of Applied Statistics (Search for Journal in Brave)

Abstract: In 1980, a burial tomb was unearthed in Jerusalem containing ossuaries (limestone coffins) bearing such inscriptions as Yeshua son of Yehosef, Marya, Yoseh--names which match those of New Testament (NT) figures, but were otherwise in common use. This paper discusses certain statistical aspects of authenticating or repudiating links between this find and the NT family. The available data are laid out, and we examine the distribution of names (onomasticon) of the era. An approach is proposed for measuring the ``surprisingness of the observed outcome relative to a ``hypothesis that the tombsite belonged to the NT family. On the basis of a particular--but far from uncontested--set of assumptions, our measure of ``surprisingness is significantly high.

Full work available at URL: https://arxiv.org/abs/0804.0079

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zbMATH Keywords

hypotheses relevance coincidence conditioning statistical inference a priori tail areas post hoc inference distribution of names historical assumptions Jesus of Nazareth onomasticon rareness and surprisingness

Mathematics Subject Classification ID

History, political science (91F10) Applications of statistics to social sciences (62P25)

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