I first read about this John the Baptist Cave thing in Yediot Aharonot. I said to myself, ‘Well, if it’s in Yediot Aharonot it must be a hoax’. Another reason it seems dubious to me, even though I know little about archeology and even less about John the Baptist, is that I would imagine that if there was anything in it, the Israeli archeologists would have elbowed their way in, and muscled the foreign archeologists out long ago. Stands to reason, doesn’t it? But I could be wrong.

Afterthought: On the other hand, it could be the policy of Israel, and its Jewish archeologists, to butt out of Christian archeological digs so as to avoid religious tension.