The Lost Tomb of Jesus

Content

The film describes the finding of the Talpiot Tomb during a housing construction project, and posits that it was the family tomb of Jesus. The film states that ten ossuaries were found in the cave, of which six are the subject of the film. Further, it claims that one of the ten ossuaries went missing years ago, presumably stolen.

The excavation report for the predecessor of the Israel Antiquities Authority was written by Amos Kloner, a professor of archaeology at Israel's Bar-Ilan University. Kloner dissociated himself from the claims made in the documentary. He said it was incorrect to call it "never before reported information" and that he had published all the details in the journal Antiqot in 1996. He had not said it was the tomb of Jesus' family.

Six of the nine remaining ossuaries bear inscriptions. The Lost Tomb of Jesus posits that three of those carry the names of figures from the New Testament. The meanings of the epigraphs are disputed. The makers of the documentary claim that four leading epigraphers have corroborated their interpretation of the inscriptions. As translated in The Lost Tomb of Jesus and The Jesus Family Tomb, they read as follows:

Yeshua bar Yehosef -- Aramaic for "Jesus son of Joseph"

Maria—written in Aramaic script, but a Latin form of the Hebrew name "Miriam" ("Mary")

Yose—a diminutive of "Joseph" mentioned (in its Greek form ιωσης "Joses") as the name of one of Jesus's brothers in the New Testament (Mark 6:3)

Yehuda bar Yeshua—possibly Aramaic for "Judah son of Jesus"

Mariamene e Mara—according to the filmmakers this is Greek for "Mary known as the master." The similar name "Mariamne" is found in the Acts of Philip. Francois Bovon, professor of the history of religion at Harvard University has said, based on his study of that work, "I do not believe that Mariamne is the real name of Mary of Magdalene. Mariamne is, besides Maria or Mariam, a possible Greek equivalent, attested by Josephus, Origen, and the Acts of Philip, for the Semitic Myriam."

DNA tests

Analysis of mitochondrial DNA performed by Lakehead University on the remains found in the ossuary marked "Jesus son of Joseph" and the one marked "Mariamne" or "Mary" (who some claim to be Mary Magdalene) found that the two occupants were not blood relations on their mothers' side. Based on these tests, the makers of the documentary suggest that "Jesus" and "Mariamne" were probably married "because otherwise they would not have been buried together in a family tomb," but the remains were not dated using radiocarbon to further sustain this supposition. Neither was any DNA from the other ossuaries tested to see whether or not any familial relation existed there. Additionally, scholars argue that the DNA tests only prove that they did not have the same mother and they could easily have been father/daughter, cousins, half brother/sister, or any number of possibilities that do not include a matrilineage line.

New views of Jesus endorsed by the film

Christian views

The film proposes new interpretations of the events regarding Jesus depicted in the New Testament, as seen by mainstream Christianity. The film's suggestions contradict

the basis of the faith and may be considered blasphemous by Christians:

Jesus remains found (see Death and resurrection of Jesus, Nicene Creed)

Presumably only spiritual ascension, not a bodily ascension (see Hypostatic union, resurrecting Lazarus)

Mary remains found (see Assumption of Mary, Dormition of the Theotokos)

Jesus being married (see Clerical celibacy (Catholic Church))

Jesus having a child (see Clerical celibacy (Catholic Church))

Jesus having brothers and/or sisters (see the discussion about Jesus' siblings)

Presumably Mary not being virgin (see the perpetual virginity of Mary)

New tomb of Jesus (see Church of the Holy Sepulchre)

Presumably Jesus body being moved (see Empty tomb)

Ordaining women (see apostolic succession, Ordination, Ordination of women)

Appeal to sources not included in the Biblical canon, of Gnostic origin, such as the Gospel of Mary Magdalene or Acts of Philip, considered by scholars to be written later (see Origin of the canonical Gospels, dating of canonical Gospels, New Testament apocrypha)

Islamic views

Finding someone's remains in Jesus' tomb conforms to the Muslim belief that a substitute for him was crucified, while he was raised bodily to heaven. The Islamic view of his disappearance, as mentioned in the Qur'an, states: That they said (in boast), "We killed Al-Masih 'Isa the son of Maryam, the Messenger of God"; but they killed him not, nor crucified him, but so it was made to appear to them. The general Muslim interpretation of the verse is that God, to revenge from Judas' betrayal to Jesus (the fatherless prophet), made his face similar to that of Jesus, while Jesus ascended into heaven and is to return near the end of time and kill the anti-Christ. Accordingly, the discovered remains in his tomb would then actually belong to Judas, a Roman guard, or a volunteering disciple.

Reception

Following the March 4, 2007, airing of The Lost Tomb of Jesus on the Discovery Channel, American journalist Ted Koppel aired a program entitled The Lost Tomb of Jesus—A Critical Look, whose guests included the director Simcha Jacobovici, James Tabor, Chair of the Department of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte who served as a consultant and advisor on the documentary, Jonathan Reed, Professor of Religion at the University of La Verne and co-author of Excavating Jesus Beneath the Stones, Behind the Text, and William Dever, an archaeologist with over 50 years experience in Middle Eastern archaeological digs.

Alan Cooperman, writer of The Washington Post article also states this: "Similar assessments came yesterday from two Israeli scholars, Amos Kloner, who originally excavated the tomb, and Joe Zias, former curator of archaeology at the Israeli Antiquities Authority. Kloner told the Jerusalem Post that the documentary is "nonsense." Zias described it in an e-mail to The Washington Post as a "hyped up film which is intellectually and scientifically dishonest."

Israeli archaeologist Amos Kloner, who was among the first to examine the tomb when it was first discovered, said the names marked on the coffins were very common at the time.

"I don't accept the news that it was used by Jesus or his family," and "The documentary filmmakers are using it to sell their film." he told the BBC News website.

During the documentary The Lost Tomb of Jesus, various professionals had claimed:

concerning the ossuaries marked Yeshua` ("Jesus") and the one believed to be that of Mary Magdalene: because "the DNA did not match, the forensic archaeologist concluded that they must be husband and wife";

that testing showed that there was a match between the patina on the James and Yeshua` ossuaries and referred to the James ossuary as the "missing link" from the tomb of Yeshua` (Jesus);

and that an ossuary that became missing from the tomb of Yeshua` had actually been the infamous James ossuary believed to contain the remains of the brother of Yeshua`.

Archaeological questions

The three skulls

Three skulls were found on the floor of the tomb in 1980 which the film makers assert was usual but others disagree: "This too was decidedly not typical. In ancient Jerusalem, the dead were placed inside tombs; in tombs, the dead were placed inside ossuaries. If anything was left behind, it was a lamp or a bottle of perfume, not skulls."

Criticism of the documentary

Early Christianity scholar R. Joseph Hoffmann, chair of the Committee for the Scientific Examination of Religion (CSER) charges that the film "is all about bad assumptions," beginning with the idea that the boxes contain Jesus of Nazareth and his family. He also stated that "the assumptions underlying this project are not only flawed but positively malicious to good scholarship and science".

When interviewed about the upcoming documentary, Amos Kloner (Bar-Ilan University), who oversaw the original archaeological dig of this tomb in 1980 said:

"It makes a great story for a TV film, but it's completely impossible. It's nonsense."

Newsweek reports that Joe Zias, the archaeologist who personally numbered the ossuaries dismissed any potential connection:

"Simcha [Jacobovici] has no credibility whatsoever," says Joe Zias, who was the curator for anthropology and archaeology at the Rockefeller Museum in Jerusalem from 1972 to 1997 and personally numbered the Talpiot ossuaries. "He's pimping off the Bible … He got this guy Cameron, who made Titanic or something like that—what does this guy know about archaeology? 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 archaeological profession."

Stephen Pfann (University of the Holy Land) also thinks the inscription read as "Jesus" has been misread and suggests that the name "Hanun" might be a more accurate rendering.

The Washington Post reports that William G. Dever, who has been working as an archaeologist in Israel for 50 years, offered the following:

"I've known about these ossuaries for many years and so have many other archaeologists, and none of us thought it was much of a story, because these are rather common Jewish names from that period. It's a publicity stunt, and it will make these guys very rich, and it will upset millions of innocent people because they don't know enough to separate fact from fiction."

Scholars misquoted

Most scholars interviewed in the docu-drama later protested against Cameron and Jacobovici, accusing them of distorting their words:

Archeologist Shimon Gibson (University of North Carolina at Charlotte) stated that he never claimed that Talpiot Tomb may be related to Jesus of Nazareth. In fact, he had clearly stated that he was very skeptical about that claim;

Epigrapher Frank Moore Cross (Harvard University) denied having claimed that the names on the ossuary were related to the family of Jesus of Nazareth, noting that those names were extremely common in the 1st century CE and that the statistics in the movie were unpersuasive;

Genetist Carney Matheson (Griffith University) denied supporting the idea that the Yeshua and Mariamne in the tomb were husband and wife, and that he had only stated that those two sets were not maternally related;

Biblical scholar François Bovon (Harvard Divinity School) denied having ever claimed that the Mariamne in the Talpiot Tomb is Mary Magdalene.

Father Jerome Murphy-O'Connor (École Biblique) denied having supported the idea that the Talpiot Tomb is Jesus's family tomb and dismissed the movie as "a commercial ploy".

Shimon Gibson later published an essay together with Amos Kloner, stating that he believes that the Tomb of Jesus is in the Holy Sepulchre, not in the Talpiot Tomb.

DNA and family evidence

Darrell Bock, a New Testament scholar and research professor of New Testament studies at Dallas Theological Seminary points out some of the inconsistencies, including: "If Jesus' family came from Galilee, why would they have a family tomb in Jerusalem?"

Ben Witherington III points out an inconsistency related to the James Ossuary. He points out that the James Ossuary came from Silwan, not Talpiot. In addition, the James Ossuary had dirt on it that "matched up with the soil in that particular spot in Jerusalem." In his opinion, this is problematic, because "the ossuaries that came out of Talpiot came out of a rock cave from a different place, and without such soil in it." Therefore, he believes that it is difficult to believe that the one known family member of Jesus was buried separately and far away from Jesus' family.

In addition, during the trial of antiquities dealer Oded Golan there has been testimony from former FBI agent Gerald Richard 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. This would make it impossible for the James Ossuary to have been discovered with the rest of the Talpiot ossuaries in the 1980s.

The archaeologist Dan Bahat (Bar-Ilan University) has expressed skepticism about any possible connection between the Talpiot Tomb and the James Ossuary, underlining that "If it [the James Ossuary] were found there, the man who made the forgery would have taken something better. He would have taken Jesus."

With reference to the DNA tests, Ben Witherington III wrote in his blog: "[T]he most the DNA evidence can show is that several of these folks are interrelated…. We would need an independent control sample from some member of Jesus' family to confirm that these were members of Jesus' family. We do not have that at all." This quote clarifies the fact that the documentarians do not believe they have tested the DNA and have proven it to be Jesus. They simply used DNA testing to prove that the "Jesus son of Joseph" and the "Mariamne" in this tomb were not maternally related (i.e. that they did not have the same mother or grandmother). The film asserted that this DNA evidence suggests they were probably spouses. Critics contend they could have been paternally related (e.g. father and daughter, or grandfather and granddaughter), or related by someone else's marriage. Mariamne could just as well have been the wife of one of the other two males in the ossuary.

Interpretation of the inscriptions

David Mavorah, a curator of the Israel Museum in Jerusalem, points out that the names on the ossuaries were extremely common. "We know that Joseph, Jesus and Mariamne were all among the most common names of the period. To start with all these names being together in a single tomb and leap from there to say this is the tomb of Jesus is a little far-fetched, to put it politely."

Professor Amos Kloner, former Jerusalem district archaeologist of the Israel Antiquities Authority and the first archaeologist to examine the tomb in 1980, told the Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper that the name Jesus had been found 71 times in burial caves at around that time. Furthermore, he said that the inscription on the ossuary is not clear enough to ascertain, and although the idea fails to hold up by archaeological standards, it makes for profitable television. Quote: "The new evidence is not serious, and I do not accept that it is connected to the family of Jesus…. They just want to get money for it."

Richard Bauckham (University of St Andrews), catalogued ossuary names from that region since 1980. He records that based on the catalogue, "Jesus" was the 6th most popular name of Jewish men, and "Mary/Mariamne" was the single most popular name of Jewish women at that time. Therefore, finding two ossuaries containing the names "Jesus" and "Mary/Mariamne" is not significant at all, and the chances of it being the ossuaries of Jesus and Mary Magdalene are "very small indeed."

Concerning the inscription attributed to Jesus son of Joseph, Steve Caruso, a professional Aramaic translator using a computer to visualize different interpretations, claims that although it is possible to read it as "Yeshua" that "overall it is a very strong possibility that this inscription is not 'Yeshua` bar Yehosef.'"

The name "Mary" and its derivatives may have been used by up to 25% of Jewish women at that time.

Publicity

Lawrence E. Stager, the Dorot professor of archaeology of Israel at Harvard, said the documentary was "exploiting the whole trend that caught on with The Da Vinci Code. 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.'"

William G. Dever said, "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."

Jodi Magness criticized the decision of the documentary makers to make their claims 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."

Joe Zias, former curator of archaeology at the Israeli Antiquities Authority, described it in an e-mail to The Washington Post as a "hyped-up film which is intellectually and scientifically dishonest." He also wrote an extended Viewers Guide to Understanding the Talpiot Tomb documentary, published on his web site.

François Bovon has also written to say that his comments were misused. In a letter to the Society of Biblical Literature, he wrote:

As I was interviewed for the Discovery Channel's program The Lost Tomb of Jesus, I would like to express my opinion here.

First, I have now seen the program and am not convinced of its main thesis. When I was questioned by Simcha Jacobovici and his team the questions were directed toward the Acts of Philip and the role of Mariamne in this text. I was not informed of the whole program and the orientation of the script.

Second, having watched the film, in listening to it, I hear two voices, a kind of double discourse. On one hand there is the wish to open a scholarly discussion; on the other there is the wish to push a personal agenda. I must say that the reconstructions of Jesus' marriage with Mary Magdalene and the birth of a child belong for me to science fiction.

DVD editions

On March 15, 2007, Discovery Channel released a DVD of the documentary with a listed running time of two hours.