James Tabor / UNCC

A replica of the "Jonah Fish" bone box, on display at Discovery Times Square in New York, shows a fishlike figure on the left side of the box's front. Small fish figures are inscribed in a border along the top of the box. The right side of the box's front is incomplete because that area was obscured by an adjacent bone box.

The debate over a 1st-century "Jesus Discovery" tomb that may, or may not, contain the earliest known evidence of Christian iconography has taken on some of the fervor of a holy war, with some scriptural scholars protesting what they see as the "Da Vinci Codification" of modern culture.

The controversy focused on whether a fishlike figure carved into one of the limestone bone boxes from the Jerusalem tomb was really meant to be a fish — or something else. It's a key point, because fish have historically been seen as early Christian symbols, and such symbols have not previously been found on Jerusalem bone boxes.

"The 'Jonah Fish' is just the next installment in the Jesus-archaeology franchise — timed, as always, to precede a major Christian feast," Steven Fine, director of Yeshiva University's Center for Israel Studies, complained in a posting to the ASOR Blog, which is published by the American Schools of Oriental Research. "I, for one, am wearied by the almost yearly 'teaching moment' presented by these types of 'discoveries.' I am hopeful, however, that — this time — a forceful and quick display of unanimous dissent by the leading members of the academic community will be taken seriously by the media and the public at large."

The underground chamber, known as the Patio Tomb because it lies beneath the patio of a present-day condo building, was explored a couple of years ago with the aid of a camera-equipped robotic arm. The project came into the global spotlight this week with the publication of "The Jesus Discovery," a book about the finds made there.

A documentary TV show, reportedly titled "The Resurrection Tomb," is due to air on the Discovery Channel this spring. It's not yet clear whether that show will be broadcast around the time of Easter Sunday, which falls on April 8 this year (April 15 for Orthodox Christians).

Discovery Times Square

In addition to the "Jonah Fish" bone box, investigators examined a different limestone bone box that had an inscription scrawled in the central area of the front face. They interpreted the third line of the inscription as referring to "lifting up" or resurrection. Such a reference could be read as a statement of faith. This is a replica of the casket that is on display at Discovery Times Square in New York.

This week's claims about the Christian character of the bone boxes seen in the Patio Tomb have attracted sharp criticism from outside experts. The tone of the debate has become so sharp that one of the scriptural scholars behind the discovery, James Tabor of the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, appealed today for an end to the "personal innuendos and ugly charges about greed and corruption."

"I ask my fellow bloggers in our field to circulate this call for a change in our tone and approach to one another," he wrote on his own blog. "Enough is enough. ..."

One of Tabor's partners in the tomb study is Rami Arav, an Israeli-born archaeologist at the University of Nebraska at Omaha who has directed excavations in Israel for more than two decades. Arav told me today that the controversy over the findings was not unexpected.

"Whenever you make a pioneering discovery ... there will always be questions about the interpretation of what you see, particularly when things are not unequivocal," he said. "My philosophy in this kind of thing is that a good theory ... is elegant and solves more problems than it creates."

Bebeto Matthews / AP

Biblical scholar James Tabor glances over at replicas of two bone boxes found in Jerusalem's Patio Tomb during a Tuesday news conference at Discovery Times Square. A camera-equipped robotic arm like the one seen here was used to examine the boxes remotely.

Believing a fish story
For some, the claims about the "Jonah Fish" constitute a big problem. Tabor, Arav and another partner, documentary filmmaker Simcha Jacobovici, have suggested that the figure alludes to the biblical story of the prophet Jonah, who was swallowed by a sea creature and vomited up alive three days later. That story held extra significance for Christians, who believed Jesus died on the cross and rose from his tomb on the third day.

The critics of the "Jesus Discovery" team say they're not swallowing the fish story. Instead, they maintain that the figure depicts a type of funerary pillar or tower, known as a "nephesh tower," or perhaps an amphora or vase. Some experts included pictures from other bone boxes, showing nephesh towers with pointed roofs.

Arav and Tabor said they had considered the interpretation of the picture as a tower or a vase, but decided that the fish made more sense. "If we suggest it could have been a tower, then we would have to put the ossuary upside down," Arav said. "This doesn't have any precedent, and I think this is even more problematic than saying it is a fish."

The team's video examination of the box also spotted several small, simple fish figures carved into an ornamental border around the main figure.

"It creates problems which I indeed don't think are problems," Arav said. "We know that the Jonah motif appears later on, but that doesn't mean that it began later on. This is not a real problem."

Jacobovici told me that he put the picture to the "Mishi test," named after his 5-year-old daughter. When he heard that some experts were suggesting that the picture showed a tower, he called Mishi over to take a look. "I said, 'What do you see here, sweetie?' She looks very intense, and says, 'A person inside a fish?'" Jacobovici recalled. "It passed the Mishi test."

Why fuss over a fish?
What difference does it make whether the picture shows a fish or a tower? The eventual outcome of the debate could have a big impact on the course of biblical archaeology. If the iconography is determined to be Christian, that would lend much more significance to what otherwise might be seen as a run-of-the-mill Jewish tomb.

What's more, Tabor and Jacobovici contend that the discovery of a Christian tomb strengthens their far more controversial claim, first made in 2007, that bone boxes in a nearby tomb might contain the earthly remains of Jesus and members of his family. The investigators reached that conclusion based on the names inscribed on the boxes, and their similarity to the names listed in biblical accounts of Jesus' brothers and sisters. Tabor says additional studies published since 2007 have strengthened his case, but other scholars are unconvinced.

Arav isn't getting involved in the debate over the "Jesus Family Tomb." But he does want to return to the Patio Tomb and go beyond the fishy debate. "We did non-invasive research in this place, and we discovered what we discovered," Arav said. "But we need also to do some invasive research."

Current estimates suggest that the Patio Tomb was used sometime between 20 B.C. and A.D. 70, when Jerusalem was destroyed by the Romans. Arav would like to get a better sense of the date, and perhaps run DNA tests on the remains "to see if they are associated with groups of people that we know of." It might also be possible to run tests on a cooking pot that was brought out from the tomb years ago, "to see what was offered to the dead," he said.

"There are a lot of things that hard science can help us with," Arav observed. "There are a lot of things to do."

More about bone boxes and biblical archaeology:

• New find revives 'Jesus Tomb' debate
• Doubts voiced about the 'Jesus Discovery'
• 2007: Claims about Jesus' tomb stir up a tempest
• Ancient bone box might point to Caiaphas' home
• Gallery: The archaeology of Christianity

Replicas of bone boxes from the Patio Tomb and the Jesus Family Tomb are on display at Discovery Times Square in New York City, which is also hosting an exhibit about the Dead Sea Scrolls and daily life in biblical times. The exhibit runs through April 15.

Alan Boyle is msnbc.com's science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter or adding Cosmic Log's Google+ page to your circle. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for other worlds.

Documentary filmmaker Simcha Jacobovici, co-author of the new book "The Jesus Discovery," discusses how a robotic arm was used to make archaeological discoveries during a New York news conference today.

Now that the word about "the Jesus Discovery" is out in the open, outside experts are weighing in — and many of them look upon the robotic exploration of a 1st-century Jerusalem tomb as a technological tour de force resulting in an archaeological faux pas.

On one level, the "Jesus Discovery" investigators saw this project as a follow-up on the sensational claim they made five years earlier in "The Lost Tomb of Jesus," that Jesus and members of his family were buried in what is now a southeast residential neighborhood of Jerusalem. On another level, they set forth what they said were the earliest known evidence of Christian references in the Holy City — in the form of an inscription referring to resurrection on one casket, and a fishlike design on another casket.

Today, several experts specializing in 1st-century Christianity said the investigators failed to make their case on either level.

"In my assessment, there's zero percent chance that their theory is correct," said Andrew Vaughn, executive director of the American Schools of Oriental Research, or ASOR.

Christopher Rollston, an expert in Semitic epigraphy at Emmanuel Christian Seminary in Tennessee, said that although the underground chamber is "a nice tomb ... it's hard to press it into service as an impressive find."

Some archaeologists were familiar with the project months before it came into the spotlight, but non-disclosure agreements kept them from commenting  until today's press announcement at Discovery Times Square in New York. The project has already spawned a book by scriptural scholar James Tabor and filmmaker Simcha Jacobovici, titled "The Jesus Discovery," and a documentary about the find is due to air on the Discovery Channel this spring.

When today's embargo lifted, the criticism from outside experts hit with full force on the ASOR Blog.

"Nothing in the book 'revolutionizes our understanding of Jesus or early Christianity,' as the authors and publisher claim, and we may regard this book as yet another in a long list of presentations that misuse not only the Bible but also archaeology," Duke University biblical scholar Eric Meyers declared.

Jodi Magness, a religious-studies professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, said "it pains me to see archaeology hijacked in the service of non-scientific interests, whether they are religious, financial, or other." In her view, Tabor, Jacobovici and their colleagues set out to dig up evidence to support their earlier claims about a different tomb nearby, the so-called "Jesus Family Tomb" — and then rustle up a fresh round of media attention.

"Professional archaeologists do not search for objects or treasures such as Noah's Ark, the Ark of the Covenant, or the Holy Grail," she wrote. "Usually these sorts of expeditions are led by amateurs (nonspecialists) or academics who are not archaeologists. Archaeology is a scientific process."

Old and new claims
The main objection to the claims for the Jesus Family Tomb, like the claims themselves, retraces ground that's been well trod since 2007: Just because bone boxes are marked with the name "Jesus" and the names of his brothers and sisters, as mentioned in the Bible, doesn't necessarily mean these are the actual biblical figures.

Tabor and Jacobovici produced a statistical analysis looking at the frequency of names in ancient Jerusalem, and claimed that the close fit to the names on Jesus' family tree couldn't be just a coincidence. Last month, Tabor said further research has strengthened the case he and Jacobovici laid out in 2007.

The critics insisted once again that a statistical argument could never win the day. "Dramatic claims require dramatic evidence. ... The claims of Tabor and Jacobovici for this tomb are no more convincing now than they were then," Rollston wrote.

But what about the inscription in the more recently explored tomb, known as the Patio Tomb? And what about the fish? Rollston said the fish was more probably a type of ornamental design typically seen on Jewish bone boxes, known as a nephesh tower. Where Tabor and Jacobovici saw the "fins" of the fish, Rollston saw the eaves of the tower's roof.

Even if it was intended to be a fish, "it would most naturally be understood as simply a reflection of a nautical motif in a tomb," or perhaps representative of the deceased's occupation — for example, a fishmonger. Unlike Tabor, Rollston did not rule out the possibility that a Jew would have such a design engraved on the bone box.

James Tabor / UNCC

James Tabor, a religious-studies researcher at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, outlined these designs found in various contexts, including "nephesh" images that have been found carved on 1st-century Jewish caskets, a fish drawing found in a Christian catacomb, and the "Patio Tomb fish" design seen in the tomb that Tabor and his colleagues explored using a camera-equipped robotic arm. Tabor's critics say the fishlike design is actually a variant of the nephesh tower design.

As for the inscription, Rollston said the resurrection connection was questionable. Tabor, Jacobovici and their colleagues suggested that it could be interpreted as reading, "Divine Jehovah (Yahweh), lift up, lift up," or "The Divine Jehovah raises up from [the dead]." But Rollston said the first letter in the word that was said to refer to Jehovah — IAEO — looked like a T rather than an I.

"This can't be an iota," he told me, "and that's the one letter that has to be there."

He also questioned the interpretation of the inscription's key word, "UPsOO," or "hupso," which would be a form of the verb "to lift up." Even if one assumes that's what was intended, the word wouldn't necessarily refer to raising up in the resurrection sense, he said. And even if one assumes it was indeed meant as a reference to resurrection, there were some Jewish sects back then — such as the Pharisees — that believed in a general resurrection.

"For someone to state that this is an early Christian tomb, there really has to be some clear and decisive evidence to back up that statement," Rollston told me. "And it just really isn't here."

In a follow-up email, Tabor told me that the "tower will not float" as an alternate explanation for the fishlike image. He also pointed to the comments he posted on the ASOR Blog, taking further issue with the nephesh tower interpretation. In a comment addressed to Rollston, he said, "We have much to discuss, but I look forward to doing it face to face."

On the positive side...
Not every outside expert was totally critical: The Israeli newspaper Haaretz quoted Yuval Baruch, an archaeologist with the Israel Antiquities Authority, as saying that Tabor and Jacobovici may well be right about the fish. Baruch noted that the fishlike image was not photographed "in the best light," but added: "If it is indeed a fish, it is fantastic. It has no parallel."

Baruch cautioned against reading too much into a single decoration, however. "Different decorations are being discovered all the time," he told Haaretz.

Rollston and ASOR's Vaughn both said the robotic-arm exploration technique that Tabor and his colleagues used to explore the 1st-century tomb held promise for future digs. Israel's religious and civil authorities are reluctant to have ancient sites disturbed, and even if the excavations are approved, they can create huge disruptions for residential areas like the one where the tomb currently in question is located. Tabor and his colleagues circumvented many of those typical problems by using a camera-equipped robotic arm that they snaked down through a pipe going into the tomb.

"The robotic-arm technology used by James Tabor is truly amazing," Vaughn said. "To be able to explore in a relatively non-invasive way, and to respect the artifacts and bones that may be present there, is certainly of much value."

Magness, however, stressed in her blog posting that robotic-arm video couldn't take the place of a full-fledged dig.

"The archaeological endeavor involves piecing together all available information, not just one artifact taken out of context," she wrote. "Context is the reason that archaeologists go to so much trouble to document the provenance of every feature and artifact dug up on an excavation. The current claim is based on finds that have no context, as they have not been excavated. All we have are photos taken by a robotic arm of objects (or parts of objects), the dates and identification of which are unknown or unclear."

Rollston said further analysis could well shed more light on the central question raised by the current controversy: How did the first Christian communities emerge and manifest themselves? But the process of getting definitive answers doesn't necessarily match the typical time frame for a television production or book project.

"The wheels of scholarship, like the wheels of justice, grind slowly but surely," he told me.

More about biblical brouhahas:

• New find revives 'Jesus Tomb' flap
• Claims about tomb stir tempest
• Messianic message stirs debate
• Return to King Solomon's mines
• Help scientists decipher 'lost' gospel
• Gallery: The archaeology of Christianity
• Experts stumped by markings in Jerusalem

Alan Boyle is msnbc.com's science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter or adding Cosmic Log's Google+ page to your circle. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for other worlds.

One of the designs etched on a bone box found within a 1st-century Jerusalem tomb suggests the biblical story of Jonah and the fish, which held significant symbolism for early Christians.

Using a remote-controlled camera on the end of a robotic arm, investigators have found what could be the earliest evidence of a Christian iconography in Jerusalem, engraved on a set of "bone boxes" inside a nearly intact 1st-century tomb.

One of the limestone boxes, known more formally as an ossuary, carries a Greek inscription calling on God to "rise up" or "raise up" someone. Another box appears to show the carved image of a fish, perhaps with the prophet Jonah in its mouth. Allusions to fish and the "sign of Jonah" came to be widely used among early Christians, but not among Jerusalem's Jews.

Update: Doubts raised about the 'Jesus Discovery'

Those discoveries alone would be enough to get biblical scholars excited. But the investigators in this case are the same people who claimed five years ago that ossuaries from a nearby tomb were engraved with the names of the biblical Jesus and his family. They're putting forth this new find as supporting evidence for their earlier claims, and resurrecting the topic in a newly published book ("The Jesus Discovery") as well as a Discovery Channel documentary that's due to air this spring.

"This does reopen the whole question about the 'Jesus Tomb,'" James Tabor, a scriptural scholar at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, told me.

That almost guarantees that the link to Jesus will take center stage once again in the discussion of the discovery, with most archaeologists discounting the connection. There's even a chance that the renewed controversy would push this most recent find out of the spotlight. That would be a terrible shame, said John Dominic Crossan, an expert on 1st-century Christianity and former Catholic priest who is a professor emeritus at DePaul University.

"It's a stunning discovery," he said. "It's a stunning piece of technology. As a scholar, I really don't want to get lost in saying, 'Oh, come on, it's off the wall.' Yeah, it's off the wall. But look at the wall!"

James Tabor / UNCC

Engineer Walter Klassen and filmmaker Simcha Jacobovici hold the camera-equipped robotic arm in its folded-up configuration.

Or in this case, look at the box.

How the boxes were found
Tabor and documentary filmmaker Simcha Jacobovici located both of the 1st-century tombs — the so-called Jesus Family Tomb as well as the one with the newly revealed inscriptions — in a Jerusalem neighborhood known as Talpiot years ago. They looked into previous claims that the bone boxes in the Jesus Family Tomb were marked with names that meshed with the names of Jesus' brothers and sisters, as mentioned in the Gospels. The investigators went on to cite a statistical analysis of name frequency as evidence that the family interred in the caskets was that of Jesus.

Most provocatively, they pointed to one box that was said to contain the remains of Jesus, and another containing the remains of "Judah, son of Jesus." These claims ran counter to the mainstream Christian view that Jesus made a bodily resurrection after his crucifixion and death, and that he did not marry or have children. To explain the seeming discrepancy with the Gospels, Tabor and his colleagues suggested that early Christians did not necessarily believe in a bodily resurrection, but rather a spiritual resurrection in which Jesus left behind the "old clothes" of the flesh.

The first book ("The Jesus Family Tomb") and TV documentary ("The Lost Tomb of Jesus") set off a wave of protests, with skeptics saying that Tabor and Jacobovici were sensationalizing an unprovable assertion. Despite the criticism, the team continued their work, focusing on the other tomb. This tomb was only briefly examined in 1981 before protests by Orthodox Jews, concerned about the disturbance of a gravesite, forced an end to the archaeological study. The tomb was sealed back up, and a condominium was built over it. Tabor and his colleagues refer to this tomb as the "Patio Tomb," because a patio sits almost directly above the tomb.

Israel's civil and religious authorities were resistant to efforts to reopen the Patio Tomb, so Tabor, Jacobovici and their colleagues came up with an unorthodox alternative: They suggested building a robotic arm that could be extended down vent holes and drill holes into the tomb, to a maximum length of more than 15 feet. The authorities gave their permission, and the documentary team proceeded with their remote-controlled video exploration in June 2010.

James Tabor / UNCC

Investigators shot imagery of the 1st-century Jerusalem tomb and the bone boxes inside the tomb using a robotic arm, as shown in this video frame.

The filmmakers peered into niches cut into the tomb and found several inscribed bone boxes, including one that was left ajar to reveal the bones still within. In one of the niches, two boxes were jammed close together. As the robotic arm maneuvered to look at the side of one of the boxes, one of the investigators cried out, "Wait, wait, stop there!" A design had been etched into the limestone — a design that could be interpreted as a fish with a stick figure hanging out of its mouth.

The meaning of the inscriptions
After consulting with other scriptural experts, the investigators concluded that the etching showed a representation of Jonah and the fish. The biblical tale of the prophet who was swallowed by a giant fish, only to be vomited up alive three days later, had a special resonance for early Christians, who believed in Jesus' resurrection after three days in a tomb. The image of the fish, which would not typically be carved on a Jewish ossuary, suggested to Tabor and his colleagues that this might be the earliest surviving example of a Christian marking on an artifact in Jerusalem.

The team's excitement grew when they saw the inscription on the box sitting next to the one with the fish: A four-line inscription in Greek appeared to refer to a belief in the resurrection. The inscription could be read as "Divine Jehovah, raise up, raise up," or "The Divine Jehovah raises up to the Holy Place," or "Divine Jehovah, raise up [abbreviated name]."

"This inscription has something to do with resurrection of the dead, either of the deceased in the ossuary, or perhaps, given the Jonah image nearby, an expression of faith in Jesus' resurrection," Tabor said in a news release.

The Jesus connection
Tabor and his colleagues tie this latest discovery to their earlier claims by suggesting that the two tombs were part of one complex, which might have been chiseled out by a wealthy supporter of Jesus and his disciples. They even name their prime suspect: Joseph of Arimathea, a high-ranking religious official who was said in the Gospels to have arranged Jesus' burial. In the investigators' view, the fact that they found such a strong connection to early Christianity in the Patio Tomb strengthens their original claims for the Jesus Family Tomb, which is 200 feet away.

"We now have the new archaeological evidence, literally written in stone, that can guide us in properly understanding what Jesus' earliest followers meant by their faith in Jesus' resurrection from the dead — with his earthly remains, and those of his family, peacefully interred just yards away," Tabor and Jacobovici wrote.

Crossan said that was too much of a leap. "There's nothing that associates [the Patio Tomb] with Joseph of Arimathea," he said.

He said the two tombs may well have no relationship to each other: "This whole area is riddled with tombs, as far as we can tell."

Ben Witherington, a New Testament scholar at Asbury Theological Seminary, voiced a similar view. "The attempt to connect [the Patio Tomb] to the other tombs is sheer conjecture, unless the tombs were connected," he told me.

Witherington said the connections made in the newly published book were similar to those put forth in Tabor's earlier work. "Most of us who have evaluated his work would say, OK, all very interesting, but it's building one speculation on another speculation," he said.

However, Witherington was intrigued by the fish carving. "We have early Christian ossuaries with the fish symbol ... in the 2nd century, if not back into the 1st century," he said. "That is the early Christian symbol for I-Ch-Th-Y-S ... 'Jesus Christ, Son of God, Savior.' What we don't have any evidence for is that symbol on Jewish ossuaries."

The words of the inscription also caught Witherington's interest. "They imply a belief about the resurrection," he said.

It is thought that the use of such bone boxes in Jerusalem ceased in the year 70, due to the Roman destruction of the city. Thus, there's a chance that the residents buried in the Patio Tomb actually lived during the time of Jesus and his first disciples. However, Crossan noted that Christians weren't the only ones in 1st-century Jerusalem who held a religious belief in resurrection. The Pharisees and the Essenes also looked forward to the resurrection of the righteous, he said.

"What I would say is ... this is a rich Pharisee, a rich person in the 1st century who believes in the resurrection," Crossan told me. "We always thought that [the image of] Jonah coming out of the fish was peculiarly Christian. Maybe that's one more thing that the early Christians took from Jewish tradition, and this would be the first evidence."

More about biblical archaeology:

• Messianic message stirs debate
• Return to King Solomon's mines
• Help scientists decipher 'lost' gospel
• Gallery: The archaeology of Christianity
• Experts stumped by markings in Jerusalem
• Claims about Jesus' 'lost tomb' stir up tempest

An academic paper on the Patio Tomb project is being posted to The Bible and Interpretation on Tuesday, and Tabor says the paper will be submitted for print publication as well. A press event about the project and the Discovery Channel documentary has been scheduled for 11 a.m. ET Tuesday at Discovery Times Square in New York City. Funding for the project was provided by Discovery Channel / Vision Television / Associated Producers. Tabor's colleague in obtaining the excavation license from the Israel Antiquities Authority was Rami Arav, professor of archaeology at the University of Nebraska at Omaha.

Alan Boyle is msnbc.com's science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter or adding Cosmic Log's Google+ page to your circle. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for other worlds.

Theoretical physicist Lawrence Krauss has taken on plenty of edgy topics, ranging from evolution to the state of science policy, to quantum quackery, to the science of "Star Trek." But in his latest book, he takes on what might be the edgiest topic of all: how all the somethingness of our universe could have arisen from nothingness without divine intervention.

The argument that God had to be the "unmoved mover," sparking the cosmos into existence, goes back to Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas. In his debates with theologians, "the question 'why is there something rather than nothing' always comes up as the one 'indefensible' issue that implies there must be a creator," Krauss told me over the weekend.

"We've come so far, that addressing that question — or at least addressing similar questions — has become a part of science," said Krauss, who heads the Origins Project at Arizona State University.

He addressed the question in a lecture that was videotaped at an Athiest Alliance International conference in 2009, and the video has been viewed more than a million times on YouTube since then. The video prompted Krauss to write his newly published book on the subject, "A Universe From Nothing."

Why is there something rather than nothing? Krauss said that question implies a search for purpose that really doesn't mesh with scientific inquiry. "The 'why' question is never really a 'why' question ... really, when we say 'why,' we mean 'how,'" he told me.

OK, so how can you get a cosmos from nothing? Krauss traces a series of discoveries building up from Einstein's general theory of relativity to the latest studies of dark energy, explaining how scientists have determined that empty space is seething with energy in the form of virtual particles. From the perspective of quantum physics, particles are popping into and out of existence all the time. The way Krauss and many other theorists see it, nothingness is so unstable that it has to give rise to something ... in our case, the universe as we know it.

What's more, Krauss and his colleagues are coming around to the view that there could be a countless succession of big bangs, creating many universes with different parameters and laws of physics. Some of the universes in this multiverse fizzle back into nothingness immediately, while others — such as ours — hang around long enough to spawn galaxies and stars, planets and life. Scientists haven't yet figured out a way to test this hypothesis, but it would explain how we're lucky enough to live in a long-lasting universe: We just happened to win the prize of existence in a cosmic lottery.

"Some people say, 'Well, that's just a cop-out,'" Krauss acknowledged. "But it's actually less of a cop-out than God."

Positives and negatives
Krauss' book isn't the only one to claim that God's not needed for the creation of the universe. British physicist Stephen Hawking, a good friend of Krauss', made a similar point in his own most recent book, "The Grand Design." A key point in the argument is that the positive energy bound up in matter is balanced by negative gravitational-field energy. From the quantum perspective, the total energy of the universe is pretty much zero. Thus, the energy of "nothingness" is conserved, even when somethingness enters the picture.

This idea of positive and negative energy balancing out at zero has sparked criticism from the creationist side of the fence, but Krauss said the concept fits with current cosmological theories.

NASA / WMAP Science Team

This graphic traces the evolution of the universe from the big bang (at left) to the present, based on data from the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (far right). So what gave rise to the big bang? Theoretical physicist Lawrence Krauss says addressing such questions "has become a part of science."

"It sounds like a scam," he told me. "It isn't a scam. Once you allow gravity, the amazing thing is that you can start out with zero energy and end up with lots of stuff, and that stuff can have positive energy, as long as you counteract it with negative energy. Gravity allows energy to be negative. I liken it to the difference between a very savvy stockbroker and an embezzler. The savvy stockbroker will buy on margin, and buy more stuff than they actually have money to account for. But as long as the stock goes up and they sell it in the end, no one knows the difference and everyone's happy — whereas the embezzler takes the money and of course is discovered. The universe is more like the savvy stockbroker."

In the ultra-long term, when all the galaxies have spread out in our expanding universe, and all the stars have died out, the positives and negatives cancel each other out, turning our universe back into the uniformity of empty space. "The 'somethingness' may be here for just a short time," Krauss said.

Accentuate the positive
For a lot of people, all this might sound positively soul-killing. Evolutionary biologist (and crusading atheist) Richard Dawkins says as much in his afterword to Krauss' book: "If you think that's bleak and cheerless, too bad. Reality doesn't owe us comfort."

But Krauss said he doesn't intend the book to be a downer.

"My goal is not to destroy religion, though in fact that would be an interesting side effect," he said. "It's not any more my goal than it was Charles Darwin's goal with his book ["On the Origin of Species"]. My goal is to use the hook of this fascinating question, whiich everyone asks, to motivate people to learn about the real universe." 

Krauss said a scientific perspective on the origins and the fate of the universe offers a valid alternative to the solace traditionally provided by religion.

Free Press

"A Universe From Nothing" aims to explain how something can come from nothingness in accord with the laws of physics.

"Here are these remarkable laws of nature that have arisen and produced what you never would have expected, something much more interesting than any fairy tale," Krauss said. "We are the lucky beneficiaries of that, and we should enjoy the remarkable fact that we have a consciousness that can appreciate this remarkable universe. If it's a remarkable accident, how lucky are we to be a part of it! I do think you can create a 'theology' around this if you want."

Krauss doesn't mean "theology" in the literal sense of the study of God's ways, of course, but rather in the sense of an attitude toward life and its meaning (or meaninglessness). What's your attitude? Feel free to weigh in with your comments below.

Update for 1 a.m. ET Jan. 11: I should make clear that neither Krauss nor any scientist claims to have "the answer" as to the origin of the cosmos. Theorists are just trying to figure out the possible answers to the deepest questions about the universe. Perhaps the most "remarkable" thing about all this — to borrow one of Krauss' favorite words — is that it's actually plausible for scientists to address these questions at all. (And in case you're wondering, the answer to the ultimate question is still 42.)

More about cosmic perspectives:

• Stephen Hawking says God's not needed. So?
• Richard Dawkins puts 'Magic' on a tablet
• Celebrating the spirit of Carl Sagan
• Flash interactive: Beyond the Big Bang
• Hidden universes revealed
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Alan Boyle is msnbc.com's science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter and adding the Cosmic Log page to your Google+ presence. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.

Antonio Calanni / AP file

The Shroud of Turin bears the faded image of what appears to be a Christlike figure. Italian researchers say they've come close to the shroud's coloration by blasting strips of linen with ultraviolet laser light.

Last updated noon ET Dec. 27:

Italian researchers have resurrected the idea that the Shroud of Turin's mysterious image of a Christlike figure could only have been created by a powerful flash of light — but skeptics still aren't buying it.

Scientists have tussled with believers, and with each other, over the origins of the centuries-old cloth for decades: Many believers think it's the true image of Jesus, left behind miraculously on his burial cloths after his resurrection. Analyses of the Shroud's chemical makeup, as well as radiocarbon dating of fiber samples, have led lots of researchers to conclude that the image was painted onto the cloth during the 14th century. But other researchers, sympathetic to the Shroud's cause, say those tests were faulty.

The Italian studies, conducted at the ENEA Research Center in Frascati, addresses a specific question in Shroud science: Could a burst of radiation have created the coloration seen on the linen? The answer is yes, although the results reported in the latest studies aren't a perfect match. So does that mean the Shroud image could only have been created by the flash of a miraculous resurrection? The answer is no, despite what you might read on the Web.

Five years of tests
"Sadly, we have seen many claims spread in the Web made by journalist/bloggers that discuss the content of a paper they never read," lead researcher Paolo Di Lazzaro told me today in an email. "It is obvious that a serious scientific work cannot prove any supernatural action. We have shown that the most advanced technology available today is unable to replicate all the characteristics of the Shroud image. As a consequence, we may argue it appears unlikely a forger may have done this image with technologies available in the Middle Ages or earlier. The probability the Shroud is a medieval fake is really low. In this sense, the Shroud image is still a scientific challenge."

Di Lazzaro and his colleagues based their conclusions on five years of tests, using an ultraviolet laser apparatus and strips of modern-day linen. They blasted the cloth with UV at different power levels, and reported that they "achieved a very superficial Shroud-like coloration of linen yarns in a narrow range of irradiation parameters." The best effect depended on laser pulses lasting less than 50 nanoseconds.

"These processes may have played a role in the generation of the body image on the Shroud of Turin," the researchers report.

They don't go so far as to claim a miracle. But the fact that UV laser blasters didn't exist in the 13th century, let alone in Jesus' day, strongly implies that they suspect something out of the ordinary was going on.

Di Lazzaro told me that the tests were not financed by ENEA, which is a government-sponsored research agency, and were conducted outside working hours. "The research was curiosity-driven, the attempt to replicate an image which is considered 'the impossible image' due to its very peculiar characteristics," he said.

Over the years, Di Lazzaro and his colleagues have published a long list of studies, including peer-reviewed papers (see below). The latest studies were presented at a May conference in Frascati and published in November as an ENEA technical report (with a disclaimer saying that the contents didn't necessarily express ENEA's opinion). But they didn't really get traction until this week, just in time for Christmas, thanks to a series of sensationalized British news reports.

Critiquing Shroud science
Shroud science, also known as sindology, usually percolates outside the scientific mainstream — but every once in a while a sensational claim comes into the public spotlight. Joe Nickell, an investigator for the New York-based Center for Inquiry, has been following sindology for decades. He noted that the Italian research revives a discussion going back to the 1980s, spearheaded by a group called the Shroud of Turin Research Project, or STURP.

"This is really nothing new," Nickell told me today. "This is a supposed vindication of STURP."

Nickell said Di Lazzaro and his colleagues started out with the assumption that the coloration on the Shroud couldn't have been created by applying pigment to the linen — which runs counter to the conclusions drawn by other studies. Starting out with the idea that the human figure shown on the Shroud is an "impossible image" stacks the deck in favor of a miraculous explanation, he said.

"Making the assumption of a miracle is a really, really, really, really, really big assumption," Nickell said. "That it's done in the name of science is just astonishing."

Nickell said the latest findings don't prove much of anything, even though they're dressed up in high-tech tests.

"It is made up of whole cloth," he said. "The pro-Shroud people start with the answer, and then they have to get some scientific evidence to back this up."

Some folks would suggest that the Shroud of Turin is a valuable focus for faith, whether it's real or not. What do you think? How much value is there in studying the Shroud, and how much impact do scientifico-religious debates like this one have on your own thinking? Check out the Web links below, give it some thought, and add your comments.

Update for 4:15 p.m. ET Dec. 22: Di Lazzaro sent a follow-up email calling attention to his group's publications, which I've added below, and he poses this question for Joe Nickell: "Was he (or anybody else) able to reproduce by chemical paint, acid and any other color a depth of coloration which is 0.2 micrometer thick (that is, one-fifth of a thousandth of a millimeter)? We are talking of this, because on the Shroud, the image has a coloration depth so thin that it is impossible to do with any kind of painting. I can quote peer-reviewed papers that show this is the coloration depth of the Shroud image.

"By the way, Nickell will be interested to know that using VUV photons we obtained this shallow coloration thickness," Di Lazzaro wrote.

I'll pass the question along to Nickell, who says he doesn't use email. I suspect the answer could go along two tracks: One is that it's a tough thing to try to reproduce a precise coloration depth under any circumstances. The other is that centuries of wear and tear might have had an effect that's not easily replicated by the contemporary application of pigments or other chemicals. But we'll see what Nickell has to say.

Update for 2:15 p.m. ET Dec. 23: Nickell responded to Di Lazzaro's question, and added a couple of questions of his own:

"Paolo Di Lazzaro claims the Turin 'Shroud' coloration depth is 0.2 micrometers, but surely he does not claim that that was uniformly measured throughout the cloth. The coloration indeed appears to be generally confined to the topmost fibrils (although the face image does show faintly on the back of the cloth). Using a two-part hypothesis I put forward in 1983, Italian chemist Luigi Garlaschelli has produced a replica shroud with such superficial staining. So let me ask Lazzaro a question in turn: Have you been able, using your high-intensity ultraviolet laser technique, to produce a replica shroud yourself? Until you do, shouldn’t you stop slashing carelessly with Occam’s razor?"

Here's a 2009 Reuters report about the Garlaschelli replica.

Update for 3:50 p.m. ET Dec. 26: Di Lazzaro sent this response to Nickell's questions via email:

"In 1978, several sticky tapes were used to sample the Shroud in different points of the body image. When the image fibers were pulled out of the adhesive, their colored coatings had been stripped off the fiber and remained in the adhesive. These coatings were independently analyzed by Profs. Alan Adler and Ray Rogers, and all of them were too thin to measure accurately with a standard optical microscope. This means the thickness of all coatings was smaller than the visible light wavelength, say thinner than 0.6 micrometer.

"Recently, these results have been confirmed by a direct measurement of another fiber, showing the thickness of the colored coating around the fiber is about 0.2 micrometer. As a consequence, there is quite a good probability most of the image fibers throughout the body image have a coloration depth smaller than 0.6 micrometers.

"Prof. Garlaschelli claimed he obtained 'a superficial coloration' without mentioning 'how much' superficial. Is it 100 micrometers thick? 10 micrometers? One micrometer? Nobody knows. I asked chemists [who are] colleagues at ENEA, and they told me it is impossible to obtain a coloration depth smaller than 10 to 20 micrometers with the chemicals used by Prof. Garlaschelli. This fact alone means the results of Garlaschelli are not comparable with the Shroud image.  Mr. Nickell may be interested to know Prof. Garlaschelli refused to reply the letter sent to the editor of JIST (the journal that published his results) where several points of his work were criticized, including the lack of a measurement of the coloration depth.

"Coming to the question of Mr. Nickell: We never claimed to have reproduced the whole Shroud image. We were interested to gain a deeper insight into the physical and chemical processes that generated such an unusual image. And we were successful to find photochemistry processes that are able to generate a Shroud-like coloration of linen fibers.

"Concerning Occam's razor, I am a scientist, and when I wish to understand a phenomenon, seeking for a scientific explanation, I use microscopes, spectrometers, image detectors and other laboratory tools. I see Mr. Nickell prefers using philosophical instruments like the medieval Occam's razor, a theory proposed in the 14th century. Each of us is free to choose the most familiar tool to find answers."

Update for noon ET Dec. 27: And Nickell responds...

"Di Lazzaro equates the depth of colored coatings that were stripped from surface fibers (using adhesive tape) with the depth of penetration that might be determined by cross-sectioning of actual threads, then asserts that a single fiber’s examination (still apparently not cross-sectioned) has 'confirmed' the dubious claims. Given the tremendous evidence against the 'shroud' — its incompatibility with Jewish burial practices, lack of historical record, bishop's report of the forger’s confession, the still-bright-red 'blood' which failed forensic serological tests, the presence of pigments and paints throughout the image, three laboratories' radiocarbon dating of the cloth to the time of the confession (1260–1390), and much additional evidence — it would seem that Di Lazzaro is straining at a gnat and attempting to swallow a camel. Let him produce a shroudlike image according to whatever theory he can muster, and we'll talk again."

The chatter on the Shroud:

• ENEA: Shroud-like coloration of linen fabrics by vacuum UV radiation
• Int'l Workshop on the Scientific Approach to Acheiropoietos Images
• Telegraph: Study claims Shroud is Christ's authentic burial robe
• Daily Mail: The Turin Shroud DOES have miraculous powers
• The Independent: Scientists say Shroud is supernatural
• Center for Inquiry: Turin 'Shroud' called 'supernatural'
• Telegraph: The Turin Shroud is fake. Get over it

Earlier tales of the Shroud of Turin:

• Documentary looks at the face in the Shroud
• 'Jesus-era' cloth casts doubt on Turin Shroud 
• Could new test settle Shroud of Turin debate?
• Public gets a look at the Shroud of Turin

Journal references from Paolo Di Lazzaro:

Peer reviewed Journals:
G. Baldacchini, P. Di Lazzaro, D. Murra, G. Fanti: “Coloring linens with excimer lasers to simulate the body image of the Turin Shroud” Applied Optics vol. 47, 1278-1283 (2008).

P. Di Lazzaro, D. Murra, A. Santoni, G. Fanti, E. Nichelatti, G. Baldacchini: “Deep Ultraviolet radiation simulates the Turin Shroud image” Journal of Imaging Science and Technology vol. 54, 040302-(6) (2010).

Conference Proceedings
P. Di Lazzaro, G. Baldacchini, G. Fanti, D. Murra, E. Nichelatti, A. Santoni: “A physical hypothesis on the origin of the body image embedded into the Turin Shroud” Proceedings of the Int. Conf. on The Shroud of Turin: Perspectives on a Multifaceted Enigma, edited by G. Fanti (Edizioni Libreria Progetto Padova 2009) pp. 116 – 125. ISBN 978-88-96477-03-08 01-12.

P. Di Lazzaro, G. Baldacchini, G. Fanti, D. Murra, A. Santoni: “Colouring fabrics with excimer lasers to simulate encoded images: the case of the Shroud of Turin”, XVIII Int. Symposium on Gas Flow, Chemical Lasers, High-Power Lasers, edited by R. Vilar, Proceedings SPIE vol. 7131 (2009) pp. 71311R-1 – 71311R-6.

P. Di Lazzaro, D. Murra, A. Santoni, G.- Baldacchini: “Sub-micrometer coloration depth of linens by vacuum ultraviolet radiation”, Proc. International Workshop on the Scientific approach to the Acheiropoietos Images, edited by P. Di Lazzaro (2010) pp. 3 – 10.

D. Murra, P. Di Lazzaro: “Sight and brain, an introduction to the visually misleading images”, Proc. International Workshop on the Scientific approach to the Acheiropoietos Images, edited by P. Di Lazzaro (2010) pp. 31 – 34.

Technical Reports
G. Baldacchini, P. Di Lazzaro, D. Murra, G. Fanti: “Colorazione di tessuti di lino con laser ad eccimeri e confronto con l’immagine sindonica” ENEA RT/2006/70/FIM (2006).

P. Di Lazzaro: “Wissenschaftliche Hypothesen zur Entstehung des Bildes auf dem Turiner Grabtuch” 30Tagen n.4 (2010) pp. 63-66.

P. Di Lazzaro, D. Murra, E. Nichelatti, A. Santoni, G. Baldacchini: “Colorazione similsindonica di tessuti di lino tramite radiazione nel lontano ultravioletto: riassunto dei risultati ottenuti presso il Centro ENEA di Frascati negli anni 2005 -2010” RT/2011/14/ENEA (2011).

Alan Boyle is msnbc.com's science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter and adding the Cosmic Log page to your Google+ presence. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.

Today's countdown to the predicted end of the world was a bit like watching a rerun of reality TV … been there, done that doomsday. Nevertheless, radio preacher Harold Camping's Rapture rerun provided a good opportunity to revive the old jokes and prepare for the new doomsday hype ahead in 2012.

The hype was a lot heavier five months ago, when Camping set a high-profile date for a biblical-style ascension of the elect to heaven. Millions of dollars were spent by Camping's Family Radio International as well as followers who spent their savings to get out the word about the end of the world. During this week's spaceflight conference in New Mexico, one of my colleagues on the space beat, Jeff Foust, happened to mention that he saw a billboard that still touted Judgment Day's approach on May 21.

The hubbub sparked a backlash of black humor — ranging from animated cartoons to "Rapture bombs," which involved setting out clothes and shoes, as if the wearer had been transported (nude) to the pearly gates. The Sociolatte and Mashable websites revived some of the best of the bombs, including "Rapture Dad," a photo that shows Kyle Riesenbeck surrounded by the leavings of his luckier family members. (Kyle kept the meme going, but according to his Twitter account, Rapture Dad has "decided to take it easy on the Rapture this time around.")

That's just one of the signs that the Rapture has really run its course. Camping may well come up with yet another explanation for why prophecy failed, and yet another set of arcane calculations that reveal doomsday is just a little further down the road. But based on the weak ratings for today's Rapture rerun, the 90-year-old Camping is finished as a prophet of doom. The Freedom From Religion Foundation is even capitalizing on his past pronouncements in a new "Fool Me Once" billboard campaign.

Still more evidence of Rapture fatigue comes from a Crimson Hexagon analysis of 55,537 Twitter mentions related to Camping's October prophecy, gathered from Oct. 16 to today:

• 14 percent of the mentions expressed negativity toward Camping, many indicating they thought he was crazy or an idiot.
• 26 percent shared jokes or were sarcastic about the rapture and Camping’s predictions.
• 18 percent mentioned that Camping was at it again, and dubbed this prediction as Rapture 2.0 or Rapture2s.
• 13 percent expressed excitement for the end of the world and saw it as an excuse to throw a party.
• 14 percent shared the report that today was the predicted date of the Rapture.
• 8 percent voiced a religious response, such as saying Camping was a false prophet.
• 7 percent wondered whether the Rapture was for real this time.

For years, doomsayers have been talking about the prospects for a 2012 apocalypse foretold by the Mayan "long-count" calendar, even though there's really no scientific or even anthropological basis for the alarm. I've tried to provide some reality checks for the 2012 worries — including concerns about solar storms and the supposed return of Planet X. But today's non-Rapture may be an even more valuable lesson for anyone who's concerned about 12/21/2012: Just because someone makes a big to-do about the end of the world doesn't mean that it's coming.

So what do you think about the Rapture and other doomsdays? Heard any good end-of-the-world jokes lately? Feel free to add your comments below.

Review all of the postings from Rapture 1.0 by checking CosmicLog.com/Rapture. You can also connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter or adding me to a circle on Google+. And for something completely different, check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.

For decades, evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins has worked to separate myth and religion from hard-headed facts, through science books such as "The Greatest Show on Earth" as well as philosophical tracts such as "The God Delusion." But until now, he's mostly been talking to the grown-ups. In a new work titled "The Magic of Reality: How We Know What's Really True," Dawkins goes after the younger set as well.

"Magic" is notable for three reasons:

• It casts the search for the explanations behind natural phenomena as a progression from supernatural stories to natural reasoning, throwing biblical stories in the same bin with outdated tales of Egyptian sky gods and Norse deities. (Would you expect anything less from Dawkins?)
• Dawkins argues that the scientific explanations for the origins of our planet or the reasons for a rainbow can hold as much wonder as any poetic passage from Genesis. "The truth is more magical — in the best and most exciting sense of the word — than any myth or made-up mystery or miracle," he writes. "Science has its own magic: the magic of reality."
• Perhaps most intriguingly, "The Magic of Reality" takes advantage of the magic of technology in a tablet version created for Apple's iPad. The 678-megabyte iPad edition costs less than the 272-page book ($13.99 vs. a list price of $29.99, which is being widely discounted). But in addition to providing the full text, the e-book literally puts Dave McKean's scores of illustrations into motion. It also offers more than a dozen games, interactive graphics, videos and audio clips to click on.

My favorite clickables include a chamber that lets you turn up the heat and the pressure on a solid/liquid/gas to see Boyle's law at work (you can even slosh the liquid around by shaking the iPad) ... a graphic that lets you use virtual prisms, lenses and slits to play with on-screen rainbows (and illustrate how a spectrograph works) ... a game that lets you breed frogs for optimal leg length (too bad you have to kill off six frogs in every generation) ... and a series of virtual photographs that trace evolution backwards into the mists of time (which plays off a concept Dawkins used in an earlier book about evolution, "The Ancestor's Tale").

Each chapter of the book focuses on an age-old question, ranging from "What is the sun?" and "What is an earthquake?" to "Why do bad things happen?" and "What is a miracle?" Sometimes, Dawkins ends up shrugging his shoulders. For example, after noting that time and space itself are thought to have begun with the big bang 13.7 billion years ago, he adds: "Don't ask me to explain that, because, not being a cosmologist, I don't understand it myself."

And don't ask Dawkins to accept any supernatural explanation for natural phenomena, unless you want a tongue-lashing: "If you claim that anything odd must be 'supernatural' you are not just saying you don't currently understand it; you are giving up and saying that it can be never understood," he writes.

Is "The Magic of Reality" the consummate children's book about science? I'm hesitant to go that far, partly because Dawkins is so militant about going after Judeo-Christian beliefs. "As it happens, we know that lots of fiction has been made up about this particular preacher called Jesus," he writes. Religious families might feel threatened by Dawkins' preachiness, while non-religious families might wonder what all the fuss is about. I wonder whether "The Magic of Reality" would pass muster as a public-school science textbook, in light of Supreme Court rulings that say the government should not be actively involved in opposing religion.

Beyond those qualms, there are lots of intriguing scientific topics that Dawkins just had to pass up, ranging from the workings of the brain to the nature of dark energy and dark matter. Think of "Magic" as a jumping-off point for a young adult's scientific inquiry, rather than an all-encompassing reference work.

To Dawkins' credit, he acknowledges that there are still wide gaps in our understanding of the cosmos:

"There is much that remains deeply mysterious, and it is not likely that we will ever uncover all the secrets of a universe as vast as ours; but, armed with science, we can at least ask sensible, meaningful questions about it and recognize credible answers when we find them. We don't have to invent wildly implausible stories; we have the joy and excitement of real scientific investigation and discovery to keep our imaginations in line. And in the end that is more exciting than fantasy."

I might quibble with Dawkins' perspective on the roles that imagination and spirituality play in making sense out of reality, but his central point is that we shouldn't let our beliefs hold back the search for truth. And to that, I say amen.

More readings in science and religion:

• Stephen Hawking says God's not needed. So what?
• How to teach science to the pope
• Science with the stars
• Gospels of science

Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter or adding me to your Google+ circle. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for other worlds.

Egypt Exploration Society / Oxford Imaging Papyri Project

A 3rd-century papyrus fragment contains a snippet of text from a non-canonical Christian gospel.

Scientists are recruiting thousands of armchair archaeologists to help them decipher a "lost" gospel and other fragments of texts from ancient Egypt.

The Ancient Lives project draws upon the same type of people power that drives citizen-science projects such as Galaxy Zoo, Planet Hunters,  Foldit and EteRNA. In all these cases, legions of human eyes and brains can do a better job of sifting through massive databases than supercomputers. For this particular project, however, the monster database that needs to be tamed does not consist of sky-survey data or molecular combinations — rather, they're ink letters, scrawled in Greek on centuries-old bits of papyrus.

Oxford University launched Ancient Lives just a couple of days ago, but project leader Chris Lintott told me that more than 400,000 papyrus images have already been served up as of today. "It's been a crazy few days," he said in an email.

Deluge of documents
That's the kind of participation Ancient Lives will need in order to cope with the deluge of documents from the Oxyrhynchus Papyri. More than a century ago, archaeologists unearthed piles of papyrus pieces in an ancient rubbish dump near an Egyptian city once known as Oxyrhynchus, about 100 miles (160 kilometers) south of Cairo. The manuscripts have been dated to between the 1st and the 6th century, covering a time when Greek and Roman culture was dominant in Egypt.

Egypt Exploration Society / Oxford Imaging Papyri Project

This papyrus from the 2nd or 3rd century is inscribed with an ink drawing showing the goddess Agnoia ("Ignorance"), from an illustrated edition of Menander's comedy "Perikeiromene," or "The Girl Who Had Her Hair Shorn."

Since its discovery, the treasure trove has yielded up some masterpieces of the age, including the comedies of Menander, the poems of Sappho and the gnostic Gospel of Thomas. Thousands of fragments have been cataloged and decoded. The only problem is, there are hundreds of thousands of fragments to go.

"Most of these haven't been read, and they weren't cataloged in what must have been extremely trying conditions in the field," said Lintott, an Oxford physicist and one of the pioneers behind Galaxy Zoo and its Zooniverse spin-offs. "As a result, our professional colleagues have been searching blind for the last century, like trying to do research by randomly selecting books off the Bodleian Library shelves."

University of Minnesota physicist Lucy Fortson, another project leader, said the fragments are completely out of sequence. "It's like if you have thousands of puzzles, take all the pieces and mix them together in one big box. Then you try to put the puzzles together," she said in a news release. "It's an enormous task."

Now the puzzle pieces have been digitized and made available for any Internet user to peruse.

"Until now, only experts could explore this incredible collection," Lintott said in this week's project announcement. "But with so much of the collection unstudied, there's plenty for everyone. We're excited to see what visitors can unearth."

Other leaders of the effort include Oxford's William MacFarlane, the lead developer and designer; James Brusuelas, the team's papyrologist; and Paul Ellis, an imaging specialist who helped digitize the texts. "It's with the digital advancements of our own age that we're able to open up this window into the past, and see a common human experience in that intimate, traditional medium, handwriting," MacFarlane said.

How you can help
The beauty part is that you don't even have to know Greek to help out. The online interface asks only that you compare the letters on each fragment with the shapes displayed on a keyboard. Lintott told me that the current plan calls for each fragment to be checked five times or so, to take advantage of the wisdom of crowds. Think of it as a variant of the "Captcha" type-in-the-phrase system that's used to block spammers.

Another task involves measuring the dimensions of the fragments, to help scholars figure out which fragments go together. You don't need a ruler: A click-and-drag measuring tool does all the work.

The transcribed fragments will be sent over to experts in ancient manuscripts for review, translation and potential publication. Will Internet users get credit for the work they've done? "Absolutely," Lintott said, "as with all Zooniverse projects, we'll take great care to attribute credit correctly."

Among the items recently picked out of the pile are fragments of a previously unknown apocryphal gospel that describes Jesus casting out demons, a lost play by Euripides titled "Melanippe the Wise" and newfound letters attributed to the philosopher Epicurus.

Who knows what else is waiting to be discovered? If you've ever wanted to put on an Indiana Jones fedora and delve into ancient mysteries, here's your chance. This tutorial shows you how the job is done, and this Zooniverse page is where you sign up to participate.

Update for 5:30 p.m. ET Aug. 1: Over the weekend, Oxford papyrologist James Brusuelas sent an email with further details about the juiciest bits of papyri:

"Gospel: In its current edited state, the gospel has not been overtly connected to any other sources. It remains a hot topic amongst historians of religion and Christianity. One must think about how the wider apocryphal (i.e., not included in the accepted canon of biblical texts) and biblical stories of Jesus relate to and inform the very act of casting out demons. Where does this particular narrative fit in the tradition of Jesus' acts? We have the text, we've identified it. Now it has to be studied and debated (that's why this project can be so cool).

"As for Euripides, we have the gist of the mythological story concerning Melanippe, her rape or seduction at the hands of Poseidon and the subsequent birth of twin sons, whom she tries to hide from her father Aeolus. All we know about the play is that it roughly begins as such:

"The children were hidden in a stable and discovered by a herdsman, who thought they were the unnatural offspring of a cow.

"Aeolus is persuaded to kill the twin as unnatural beings.

"Melanippe steps forward to rationally defend the children as the offspring of an unidentified girl.

"We've learned this from other sources that have quoted and given the background story to the myth, such as Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Aristotle, and Aristophanes.

"This roughly amounts to about 60 lines of the original text; everything pertains to the beginning of the story.

"Why is she wise? Her mother, Hippe, was the daughter of the wise centaur Chiron, the teacher and tutor of such great heroes as Ajax, Achilles, and Jason.

"How does the play unfold? We have no idea. And we don't know what we'll find, but we are waiting to learn how this story turns out."

More about citizen science:

• Archaeological vacations you'll really dig
• Japan's citizen scientists map radiation
• Join the online search for icy worlds
• Social networking to save frogs

Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page or following @b0yle on Twitter. You can also add me to your Google+ circle, and check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.

J&R Lamb Studios via LOC.gov

These window designs show the apostles Peter and Paul, who are credited with writing 15 epistles in the canonical New Testament. Biblical scholar Bart Ehrman says more than half of those epistles were forged.

A biblical scholar has raised a holy fuss by declaring that more than a third of the books of the New Testament were "forged" — that is, written by scribes other than the apostles to which they've been ascribed.

By itself, the suggestion that nearly half of Paul's epistles and both of Peter's were not written by Peter or Paul is not all that surprising. Most scriptural scholars, even those who are true believers, acknowledge that's the likeliest explanation for the New Testament's disagreements in narrative and anomalies in writing style.

But Bart Ehrman, a professor of religious studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, goes further by asserting that such ghost-writing — or, as Greekophiles put it, "pseudepigraphy" — would be unacceptable if it were brought to light in ancient times. In fact, the writers of such works would be "roundly condemned for lying and trying to deceive their leaders," Ehrman says.

"In antiquity, people called this lying," Ehrman told me today. "That was the most common term used to discuss it."

Ehrman lays out his case for Biblical-era fraud and forgery in a recently published book, titled "Forged." The book has sparked a counter-wave of critiques from other scholars who take Ehrman to task not so much for what he's saying, but for the way he's saying it.

"Those who are looking for an excuse to call the early Christians liars and deceivers are delighted with this book," Ben Witherington, a professor at Asbury Theological Seminary in Kentucky, wrote in the first of a series of blog posts about "Forged."

Even Witherington, an evangelical, doesn't contest the claim that anonymous writers were behind many of the words attributed to the big-name New Testament authors. But he says that's the way scripture evolved back in the early Christian era — and even in pre-Christian times. For example, most scholars don't assume that the Song of Solomon was actually written by King Solomon.

The Catholic News Service's Agostino Bono makes a similar point: "Even if a specific letter was not done by Peter or Paul, it could well have been written by someone drawing from the oral tradition passed down by one or the other," he writes.

In response, Ehrman points to the scores of books that were thrown out of the New Testament by early church fathers precisely because they were judged to be forged. He also argues against the idea that later scribes were merely writing down the words that were passed along by the apostles. The writing style for the suspect scriptures is too much like Greek rhetoric and not enough like the sayings of first-century Jews, he said.

To bolster his case, Ehrman also refers to other books from antiquity, written by authors claiming to be the second-century Roman physician Galen, or the Greek dramatist Sophocles. Such books were roundly criticized in ancient times as "illegitimate children."

So which books of the New Testament are suspect? Ehrman calls out three of the gospels (Matthew, Mark and John), six of Paul's 13 epistles (1 and 2 Timothy, Titus, 2 Thessalonians, Ephesians, Colossians) and both of Peter's epistles.

The debate isn't purely academic: Ehrman says one of the motives for producing pseudepigraphic scriptures was to control the dialogue over early church practices. For example, if you thought women were getting too uppity, you could cite 1 Timothy 12, where Paul is quoted as saying, "I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man; she must be silent." Or 1 Corinthians 14:34, where women are told to "remain silent in the churches."

"It turns out that these warnings about women having to be silent are in books that are forged in Paul's name," Ehrman said. (The passage in 1 Corinthians is thought to have been added to the original, which most scholars believe was actually written by Paul.)

Ehrman isn't surprised by the strong response his book has received, particularly from the Christian rank-and-file. "For somebody who has faith in the Bible, I can see why it might be threatening," he said. "But just because it's threatening doesn't mean it's not true."

As for Ehrman's own religious faith, that was gone a long time ago.

"I'm not a Christian anymore, but it's not because of this kind of thing," he told me. "I got to a point where I could no longer believe that there's a good and powerful God in charge of the world, given all the pain and misery that's in it. ... I don't think that the God of the Bible exists. I don't know whether there's a greater force in the universe, so I call myself an agnostic, because I don't know. And I don't think anybody else knows it, either."

Longtime readers of this blog (which entered its 10th year last week) know that we deal with all sorts of cosmic themes rather than just scientific topics. They also know that they're always welcome to join the conversation, as long as it's civil. So feel free to register your thoughts in the comment section below.

More on religion and science:

• Stephen Hawking: 'There is no heaven'
• What's the draw of doomsday?
• Did Jesus eat an early Last Supper?
• The face in the Shroud
• The not-so-angry evolutionist
• Messianic message stirs debate
• Toilet tied to tale of Dead Sea Scrolls
• Maya myth revealed

Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page or following @b0yle on Twitter. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," Alan's book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds. 

Rodger Bosch / AFP - Getty Images file

Physicist Stephen Hawking delivers a lecture in South Africa in 2008. In an interview with The Guardian newspaper, he called the notion of heaven a "fairy story."

Stephen Hawking, the famous British physicist, called the notion of heaven a "fairy story" in an interview with The Guardian newspaper published today.

The physicist, 69, who was diagnosed with A.L.S. at age 21, made the heaven comment in response to a question about his fears of death.

"I have lived with the prospect of an early death for the last 49 years. I'm not afraid of death, but I'm in no hurry to die. I have so much I want to do first," he told the newspaper.

"I regard the brain as a computer which will stop working when its components fail. There is no heaven of afterlife for broken down computers; that is a fairy story for people who are afraid of the dark."

The comments are seen as going beyond those in his 2010 book, "The Grand Design," which stirred up passions with the observation that science can explain the universe's origin without invoking God.

Hawking has far outlived most people who have A.L.S., also known as Lou Gehrig's disease, producing important cosmological research and writing books. His "A Brief History of Time," published in 1988, has sold more than 9 million copies.

The Guardian interview is the latest the scientist has given to news media in recent weeks. It is published the day before he is scheduled to address the question "Why are we here?" at the Google Zeitgeist meeting in London.

In the talk, according to The Guardian, he will argue that the tiny fluctuations in the very early universe became the seeds from which galaxies, stars, and ultimately human life emerged.

"Science predicts that many different kinds of universe will be spontaneously created out of nothing. It is a matter of chance which we are in," he said.

More on Stephen Hawking:

• Hawking says God's not needed. So?
• Do we need to get off Earth by 2110?
• Hawking goes zero-G: 'Space, here I come'
• Aliens may pose risk to Earth, Hawking says
• Up close with Dr. Hawking

John Roach is a contributing writer for msnbc.com. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by hitting the "like" button on the Cosmic Log Facebook page or following msnbc.com's science editor, Alan Boyle, on Twitter (@b0yle).