Archive for the 'Jesus Tomb' Category

Post documentary update - reaction from scholars (Monday, March 5)

Chase March 5th, 2007

Well, the documentary has aired, for better or worse. Mostly worse, but at least it wasn’t terribly boring. Here is a stub article containing links that show responses of top Biblical scholars and other news outlets. This post will be expanded as the day wears on, so keep checking back! The meaty posts are below this one, and begin with the numbers 1-5.

More to come!

Number 1: 600 to 1….no wait, 30,000 to 1 odds that it’s THAT Jesus!!??

Chase March 4th, 2007

Now we arrive at the major plank of the Jesus Family Tomb documentary, namely the statistics! The claim is simply this: given the names found in the tomb, the odds of this being another family other than Jesus of Nazareth’s are 600 to 1 against, and apparently rising to 30,000 to 1 against if the James Ossuary truly belonged in the “Jesus Family Tomb”Here’s the claim in their own words:

When trying to determine the probability that the tomb uncovered by archeologists did in fact belong to Jesus and his family, Simcha Jacobovici knew he would need to make sure his methodology was sound if his findings were ever going to be taken seriously. To do this, he employed statistician Andrew Feuerverger…Professor Feuerverger began by studying the names’ frequency during the first century A.D. and then multiplied the incidence rate of each with that of every other name. In keeping with his conservative analysis, Professor Feuerverger then divided his total by four to account for any unintentional biases in the historical sources he had referenced. Then that number was divided by 1,000, as this is total number of tombs that may have existed during the first century in Jerusalem.

The Results
Frequency of Names:
• Jesus, Son of Joseph: 1 in 190
• Mariamne: 1 in 160
• Matia: 1 in 40
• Maria: 1 in 4

Based on these results, it would appear that the names in and of themselves were not uncommon at the time. However, once those numbers were multiplied by one another, Feuerverger noted that the chances of them being found together were an extremely remote 1 in 97,280,000. Nevertheless, to allow for any possible criticism regarding the inclusion of Matia (or Matthew) – since this name is not explicitly referenced in the canonical Gospels – Feueverger decided to eliminate him from the equation. The new probability that this was not the family of tomb of Jesus was 1 in 2,400,000. Once the unintentional bias had been accounted for, that number dropped to 1 in 600 (still a low probability from a statistical standpoint). However, when one takes into the account the ossuary containing the name “Yose”, the new probability that this is not the tomb of Jesus suddenly becomes exceptionally rare. That is because this name – a rare nickname for the Hebrew name, “Yosef”. Indeed, as Simcha explains, of the more than 30,000 ossuaries discovered in Jerusalem, only one bearing this name has been found. SOURCE

There are so many issues that can be found in the above text! It’s very generous of the team to eliminate the name Matia from the calculation, but the fact is that the name should be included, and actually hurts the statistical case made by Dr. Feuerverger. Matia is not the name of any known relative of Jesus of Nazareth, and therefore works against the Jesus tomb theory.
The last paragraph is remarkable as well. Despite no text or inscription identifying the name “Yose” with Jesus of Nazareth, the filmmakers jump to the conclusion that “Yose” is in fact “Yosef” (despite their contention that the name “Yose” is found on no other ossuary), and that “Yose”-”Yosef” is the Yosef that was Jesus of Nazareth’s father. The then use this conclusion to imply that the existence of the “Yose” box exponentially multiplies the odds that this is the Jesus of Nazareth tomb. That’s some very suspect logic! Here are some other big flaws with the 600 to 1 contention:

  1. All the names in question are very common names: Maria, Joseph, Jesus, Judah, etc. As quoted below, finding these names together in a tomb gives no more information than the modern day discovery of the names John, Michael and David scrawled together on a tree. In other words, these names are very normal, and would would inspect to find them together in large tombs and other such places. As Amos Kloner, the Jewish Archaeologist who led the original find, notes, “It was an ordinary middle-class Jerusalem burial cave The names on the caskets are the most common names found among Jews at the time.” SOURCE
  2. The statistics used to generate the exhorbitant figures quoted in the film and book, are based on certain assumptions about the relevant data that were force fed to he statistician. In a recent interview, Dr. Feuerverger says, “I have to tell you that a statistician working with a subject matter expert, in this case biblical historical scholars, essentially is obliged to rely on assumptions that come from them, it’s not a secret that the assumptions are contestable. SOURCE
  3. The high figures here are primarily caused by one factor, according to Dr. Feuerverger - the assumed uniqueness of the name Mariemene e Mara. Here’s his quote, “The extraordinariness of the Mariemene e Mara inscription gets factored into the calculation as a very rare name” SOURCE The assumption here is evident - that Mariemene e Mara = Mary Magdalene, and assumption that is thoroughly trounced below. If Mariemene e Mara does not equal Mary Magdalene, then the probabilities begin to swing completely around the other way. Please see the post below for a thorough trouncing of the Mariemene e Mara = Mary Magdalene contention.

Here are some articles that delve into the above problems in a deeper fashion:

  • Dr. Paul Maier, “There are 21 Yeshuas cited by Josephus, the first-century Jewish historian, who were important enough to be recorded by him, with many thousands of others that never made history. The wondrous mathematical odds hyped by Jacobovici that these names must refer to Jesus and his family are simply playing by numbers and lying by statistics. ” SOURCE
  • From Scientific America: Among the assumptions that Feuerverger made to yield his odds: that the scholarly text he used as a source of names (to determine the frequency and distribution of Jewish monikers in the era of Jesus) was a representative sample of the five million Jews who lived during that era. He assumed this even though the text, called the Lexicon of Jewish Names in Late Antiquity was published in 2002 and only includes 2,509 names. Tal Ilan, who compiled the Lexicon of Jewish Names and who vehemently disagrees with the assertion that this could be Jesus’s tomb, says that the names found in the tomb “are in every tomb in Jerusalem. You can get all kinds of clever people who know statistics who will tell you that the combination is the unique thing about [these names], and probably they’re right - if you want just exactly this combination it’s more difficult to find. But my research proves exactly the opposite - these are the most common names that you could expect to find anywhere. SOURCE
  • Also from Scientific American: It was only when Feuerverger assumed that some of the names were exceptional, and fit with scholars’ beliefs about the historical family of Jesus, that his calculation became worthy of advertising. According to Feuerverger, the most important assumption by far was the one that dealt with the inscription that appears on the ossuary that the documentarians assert belonged to Mary Magdalene.
    “The extraordinariness of the Mariemene e Mara inscription gets factored into the calculation as a very rare name,” says Feuerverger. By the logic of the historians and archaeologists enlisted by the production team, this inscription is so rare that Feuerverger could safely assume that this was the only woman who possessed this name out of all of those listed in the Lexicon. This changed the odds that this tomb belonged to just any Mary Magdalene from roughly one in three to one in 80.     SOURCE
  • Pulpit Magazine (included because it’s a good illustration, better worded than mine above!): To put that in today’s American society (according to a 1990 census), “Joseph” would be equivalent to the name “John” (as the second-most-popular name), “Mary” equivalent to the name “Mary” (which is still the most-popular woman’s name), and “Jesus” would be equivalent to the name “David” (as the sixth-most-popular name).
    If we found a gravesite today in which there was a tombstone for “John,” and another for “David, John’s son” – Would we be able to assert with any degree of certainty which “David” we were talking about? I wonder how many “Johns” there are (or have been in the last two centuries) in the United States who have had a wife named “Mary” and a son named “Dave.” Certainly many more than just one. Then, if we knew that the “David” we were looking for was unmarried and from Los Angeles, but the grave we found was for a “David” who was married and was buried in New York, what would we conclude?     SOURCE
  • From Dr. Craig L. Blomberg, Denver Seminary : So two Marys in an extended family calls for about as many raised eyebrows as a modern Hispanic family with two Marías. For that matter, would anyone bat an eye if that same family had a José (Joseph) and a Jesús as well? Would this prove that such a family included the long lost descendants of Jesus himself?
    Or take a more chronologically relevant example. Scholars have long known about (and tourists can still visit) the tomb in Bethany where inscriptions were discovered referring to Mary, Martha and Lazarus (and others). But every scholar worth his or her salt, no matter how conservative, acknowledges that those names were just so common that even to find them together in one tomb in the very town that the Bible says the three New Testament characters by those names lived proves statistically insignificant. It’s entirely possible that it happened completely by chance. There may easily have been a whole bunch families in Bethany with lots of children, including three with those names, in an age when parents had as many children as they could in hopes that a few might survive to care for them, if necessary, in their old age.
    The same approach must be taken with the cluster of names in the Talpiot tomb. In fact, Bauckham’s tables extracted from Ilan’s monumental reference work add one very interesting footnote. The Hebrew woman’s name listed as ninth most common (actually tied for eighth with Imma) was Mara, like the form announced to have been found with the second Mary in the Talpiot tomb. Not only does Mara not mean Magdalene but, although it could be the Grecized feminine equivalent to the Aramaic masculine mar or “master,” it actually appears on one ossuary, discovered elsewhere in Israel much longer ago, as an alternate form of the name Martha. And the feminine form of “master,” in a highly patriarchal culture, was not used nearly as often as the masculine form. So the “Mary” that may have been a spouse to this Joshua/Jesus more likely was named Mary Martha, not Mary Magdalene, and not Mary the Master.     SOURCE
  • From Dr. Gary Habermas, perhaps the world’s greatest authority on the Resurrection: From the ossuaries alone, we know of no other connections. We do not know even that “Maria” is Jesus’ mother. We do not know that the relation of “Matthew.” Further, no early source records Jesus’ marriage to Mary Magdalene. Clearly, there is no way to link this tomb to the Jesus of the New Testament (see bottom half of chart at right). As we have said, several ossuaries are known to bear the name “Jesus son of Joseph,” and the addition of “Judah” only complicates the puzzle; it gives us no help in identifying this as Jesus of Nazareth. And as we said, if the name “Jesus” is unclear or turns out to be a different name, as some scholars have argued, then everything is moot. Thus, the statistical analysis given in the Discovery Channel’s “The Lost Tomb of Jesus” reached its striking conclusion by making several assumptions that are supported neither by ossuary inscriptions nor by DNA. SOURCE

It would be easily possible to paste ten more paragraphs of information here, but that would prohibit us from tackling some of the meatier issues below, like the Magdalene contention, coming up next.

Number 2: MariamenoueMara = Mary Magdalene and 3=Turquoise!

Chase March 4th, 2007

UPDATE - MARCH 13!
(scroll down for the original post)

Stephen Pfann is an expert in ancient Semitic languages (Ph.D. Hebrew University, professor at the University of the Holy Land), and is prominently cited in several places on the Jesus Family Tomb site. (SOURCE 1; SOURCE 2) He has just completed a thorough analysis of the supposed “Mary Magdalene” inscription, and come to a very interesting conclusion. First, here’s a picture of the inscription, that he has color coded - the original isn’t in blue, red and green:

Mary Magdalene inscription?

Here is a summary of Dr. Pfann’s findings:

*The original transcription of the inscription was incorrect.
*The inscription does not read “Mariamene the Master”nor does the name Mariamene or Mariamne appear on the ossuary at all.
*The inscription reflects the writing of two distinct scribes who wrote in different forms of the Greek script.
*The correct reading of the inscription is “Mariame and Mara,” based on parallels from contemporary inscriptions and documents.
*The ossuary thus contained the bones of at least two different women, interred at two separate times, one named Mariame and the other Mara.
*No support exists for ascribing the ossuary to Mary Magdalene.

This should really be the final death knell to the entire Jesus Family Tomb project - it would seem almost impossible for any neutral scholar to view this inscription, read Dr. Pfann’s findings and still believe the inscribed name has anything whatsoever to do with Mary Magdalene. Here’s the article, please read it! SOURCE

Perhaps the lynch pin claim that the Jesus Family Tomb crew makes is in regards to Mary Magdalene. The filmmakers steps to make the connection from MariamenoueMara, which is the Greek name inscribed on one of the ossuaries, to Mary Magdalene are very questionable….if MariamenoueMara= Mary Magdalene, then perhaps in some strange way, 3 = turquoise, or red=blue, etc.

Here is what is being claimed:

Mariamene e Mara” – “Mariamne, also called Master”The ossuary of a Jewish woman who moved in Greek circles. The ossuary of an elite, a “Mara,” a “Master.”The “Mara” added at the end of her name, in Aramaic, means “Master” or “teacher.” It is usually a masculine term, but then, Mariamne was performing duties usually restricted to men on the authority of Jesus. Mary Magdalene was likely a woman of means, helping to fund Jesus and his ministry. The Gospels tell us that the Magdalene, as she is known, went with Jesus on his fateful journey to Jerusalem, where she witnessed the Crucifixion. She was the first of the disciples to discover the empty tomb of Jesus as well as the first to see the Risen Jesus. She has been called “the apostle of the apostles” because she was the one to bring the news to the rest of the disciples. From such non-canonical Gnostic texts such as The Pistis Sophia and The Gospel of Philip, we glean that Mariamne/Magdalene [Ed. note: notice the different spelling!] was sister to Philip (one of the twelve original apostles) and Martha; that Jesus called her “chosen among women”; that she performed miracles and baptized converts And that she died at the Jordan River, “near Jerusalem”, not in France or Ephesus as later tradition suggests. Mariamne, Mary Magdalene, was indeed a Mara. SOURCE

Mary Magdalene?
Both secular and Christian scholars have identified multiple problems with the very tenuous connection between the Mariamenouemara inscription and Mary Magdalene. In fact, using the word tenuous is probably being too generous. There are several reasons that there is no real connection between the Mariamenouemara box and Mary Magdalene. They are summarized below, followed by article excerpts that lead to a fuller discussion of the issue.

  1. As noted below, the earliest Christians in Jerusalem after the time of Jesus were much more likely to speak Aramaic than Greek. It is therefore problematic that the MariamenoueMara Ossuary is inscribed with Greek and could possibly indicate that we are dealing with a multi-generational tomb. This is conjecture, of course, but it is evidential. (see quotes below)
  2. In first and second century Christian literature, the most reliable and ancient texts that are still extant, Mary Magdalene is consistently referred to as “Maria”. The only ancient connection between Mary Magdalene and Mariamene (the nominative form of Mariamenou, which is in the genitive, meaning “of Mariamene”) comes from the 4th (?) century gnostic text the Gospel Acts of Phillip. Even there, this Mariamene is identified as the sister of Philip, and not at all as Mary Magdalene. One important fact about the Gospel Acts of Phillip is that our earliest surviving text is dated to the 14th century! It is also a rather odd Gnostic work, with the “apostles” seeing the conversion of talking leopard and the slaying of a dragon. Probably not the best ancient text to use as the bedrock for a scholarly theory.
  3. It is likely that the “mara” at the end of the inscription MariamenoueMara does not at all refer to “the great” or “the teacher”, but more likely refers to either a sister buried in the same box, or a nickname. Mara is a diminutive for Martha. One notes that none of the other boxes in the tomb, including the purported mother of Jesus and Jesus Himself, have any titles attached to them. In addition to assume that Mar= “teacher”, or some such thing is to assume that the ossuary is half Greek, half Aramaic. See Below for more information on that.
  4. Finally, also as noted below, the standard burial practice of the time was to append the name of one’s hometown on their ossuary box if they were buried outside of their hometown. Thus Mary Magdalene’s tomb, if it was located in Jerusalem, would have something like “of Magdala” inscribed along with it.

Here are the excerpts of the experts, along with links to the source materials quoted:

  • From Ben Witherington, Asbury Seminary professor, author, and well respected N.T. scholar: Mary Magdalene is called ‘Maria’ constantly in first century Christian literature, and indeed well into the second century as well. She is never called Mariamene or the like. It is anachronistic and inappropriate to bring in later Gnostic document evidence from the Acts of Philip or the Gospel of Mary, neither of which date before the end of the second century A.D. to make your case when you have perfectly good first century data to help you. In fact, in regard to the former manuscript what we have is a 14th century manuscript which is theorized to go back to the fourth century A.D. It does not identify Mariamene as Mary Magdalene, rather it identifies her as the sister of Philip the apostle. It is the unproven theory of Francis Bovon, without real supporting evidence that Mariamene refers to Mary Magdalene. There are two problems with this: 1) we have both Mary Magdalene, and Philip in the NT, and the two are never connected at all. Indeed they are from different cities it seems clear. In terms of historical methodology you cannot use later Gnostic documents filled with wild fictional accounts, indeed fairy tales, about talking animals (yes we have that in the Acts of Philip) and like and be taken seriously when you want to make historical claims on the basis of such later and non-historically oriented evidence; 2) the accounts in the Acts of Philip have Maramene evangelizing foreign countries, yet on the argument of the film producers of this Discovery Channel special, she stayed in Jerusalem and was buried there with Jesus. In other words, we have no good historical connection between the sister of Philip, and Mary Magdalene. None. SOURCE
  • Also from Dr. Witherington, “The second word on the Mariamene ossuary is Mara which is short for Martha another female name. It is not a reference to her being a master or teacher.” SOURCE
  • And finally, once more from Dr. Witherington: The earliest Jewish Christians in Jerusalem, including the members of Jesus’ family and Mary Magdalene, did not speak Greek. They spoke Aramaic. We have absolutely no historical evidence to suggest Mary Magdalene would have been called by a Greek name before A.D. 70. She grew up in a Jewish fishing village called Migdal, not a Greek city at all. It makes no sense that her ossuary would have a Greek inscription and that of her alleged husband an Aramaic inscription. SOURCE
  • From Scientific America, quoting, archaeologist Jodi Magness: Other scholars think the assertion that the inscription Mariemene e Mara, written in Greek, refers specifically to Mary Magdalene is ridiculous. Jodi Magness, an archaeologist with an interest in early Judaism at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, argues that any Jews buried in Jerusalem who were not natives would have had their home towns appended to their names when they were inscribed on ossuaries. (Despite scholars’ beliefs that Jesus’s entire family hailed from outside Jerusalem, none of the inscriptions on the ossuaries in the contested burial cave include other birthplaces.) Magness also believes that if Jesus’s family were wealthy enough to own a burial cave, it would have been in his home town of Nazareth and not in Jerusalem. SOURCE
  • From Cambridge scholar Richard Bauckham, “The conclusion is that the name Mariamenon is unique, the diminutive of the very rare Mariamene. Neither is related to the form Maramne, except in the sense that all derive ultimately from the name Mariam. There is no reason at all to connect the woman in this ossuarywith Mary Magdalene, and in fact the name usage is decisively against such a connexion.”
    SOURCE
  • From Extreme Theology: The book’s narrative claims that Jesus sent out a group of followers to spread his message. The followers were Philip, Bartholomew, and a woman named Mariamne who is identified as Philip’s sister. Among their accomplishments was the conversion of a talking leopard, a talking goat, and the slaying of a dragon. Yes, that is right Bartholomew, Philip and Mariamne went out preaching Jesus’ message to talking leopard’s and talking goats!
    Secondly, the Acts of Philip NEVER even ONCE refers to Mariamne as Mary Magdalene. Granted, some scholars speculate that Mariamne COULD be Mary Magdalene BUT the text never actually says that. Therefore, the film’s producers are literally overstating the evidence supplied to us in the Acts of Philip.     SOURCE
  • From Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society editor Andreas Kostenberger, “the claim that Mary Magdalene’s bones were found in one of the ossuaries on the basis that the name “Mariamne” (Mary) is inscribed on it is bogus; the connection
    drawn here is pulled completely out of thin air” SOURCE
  • From Denver Seminary’s Dr. Craig L. Blomberg: The Hebrew woman’s name listed as ninth most common (actually tied for eighth with Imma) was Mara, like the form announced to have been found with the second Mary in the Talpiot tomb. Not only does Mara not mean Magdalene but, although it could be the Grecized feminine equivalent to the Aramaic masculine mar or “master,” it actually appears on one ossuary, discovered elsewhere in Israel much longer ago, as an alternate form of the name Martha. And the feminine form of “master,” in a highly patriarchal culture, was not used nearly as often as the masculine form. So the “Mary” that may have been a spouse to this Joshua/Jesus more likely was named Mary Martha, not Mary Magdalene, and not Mary the Master. SOURCE
  • From Extreme Theology’s Chris Rosebrough: One last point: the film claims that “Maraimne e Mara” means Mary the Master. But the only way they could make this claim is if they mix languages. Mara means master in Aramaic, but the ossuary incription is written in Greek. In order for the film makers to be correct abou the ossuary text reading “Mary the Master” we have to believe that the inscription although written in greek is supposed to be understood as being half greek and half Aramaic. This is preposterous. Since the inscription is in Greek, if it was supposed to say “Mary the Master” it would have to say “Mariamne Ho Kurios” NOT “Mariamne e Mara”. SOURCE

Is that enough evidence for you? If it isn’t, then please, please read the source documents linked above very, very carefully. The link between Mary Magdalene and MariamenoueMara is quite possibly the easiest one to disprove, yet the most important one to the filmmakers’ case, as it figures so prominently in their statistical argument.

Ancient image of Philip the evangelist; not at all the author of the Gnostic Gospel of Philip!

Numbers 1 and 2 due out by Sunday night, March 4

Chase March 4th, 2007

Our analysis of the two most important points of the Jesus Family Tomb documentary, namely the statistical evidence and the Mary Magdalene connection will be up sometime Sunday night, March 4th. Please read the information below, and check back with us tonight!!

Number 3: The trouble with reading ancient writing in stone…

Chase March 4th, 2007

The

Above, you can see an image of the inscription found on the “Jesus son of Joseph” ossuary.  You’ll note, even if you don’t read ancient semitic languages, that the writing is unusually sloppy. Also not the scribble that the blue arrow is pointing to. The Jesus film maker’s would have folks believe that is a drawing of the cross, thus further linking the bone box to THE Jesus. Call me crazy, but I don’t really see a cross there.  This image highlights a pretty big problem for the whole Jesus Family tomb theory - it’s not very, very clear that what you see above spells out the name Jesus, or in Hebrew the name Yeshua. (Keep in mind that Hebrew had no written vowels, so you the name represented above is merely four consonants.)  For those who would claim the Talpiot tomb is the tomb of Jesus of Nazareth, there are three major problems with the inscriptions on the ossuaries:

  1. The primary problem is represented in the image above - many experts who have examined the ossuary can’t tell if the name listed is “Yeshua” or “Hanun”, since many semitic characters look so much alike.
  2. The inscriptions on the ossuaries are in different languages! Four of the boxes are inscribed with Aramaic, one is in Hebrew, while the sixth, purported to belong to Mary Magdalene, is in Greek! This could indicate several things, including that those buried in this tomb were from different generations/time periods.
  3. Finally, if one does grant that the name on the ossuary is “Jesus son of Joseph”, that title itself is quite odd. This is a title that is only used of Jesus once in literature (by his enemies). It is highly unlikely that THE Jesus of Nazareth would be in a tomb inscribed with the name of His earthly father. (see below for more details)

Again, here are excerpts from articles below that tackle the issue at a deeper level:

  •   From the New York Daily News: Stephen Pfann, president of Jerusalem’s University of the Holy Land and an expert in Semitic languages, who was interviewed in the documentary, said the film’s hypothesis holds little weight:”How possible is it?” Pfann said. “On a scale of one through 10 - 10 being completely possible - it’s probably a one, maybe a one and a half.” Pfann added that the inscription read as “Jesus” has been misread by suggesting that the name “Hanun” might be a more accurate rendering. SOURCE

  • From Ben Witherington: Jesus is never called ‘son of Joseph’ by anyone who knew him intimately in the NT— not by his family members, and not by his disciples. Indeed where this idea arises, for example, in John 6.42 the Jewish officials who are accosting Jesus call him ‘son of Joseph’ (cf. Jn. 8.41). These can only be called hostile witnesses, not those who were likely to have known the actual case. It is telling that in Nazareth itself, in our account in Mk. 6.1-6 in our earliest Gospel Jesus is called “the carpenter, the son of Mary” SOURCE

  • From Cambridge/St. Andrews scholar, Richard Bauckham: The Discovery Channel film proposes to read Mara as the Aramaic word ‘the master’ (as in Maranatha). But, since we know that Mara was used as an abbreviated form of Martha, in this context of names on an ossuary it is much more plausible to read it as a name. This woman had two names: Mariamenon and Mara. It could be that the latter in this case was used as an abbreviation of Mariamenou, or it could be that the woman was known by Mariamenon, treated as a Greek name, and the Aramaic name Mara, conforming to the common practice of being known by two names, Greek and Semitic….In any case, it is unlikely that the close family of Jesus would have spoken Greek within the family, and so it is unlikely that Mariamenon belonged to that close family circle. The conclusion is that the name Mariamenon is unique, the diminutive of the very rare Mariamene. Neither is related to the form Maramne, except in the sense that all derive ultimately from the name Mariam. There is no reason at all to connect the woman in this ossuary with Mary Magdalene, and in fact the name usage is decisively against such a connexion. SOURCE

Number 4: DNA proves Jesus of Nazareth in the tomb???

Chase March 4th, 2007

Even in our day of technology, it is quite difficult to use DNA testing to prove much of anything. Witness the recent furor over Anna Nicole Smith’s baby, and all of those who are lining up as father candidates. The Jesus Family Tomb group is throwing around DNA in a spectacular way to make some far-fetched assumptions. If you read the fine print, however, they have really only proven one thing: That the “Jesus” in the Talpiot tomb and the Mariamenon are not blood relations. From this, they make multiple unfounded implications, mainly that “Jesus” and Mariamenon were married. Here is what the official website reads:

In the documentary The Lost Tomb of Jesus, DNA tests are performed on human residue taken out of the “Jesus son of Joseph” ossuary and the “Mariamne” ossuary.
These DNA tests are conducted by Dr. Carney Matheson at the Paleo-DNA lab at Lakehead University in Ontario, one of the leading facilities of its kind in the world….The tests demonstrate that the “Jesus” and “Mary” from this tomb are not maternally related….They were unrelated. People buried in tombs are related in one of two ways: either by blood or by marriage. The results revealed an explosive possibility: that these two individuals, Jesus, son of Joseph, and Mariamne, were likely related by marriage. SOURCE

There are two big problems with they way they have come to this conclusion:

  1. Just because two people are buried in the same tomb and not blood relatives does not mean that they were married. There are numerous examples in the ancient world of this happening.
  2. The DNA testing done to “prove” that the former ossuary occupants weren’t related was actually done on residue left inside the box, not on the human remains that were once there. When the tomb was uncovered in 1980, the human remains in each box were taken out and reburied, in accordance with typical archaeological practices in Israel. In addition, there is some thought that the discovery of this tomb in 1980 wasn’t the first time it had been disturbed since its sealing. Some archaeologists think that there could have been thirty or more ossuaries in the tomb originally. (see below for references) There is no guarantee that the DNA tested actually came from the original occupants of the boxes at all.

As evidence of the misunderstanding that can be possible based on a cursory look at this evidence, witness this quote taken from the website of Nashville tv station WKRN, “For many mainstream or traditional Christians, the belief that Jesus was resurrected from the dead is essential to their very faith[,] so hearing that scientists have used DNA samples to prove that his remains were once in a buried stone casket, if true, would cause them to re-think most everything they have ever believed. In response, many Christians refuse to listen.” SOURCE Do you follow what they are saying? Their understanding is that DNA testing has proved the occupant in the box is THE Jesus of Nazareth. How absurd!!

DNA testing
Here are excerpts from articles that deal with this issue more in depth:

  • From Dr. Darrell Bock: There is the DNA showing that Mariamne and Jesus DNA residue do not match. Now with how many women in Judea would Jesus’ DNA not match? Even women named Mary/Mariamne? This proves nothing. That a match would take place is a one in several thousand likelihood. This is like my asking, how many people in your town or city do you have a DNA match with? This evidence does not prove she is a wife. It simply says that A jesus and A mary are not biologically related. The questions one could raise include which male in the tomb is she attached to, if to any of them? In fact, the fact that only two boxes were tested means that we do not even know if this is a family tomb, since the two tested show no relationship. The DNA could prove the exact opposite of what is being claimed. SOURCE
  • From my former professor, Dr. Gary Habermas: It has been acknowledged that the recent DNA evidence did NOT provide positive connections among anyone in the tomb. This lack of evidence is then used to presume a marriage relationship between “Jesus” and “Mariamene,” who is identified as Mary Magdalene. But the ONLY THING the DNA evidence establishes positively is that this “Jesus” and this “Mariamene” found in the tomb are not maternally related. This hardly shows that they were probably married! So this is only a guess. She could have been married to any one of the four men, or to other family members, or she could someone’s daughter. We must remember that family tombs were from extended families and were often multi-generational. So, Mariamene could have lived decades earlier or later than Jesus. SOURCE
  • From Western Michigan History professor Dr. Paul L. Maier: There is no reason whatever to equate “Mary Magdalene” with “Mariamene,” as Jacobovici claims. And so what if her DNA is different from that of “Yeshua”? That particular “Mariamme” (as it is usually spelled today) could indeed have been the wife of that particular “Yeshua,” who was certainly not Jesus. SOURCE
  • From Dr. Ben Witherington: It would be nice if the other ossuaries from the Talpiot tomb could be DNA tested so we could find out if any of the folks in this tomb were related. We do not know. But it would not surprise me if none of them were. The practice of osslegium, or burial in ossuaries, continued on after A.D. 70 until the Bar Kokhba revolt at least. There is no reason why this Talpiot tomb might not reflect the period between A.D. 70 and 125 or so. SOURCE

One other issue here. DNA testing is somewhat expensive, but not prohibitively so. Would not the filmmakers case have been further strengthened (though not established by a long shot) by showing that the “Judah son of Jesus” in the tomb as a child of Mariemene e Mara and Yeshua? How about testing the DNA of the other Maria - said to indicate Jesus’ mother - and the Yeshua DNA? I have a hunch - total conjecture, of course - that those DNA tests were submitted and the results unreported when they turned out unfavorable to the filmmakers’ claims.

Number 5: The James Ossuary

Chase March 4th, 2007

The fifth major claim made by the Jesus Tomb crowd is that there is a missing 10th ossuary (stone box used to inter remains) and that this 10th ossuary is likely the famous James, brother of Jesus ossuary found in 2002. If you don’t know much about the James Ossuary, here are two articles that will bring you up to speed: Article 1 (Wikipedia)….Article 2 (Craig A. Evans) Here is what is what the author/filmmakers are contending:

The documentary “The Lost Tomb of Jesus” presents startling new evidence in the ongoing debate concerning the “James Ossuary.” The James ossuary was found around 1980. “The Jesus Family Tomb” was discovered in 1980.One of the ten ossuaries went missing from “The Jesus Family Tomb.” Its hastily scribbled, rounded-out dimensions generally match the James ossuary. And the film documents recent tests conducted at the CSI Suffolk Crime lab in New York which demonstrate that the patina (a chemical film encrustation on the box) from the James ossuary matches the patina from the other ossuaries in the Talpiot tomb. SOURCE

James Ossuary

But is there a connection between the James Ossuary (real or not) and the Talpiot tomb? It appears that the answer is a resounding no, which further damages the claims of the Jesus Family Tomb film. There are three important points that work against the connection:

  1. The archaeologists who found the tomb in 1980 both state that the 10th (missing) ossuary had no markings on it, whereas the James Ossuary is very clearly marked.
  2. Though the filmmakers claim the James Ossuary and the Talpiot Ossuaries have similar patina’s (click here for the definition of patina), the soil found in each box is markedly different
  3. The James Ossuary was found in the 1970’s, before the discovery of the Talpiot (supposed Jesus family) tomb.

Here are some more excerpts from the experts debunking this particular connection. As usual, the quotes are followed by a link to their source article so you can read more in depth if you desire.

  • From Dr. Ben Witherington: One more thing of importance. The James ossuary, according to the report of the antiquities dealer that Oded Golan got the ossuary from, said that the ossuary came from Silwan, not Talpiot, and had dirt in it that matched up with the soil in that particular spot in Jerusalem. In fact Oded confirmed this to me personally when I spoke with him at an SBL meeting. Why is this important? Well because the ossuaries that came out of Talpiot came out of a rock cave from a different place, and without such soil in it. To theorize that there was a Jesus family tomb, and yet the one member of Jesus’ family who we know was buried in Jerusalem for a long time did not come out of the ground from that locale contradicts this theory. Furthermore, Eusebius reports that the tomb marker for James’ burial was close to where James was martyred near the temple mount, indeed near the famous tombs in the Kidron valley such as the so-called tomb of Absalom. Talpiot is nowhere near this locale. SOURCE
  • Former FBI agent Gerald Richard testified that a photo of the James ossuary, showing it in Golan’s home, was taken in the 1970s, based on tests done by the FBI photo lab. The trial resumes tomorrow. Jacobovici conceded in an interview that if the ossuary was photographed in the 1970s, it could not then have been found in a tomb in 1980. SOURCE
  • From Joe Zias, the archaeologist who originally cataloged the 10 Tolpiat ossuaries, “Amos Kloner is right as I received and catalogued the objects, the 10th was plain and I put it out in the courtyard with all the rest of the plain ossuaries as was the standard procedure when one has little storage space available. Nothing was stolen nor missing and they were fully aware of this fact, just didn’t fit in with their agenda.” They=the filmmakers. SOURCE
  • From an MSNBC article: “I don’t think the James Ossuary came from the same cave,” said Dan Bahat, an archaeologist at Bar-Ilan University. “If it were found there, the man who made the forgery would have taken something better. He would have taken Jesus.” SOURCE

James Ossuary close up. It reads,

Number 6: Other various problems with the Jesus Family Tomb

Chase March 4th, 2007

Above, we have covered the five major claims made by the makers of the Jesus Family Tomb documentary and book. Here is a bit of a hodgepodge of other some other claims made, as well as problems inherent in each. This is kind of a general, catch all type post, so it won’t quite have the organizational structure of the above posts.

1. The filmmakers make a big fuss about the chevron-like symbol that is found over the door of the tomb. They speculate that it might give notice that a special family is buried inside, and then go on to postulate possible connections between the chevron symbol and other shady groups and theories like the Da Vinci Code, and the Knights Templar. SOURCE. Notably, they fail to recognize that the symbol which stands out so much on the front of the tomb argues against their core theory that it is the tomb of Jesus of Nazareth. As Ben Witherington argues, why would the burial place of Jesus be so easily marked at a time when rumors of His resurrection were so rampant? If Jesus did not rise again, wouldn’t it be better to keep his final resting place as obscure as possible? Here’s an excerpt:

There is an interesting rosette or symbol over the Talpiot tomb, and from the pictures in the book inside the tomb as well. This is very interesting and it tells us one thing. This was a highly unusual and ornamental tomb meant to be recognized by the symbol. It is not, and indeed was not a secret tomb where a despised split off sect of Jesus following Jews could have hidden the bodies of Jesus or James or other family members. The ornamental decoration is meant to attract attention and draw people to the tomb. Indeed it is meant to distinguish the tomb from others. This is the opposite of what we would expect if this is a pre-70 A.D. Jesus family tomb. Remember we have clear historical evidence that Saul of Tarsus, from his own letters and from Acts was a persecutor of Christians. By the 40s this persecution got so bad that some Christians fled the city (see the sweep and trajectory of the story in Act 3-9). Under no circumstances would these beleaguered early Jewish Christians have been advertising where the bones of Jesus laid, if they knew. SOURCE

2. Another note: The Jesus Film’s leading historian is Dr. James Tabor. Here’s an interesting tidbit about his previous work, as quoted in Pulpit Magazine.

Dr. James Tabor The show’s leading historian, James Tabor, published a book last year asserting that Joseph was not Jesus’ father. For him to now claim that an ossuary marked, “Jesus son of Joseph” contains the bones of Jesus Christ contradicts his own research SOURCE

3. The filmmakers also claim that ossuary burials only occurred from about 3o B.C. to 70 a.d. This claim has two functions: 1. Quite obviously, it is right in the midst of time that Jesus of Nazareth lived and 2. It limits the field of names with which to work their statistical magic. Their website says, “It is a bit of an archaeological oddity. For only about a hundred years, from 30 BCE to 70 CE (when the Romans destroyed the city), people in the Jerusalem area practiced a form of secondary burial. What this means is that when someone died family members wrapped the body in a shroud and placed it in a niche within a tomb carved out of the soft rock. Perhaps they left a few artifacts—a perfume bottle, a small lamp—to accompany the deceased.” SOURCE
Dr. Witherington again counters that argument, and writes, The practice of osslegium, or burial in ossuaries, continued on after A.D. 70 until the Bar Kokhba revolt at least. There is no reason why this Talpiot tomb might not reflect the period between A.D. 70 and 125 or so. SOURCE

There are quite a few other minor issues that are worth quibbling over, but these three should suffice for now.