The Lost Tomb Of Jesus: Facts & Fiction - Compiled By Fr. Tony

New Delhi, March 10, 2007 (CBCI News):

Introduction: The Discovery Channel aired a documentary film "The Lost Tomb of Jesus" on Sunday, March 4, 2007 and the documentary film maker and journalist Simcha Jacobovici published a book on the same theme: The Jesus Family Tomb. The film was broadcast on the international Discovery Channel on March 4, as well as on Britain 's Channel 4, Canada ’s VisionTV and Israel ’s Channel 8. The executive producer of the film is James Cameron who was the director of the Oscar-winning feature film Titanic. Simcha Jacobovici the Israeli-born, Canadian-based filmmaker is a practicing orthodox Jew. Dr. James D. Tabor who authored The Jesus Dynasty and a known “Christian conspiracy theorist” had a key role in the project. It took three years to produce the film. With Cameron's help, Jacobovici got Discovery's backing to cover his $3.5 million budget. "The idea of possibly finding the tomb of Jesus and several members of his family, with compelling scientific evidence, is beyond anything I could have imagined," Said Simcha Jacobovici in a press conference. "It doesn't get bigger than this," said Cameron in the press statement. "We've done our homework; we've made the case; and now it's time for the debate to begin." But in the panel discussion following the Discovery channel film he had to admit: "I don't profess to be an archeologist or a Biblical scholar. I'm a film producer. I found it a compelling story.“ “An incredible archaeological discovery in Israel changes history and shocks the world,” wrote News Week. St. Paul stated: “If Christ has not been raised from death, then we have nothing to preach and you have nothing to believe.” (I Cor. 15:14). Small wonder, why the Jewish owned media as well as anti Christian media are celebrating the event which they hope would shake the foundation of Christianity.

The false claims: 1) Jacobovici and Cameron claim that a tomb unearthed during construction of an apartment building in the Talpiyot neighborhood of Jerusalem 27 years ago, in 1980 and ignored as unimportant by archeologists, is in fact, the family tomb of Jesus of Nazareth. The ossuaries found in the tomb were not identified as belonging to Jesus' family when they were first discovered because present day knowledge and scientific tools were not available. Jacobovici puts together a case in which he argues that the bones of Jesus, Mary and Mary Magdalene, along with some of their lesser-known relatives, were once entombed in this cave and their bones transferred to the ossuaries.

2) The inscriptions on the boxes say Yeshua bar Yosef (Jesus son of Joseph), Maria (Mary), Yose (Joseph), Matia (Matthew), Mariamene e Mara (Maria the Master) and Yehuda bar Yeshua (Judah son of Jesus). Andrey Feuerverger, a statistician at the University of Toronto , came up with an estimate: 600-1 in favor of the tomb's belonging to the Holy Family!

3) According to the film makers Mary Magdalene's real name was Mariamene, a common first-century derivative of Miriam. They maintain that "Mariamene e Mara" is Mary Magdalene and that Yehuda bar Yeshua may be her son by Jesus. Buried in this documentary film is the Da Vinci Code hypothesis that Jesus and Mary Magdalene were married and they had a child whose remains were in the "Judas, son of Jesus" ossuary. DNA tests show that microscopic human remains scraped from the ossuary bearing Jesus' name and that bearing Mariamene's name proved their owners were not related, at least not matrilineally, leaving open the possibility that those two humans were husband and wife. Simcha conveniently forgets the fact (as Dan Brown does) that if Jesus was walking around Jerusalem with a wife and kids, there would be no followers!

4) The filmmakers claim that the so-called "James Ossuary," which came to public attention several years ago and was purported by its owner and antiquities dealer, Oded Golan, to have belonged to the brother of Jesus, was also from the same Jesus' family tomb, and that a forensic technique was used to determine this. Jacobovici claims that tests on the patina, or surface residue, of the "James Ossuary," which surfaced in 2002, indicate that it also came from the Talpiyot tomb. (In 2003 the Israel Antiquities Authority declared the inscription on the James ossuary a forgery. The antiquities dealer Oded Golan is currently on trial for forging the inscription.) But Jacobovici, who made a 2003 Discovery Channel film about it, maintains that it is real.

Ten facts contradicting the false claims

1) The discovery: Archeologists have noted some 900 such tomb sites in the Talpiyot district of Jerusalem. In 1980 and the internationally renowned Israeli archeologists Yosef Gat Amos Kloner and Shimon Gibson examined a tomb in this area where construction for new housing was underway. Upon entering the tomb, they discovered ten ossuaries in six niches and three skulls on the floor of the main room. (In 1st century Palestine it was customary to bury a person of some means wrapped in linen and spices in a cave tomb, let the flesh decay, and then, a year or more later, place the bones in a stone ossuary, which literally means "bone-box." Over generations the caves grew crowded with boxes, and families, eager to conserve space, often put two or three—or even six—skeletons in one box. In Israel today, first-century ossuaries are so ubiquitous that they are used in gardens and living rooms, as planters). After taking the inventory the bones were buried by Orthodox rabbis following Jewish ritual law. Fragments of the bones, however, remained in the boxes that were not washed out. After taking inventory, the archaeologists put the ossuaries on shelves in a warehouse of the Israeli Antiquities Authority, where they were kept undisturbed (except when the BBC came to shoot them in 1996) for more than 20 years. The official report written by the archeologist Amos Kloner found nothing remarkable in the discovery. The cave, it said, was probably in use by three or four generations of Jews from the beginning of the Common Era. Six ossuaries had inscriptions identifying them as those of 1) Yeshua bar Yehosef - 'Jesus son of Joseph' 2) Maria - the Latin for the normal 'Miriam' or Mary (mother or sister of Jesus?) 3) Yose - alternate form of 'Joseph' ( Matthew 13:54 lists 4 brothers (cousins?) 4) Yehuda bar Yeshua—'Judah son of Jesus' (film makers claim this refers to Jesus of Nazareth's son) of Jesus—James, Joses, Simon, Judas) 5) Mariamne e mara—'Miriamne the master' (some say Mary of Magdala's real name was Miriamne; mara is the same term as Maranatha "Come, oh Lord [mara]" in 1 Corinthians 16:22 ) 6) Matya—'Matthew' or 'Matthias' (possibly a husband of one of the women in an unmarked ossuary). Vast majority of scholars who specialize in archaeology of this period flatly reject the claim made by Simcha Jacobovici that it was Jesus’ family tomb. (Confer foot notes at end).

2) Historical improbability: “Jesus came from a poor family. Most poor Jews of Jesus’ time, probably buried their dead in ordinary graves. Only wealthy families buried their dead in tombs cut by hand from solid rock, putting the bones in niches in the walls and then, later, transferring them to ossuaries.” If Jesus' family had been wealthy enough to afford a rock-cut tomb as found in Talpiot, it would have been in Nazareth, not Jerusalem," Besides, “the names on the Talpiyot ossuaries indicate that the tomb belonged to a family from Judea, the area around Jerusalem, where people were known by their first name and father's name. As Galileans, Jesus and his family members would have used their first name and home town” ((Ms. Jodi Magness, an archaeologist at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill ).)

3) Deluding inscriptions: “The names inscribed on the coffins were very common in the Second Temple era and are not sufficient proof that the cave was the burial site of Jesus' family. “Jesus son of Joseph" inscriptions had been found on several other ossuaries over the years.” "There is no likelihood that Jesus and his relatives had a family tomb," "They were a Galilee family with no ties in Jerusalem . The Talpiot tomb belonged to a middle-class family from the 1st century CE” (AD) Amos Kloner, the leading Israeli archeologist told the Jerusalem Post. (http://www.catholic.org/national/national_story.php?id=23181).

According to Fr. Murphy-O'Connor the names found on the ossuaries "are a combination of very common names. It doesn't mean much at all. You can prove anything with statistics." (http://catholicticker.blogspot.com/). According to Dr. Ben Witherington, a Protestant Biblical scholar: The earliest followers of Jesus never called Jesus ‘son of Joseph’. It was outsiders who mistakenly called him that! Would the family members such as James who remained in Jerusalem really put that name on Jesus’ tomb when they knew otherwise? This is highly improbable.”(http://benwitherington.blogspot.com/2007/02/jesus-tomb-titanic-talpiot-tomb-theory.html).

4) The statistical stunt based on fictions: The stunning statistical probability is the trump card used by the film makers to assert that the tomb belonged to Jesus’ family. People who believe in the chance of their winning a mega lottery have no problem in accepting the so called “1/600 probability of the six name combination pointing to Jesus’ family tomb.” But the statistics used to prove the Talpiot Tomb as Jesus’ family tomb will be correct only if the following five assumptions are verified: 1) Jesus and Jose of this tomb are brothers. 2) Mariamne is Mary Magdalene. 3) Jesus was married to her and they had a son by name Judah . 4) Matthew found in this tomb is related to Jesus and not Mary’s son. 5) James ossuary originated from this tomb. But none of these` is provable except from fictional works like “Da Vinci Code,” “Jesus Dynasty” etc.

5) The historical problems with all this are too numerous to list here: the ancestral home of Joseph was Bethlehem , and his adult home was Nazareth .... Why in the world would be buried (alone at this point) in Jerusalem ? ....We have no historical evidence of a son of Jesus except in fictions. Indeed we have no historical evidence that Jesus was ever married. The name Mary is about the most common of all ancient Jewish female names.... By all ancient accounts, the tomb of Jesus was empty-- even the Jewish and Roman authorities acknowledged this... Implicitly you must accuse James, Peter and John (mentioned in Gal. 1-2-- in our earliest NT document from 49 A.D.) of fraud and cover-up. Are we really to believe that they knew Jesus didn't rise bodily from the dead but perpetrated a fraudulent religion, for which they and others were prepared to die? Did they really hide the body of Jesus in another tomb? (Dr. Ben Witherington)

6) Scientific tests on patina from fake ossuary: The James ossuary, according to antiquities dealer Oded Golan, 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. (Dr. Ben Witherington). In 2003 the Israel Antiquities Authority declared the inscription on the James ossuary a forgery. The antiquities dealer Oded Golan is currently on trial for forging the inscription.

7) Suspicious collaboration: What should we make of Dr. James Tabor’s being co-opted into this project? You will remember his book which came out last year: The Jesus Dynasty. In that book he had quite a good deal to say about the Talpiot Tomb, and about Panthera being the father of Jesus, and about Jesus being buried in Galilee , and of course nothing about an ossuary which claims that Joseph is the father of Jesus. (Dr. Ben Witherington)

8) The DNA pseudo science: There is no independent DNA control sample to compare to what was garnered from the bone fragments gathered from the vacant ossuaries. The ossuaries were vacant for the last twenty years because the human remains in the cave and in the ossuaries discovered in 1980, says respected archeologist Shimon Gibson, who was a young surveyor at the time and worked on the site, were given over to the religious authorities, who reburied them in accordance with Jewish law. Hence the DNA samples collected were from the debris found in the empty ossuaries. Nobody knows for certain whether bones of several people were in the ossuaries from which bone debris was collected. Since there is the possibility of the wives of “Jesus’ brothers” being buried in the tomb and their bones preserved in the ossuaries along with the bones of others how can one conclude that no matching of DNA samples collected from ossuaries with inscriptions Yeshua bar Yehosef and Mariamne e mara belonged to Jesus and Mary Magdalene and they were husband and wife?
(http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1171894527177&pagename=JPost%2FJP Article%2FShowFull).

Hence the real reason for bringing in the DNA aspect is simple: Westerners have been trained to suspend all critical thought in the face of "scientific fact," giving this tapestry of wild ideas the aura of ultimate authority. "You can't argue with DNA."
(http://www.aomin.org/index.php?itemid=1790)

9) Biblical impossibility: All four Gospels say that Jesus was crucified on the eve of the Sabbath; all four say that the tomb was empty when the disciples woke on Sunday morning. "The New Testament is very clear on this," says Alan Segal, religion professor at Barnard College. "Jesus was put in a tomb that didn't belong to him and then he rose and there was nothing left." For Jacobovici's scenario to work, someone would have had to whisk the body away, on the Sabbath, and secretly inter it in a brand-new, paid-for family tomb—all before dawn on Sunday. As Segal goes on to argue, "Why would Jesus' family have a tomb outside of Jerusalem if they were from Nazareth? Why would they have a tomb if they were poor?" The Roman Catholic Church accepts two places for Mary's grave: one beneath the Dormition Abbey in Jerusalem, the other in Ephesus. Constantine said in 328 that the final resting place of Jesus Christ—from which he rose—lay on the rock at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem.

10) The ongoing smear game: Every year during Lent, some sensational piece of conjecture raises its ugly head in an attempt to discredit the basic foundations of Christianity: the resurrection, deity of Christ and his sexuality. Last year it was The DaVinci Code and The Gospel of Judas. NBC’s Will & Grace aired an episode starring Britney Spears called "Cruxi-fixin’s" on April 13, just before Good Friday. Around the same time, ABC’s Desperate Housewives ran a Catholic smear campaign. Jesus was on trial as Italian atheist Luigi Cascioli, who marketed "The God Who Wasn't There", brought suit against the Catholic Church for perpetuating a fraud, questioning the existence of Jesus. However, he lost, Jesus won. (http://benwitherington.blogspot.com/2007/02/problems-multiple-for-jesus-tomb-theory.html).

Foot notes: Archeologists and experts reject the claims

1) William G. Dever, who has been excavating ancient sites in Israel for 50 years and is widely considered the dean of biblical archaeology among U.S. scholars. "I'm not a Christian. I'm not a believer. I don't have a dog in this fight.” I just ……… think it's a shame the way this story is being hyped and manipulated."

2) Amos Kloner originally excavated the tomb and revealed the findings of the dig 10 years ago with Joe Zias, former curator of archaeology at the Israeli Antiquities Authority. Kloner told the Jerusalem Post that the documentary is "nonsense." "The claim that the burial site has been found is not based on any new idea. It is only an attempt to sell," Kloner told the Chicago Tribune. "It's a waste of money." Kloner also spoke to the Times of India, where he said, "I can say positively that I don't accept the identification (as) ... belonging to the family of Jesus in Jerusalem." Kloner continued, "I don't accept that the family of Miriam and Yosef (Mary and Joseph), the parents of Jesus, had a family tomb in Jerusalem."
(http://www.actressarchives.com/news.php?id=4303)

3) Jodi Magness, an archaeologist at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill , expressed irritation that the claims were made at a news conference rather than in a peer-reviewed scientific article. By going directly to the media, she said, the filmmakers "have set it up as if it's a legitimate academic debate, when the vast majority of scholars who specialize in archaeology of this period have flatly rejected this," she said.

4) Joe Zias, who was the curator for anthropology and archeology at the Rockefeller Museum in Jerusalem from 1972 to 1997 and personally numbered the Talpiot ossuaries: "Simcha has no credibility whatsoever," says. "He's pimping off the Bible …. His credibility explodes when one considers that he still believes the 2002 tale about an ossuary with the inscription, ‘James, son of Joseph, brother of Jesus.’ On June 18, 2003, the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) condemned this claim as a modern forgery—this was the unanimous decision of a 15-member IAA committee. The Discovery Channel aired the 2002 hoax and now it’s back with the Titanic fraud. It’s time the Discovery Channel discovered ethics and stopped with the sensationalism.” He got this guy Cameron, who made 'Titanic' or something like that—what does this guy know about archeology? I am an archeologist, but if I were to write a book about brain surgery, you would say, 'Who is this guy?' People want signs and wonders. Projects like these make a mockery of the archeological profession." Zias described it in an e-mail to The Washington Post as a "hyped up film which is intellectually and scientifically dishonest." A similar film was released 11 years ago, and the new film, “The Lost Tomb of Jesus,” is simply a renewed effort to create controversy in order to make a profit. Criticizing the filmmakers' marketing strategy he said “it is not based on proof,” reported the Jerusalem Post.
(http://amyproctor.squarespace.com/blog/2007/2/28/camerons-the-tomb-of-jesus-sinks-like-titanic.html).

5) Lawrence E. Stager: New York Times quoted Lawrence E. Stager, the Dorot professor of archaeology of Israel at Harvard, who said, "This is exploiting the whole trend that caught on with ‘The Da Vinci Code’." Stager continued, , "One of the problems is there are so many biblically illiterate people around the world that they don't know what is real judicious assessment and what is what some of us in the field call ‘fantastic archaeology.' (http://www.actressarchives.com/news.php?id=4303)

6) Stephen Pfann: University of the Holy Land in Jerusalem Professor Stephen Pfann, who noted to The Associated Press that it is possible that Jesus' name is not even on the tomb, said that his involvement in the documentary was to bring "some credible peer review in terms of how, in fact, the story is told." Regarding the marks on one of the caskets, the biblical scholar added, "They may just well be scratches. I see more clearly the name 'Hanun' there than I can see the name 'Jesus." He continued, "I want to make it clear at this point that I am not convinced at all that this is in fact the tomb of Jesus of Nazareth." Pfann also expressed, "I don't think that Christians are going to buy into this, but the skeptics, in general would like to see something that pokes holes into the story that so many people hold dear." Other attempts at discrediting the biblical truths of Jesus' sacrificial death on the cross and his ascension on the third day came from the theater release of The DaVinci Code and "The Gospel of Judas" cover feature in National Geographic last Easter, which also tried to peddle the idea that Jesus escaped crucifixion and had a son through His wife Mary Magdalene. (http://www.cbn.com/cbnnews/112322.aspx)

Compiled by Fr. Tony (akadavil@mobis.com) March 10, 2007