Jesus Tomb: Fact or Fiction?
The news of a "Jesus Tomb" made quite a splash in early 2007 when a documentary called "The Lost Tomb of Jesus" aired on The Discovery Channel
Directed by Simcha Jacobovici and produced by Felix Golubev and Ric Esther Bienstock, with James "Titanic" Cameron serving as executive producer, the documentary hastily claimed the likely discovery of Jesus of Nazareth's burial place
Not so fast, buddy...
Just about as soon as the revelation of this alleged Jesus tomb arose many objections arose. We expected Christians to get their hackles up, but that was the least their problems....
First, the Facts:
In the movie, they present the Jesus tomb as brand new information, but in fact, it was discovered in 1980 during a housing construction project. Ten ossuaries were found in the cave, including the six that are the subject of Jacobovici's film. However, one of the ten ossuaries went missing years ago, presumably stolen.
Aramaic inscriptions on three of the burial boxes found read "Judah, son of Jesus," "Jesus, son of Joseph," and "Mariamne," a Greek name linked by the film to Mary Magdalene.
From an argument of silence, it was proposed that these were the burial places of Jesus of Nazareth, Mary Magdalene his wife, and Judah his son.
Big, Big Problems for the Advocates of the Jesus Tomb Theory
When interviewed about the upcoming documentary, Amos Kloner, 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 records that the archaeologist who personally numbered the ossuaries dismissed the theories proposed by the film:
"Simcha has no credibility whatsoever," says 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. "He's pimping off the Bible … 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."
Stephen Pfann, (president of Jerusalem's University of the Holy Land and an expert in Semitic languages), who was interviewed in the documentary, also said the Jesus tomb assertions hold little water
"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 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 excavating ancient sites in Israel for 50 years) said:
"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."
Asbury Theological Seminary's Ben Witherington III points out some other circumstantial problems with linking this tomb to Christ:[14]
"So far as we can tell, the earliest followers of Jesus never called Jesus 'son of Joseph'. It was outsiders who mistakenly called him that."
"The ancestral home of Joseph was Bethlehem, and his adult home was Nazareth. The family was still in Nazareth after he [Joseph] was apparently dead and gone. Why in the world would he be buried (alone at this point) in Jerusalem?"
"One of the ossuaries has the name Jude son of Jesus. We have no historical evidence of such a son of Jesus, indeed we have no historical evidence he was ever married."
"The Mary ossuaries (there are two) do not mention anyone from Migdal. It simply has the name Mary—and that's about the most common of all ancient Jewish female names."
"We have names like Matthew on another ossuary, which don't match up with the list of [Jesus's] brothers' names."
The Archaeological Institute of America, which is "North America's oldest and largest organization devoted to the world of archeology," has published online their own criticism of the "Jesus tomb" claim:
"The identification of the Talpiyot tomb as the tomb of Jesus and his family is based on a string of problematic and unsubstantiated claims [...] [It] contradicts the canonical Gospel accounts of the death and burial of Jesus and the earliest Christian traditions about Jesus. This claim is also inconsistent with all of the available information—historical and archaeological—about how Jews in the time of Jesus buried their dead, and specifically the evidence we have about poor, non-Judean families like that of Jesus. It is a sensationalistic claim without any scientific basis or support."*
In terms of the veracity of the Jesus Tomb, the lesson is, look at what those who specialize know, and especially if their person or agenda is not benefitted by proving the case one way or another.
Which is exactly what we have here.
To put it colloquially, would you rather trust Billy Graham or the latest incarnation of Satan Himelf?
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