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Expert: James Cameron's 'Jesus Tomb' Claim Based on Faulty Reading

2007-03-14T12:35:00.000-05:00

Wednesday, March 14, 2007
AP

JERUSALEM
A scholar looking into the factual basis of a popular but widely criticized documentary that claims to have located the tomb of Jesus said Tuesday that a crucial piece of evidence filmmakers used to support their claim is a mistake.
Stephen Pfann, a textual scholar and paleographer at the University of the Holy Land in Jerusalem, said he has released a paper claiming the makers of "The Lost Tomb of Jesus" were mistaken when they identified an ancient ossuary from the cave as belonging to the New Testament's Mary Magdalene.
The film's director, Simcha Jacobovici, responded that other researchers agreed with the documentary's conclusions.

• Click here to visit FOXNews.com's Archaeology Center.

Produced by Oscar-winning director James Cameron, the documentary has drawn intense media coverage for its claims challenging accepted Christian dogma.
Despite widespread ridicule from scholars, "The Lost Tomb of Jesus" drew more than 4 million viewers when it aired on the Discovery Channel on March 4.
A companion book, "The Jesus Family Tomb," has rocketed to sixth place on The New York Times nonfiction best-seller list.
The film and book suggest that a first-century ossuary found in a south Jerusalem cave in 1980 contained the remains of Jesus, contradicting the Christian belief that he was resurrected and ascended to heaven.
Ossuaries are stone boxes used at the time to store the bones of the dead.
The filmmakers also suggest that Mary Magdalene was buried in the tomb, that she and Jesus were married, and that an ossuary labeled "Judah son of Jesus" belonged to their son.
The scholars who analyzed the Greek inscription on one of the ossuaries after its discovery read it as "Mariamene e Mara," meaning "Mary the teacher" or "Mary the master."
Before the movie was screened, Jacobovici said that particular inscription provided crucial support for his claim. The name Mariamene is rare, and in some early Christian texts it is believed to refer to Mary Magdalene.
But having analyzed the inscription, Pfann published a detailed article on his university's Web site asserting that it doesn't read "Mariamene" at all.

• Click here to read Pfann's argument that the name is really two separate names.

The inscription, Pfann said, is made up of two names inscribed by two different hands: the first, "Mariame," was inscribed in a formal Greek script, and later, when the bones of another woman were added to the box, another scribe using a different cursive script added the words "kai Mara," meaning "and Mara."
Mara is a different form of the name Martha.
According to Pfann's reading, the ossuary did not house the bones of "Mary the teacher," but rather of two women, "Mary and Martha."
"In view of the above, there is no longer any reason to be tempted to link this ossuary ... to Mary Magdalene or any other person in biblical, non-biblical or church tradition," Pfann wrote.
In the interest of telling a good story, Pfann said, the documentary engaged in some "fudging" of the facts.
"James Cameron is a great guru of science fiction, and he's taking it to a new level with Simcha Jacobovici. You take a little bit of science, spin a good yarn out of it and you get another 'Terminator' or 'Life of Brian,'" said Pfann, who briefly appeared as an ossuary expert in the documentary.
In Israel on Tuesday for a screening of the film, the Toronto-based Jacobovici welcomed Pfann's criticism, saying "every inscription should be re-examined."
But Jacobovici said scholars who researched the ossuary in the past agreed with the film's reading.
"Anyone who looks at it can see that the script was written by the same hand," he added.
Jacobovici has faced criticism much tougher than Pfann's academic critique.
The film has been termed "archaeo-porn," and Jacobovici has been accused of "pimping the Bible."
Jacobovici attributes most of the criticism to scholars' discomfort with journalists "casting light into their ossuary monopoly."
"What we're doing is democratizing this knowledge, and this is driving some people crazy," he said.

Scholars: 'Jesus tomb' stats don't add up

2007-03-14T12:33:00.000-05:00

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (BP)—An often-quoted statistic behind the so-called "Jesus tomb" is inflated and based on false assumptions, leading biblical scholars say.
"The Lost Tomb of Jesus" documentary aired on the Discovery Channel March 4, claiming a tomb in Jerusalem once housed the bones of Jesus and his family and that the odds of it not being Christ's tomb are only 1 in 600.
That statistic has formed the core of the argument for the program's backers, who say the likelihood of finding another tomb with ossuaries containing the inscriptions "Jesus son of Joseph," "Mary," "Mariamene e Mara" and "Jose" is slim. The documentary said "Mary" was Jesus' mother, "Mariamene" his wife Mary Magdalene, and Jose his brother. Two other ossuaries found in the tomb—those of a Matthew and a "Judah son of Jesus"—also were members of Jesus' family, with Matthew being of an unknown relation and Judah being the son of Christ and Mary Magdalene, the documentary claimed. (The statistic, though, did not include Matthew or Judah in the formula.)
The overwhelming majority of archaeologists and scholars have refuted the claims, and the statistician behind the numbers—Andrey Feuerverger of the University of Toronto—posted a statement on the school's website saying his statistic "depend[s] heavily on the assumptions that go into it."
In fact, one religious scholar, Louisiana College's Charles Quarles, put together his own statistics—excluding Mariamene since he believes the evidence is overwhelmingly against her being Mary Magdalene—and came up with something very different from Feuerverger. Quarles says between 56 and 105 males in Jerusalem during Jesus' time would have had a father named Joseph and close relatives named Mary and Jose. Thus, according to Quarles, it is very unlikely the tomb belongs to Christ—even if one discounts the bodily resurrection.
Quarles' paper is available online: www.lacollege.edu/ifl/jesus_tomb.pdf

'The Lost Tomb of Jesus' is a fanciful tale, Mohler says on CNN

2007-03-14T12:28:00.000-05:00

March 12, 2007
By Jeff Robinson

R. Albert Mohler Jr., president of Southern Seminary, discussed the supposed finding of Jesus' tomb on CNN's Larry King Live, Feb. 26.

The alleged discovery by archaeologists and genetic scientists of the "lost tomb of Jesus" is nothing more than a made-for-television hoax that will not undermine the Christian faith, R. Albert Mohler Jr. said Feb. 26 on CNN's Larry King Live. A documentary titled "The Lost Tomb of Jesus," which aired on the Discovery Channel March 4, purports to present archaeological, statistical and genetic science findings that demonstrate a tomb unearthed in 1980 contains the remains of Jesus and His family. Executive producer James Cameron and director Simcha Jacobovici told viewers the so-called DNA evidence from the tomb makes a compelling case that it contained the remains of Jesus and His family. The tomb is inscribed with the name of "Jesus, son of Joseph," along with five others: Mary Magdalene; Judah, which the documentary claims is Jesus' son; Joseph; Matthew and another Mary. Mohler, president of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, said the use of alleged "DNA evidence" to prop up the documentary's theory is impossible to a point of being farcical. The archaeologists who unearthed the tomb nearly three decades ago in Talpiot, Jerusalem, dismissed such claims, he said. "The archaeologists there in Israel, who are the closest to this, who have the greatest expertise, are not only looking at this with skepticism, but basically dismissing its claims," Mohler said."The DNA testing is to me the most laughable aspect of all of this. I mean, frankly, there could be a thousand, thousand different explanations for whatever DNA pattern they could find. No one has the DNA of Mary. Trying to bring this into a modern crime investigation is like trying to go back and figure out who exactly put the first dagger into Julius Caesar. It's impossible."Cameron and Jacobovici say the statistical improbability of having Jesus, Mary Magdalene and Judah, "Jesus' son," in the same tomb, gives significant credibility to the documentary's thesis. Jacobovici said the documentary aims "to report the news and not to engage in theology" and argues that DNA technology not available in 1980 has helped to identify the tomb's occupants. Calling the documentary's claims "far-fetched," Mohler said Christians will continue to stand on the truth of Scripture that Jesus rose from the dead and will not be swayed by pseudo-science or statistics. "There is no time machine here that is going to take us back to the first century and actually tell us what happened there," he said. "I'm going to base my beliefs on the Scriptures which hold together far better than the kind of farcical documentary we are talking about here, throwing in a little bit of statistics. I mean, you're talking about the most common names, especially the most common male names, also female with the name Mary, you're talking about anything that could be found just about anywhere." James Tabor, chairman of the department of religious studies at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, and William Donohue, president of the Catholic League, also appeared on the program. Tabor said he has been working on the findings for the past three or four years and, due to the cluster of names found on the tomb and the statistical probabilities involved, sees the documentary's theory as "very worthy of consideration." Mohler expressed surprise at Tabor's sympathy for the theory and said the documentary is nothing more than made-for-television sensationalism. "We are talking about moving all of the pieces here to make for sensational television. And frankly, that's why I think most Christians are going to take this without any seriousness at all," he said. Donohue agreed and urged that the documentary's appearance during the season in which Christians celebrate the Lord's resurrection is standard secularist fare. Year in and year out, new theories debunking the claims of Christ appear just in time for Easter, he said. Like some of Cameron's other works, which include "The Terminator," "Aliens" and "Titanic," the latest flick is pure science fiction, Donohue said. "Give me a call when somebody has got the real evidence on something like this," Donohue said. "Every Lenten season, we are treated to the same kind of speculation. 'Jesus was just a carpenter (they say).' I suppose we will learn next year He did His apprenticeship at Home Depot or Lowe's. I'm just simply not going to sit here and listen to something about an argument which is predicated on nothing but idle speculation."It is Scripture and not a trumped-up television documentary that is the final arbiter of truth for the believer, Mohler said. If Jesus had remained in the tomb, first-century opponents of Christianity would most certainly have found His body and put it on public display, Mohler said, adding that Christ's disciples would not have died for beliefs they knew to be false."In any court of law, you can't just call anything evidence," he said. "It has to be an evidence trail that makes sense. It has to be evidentiary material that fits the context."

'Jesus tomb' film factually inaccurate - scholar

2007-03-14T12:24:00.000-05:00

AP

Occupied Jerusalem: A scholar looking into the factual basis of a popular but widely criticised documentary film that claims to have located the tomb of Jesus yesterday said that a crucial piece of evidence filmmakers used to support their claim is a mistake.

Stephen Pfann, a textual scholar and paleographer at the University of the Holy Land in Jerusalem, said the makers of The Lost Tomb of Jesus were mistaken when they identified an ancient ossuary from the cave as belonging to the New Testament's Mary Magdalene.

The scholars who analysed the inscription on one of the ossuaries read it as "Mariamene e Mara," meaning "Mary the teacher" or "Mary the master." Director Simcha Jacobovici said that particular inscription provided crucial support for his claim.

The inscription, Pfann said, is made up of two names inscribed by two different hands: the first, "Mariame," was inscribed in a formal Greek script, and later, when the bones of another woman were added to the box, another scribe using a different cursive script added the words "kai Mara," meaning "and Mara." Mara is a different form of the name Martha.

According to Pfann, the ossuary did not house the bones of "Mary the teacher," but rather of two women, "Mary and Martha."

'Lost Tomb' begins, ends with no credibility

2007-03-14T12:17:00.000-05:00

"The Lost Tomb of Jesus" undermines its own case within the first minute of the show. They say, "The Gospels tell us he was buried in a tomb and two days later Mary Magdalene, one of his closest disciples, found the tomb empty. But according to the Gospel of Matthew, there was another story circulating after Jesus' death. And though the Gospel calls it a lie, there was rumor that Jesus' disciples secretly took their master's body, presumably to give him a permanent burial."
Here they offer contradicting facts from the same source. Which is true? Did Jesus rise again or was his body stolen? If they choose the first option, the show is over. Even though their source (the book of Matthew) calls the second option a lie, they believe this to be true and build their case around it. If the biblical account is fully accurate, then this refutes their find. If it is fiction, it doesn't help them because they can't draw on it for evidence to support their case. Given this, how can any credibility be given to the show?

They fail miserably in trying to prove his body was there by using maternal DNA testing. Why not test the DNA of Mary and Judah in relation to the DNA of Jesus? If they tested Jesus and his mother Mary and found no match, they fail to prove their point. Yet they chose to test the DNA between Jesus and Mary Magdalene. This proved they weren't brother and sister, so they presumed they were married. The DNA test doesn't provide evidence that this is the Jesus of the Gospels, as they want us to believe.

Perhaps the most damage done to their case is when they misquote the Scriptures to prove their point. They say that Mary Magdalene was one of Jesus' closest disciples. The Bible never makes such a claim. They suggest that Jesus said the book of Jonah was the key to his ministry. Jesus never referred to this book as "the key to his ministry." While on the cross, they claim that Jesus was telling his wife to take care of their son. Yet the Gospel of John clearly says he was speaking to his mother.

They begin and end their case with a lot of ifs. If this is Jesus the son of Joseph and if this is Mary his mother, and if this is Joseph his brother, and if this is Mary Magdalene. They begin their case with ifs, but in order to convince us their findings are true, they should end with undisputable facts and not just assumptions. The show did more to damage its own credibility than the credibility of the Bible.

Scholar disputes inscription on “Jesus tomb” box

2007-03-14T12:14:00.000-05:00

by Nancy Reyes on 14 March, 2007

The documentary on the so called “Jesus tomb” made several technical errors in their interpretation of the inscription of the bonebox they insist was Mary Magdalen’s bonebox, says one scholar.
The documentary claims that scholars read the inscription on one box as “Mariamene e Mara,” meaning “Mary the teacher” or “Mary the master.”
However, Stephen Pfann, a textual scholar and paleographer at the University of the Holy Land in Jerusalem, claims that an analysis of the inscription shows that there were two names written by two different hands, and that the names were Mary and Martha.
He published the inscription on his website which clearly shows that the letters that the two parts of the inscription have in common indeed are shaped differently, so were probably inscribed by a different hand. The article also notes that it was common to combine the bones of several people in the same box.Instead of answering the criticism with experts in paleography, or providing the names and expertise of those he had interpret the inscriptions, Jacobovici merely dismisses the criticism as scholars discomfort with journalists “casting light into their ossuary monopoly.”
Yup. When you can’t dismiss the facts, criticize the expert’s motives.
There are, of course, other criticisms by both archeologists and biblical scholars of the claims, but this one is critical, since it is hard evidence rather than evidence based on statistics or probability. Indeed, it resembles the “Dan Rather” scandal, where experts in fonts and printing were the first ones to point out that forgery.
After all, one can have opinions which Jesus was buried in the tomb, or if the Romans were so incompetent that they never bothered to open the tomb to stop the growth of a annoying sect, but it’s hard to argue with an expert on handwriting, especially when the difference in the inscriptions is obvious even to an untrained observer.

Scholar: 'Jesus Tomb' Makers Wrong

2007-03-14T12:07:00.000-05:00

By Matti Friedman
March 14, 2007 7:57AM
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Despite widespread ridicule from scholars, "The Lost Tomb of Jesus" drew more than 4 million viewers when it aired on the Discovery Channel on March 4. The film suggests that a first-century ossuary found in a south Jerusalem cave in 1980 contained the remains of Jesus, contradicting the Christian belief that he was resurrected and ascended to heaven.
A scholar looking into the factual basis of a popular but widely criticized documentary that claims to have located the tomb of Jesus said Tuesday that a crucial piece of evidence filmmakers used to support their claim is a mistake.
Stephen Pfann, a textual scholar and paleographer at the University of the Holy Land in Jerusalem, said he has released a paper claiming the makers of "The Lost Tomb of Jesus" were mistaken when they identified an ancient ossuary from the cave as belonging to the New Testament's Mary Magdalene.
The film's director, Simcha Jacobovici, responded that other researchers agreed with the documentary's conclusions.
Produced by Oscar-winning director James Cameron, the documentary has drawn intense media coverage for its claims challenging accepted Christian dogma.
Despite widespread ridicule from scholars, "The Lost Tomb of Jesus" drew more than 4 million viewers when it aired on the Discovery Channel on March 4. A companion book, "The Jesus Family Tomb," has rocketed to sixth place on The New York Times nonfiction best-seller list.
The film and book suggest that a first-century ossuary found in a south Jerusalem cave in 1980 contained the remains of Jesus, contradicting the Christian belief that he was resurrected and ascended to heaven. Ossuaries are stone boxes used at the time to store the bones of the dead.
The filmmakers also suggest that Mary Magdalene was buried in the tomb, that she and Jesus were married, and that an ossuary labeled "Judah son of Jesus" belonged to their son.
The scholars who analyzed the Greek inscription on one of the ossuaries after its discovery read it as "Mariamene e Mara," meaning "Mary the teacher" or "Mary the master."
Before the movie was screened, Jacobovici said that particular inscription provided crucial support for his claim. The name Mariamene is rare, and in some early Christian texts it is believed to refer to Mary Magdalene.
But having analyzed the inscription, Pfann published a detailed article on his university's Web site asserting that it doesn't read "Mariamene" at all.
The inscription, Pfann said, is made up of two names inscribed by two different hands: the first, "Mariame," was inscribed in a formal Greek script, and later, when the bones of another woman were added to the box, another scribe using a different cursive script added the words "kai Mara," meaning "and Mara." Mara is a different form of the name Martha.
According to Pfann's reading, the ossuary did not house the bones of "Mary the teacher," but rather of two women, "Mary and Martha."
"In view of the above, there is no longer any reason to be tempted to link this ossuary ... to Mary Magdalene or any other person in biblical, non-biblical or church tradition," Pfann wrote.
In the interest of telling a good story, Pfann said, the documentary engaged in some "fudging" of the facts.
"James Cameron is a great guru of science fiction, and he's taking it to a new level with Simcha Jacobovici. You take a little bit of science, spin a good yarn out of it and you get another 'Terminator' or 'Life of Brian,'" said Pfann, who briefly appeared as an ossuary expert in the documentary.
In Israel on Tuesday for a screening of the film, the Toronto-based Jacobovici welcomed Pfann's criticism, saying "every inscription should be re-examined."
But Jacobovici said scholars who researched the ossuary in the past agreed with the film's reading. "Anyone who looks at it can see that the script was written by the same hand," he added.
Jacobovici has faced criticism much tougher than Pfann's academic critique. The film has been termed "archaeo-porn," and Jacobovici has been accused of "pimping the Bible."
Jacobovici attributes most of the criticism to scholars' discomfort with journalists "casting light into their ossuary monopoly."
"What we're doing is democratizing this knowledge, and this is driving some people crazy," he said.

Letters: The evidence easily debunks 'Jesus tomb' theory

2007-03-13T21:04:00.000-05:00

By THURBER D. PROFFITT, III, PH.D.

The sensationalists are at it again this Easter season, claiming they have found Jesus' tomb "Digging up doubt," Nation& World, Feb. 27]. In 2006, an Italian took a priest to court to prove Jesus never lived. Jesus Seminar theologian John Dominic Crossan says Jesus was not buried. Another believes he survived the crucifixion. Some Muslims contend he is buried in Kashmir.
So what is the truth? For starters, Jesus of Nazareth is a historical person. The pagan Roman historians Tacitus ("Annals," AD 115) and Suetonius ("Lives of the Twelve Caesars," A.D. 125 ) mention him as a real person. So, too, the historian Flavius Josephus refers to Jesus in a contested passage, as does the Talmud, which are Jewish sources. Then there are the gospels, earlier Jewish and Gentile sources.
We have only one biography of Socrates, a late copy at that, but no one questions his historicity, so why question Jesus' historicity or, for that matter, the historicity of the events surrounding Jesus' trial and punishment, for in these cases there are more early attesting sources than for Socrates.
Jesus' trial and punishment were par for the course during the first century. Josephus' account tells of a Jewish prophet who died in the siege of Jerusalem after having been arrested by leading citizens. He was beaten and turned over to a Roman governor, who beat him again in lieu of crucifixion before releasing him, as the Roman Procurator Pontius Pilate had sought to do with Jesus of Nazareth.
Jesus was crucified, killed by suffocation, bleeding, low blood pressure and possibly heat stroke and dehydration. Those who claim he did not die on the cross do not take Roman capital punishment seriously. Only one person is known to have survived crucifixion, one of three friends whom Josephus asked the Romans to release from their crosses. Furthermore, the evidence of a Roman graffito [ancient drawing or writing etched on a wall or other surface]depicts Jesus as a crucified ass. The arguments and evidence suggest that we have no reason to believe Jesus was not dead when he was buried.
J.D. Crossan believes Romans fed crucified criminals to the dogs, hence no burial. Yet the crucified remains of a first-century Jew tell a different tale, and Josephus says that Jewish victims of crucifixion were always buried before sundown.
Some question whether Joseph of Arimathea could request Jesus' body to bury him that quickly. That Josephus could document requests for burial before sundown in the case of crucified Jews suggests Joseph of Arimathea could request Jesus' body also – it depended on whether one had the connections to do so.
Some question if Jesus could be buried in a borrowed tomb. As to this, we have an inscription from Rome by one Sextus Marianus Romulus against unauthorized burials in his family tomb. Thus tombs could be borrowed, with or without permission
Then there is the Nazareth decree/inscription, usually dated to the reign of Claudius (A.D. 41-45), against grave robbing. Why such an inscription in Palestine? Why, indeed, unless the tomb was empty.
Finally there is the expectation in ancient Judaism that the resurrection would occur at the end, not in the middle of history. Why would Second-Temple Jewish men accept women's testimony that Jesus had been resurrected? Why indeed? This belief in Jesus' resurrection set the Jesus messianists apart from other Jewish messianists. This is the real Easter story, that Jesus' bones wouldn't be found in a tomb.
So what of the ossuary [stone boxes for burial of human bones]referred to in the article, "Digging up doubt"? Has the family tomb of Jesus been found? Since 1940, four ossuaries bearing the name Yeshua have been found. Not being a native Jerusalemite, one would expect, in keeping with Second Temple convention, that the name would read Yeshua bar Yosef of Natzaret (or Capernaum, the Galil, or Bethlehem). Furthermore, family tombs were usually in the family's hometown, which was not Jerusalem in the case of Jesus of Nazareth. Only the wealthy or upper middle class could afford rock-hewn tombs, and only in such are ossuaries found. Jesus was not wealthy.
So, yes, Jesus' family tomb has been found, but which Jesus? Certainly not the Jesus associated with Easter.

Scholar: 'Jesus Tomb' makers mistaken

2007-03-13T21:00:00.000-05:00

Says ancient ossuary did not belong to New Testament's Mary Magdalene
By Matti Friedman
The Associated Press

Updated: 7:21 p.m. ET March 13, 2007

JERUSALEM - A scholar looking into the factual basis of a popular but widely criticized documentary that claims to have located the tomb of Jesus said Tuesday that a crucial piece of evidence filmmakers used to support their claim is a mistake.
Stephen Pfann, a textual scholar and paleographer at the University of the Holy Land in Jerusalem, said he has released a paper claiming the makers of "The Lost Tomb of Jesus" were mistaken when they identified an ancient ossuary from the cave as belonging to the New Testament's Mary Magdalene.
The film's director, Simcha Jacobovici, responded that other researchers agreed with the documentary's conclusions.
Produced by Oscar-winning director James Cameron, the documentary has drawn intense media coverage for its claims challenging accepted Christian dogma.
Despite widespread ridicule from scholars, "The Lost Tomb of Jesus" drew more than 4 million viewers when it aired on the Discovery Channel on March 4. A companion book, "The Jesus Family Tomb," has rocketed to sixth place on The New York Times nonfiction best-seller list.
The film and book suggest that a first-century ossuary found in a south Jerusalem cave in 1980 contained the remains of Jesus, contradicting the Christian belief that he was resurrected and ascended to heaven. Ossuaries are stone boxes used at the time to store the bones of the dead.
The filmmakers also suggest that Mary Magdalene was buried in the tomb, that she and Jesus were married, and that an ossuary labeled "Judah son of Jesus" belonged to their son.
The scholars who analyzed the Greek inscription on one of the ossuaries after its discovery read it as "Mariamene e Mara," meaning "Mary the teacher" or "Mary the master."
Before the movie was screened, Jacobovici said that particular inscription provided crucial support for his claim. The name Mariamene is rare, and in some early Christian texts it is believed to refer to Mary Magdalene.
But having analyzed the inscription, Pfann published a detailed article on his university's Web site asserting that it doesn't read "Mariamene" at all.
The inscription, Pfann said, is made up of two names inscribed by two different hands: the first, "Mariame," was inscribed in a formal Greek script, and later, when the bones of another woman were added to the box, another scribe using a different cursive script added the words "kai Mara," meaning "and Mara." Mara is a different form of the name Martha.
According to Pfann's reading, the ossuary did not house the bones of "Mary the teacher," but rather of two women, "Mary and Martha."
"In view of the above, there is no longer any reason to be tempted to link this ossuary ... to Mary Magdalene or any other person in biblical, non-biblical or church tradition," Pfann wrote.
In the interest of telling a good story, Pfann said, the documentary engaged in some "fudging" of the facts.
"James Cameron is a great guru of science fiction, and he's taking it to a new level with Simcha Jacobovici. You take a little bit of science, spin a good yarn out of it and you get another 'Terminator' or 'Life of Brian,'" said Pfann, who briefly appeared as an ossuary expert in the documentary.
In Israel on Tuesday for a screening of the film, the Toronto-based Jacobovici welcomed Pfann's criticism, saying "every inscription should be re-examined."
But Jacobovici said scholars who researched the ossuary in the past agreed with the film's reading. "Anyone who looks at it can see that the script was written by the same hand," he added.
Jacobovici has faced criticism much tougher than Pfann's academic critique. The film has been termed "archaeo-porn," and Jacobovici has been accused of "pimping the Bible."
Jacobovici attributes most of the criticism to scholars' discomfort with journalists "casting light into their ossuary monopoly."
"What we're doing is democratizing this knowledge, and this is driving some people crazy," he said.

'Jesus tomb' statistics don't add up, biblical scholars say

2007-03-10T06:28:00.000-05:00

By Michael Foust
Baptist Press

http://www.bpnews.net/bpnews.asp?ID=25149

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (BP)--An often-quoted statistic behind the so-called “Jesus tomb” is inflated and based on false assumptions, leading biblical scholars say. “The Lost Tomb of Jesus” documentary aired on the Discovery Channel March 4, claiming a tomb in Jerusalem once housed the bones of Jesus and his family and that the odds of it not being Christ's tomb are only 1 in 600. That statistic has formed the core of the argument for the program's backers, who say the likelihood of finding another tomb with ossuaries containing the inscriptions “Jesus son of Joseph,” “Mary,” “Mariamene e Mara” and “Jose” is slim. The documentary said “Mary” was Jesus' mother, “Mariamene” his wife Mary Magdalene, and Jose his brother. Two other ossuaries found in the tomb -- those of a Matthew and a “Judah son of Jesus” -- also were members of Jesus' family, with Matthew being of an unknown relation and Judah being the son of Christ and Mary Magdalene, the documentary claimed. (The statistic, though, did not include Matthew or Judah in the formula.)The overwhelming majority of archaeologists and scholars have refuted the claims, and the statistician behind the numbers -- Andrey Feuerverger of the University of Toronto -- posted a statement on the school's website saying his statistic “depend[s] heavily on the assumptions that go into it.” Among those assumptions, Feuerverger said, are that “Jose” is the brother of Christ referenced in Mark 6:3 and is not the “Joseph” referenced on the Jesus ossuary. (Jose is a nickname for Joseph.) But most significantly, Feuerverger said, the statistic assume that “Mariamene” is Mary Magdalene, even though she is not given such a name in the New Testament, and even though the New Testament says nothing about Christ being married and implies strongly He wasn't. Putting Mariamene in the formula “drives the outcome of the computations substantially,” Feuerverger said. “It is not in the purview of statistics to conclude whether or not this tombsite is that of the New Testament family,” said Feuerverger, who stands by his formula and says it will be published for peers to review. “Any such conclusion much more rightfully belongs to the purview of biblical historical scholars who are in a much better position to assess the assumptions entering into the computations.”In fact, one religious scholar, Louisiana College's Charles Quarles, put together his own statistics -- excluding Mariamene since he believes the evidence is overwhelmingly against her being Mary Magdalene -- and came up with something very different from Feuerverger. Quarles says between 56 and 105 males in Jerusalem during Jesus' time would have had a father named Joseph and close relatives named Mary and Jose. Thus, according to Quarles, it is very unlikely the tomb belongs to Christ -- even if one discounts the bodily resurrection.Both sides of the debate acknowledge the names on the ossuaries were common for the time. Roughly one-fourth to one-fifth of all women were named “Mary.” “Joseph” was the second most common male name, “Jesus” the sixth. Feuerverger's formula included a 1 in 4 chance that a woman at the time would be named Mary, and a 1 in 20 chance that a man would be named Jose. He put the odds at a Jesus being the son of a Joseph at 1 in 190, and the odds of a “Mariamene e Mara” being found at 1 in 160. Putting all the numbers together in a formula, Feuerverger came up with the 1 in 600 stat. (Such odds about first-century names are based on a database of approximately 3,000 known people at the time.) The name “Jesus son of Joseph” on an ossuary is rare, but not a first; at least one other one has been found elsewhere. But it is the odds Feuerverger placed on the Mariamene ossuary that have many scholars scratching their heads.The documentary interpreted the “Mariamene e Mara” ossuary, which is in Greek, as reading, “Mary, known as Master.” That specific translation changed the odds from a relatively unimpressive number to the aforementioned long odds of 1 in 160, since those associated with the documentary said it was a rare find. But Richard Bauckham, professor of New Testament at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland, disagrees with the translation. “'Mara' in this context does not mean Master,” Bauckham wrote in a statement posted on several scholarly weblogs. “It is an abbreviated form of Martha. Probably the ossuary contained two women called Mary and Martha (Mariamne and Mara).”Craig Blomberg, professor of New Testament at Denver Seminary, also disagrees with the documentary's translation and believes the inscription likely is one person named “Mary Martha.” Either Bauckham's or Blomberg's interpretation would change the statistical formula dramatically and lower the odds, since Martha was the fourth most popular female name at the time, and Mara the eighth. Dozens of such common names on ossuaries have been found.The documentary tied the “Mariamene” with Mary Magdalene by using a non-biblical document, the Acts of Philip, which was written several hundred years after Christ and which references a “Mariamene.” But Quarles says the document never identifies Mariamene as Mary Magdalene but simply calls her the sister of Philip. More importantly, Quarles said, the New Testament never calls Mary Magdalene “Mariamene.”Scholars say there are other problems with the documentary's claim that would have impacted the statistical formula: -- Jose's ossuary does not list him as a son of Joseph, while the Jesus ossuary does. The documentary claimed Jose and Jesus were brothers and sons of Joseph. If Jose is taken out of the formula, it would lower Feuerverger's odds. “[T]he lack of the 'son of Joseph' description significantly decreases the probability that Yeshua and Jose were siblings,” Quarles wrote in an analysis.Additionally, the other brothers and sisters of Jesus listed in Mark 6:3 are missing from the tomb. That verse lists four brothers -- James, Joses, Judas (not the traitor) and Simon -- as well as an untold number of unnamed sisters. -- Jose (short for Joseph) may have been the father of the Jesus in the tomb, Quarles said, and not the brother. If true, then Jose was listed twice in the formula, incorrectly raising the odds.-- Judah and Matthew are not listed as Jesus' family members in the New Testament. Some scholars say that fact alone should invalidate the documentary's claim, much less the statistical formula. There is no historical evidence for Christ having a son.-- Jesus was not known as the son of Joseph by his family or disciples. Writing on his blog, Ben Witherington III, professor of New Testament at Asbury Theological Seminary in Wilmore, Ky., quotes Luke 3:21, which says Jesus was only the “supposed” son of Joseph.“Supposed by whom? Clearly not by Luke or the family whom Luke has just shown knew about the virginal conception of Jesus,” Witherington wrote. “Even the cousins knew about this miracle when Mary told Elizabeth. There can be no good reason Luke would put it this way if he knew the earliest followers of Jesus or members of his family had thought that Jesus was son of Joseph.”-- The Jesus ossuary does not say Jesus but possibly “Hanun,” according to Stephen Pfann, a biblical scholar at the University of the Holy Land as quoted in the Associated Press. That, obviously, would end the debate for good.Christians, Quarles said, should not discount the claims of the documentary but instead should “appeal to the compelling eyewitness accounts of the resurrection” in the New Testament -- which he notes are the oldest and most reliable accounts -- and then “carefully scrutinize the exaggerated, illogical, and poorly substantiated claims” of the documentary and its accompanying book, “The Jesus Family Tomb.”“The sensational claims of The Jesus Family Tomb will be major news for some time and this book and film, like the Da Vinci Code, will provide informed believers with an excellent opportunity to present the compelling evidence for Jesus’ bodily resurrection, an essential element of our Christian faith (Romans 10:9),” Quarles wrote. “But let’s 'make no bones about it,' the bones in the Talpiot tomb were not the bones of Jesus of Nazareth.”--30--Quarles complete paper is available online at:http://www.lacollege.edu/ifl/jesus_tomb.pdf

Odds of 'Lost Tomb' Being Jesus' Family Rest on Assumptions

2007-03-09T15:27:00.000-05:00

By CARL BIALIK
THE NUMBERS GUY

http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB117338464249431351-0ghR_0Jef5ubo6ZLbYIVoePRxrA_20070408.html?mod=tff_main_tff_top

Until two weeks ago, University of Toronto statistician Andrey Feuerverger's body of research encompassed uncontroversial topics such as medical scanning and correcting for camera blurring.
So he was unprepared for the reaction to his work for the Discovery Channel documentary "The Lost Tomb of Jesus," which aired on Sunday. The tomb is a set of 10 limestone coffins, or ossuaries, found in Jerusalem in 1980, bearing the names Yeshua bar Yosef (Jesus, son of Joseph), Maria (Mary), Matia (Matthew), Yose (a nickname for Joseph), Mariamene e Mara (a form of Mary) and Yehuda bar Yeshua (Judah, son of Jesus). Prof. Feuerverger calculated there is just a one-in-600 chance that those same names would have come together in a family that didn't belong to Jesus of Nazareth.
That calculation helped propel the already explosive story. "It was really the thing that began to convince us all to give this more attention," says James Tabor, chair of religious studies at the University of North Carolina, Charlotte, who advised the filmmakers and Prof. Feuerverger, and appears in the two-hour documentary.
But the one-in-600 calculation is based on many assumptions about the prevalence of the names and their biblical significance. For purposes of his calculations, Prof. Feuerverger relied on new scholarly research that links the inscription "Mariamene e Mara" with a name for Mary Magdalene. (The filmmakers suggest that she was Christ's wife and that they are buried with a son, Judah -- claims hotly denounced by traditional Christians.)
Had the professor assumed the inscription could be for any Mary, a very common name then, it would be far less likely that Christ's family is in the tomb. The mathematical finding would become "statistically not significant," Prof. Feuerverger tells me. Similarly, the name "Yose" -- as one of Jesus' four brothers was called in the Gospel of Mark -- is a derivative of Yosef, another common name. There, too, the finding would be less conclusive if the professor had considered "Yose" applicable to any Yosef.
Even if there was consensus on the interpretation of the names, there are no comprehensive records showing how frequently they occurred in the population at that time. Prof. Feuerverger relied on modern books about ossuaries and ancient texts to tally the occurrence of certain names in the area then. That falls far short of a complete census.
"As you pile on more assumptions, you're building a house of cards," says Keith Devlin, a Stanford mathematician and NPR's "Math Guy." (Scientific American also challenged the calculation on its Web site.)
No one is questioning Prof. Feuerverger's statistical credentials, or his calculation given the assumptions made. For each of the names believed to be appropriate for Jesus or an associate, Prof. Feuerverger calculated the probability it would arise by chance, then adjusted for other factors, such as the number of tombs in Jerusalem. But his conclusion is only as reliable as the assumptions that went into it.
"I wouldn't be comfortable coming up with a number like this, because the general audience will not understand that it is very, very subjective," says Ivo Dinov, assistant professor of statistics at the University of California, Los Angeles.
The case is far from closed on this tomb. Prof. Feuerverger, who says he was paid a "nominal" sum for his work, had signed a nondisclosure agreement with Associated Producers, barring him from describing the project and so limiting his ability to run his work by his peers. He still hasn't provided full documentation of his calculation, saying he'd wait until his paper, not yet completed, is accepted by a journal. "There is a mismatch between how the media works and how academia works," Prof. Feuerverger says. "Obviously it would have been a whole lot better if I had completed the paper" before the documentary aired.
Writer-director Simcha Jacobovici says he went to great lengths to find a responsible number. Initial, "ballpark" calculations based on the incidence of the names -- including one made by Charles Pellegrino, co-author of the documentary's companion book -- found even smaller probabilities that the tomb wasn't that of Jesus' family. Mr. Jacobovici then turned to the University of Toronto, down the street from his production offices, and tapped Prof. Feuerverger to do the calculations with greater rigor. "We told him Charlie came out with 2.4 million to 1," Mr. Jacobovici says. "He said, the numbers will come out where the numbers come out."
All this has brought some measure of distress to Prof. Feuerverger, who nevertheless says he thinks the experience will strengthen him as a human being, and as a statistician. "When I was doing the calculation, I was naively unaware of the extent to which the filmmakers might be depending on the ultimate result of it," he says. "I did carry out the calculation in every good faith. I hoped it would be interpreted in that light."

Jerusalem bishop: Film on Jesus tomb 'should just be ignored'

2007-03-09T15:23:00.000-05:00

By Dennis O'Connor

http://www.the-tidings.com/2007/030907/tomb.htm

Auxiliary Bishop Giacinto-Boulous Marcuzzo of Jerusalem called James Cameron's Discovery Channel documentary, "The Lost Tomb of Jesus," nothing more than "a question of business."
Bishop Marcuzzo said that the film, which aired March 4 in the United States and March 6 in Canada, was just an attempt by the Oscar-winning director of Hollywood films "Titanic" and "The Terminator," to make a profit.
In a March 1 interview in Nazareth, the bishop said the documentary has the potential for creating confusion among the faithful by purporting that a tomb discovered nearly 30 years ago in Jerusalem's East Tlpiyot neighborhood contained the bones of Jesus, Mary Magdalene and their "son," Judah.
"People of faith, everyone, really, should dismiss this as nothing but nonsense," he said. "It should just be ignored."
At a press conference in New York City Feb. 26, Cameron, who is Canadian, and his partner, Israeli-born filmmaker Simcha Jacobovici of Toronto, announced that by using new technology and DNA studies they determined that among 10 ossuaries -- burial boxes used in biblical times to house the bones of the dead -- found in the cave by Israeli archaeologist Amos Kloner in 1980 are those of Jesus, his brothers, Mary, another Mary whom they believe is Mary Magdalene, and "Judah, son of Jesus."
Kloner wrote the original excavation report on the site for what is now called the Israel Antiquities Authority. He has called the fimmakers' claim "nonsense."
Bishop Marcuzzo told a visiting U.S. Catholic journalist that the filmmakers have not only distorted the facts to make their case, they have ignored hundreds of years of scholarship and the plethora of archaeological materials that continue to emerge in the Holy Land.
"We are accustomed to finding" artifacts such as these throughout Israel, he said. "This is occurring all the time here. And (the filmmakers) have ignored what Jewish scholars say about the names contained" on the ossuaries, "that they were names very common during that period."
Most important, he said, Cameron, Jacobovici and their consultants failed to account for the archaeological value of oral tradition in determining historical site locations, such as the tomb of Jesus that has always been recognized by the church.
Situated in Jerusalem's Old City at the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, an ancient church was built at the tomb initially in the fourth century by the Roman emperor Constantine after his mother, Helen, identified its location based on local traditions maintained by Christians since the time of Christ's death and resurrection.
"We know where the sepulcher of Jesus is located in Jerusalem," Bishop Marcuzzo said. "This is based on long traditions from both Christian and Jewish sources. I would tell people of faith that they should treat this (film) as nothing but a way to make money."
In the United States, the husband-and-wife team that runs the Turin Shroud Center in Colorado Springs, Colo., said in an interview after watching the program that they saw many inconsistencies that make them skeptical.
"The most reasonable explanation is that they're dealing with some other tomb that has no connection with Christianity," said John Jackson, who with wife Rebecca runs the center, which is dedicated to studying and educating the public on what many believe is the burial cloth of Jesus.
The film "did not have any substance to it, but it is not going to go away very easily," John Jackson, a Catholic, told The Colorado Catholic Herald, newspaper of the Colorado Springs Diocese. "I think the church is going to have to weather the storm."
If the theory put forth by the Discovery Channel program were to prove true, it would be contrary to all the Jacksons have gathered about the cloth.
"I think the Shroud of Turin and this archaeological site cannot both be correct," said John Jackson, a physicist who started studying the shroud in 1974. "The shroud points to resurrection. This site does not. It nullifies the Resurrection and therefore nullifies all of Christianity."
Rebecca Jackson, a convert to Catholicism from Orthodox Judaism and an expert on ethnology and early Judaism, noted inconsistencies with how the ossuaries were named and also doubts the inscriptions would have been made so hastily and sloppily on the side of boxes.
Jewish tradition called for people to be buried in a shroud for one year before having their remains transferred to an ossuary.
"They had a year to work on it. It would have been neat," she said, also noting that floral patterns on the ossuaries are Hellenic and not in line with Jewish custom. "They would have been as traditional and Semitic as possible."

Jesus' tomb buried in controversy

2007-03-08T13:57:00.000-05:00

The Discovery Channel aired a documentary that some say is just an attempt to make money
By: Tess McBride News reporter

http://media.www.dailyemerald.com/media/storage/paper859/news/2007/03/08/News/Jesus.Tomb.Buried.In.Controversy-2764618.shtml

Throughout the millennia, the subjects of Jesus and Christianity have become as much historical as religious. "The Lost Tomb of Jesus," a documentary which aired Sunday on the Discovery Channel, claimed Jesus' family tomb was discovered, fueling both possibility and controversy as viewers examined the science behind Christianity.Produced by James Cameron, the director of "Titanic," the two-hour documentary began gaining publicity early last week when questions started arising over the accuracy of Cameron's claims that this is Jesus of Nazareth's tomb, and whether he was married and had a son.Since the airing of the show, scholars, religious leaders and students have commented on what they saw, if they believe it's accurate and what effect they think it will have on Christianity.What the documentary saysThe documentary begins by explaining the basics of what was found before venturing into what it could possibly mean.In 1980 in Talpiot, the suburbs of Jerusalem, Israeli construction workers discovered the 2,000-year-old tomb while digging the foundations for an apartment building.On the outside of the tomb, above the entrance, there was a decorative symbol, a chevron - an upside-down V - and a circle below it. Found on the inside were ten ossuaries, which are limestone boxes used to store the bones of the dead. "Five of the 10 discovered boxes in the Talpiot tomb were inscribed with names believed to be associated with key figures in the New Testament: Jesus, Mary, Matthew, Joseph and Mary Magdalene. A sixth inscription, written in Aramaic, translates to "Judah Son of Jesus," according to a Discovery Channel news article.Because of the extreme commonality of these names, the ossuaries were recorded and written about in scholarly journals, but the idea that these were the remains of Jesus and his family, including his wife, Mary Magdalene (also known as Mariamne) and their son, Judah, were not widely considered.The documentary states according to a statistical study, "the probability factor is 600 to 1 in favor of this tomb being the tomb of Jesus of Nazareth and his family" according to the grouping of the names (including "father" or "son" on the inscriptions). The film also documents mitochondrial DNA testing of the mother line, gathered from human residue found in the ossuaries of Jesus and Mary Magdalene. The tests proved the two were not maternally related."That means a couple of things. They were not siblings. They were not mother and child or father and daughter. 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," the Discovery Channel Web site stated.What a student saysUniversity student Bassel Menzalji said even though he's Muslim and doesn't follow Christian beliefs, he watched the documentary because the subject is sparking controversy."I believe in Jesus, but I also believe in Mohammed and I also believe in Buddha," Menzalji said, who added that he didn't know if he thinks the documentary was accurate or if it was made for the money and headlines. He said, "It doesn't matter is it's fake or real," because it caught peoples' attention.Either way, Menzalji found the documentary interesting and doesn't think the controversy will affect Christianity and the religion's followers."You can't just take away something that touches so many people's lives," he said. "Science and religion don't really mix."What a professor saysUniversity religious studies professor Daniel Falk said the documentary was based on unsound facts and was irresponsibly made. He said it exploited archeology and was created for economic, rather than scientific, gain."This is part of a broader problem in archeology today, partly in the Bible, where stuff gets exploited for making money," he said. "The fundamental arguments behind the documentary have yet to be proven."Falk, who specializes in early Judaism and Biblical studies, said the knowledge of this tomb and the names on the ossuaries have been known and studied by experts, the majority of whom are not convinced this was the tomb of the Biblical Jesus due to the commonalty of the names."These were known by experts in the field and then you (have) someone knowing nothing about archeology making these huge claims," he said.Falk added that a significant error in the documentary was the assumption that the ossuary of James, Jesus' brother, came from the same tomb, which the show said turned up on the black market in 2002 and is inscribed, "James, son of Joseph, brother of Jesus.""It remains doubtful the James ossuary came from the same tomb," Falk said.The documentary said experts could test the mineral particles gathered from James' ossuary and compare them with particles from the other ossuaries in the tomb, also including random ossuary samples in the study, to prove James' ossuary came from the same tomb.Falk said this would not conclude the ossuaries are from the same tomb because many of those buried in Jerusalem came from the same area of land, which he has visited, and it would be likely they had the same mineral deposits.What a pastor saysDr. Britt Minshall, a pastor and theologian of the United Church of Christ in Baltimore, has appeared as a religious consultant on FOX News Channel, CNN, and ABC.Minshall said that he, too, believes the Discovery Channel's motives are financial in airing the documentary, which, in his opinion, is not authoritative in any way.The engraved chevron and circle symbol over the entrance to the tomb is not consistent with that of the time of Jesus, said Minshall, who "has served as a religious consultant for archaeological expeditions in Africa, Central America, and the Middle East," according to his bio.Minshall said he believes the tomb was set up, not by the show's producers, but by worshipers and/or entrepreneurs around the eighth or ninth century."It's possible some rich guy who lived in Jerusalem at the time wanted to make a shrine," he said.Another possibility he said was that the tomb was "like a circus side show," created for the crusaders who would often purchase bones of alleged Biblical mentions to show their friends and families at home. The tomb could have been a form of entertainment for them, Minshall said.Despite "doing wonders for the Discovery Channel's ratings," Minshall doesn't believe this will harm Christianity."If you study Christian history over the past 2,000 years, it's a blood bath. If we didn't destroy Christianity, nobody else would," he said.

Cameron documentary on Jesus’ tomb troublesome

2007-03-08T13:46:00.000-05:00

BY NATHANIEL PETERS THE MIGHTY COMMA

http://phoenix.swarthmore.edu/2007-03-08/opinions/17007

This past Sunday, the man who taught us that our hearts will go on aired a documentary claiming to have found the burial site and remains of Jesus, his wife Mary Magdalene, their son and some of Jesus’ brothers. James Cameron, the director of the “Terminator” movies and “Titanic,” joined forces with Israeli-born filmmaker Simcha Jacobovici to air “The Lost Tomb of Jesus” on the Discovery Channel. The documentary tells the story of the finding and decoding of 10 ossuaries — burial boxes containing the bones of the deceased — whose inscriptions, the filmmakers claim, translate as the names Jesus, Mary, Mary Magdalene, Judah (the supposed son of Jesus) and the brothers of Jesus, Matthew and Joseph.
The New York Times entitled its review “Leaning on Theory, Colliding with Faith.” The article began by noting that creationists reject the theory of evolution and many still venerate the Shroud of Turin; therefore, archaeological evidence calling the resurrection of Jesus into question will not shatter the faith of many Christians. However, what Cameron and Jacobovici have produced does not pass the muster of sufficient evidence for most archaeologists in the United States and Israel, let alone diehard religious believers. The Talpiot ossuaries should give anyone with a devotion to legitimate scholarship cause to question their authenticity.
The Times itself noted that “even an amateur can see that the ifs are stacked to support one hypothesis.” To begin with, the main argument of the film is not archeology, per se. According to MSNBC, Cameron says that the evidence they have produced is based on sound statistics. However, a professor of mathematics at the University of Toronto calculated that the odds of all six names appearing in one tomb would range from one in 600 to one in 1 million.
As their second argument, the filmmakers claim that Mariamene, the name found on the box also labeled Jesus, is a form of Mariamne, the name given to Mary Magdalene in the Acts of Philip. While this text is treated as gospel truth in the film, it has dubious historical authenticity.
Third, the absence of a genetic link between the remains of Jesus and Mariamene leads Jacobovici to believe that the two are husband and wife.
In the face of these conjectures, a number of archaeologists have protested the hijacking of their discipline for the sake of easy publicity. Leading the charge is Amos Kloner, the Israeli archaeologist who examined the site and first wrote on it in 1996. He declares that the story is “nonsense” and that it “fails to hold up by archeological standards.”
William Denver, who has been excavating sites in Israel for 50 years and whom the Washington Post calls the dean of biblical archaeology among U.S. scholars, agreed. He was quoted in the Post saying, “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.”
Jodi Magness, an archaeologist and professor at University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, added that by holding a news conference and airing a documentary instead of taking a more academic route, 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.”
Most of all, archaeologists reject Jacobovici’s assertion that the ossuary purported to belong to James, another brother of Jesus, comes from the same tomb as this one. A few years ago, the James ossuary was revealed with much pomp and circumstance as a sure sign that the James of the Bible was not only a real person, but truly the brother of Jesus. In 2003, while many scholars disputed the discovery, Jacobovici made a documentary film about it for the Discovery Channel. Today, Jacobovici maintains the ossuary’s validity, while the Israeli government has charged five suspects with forgery in its creation.
The Times concludes its review of “The Lost Tomb of Jesus” saying that it raises many “touchy issues” that would be better left untouched, such as using DNA testing to determine the veracity of the Virgin birth. While the historical claims of religions are bound to be “touchy,” that should not make them any less appropriate to investigate. The question of Jesus’ body remains a very important one for over one third of the world, but that makes it no less of a historical claim that could be proven or disproven to a certain extent by archaeological evidence. Whether we could find such evidence if we wanted to is open to debate. However, any investigation of religious historical claims that purports to be archaeological or scientific should use valid scholarship and not pander to sensationalism if it desires to seek the truth.

Look deeper than bare bones

2007-03-07T18:47:00.000-05:00

By Sarah Cash

http://media.www.westerncourier.com/media/storage/paper650/news/2007/03/07/Opinion/Look-Deeper.Than.Bare.Bones-2762301.shtml

Every year the entertainment industry produces a new movie or research finding related to one of the most harassed religions in the world - Christianity. Dan Brown's novel-turned-movie "The DaVinci Code" and fragments of the Gospel of Judas are some of the most recent religion-based scandals offered by the media. This past Sunday, the Discovery Channel aired the newest; a documentary called "The Lost Tomb of Jesus."This film, produced by History Channel personality Simcha Jacobovici and "Titanic" director James Cameron, made several claims that had both Christians and archeologists in an uproar. After watching the film, it was easy to see why.The film's premise centered on the discovery of six labeled ossuaries, or bone boxes, which were first uncovered in one tomb in Talbiot, Jerusalem, in 1980. The boxes, according to the film, were singular because of the names inscribed on their sides: Jesus, son of Joseph; Maria; Jose (Joseph); Matthew; Mariamne e Mara (possibly Mary of Magdalene); and Judah, son of Jesus.These names, all found in the New Testament of the Bible with relation to Jesus of Nazareth, led to the film's suggestion that researchers had uncovered his family tomb, which further led to the "probability" of Jesus not only being married to Mary Magdalene and fathering a child (Judah), but of his Biblical resurrection being only spiritual, since the presence of an ossuary denotes bones being left behind.However, the film appeared to use only two determining factors as its basis. First, DNA tests of bone fragments from the Magdalene and Jesus tombs determined that the two inhabitants were not from the same matrilineal descent; the documentary suggests that since tombs included only family members, this means the two people must have been married. One might also be interested to know that these were the only two ossuaries that received DNA testing, which Jacobovici confirmed in a discussion entitled "A Critical Look" that was held on Discovery immediately following the film's premiere.The second piece of evidence is four statistical studies the filmmakers commissioned. According to Jacobovici's statement in a washingtonpost.com article, the studies determined that the odds of the parti cular names all appearing in a single family tomb from the first century are "somewhere between 600 and 2.4 million to one."Those are the film's claims in an abbreviated nutshell. Discovery.com/tomb has additional film clips and articles for anyone whose interest is piqued. Hopefully it is clear, however, that the amount of evidence is not only minimal but also shamefully shallow, especially for a film that was given $3.5 million from Discovery, according to newsweek.com.While archeologists were disgusted at the lack of thorough testing and the film's dramatic portrayal of "history," another group was even more outraged, and here is where Christians come into play. "The Lost Tomb of Jesus" suggests that if this information is true, a fundamental belief of Christians may be overturned. Christians believe that after Jesus was crucified and buried in a sealed, temporary tomb, he was resurrected on the third day and left nothing behind besides burial cloths. These beliefs, and the idea that Jesus returned in human form to prove his divinity, are found numerous times in the New Testament of the Bible.Now that all of this background information is on the table, more important issues can be raised. Leading professionals in the fields of archeology and religious studies both denounced the credibility of the documentary, stating in the "Critical" discussion following it that they found no reason to believe any of the claims were true. With, to use a term of Sunday evening, so much weight against a "chain of ifs," why has the media blown this film out of proportion?Headlines such as "Christians Split Over Claim of Christ's Tomb" (newsweek.com) are completely untrue and only perpetuate an unnecessary divide between a group of people trying to uphold its beliefs and the media. It's a common thought (and a Biblical reference) that faith is believing in things unseen, so why would the faith of true Christians be challenged over dubious physical evidence? Believers have been fighting the same war since fossils of dinosaurs surfaced, suggesting evolution. The host of the "A Critical Look," Ted Koppel, ended the spirited discussion with a gem of a statement: "What happens to faith in the face of inconvenient truth?" He asked. "Not much."To be fair, history is always worth a second study, and the producers of the documentary have every right to advance physical research, especially when it really is as fascinating a coincidence as this. Why do "journalists" such as those who worked on this film, however, have to turn information into sensationalism? Whose interest does it really serve to add dramatic music and re-enacted, first century scenes with paid actors? It's asking the old question of how fact and fiction are kept apart. Perhaps the American public watching "education television" should be wary of what they are seeing.One of the professors who spoke after the film, Judy Fentress-Williams from the Virginia Theological Seminary, made a terrific point. She said that Christians need to be critical of what they believe and watch, especially with programs like this, which are selective in what they present. However, this can be applied to any person participating in any media. Think for yourself. Consider who interprets information and what personal beliefs may be at stake in believing it. History proves that people thrive on sensationalism, but it doesn't mean we should blindly believe in it.

The Discovery Channel Mistake

2007-03-07T18:42:00.000-05:00

By Kevin Roeten on Mar 06, 07

http://newsbyus.com/more.php?id=7422_0_1_0_M

On March 4 the Discovery Channel aired a documentary, “The Lost Tomb of Jesus,” produced by James Cameron, Oscar-winning director of the “Titanic.” Cameron and Simcha Jacobovici, the film’s archaeological “expert,” claim to have discovered the tomb of Jesus and his family. They also claim to have found evidence that Jesus had a son with, guess who, Mary Magdalene.
If it sounds just like the Da Vinci Code all over again, you’re right. But where author Dan Brown employed psuedo-art history, Cameron and Jacobovici have conscripted an archaeological theory rejected years ago by established experts in the field. In an interview on the Today Show on February 26, Cameron confessed, “I’m not an archaeologist, I’m a filmmaker,” which about says it all. (Oh, by the way, Cameron and Jacobovici have also co-authored a book, “The Jesus Family Tomb.")
Meredith Viera, co-host of the Today Show, acted as if she were interviewing Albert Einstein just after he discovered the theory of relativity: “If this is correct, what are the implications? They’re huge,” Vieira said.
But here is the rest of the story, or should I say hoax.
Ten ossuaries or “bone boxes” were unearthed in 1980 during a construction project south of Jerusalem. The ossuaries were removed and stored with the Israeli Antiquities Authority. Six of the boxes are marked with names: 1) Yeshua bar Yosef, Hebrew for ‘Jesus son of Joseph’; 2) Maria, or Marya; 3) Matthew, or Matya, understood to be another relative, probably on Mary’s side; 4) Yose, understood to be a brother of Jesus’; 5) Mariamene e Mara,interpreted by the filmmakers as Mary Magdalene; and finally, 6) “Yehuda bar Yeshua” or Judah, son of Jesus.
The existence of the ossuaries reported in 1996 by the London Times made identical claims to those of Cameron and Jacobovici. Historians say these were very common names during that time. Cameron and Jacobovici, however, are relying on the estimates of statisticians that boxes marked with these names could belong to any other family. Their expert in the film says the chances are one in 600, which Cameron and Jacobovici conclude make the ossuaries very likely the real thing.
Samples of the remains were taken to DNA experts who established there was no genetic link between the boxes containing “Jesus” and “Mary Magdalene,” which are interpreted as establishing them as husband and wife. According to the Discovery Channel film, “Perhaps they were married, and perhaps it was kept secret to protect a potential dynasty, a secret hidden through the ages, a secret we just may be able to uncover in the holy family tomb.” I wonder if Dan Brown is going to sue the Discovery Channel for stealing intellectual property?
This is not the first time Jacobovici or the Discovery Channel have been associated with fraudulent claims about archaeological finds. In 2002 Jacobovici publicly supported the authenticity of the so-called ossuary of James, brother of Jesus, which was found to be a forgery by experts. The Discovery Channel dutifully reported on the James ossuary as if it were an established scientific fact. But it was determined that the words “brother of Jesus” were added to the box at a later date. Jacobovici has never backed away from his claim that the ossuary of James is authentic. It turns out that the James ossuary came from the original ten uncovered in 1980.
In the last few days, archaeological experts have come forward to denounce the film and the book. They did the same in 1996 after a BBC documentary reported a similar story on the ossuaries. Amos Kloner, an expert on Israeli tombs and the first archaeologist to examine the site, said the conclusions reached by Cameron and Jacobovici have no archaeological validity: “They just want to get money for it,” Kloner commented (2/26/2007, Associated Press). Kloner told the BBC News website, “I don’t accept the news that it was used by Jesus or his family.”
Another expert in ancient antiquities, Professor L. Michael White, from the University of Texas, expressed doubt about the claims: “This is trying to sell documentaries,” he said, adding a series of strict tests needed to be conducted before a bone box or inscription could be confirmed as ancient. “This is not archeologically sound, this is fanfare” (2/26/2006, Reuters).
Finally, there is the comment of Joe Zias, an archeologist at the Rockefeller University in Jerusalem for twenty-five years. Zias remarks, “Simcha [Jacobovici] has no credibility whatsoever” (Press release, 2/26/2006, Catholic League). The Discovery Channel is supposed to broadcast programming about scientific discovery and exploration. The field of biblical archaeology boasts numerous experts with established scientific credentials. Why not commission a group of them to produce a film that would reveal the ongoing exploration of ancient sites in the Holy Land, such as that at the base of the Temple Mount itself?
The answer must be that the Discovery Channel is not interested in science that is respectful of its own methods or the beliefs of millions who believe in the sacred story of the Saviour who rose from his tomb.

Losing respect over 'lost tomb of Jesus'

2007-03-07T18:40:00.000-05:00

Millions of Christians are offended by this recent 'discovery' of the so–called tomb of Jesus

By Malcolm Hedding

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3373218,00.html

The documentary "The Lost Tomb of Jesus" which claims that the burial cave of Jesus and his family, including a child, has been found in East Talpiot, in Jerusalem, has stirred controversy and drawn widespread media attention, much of it disturbing and even offensive.
It has been disturbing because serious scholars in the disciplines of archaeology and related scientific fields here in Israel have long ago debunked this claim as, at the very best, sensational.

However, the glee with which some in the print and broadcast media in Israel 'latched on' to this story was not only irresponsible but worrying. The anchor on one evening news broadcast pressed a scholar in an interview to assert that this discovery would shake Christianity to its core.

By this she meant that it would break the foundations of the faith, since Christianity rests squarely on the resurrection of Jesus! No resurrection, no Christianity! It is as simple as that.

Now, before we are accused of putting our heads in the sand, let me say that should there ever be conclusive proof, that is, totally verifiable proof that Jesus did not rise from the dead, we Christians would have to reconsider our position. It is my estimation, however, that this will never be found.

Further, the Hebrew Bible also contains accounts of resurrections and ascensions to heaven, so belief in such events should not be so easily dismissed by those of the Jewish faith.

Dubious science
It has been offensive, because this type of incautious reporting does nothing to improve Christian-Jewish relations. It furthers the offence and undermines the good work that we have all been doing in this regard. To use dubious science to discredit another religious system is unwise and unhelpful, and simply raises age–old antagonisms without cause.
Millions of Christians are being offended by this recent 'discovery' of the so–called tomb of Jesus in East Talpiot and the fact that reputable Israeli archaeologists and related scholars have shown restraint and responsibility in the face of this sensationalist 'find' should serve as a lesson to the media as well.

As a Christian minister with a proven track record of pro-Israel activism, I humbly ask our Israeli friends to desist from furthering this travesty.

Local scholars skeptical of Lost Tomb of Jesus claims

2007-03-07T18:27:00.000-05:00

They don't believe the tomb ever belonged to Christ's family

By MIRKO PETRICEVIC

http://www.therecord.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=record/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1173221417239&call_pageid=1024322085509&col=1024322199564

The latest project to cast doubt on the bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ drew mixed reviews from a panel of local scholars.
The makers of Lost Tomb of Jesus "have a flood of very provocative data," John Miller said. "In their zeal to connect all the dots, they went too far."
Miller, a retired professor of biblical studies at Conrad Grebel University College in Waterloo, was one of three local academics yesterday to watch the film.
Lost Tomb of Jesus, a collaboration between Toronto filmmaker Simcha Jacobovici and Academy Award-winning director James Cameron, has sparked debate ever since it was broadcast in the United States and Britain last week. It made its Canadian debut last night.
The film asserts that odds are 600-1 that a collection of small limestone boxes, or ossuaries, found in Jerusalem in 1980 contained the bones of Jesus of Nazareth.
The filmmakers say names inscribed on the boxes -- Jesus son of Joseph, Judah son of Jesus, and Mary -- are probably those of Jesus Christ, his wife Mary Magdalene and their son Judah.
DNA testing of human residue found inside two of the boxes indicates that bones in the ossuaries were not related by blood, so they were probably married, the filmmakers say.
The panel viewing the film at The Record yesterday included Miller, Bill Klassen, retired professor at Waterloo's St. Paul's College, and Michele Daviau, professor of Near Eastern archeology at Wilfrid Laurier University.
None is convinced the Talpiot tomb belonged to Jesus of Nazareth's family.
Some challenged the filmmakers' assumptions when referring to New Testament genealogies of Jesus. Others said the parameters on the chemical analysis on ossuaries and DNA tests on human remains found inside were too narrow. Some challenged the filmmakers' reading of the ossuary inscription ascribed to Mary Magdalene.
On the other hand, the film does the world a service by highlighting the complexity of what happens when archeologists make a discovery, then try to make sense of it, Klassen said.
Throughout the viewing, many of the filmmakers' numerous arguments were followed by caveats by the panel.
For example, the Talpiot tomb is between Jerusalem and Bethlehem.
Daviau said a more likely site for a Jesus family tomb would be in Galilee, where Jesus lived most of his life.
"That's where the disciples supposedly go after Jesus rises," she said. "They go back to Galilee. They're not going to stay around Jerusalem. It's a dangerous place for them."
Also, Israelites at the time used different burial techniques, said Daviau, who has conducted archeological digs in Holy Land tombs.
Some bodies were buried in wood or lead coffins. Others were placed in tombs and, after decomposing, their bones were placed among those of relatives from several generations.
Ossuaries were heavily used in the Jerusalem-Jericho area, she said, and not widely used in Galilee.
One of the ossuaries in the Talpiot tomb was inscribed in Greek. The filmmakers make a case that it belonged to Mary Magdalene.
But Miller argues that part of the inscription could indicate the name Martha.
Each name found inscribed on the ossuaries was common in Israel at the time of Jesus.
But the filmmakers say the combination of names inscribed on the ossuaries, names associated with Jesus, make the odds at least 600-1 that the tomb belonged to the Holy Family.
There is an added twist.
In 2002, an Israeli antiquities collector revealed an ossuary inscribed with the words "James son of Joseph brother of Jesus."
The makers of Lost Tomb of Jesus say one of the 10 ossuaries from the Talpiot tomb disappeared. So they arranged for a forensic test of the patina, or chemical residue, covering the James ossuary and compared it to one of the ossuaries from the Talpiot tomb. They say both ossuaries came from the same tomb.
If so, they calculate the probability of the Talpiot tomb being Jesus Christ's would be 30,000-1.
But Daviau said the test was too limited. Researchers would need to inspect patina on all the ossuaries found in all Talpiot tombs.
It's possible the James ossuary came from the Talpiot region, but not the tomb in question, she said.
Also, she said, there is evidence the James ossuary was photographed in the 1970s, before the Talpiot tomb was uncovered.
The local scholars said their opinions were only for this slice in time.
As more information comes forth, they agreed, their opinions will change on various parts of the film.
Much more evidence is needed, Daviau said.
"Our opinions now are likely to change, but that doesn't mean they will reverse, necessarily."

Jesus and re-visionary history

2007-03-07T18:18:00.000-05:00

By Kenneth L. Waters Sr.
San Gabriel Valley Tribune

http://www.pasadenastarnews.com/opinions/ci_5362591

BIBLICAL archaeology has become the new gold rush. Not for professionals who know the field, but for novices who want instant fame. It only takes a sensationalized discovery and several rushes to judgment. We had it all in Sunday's "Lost Tomb of Jesus" on the Discovery Channel.
Producers Simcha Jacobovici and James Cameron apparently want us to join them in several logical leap-overs. No proof exists that we have a family tomb of Jesus, but let's call it that. Statistical odds against certain biblical names in the same first century tomb mean nothing without knowing the names in all first century tombs, but let's ignore that.
DNA evidence without a control sample from a known family member of Jesus tells us nothing of his relationship to these burial remains, but let's ignore that problem also.
Gnostic and apocryphal literature produced in the second to fourth centuries contain no historically reliable reports about biblical personalities and events, but let's pretend they do. Both catalogue documentation and forensic testing show the so-called James ossuary did not come from this tomb, but let's pretend that it did.
Jacobovici and Cameron would apparently have us to ignore all the well-rehearsed arguments against a case like theirs. If Jesus was married, Paul would have said so in 1 Corinthians 9:5. A family tomb of Jesus couldn't have been kept secret in first century Palestine. A family tomb of Jesus would have been a shrine, especially if it did not contain the body of Jesus, or simply prevent the rise of the Jesus movement if it did. A tomb would have been in Nazareth, not Jerusalem.
"Mary," "Jesus," "Joses," and "James" (in Hebrew:
Miriam, Joshua, Joseph, and Jacob) are common names even in the Bible, and would have been more so in the world of the Bible as names of Hebrew heroes.
Statistics? What are the odds that three Jameses would come together to once again bury Jesus? Furthermore, the Jerusalem church leaders were consistent with Paul in explicitly affirming the bodily resurrection and ascension of Jesus.
History is firm that his brother James and other followers of Jesus, who would have known the disposition of his body, nevertheless lost their own lives for steadfastly believing in the bodily resurrection and ascension of Jesus.
Jacobovici, Cameron and co-author Charles Pellegrino thus practice a curious reasoning: Begin with an unproven premise, select evidence to support it, and ignore all evidence to the contrary. This is pseudo-science at its best ... or perhaps I should say, worst.
A string of media events have been staged around revisions of biblical history: "The Da Vinci Code" (book and movie), the "Gospel of Judas," and now the "Jesus Family Tomb." It is interesting how this re-visionary history
movement builds upon itself. Although they are unproven, items such as the marriage of Jesus and Mary Magdalene, the birth of their child, existence of secret gospels and gospel secrets, suppressed features of Christian history, and conspiracy and political intrigue in early Christianity become planks in a struggling counter-cultural biblical market.
It seems that by continually recycling these themes pundits hope to gain the status of self-evident proofs in the popular market. I wonder if this is the best we can expect from our educational TV channels. It is time we return to a more reasoned discussion.
Something happened in the days after the crucifixion of Jesus that inspired the first disciples with unshakeable faith and confidence, even in the face of persecution, imprisonment, torture, and death. Attempts to explain this phenomenon in terms of a fabrication, hallucination, delusion, or hoax have not been successful.
Remarkably, the only explanation that accounts for all the historical and literary data is the one provided by the first disciples themselves, namely, the bodily resurrection and ascension of Jesus.
Kenneth L. Waters Sr., Ph.D., is associate professor of New Testament at Azusa Pacific University.

'Jesus Tomb' Panelists Point to Holes in Director's 'Archaeoporn'

2007-03-07T18:13:00.000-05:00

by Kevin Jackson, Christian Today US Correspondent

http://www.christiantoday.com/article/jesus.tomb.panelists.point.to.holes.in.directors.archaeoporn/9820.htm

WASHINGTON DC, USA - A panel discussion moderated by Ted Koppel, former anchor of ABC's Nightline, was held late Sunday night to discuss the implications of the new controversial documentary, The Lost Tomb of Jesus, which reported the supposed discovery of Jesus’ bones and his family’s tomb, including alleged wife Mary Magdalene and son Judah.The debate, which was named The Lost Tomb of Jesus: A Critical Look and aired directly after the documentary on the Discovery Channel, addressed the implications the film has on Christian faith and spoke about possible weak points in director Simcha Jacobovici’s argument.“Simcha has done his job now,” explained Koppel. “He’s brought everyone in the tent [to speak].”The show was split into two segments: the first dealing with possible errors that could be found in the film, the second talking about the theological ramifications that could come about.As a first question, Koppel asked about the DNA testing that Jacobovici ran and why he did not push it as far as it could go. The evidence that the filmmaker provided could only make small claims to whether Jesus was married to Mary Magdalene.Jacobovici, a Jewish archaeologist and filmmaker, noted that they could only obtain sufficient DNA from two of their ossuaries, boxes that hold remains of the dead. The rest were vacuum cleaned.“I followed the DNA as far as I could,” explained the archaeologist. “I’m not a university. I’m a filmmaker …. Now let the critics weigh in.”Following this, two of the present Christian panelists expressed that they thought his research was poor, and how it puts archaeology in a bad light.“It’s like a romantic game and treasure hunt,” noted Jonathan Reed, professor of religion at the University of La Verne and author of Excavating Jesus: Beneath the Stones, Behind the Texts. He added that it seemed that the conclusions of the film were already drawn in the beginning.“I call it ‘archaeoporn,’” stated William Dever, an archaeologist with 40 years experience of digs in the Middle East. “It’s exciting, but in the end, it’s wrong. It isn’t a long lasting relationship.”The program then when on to talk about the impact that media has on viewers.“Visual imagery carries a certain power that the spoken word does not. You have made recreations in which you show Jesus and Mary Magdalene,” said the moderator. “You don’t say that it happened but by depicting it, you lend a power to that theory that it wouldn’t otherwise have.”Jacobovici responded by saying, “My job as a filmmaker and a journalist was to tell a story.”“You dramatize,” added Koppel. “I’m not sure with most newscasts [if that would be okay]. You dramatize.”The panel then went on to talk about the “missing” James ossuary that may have been a part of the tomb and would help support the claims of the director.Koppel summarized a statement that he had received from Amos Kloner, one of the first people to excavate the original tomb. “When he was in the tomb, he counted 10 ossuaries and he (Kloner) says the missing ossuary was, in fact, unmarked. Because of that, it was put in a courtyard at the Rockefeller Museum.”James Tabor, chair of the Department of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina, answered the proposal by saying that the dirt may have been covering the James inscription and that Kloner may have just missed it when first recording. Reed countered by asserting that there would be no way Kloner would have done that.As a final topic for the first segment, the panelists talked about the significance of the statistics that were done and whether they really can conclude much from it.In the second segment, three theologians were brought in to talk about the impact that the film would have on Christian faith.“What I am is a believer,” explained Father David O’ Connell, President of the Catholic University of America in Washington. “It’s a faith that I didn’t just discover. It’s a faith that was handed onto me.”When Darrell Bock, professor of New Testament Studies at the Dallas Theological Seminary, was asked what his conclusion on the film was, he expressed that he was “schizophrenic” about it, noting that the production was actually well done.“But the frosting, the hypothesis, is a real problem because there are so many steps that are needed to connect the dots and I just don’t think you can connect those dots,” said the theologian.Judy Fentress-Williams, Assistant Professor of Old Testament at Virginia Theological Seminary, also explained how the documentary is a reflection of American culture. She described how journalism has become more and more about entertainment. Because of that, Christians need to be more critical thinkers.“I’m delighted this (discussion) is happening,” concluded Jacobovici. “As a filmmaker, I wanted everyone to weigh in.”“[My statistics say] it’s 600 to 1. Let’s say it’s 60 to 1. Let’s say it’s 10 to 1. Let’s say it’s 50-50. This is still a great story.”

Special Report: Has James Cameron Found Jesus's Tomb or Is It Just a Statistical Error?

2007-03-05T16:51:00.000-05:00

Should You Accept the 600-to-One Odds That the Talpiot Tomb Belonged to Jesus?

By Christopher Mims

http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?chanId=sa003&articleId=14A3C2E6-E7F2-99DF-37A9AEC98FB0702A

When Associated Producers, the production company behind the new documentary The Lost Tomb of Jesus, contacted Andrey Feuerverger, he was, to put it mildly, surprised. "This is not in the usual run of things one gets to do," notes the University of Toronto statistician dryly, alluding to Associated Producers's somewhat unusual request that he calculate the odds of a tomb in Israel being the last resting place of Jesus Christ.
Despite his previous lack of interest in biblical archaeology, Feuerverger would spend two years on what turned out to be a labor of love. At the end of all of his figuring, he told the documentarians, including director James Cameron of Titanic fame and award-winning investigative journalist Simcha Jacobovici, that there was a one in 600 chance that the names—Jesus, Matthew, two versions of Mary, and Joseph—scribbled on five of the 10 ossuaries (or caskets for bones) found in the Talpiot tomb could have belonged to a different family than the one described in the New Testament.
When Cameron and Simcha announced Feuerverger's calculations along with a package of other evidence (including forensics, DNA and archaeology) earlier this week, it sparked a media firestorm.
Some news outlets reported that Feuerverger's odds had really been as high as one in a million, which the statistician denies. That "is not a number I would want to ever think originates with me," he says.
Meanwhile biblical archeologist James Tabor of the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, the primary historical advisor on the production team, reported on his blog that he calculated the odds were one in 250,000 that another family of that period would have the same names as those scrawled on the bone boxes.
Even the Discovery Channel, which is set to air the controversial documentary on Sunday, March 4, seemed confused by Feuerverger's calculations, declaring on its Web site that that the odds are "600 to one in favor of this being the JESUS FAMILY TOMB."
What Are We Calculating Here, Anyway?
Feuerverger says he was neither asked nor did he attempt to calculate the odds that the Talpiot tomb was the final resting place of Christ, the Messiah. As Aleks Jakulin, a statistician at Columbia University, points out, "I doubt Professor Feuerverger really estimated 'the odds that these ossuaries were not Jesus's family's final resting place.' Instead … one should say that one in 600 families (on the conservative side) would have that particular combination of names purely by chance, based on the distribution of individual names in the population."
Such a calculation assumes all kinds of things, and is highly dependent on one's starting assumptions. For instance, "A Christian would use [the probability that Jesus is in a coffin] equals zero, because of ascension, so the discussion stops right there," Jakulin says. "Someone else would instead assume that there was a single Jesus, one out of five million."
A Statistical Analysis Is Only as Good as Its Starting Assumptions
"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," explains Feuerverger. "It's not a secret that the assumptions are contestable. I tried to stay with things that vaguely seemed reasonable to me, but I'm not a biblical scholar. At the end of the day, I went with specific assumptions and I try to make clear what those assumptions were."
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.
Scan The Lexicon of Jewish Names, which includes names from ossuaries, ancient texts and every other source available, and you will learn that the names unearthed in the so-called Jesus Family Tomb were among the most common of that era. One in every three women listed in the Lexicon was named Mary, for instance, and, at that time, one in every 20 Jewish men was called Yeshua, or Jesus.
Tal Ilan, who compiled the Lexicon of Jewish Names and who vehemently disagrees with the assertion that this could be Jeus'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."
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.
A Debate Rages Over the Archaeology Behind the Statistics
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.
U.N.C. Charlotte archeologist Tabor, a consultant on the documentary who has studied over 500 burial chambers throughout Israel, pooh-poohs the naysayers. "Mariemene e Mara means 'of Mariemenu, the Master,'" he says. "This is a title. It means 'This is the ossuary of Mariemene, known as the Mara.'" His opinion—which is consistent with Feuerverger's assumptions but clashes with those of many of his peers—is that this is a completely unique name, supporting his hypothesis that this is the grave of the Mary Magdalene.
Tabor also disagrees with critics who dismiss the fundamental premise of his and Feuerverger's calculations—that the family of Jesus would have been buried in caves typical of wealthier Jews and not in the shallow dirt graves that were common in that era. To some extent, this is a debate over the nature of evidence. Many biblical scholars and archaeologists, including Magness, accept that the gospels of the New Testament have some historicity to them, because they are the only direct historical accounts of the death of Jesus. But Tabor, on his blog, quotes scholars who argue that there is no reason these texts should be given more weight than any other piece of evidence.
Tabor responds to the charges that it is improbable that Jesus and his family had a burial cave in Jerusalem by noting that "if you know anything about messianic movements, the followers provide for their leader—they don't just throw him in a ditch when he dies. … Think of any Jewish sect—they take care of their rabbi. There's no evidence this family ever went back to Galilee. James [Jesus's brother] dies in Jerusalem, Mary and his brothers are there—there's no indication that anybody went back to Nazareth."
In other words, Tabor argues that it is not only likely that the family of the Jesus could have afforded a burial cave, but that it most likely would have opted for one in Jerusalem.
Both sides of this debate are extraordinarily difficult to prove given the paucity of historical evidence, something this controversy has in common with nearly all archaeological and historical disputes. "As archaeologists we are always reconstructing a picture based on incomplete evidence," notes Magness.
As a result, the calculations made by Feuerverger and others rest on premises that must be decided by historians and archaeologists, who are still far from agreement on even the basics of the Talpiot tomb. "I did permit the number one in 600 to be used in the film—I'm prepared to stand behind that but on the understanding that these numbers were calculated based on assumptions that I was asked to use," says Feuerverger. "These assumptions don't seem unreasonable to me, but I have to remember that I'm not a biblical scholar."

The Jesus Tomb (a.k.a. James and The Giant Fib)

2007-03-05T16:48:00.000-05:00

By Lane Palmer
Christian Post Guest Columnist
Mon, Mar. 05 2007 11:04 AM ET

http://www.christianpost.com/article/20070305/26129_The_Jesus_Tomb_(a.k.a._James_and_The_Giant_Fib).htm

Pop quiz time folks:
What if one day you woke up to glaring and blaring headlines that boldly proclaimed that Jesus’ remains were found … what are you feeling? Who would you call? What would become of your faith?
Well by now you are probably aware that Hollywood Director James Cameron is using his Titanic influence to produce headlines just like the ones we just talked about. His scenario is essentially what’s being called the archaeological find of all time.
"It doesn't get bigger than this," said Cameron in a statement. "We've done our homework; we've made the case; and now it's time for the debate to begin."
Alright, so let’s begin the debate. If you’ve been keeping up with the overwhelming response from experts not on the Discovery Channel payroll, you’ve notice that all of them have thoroughly exposed this “documentary” as at best a misinterpretation of the evidence, and at worst a money grabbing stunt that’s piggy-backing on the Da Vinci Code juggernaut.
OK, so I guess that’s the end of the debate … but what’s key here is not winning an argument, but rather recognizing an opportunity. A lot of folks expect us to have a holy cow when the foundation of our faith is called into question, and I’m sure there are many moos to come over the next few weeks … but I have a different response:
Reach out, don’t freak out.
Reach out to your friends and neighbors who have never given the substantial evidence for the bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ a decent look. Share with them great quotes like this one from Lord Darling, the brilliant Chief Justice of England who said, "No intelligent jury in the world could fail to bring in a verdict that the resurrection story is true."
And beyond that, reach out with the facts that give us the highest hope in the universe that there is more than just this life – but an eternal life to come. What facts? Well, to name a few:
• There was a broken Roman Seal. This meant an investigation, an apprehension and automatic death for whoever did it ... so obviously the Roman soldiers didn't break it. The disciples? Right - they were in hiding. • There was a huge stone that was moved uphill. We're not talking about a small boulder here. This was a 3,000-4,000 pound massive hunk of mountain that was supposed to stay where they put it. It didn't. So who moved the stone?• According to followers and enemies of Jesus, there was an empty tomb, and the disciples started preaching about it right away in Jerusalem (where the resurrection happened). They would have been written off as a big joke if the tomb wasn't empty. • The Roman guard split town. This was a death penalty offense - death by being burned alive, I might add. Why would they do that if they could simply produce the body and get off the hook? • Jesus stayed in town for 40 days after He rose from the dead. He appeared to more than 500 people in all kinds of places, times and circumstances. When the Gospels were being circulated, many of these people were still alive. If you thought they might be a joke, you could have simply asked the eyewitnesses.
There was another headline 2000 years ago- that Jesus rose from the dead, and no one has disproved it since … isn’t it time we got the real story out?

Main Scholar On Jesus Tomb Angry Over Unscientific Claims, MSM Takes a Pass

2007-03-05T16:43:00.000-05:00

by Terry Trippany on March 5, 2007

http://newsbusters.org/node/11201

By now most of you have heard about the Discover Channel "documentary" fronted by executive director James Cameron that claims to refute conventional religious wisdom on the resurrection of Jesus. Specifically the filmmakers claim that they have scientific proof that Jesus was married to Mary Magdalene and had a son, Judah based on DNA evidence in combination with lexical analysis of names found on a tomb.
Since then the announcement of claims by the filmmakers has been met by scorn and ridicule by scholars of all walks who soundly denounce the claims as one sided speculation at best. But that rarely stops those with an agenda. Instead the doubters are summarily dismissed and often put in unflattering light as if they are the ones who have something to prove.
Even the New York Times gave a semi-honest assessment in their TV review that stated that the film is based on one sided hypothesis. However that doesn't prevent them from injecting some credibility into the documentary with one liners such as the following:
Almost all the scholars interviewed support the filmmakers’ case, though one doubting Thomas is included, David Mevorah, a curator at the Israel Museum. “Suggesting that this tomb was the tomb of the family of Jesus is a far-fetched suggestion,” he says. “And we need to be very careful with that.”
Doubting Thomas, get it? Quaint. Of course this begs the question about the scholars that weren't interviewed.
If we put the New York Times doubting Thomas's beliefs aside however we can peel away the onion that liberals foolishly peddle as truth by turning to the scholars that the religious detractors exclude from their analysis; namely those scholars whose research was critical to the claims made by Cameron and “award winning” investigative journalist Simcha Jacobovici.
Scientific American, no panacea of conservative thought, has a very revealing interview in its March 2nd article titled ‘Says Scholar Whose Work Was Used in the Upcoming Jesus Tomb Documentary: "I think it's completely mishandled. I am angry"’.
The following quotes from the article demonstrate the depth of ignorance that emanates from Hollywood liberals and their cohorts in worlds of journalism and academia.
Of special note was Tal Ilan, whose Lexicon of Jewish Names was essential to the statistical calculation made by Andrey Feuerverger, the U. of Toronto professor of statistics and mathematics who is quoted in the documentary as saying that the odds that any family other than that of the historical Jesus family would have the same names as that family, and be buried in the Tomb the documentary covers, are 600 to 1. In other words, that number argues, the odds are slim that this isn't the tomb of Jesus.
You'd be forgiven for finding such claims far-fetched, and with the exception of the historian, James Tabor, who was consulted for the film, the professionals in the field appear to find these claims no less incredible.
In an interview I conducted this morning, the scholar Tal Ilan, without whose work these calculations would have been impossible, expressed outrage over the film and its use of her work--she's the source of the quotation in the headline of this post.
In other words, despite the overwhelming amount of scholarly claims to the contrary the filmmakers decided to continue along their merry way by teaming up with a few outsiders who would parrot the premise of the film. Thus fiction becomes fact and liberals can sit content that they have attacked another claim of the religious faithful with such "hard hitting" evidence.
There is a deeper importance in the statements made by many of the scholars on which the filmmakers claims are based because they sound eerily similar to those who denounce some of the more far fetched claims made by global warming activists. But why shouldn't it? This is the modus operandi of liberal activism.
For instance, Jodi Magness, a professor of archeology and Jewish history of that period at UNC Chapel Hill said the following in the Scientific American report.
Let me tell you what I think. So first of all if you're writing for Scientific American, so it's important to point out that this debate is taking place in a most unscientific of manners.
Archaeology is a scientific and academic discipline and there are proper fora for these discussions--if you're a scholar and you have something you want to present to the larger world, there are proper ways of doing that, specifically publishing papers in peer reviewed journals or at meetings, so your colleageus can respond to it.
If after that you can go ahead and announce that and people can say "Well I've responded to this," then that's fine. But I've been slammed with [interviews for] this now - it was announced in the public media.
I'm reacting to something that has not been published or peer reviewed and I haven't even seen the film - the entire way this has been done has been an injustice to the entire discipline and also to the public.
I think it's a very important point to make - that this is almost a wikipedia form of scholarship. They're presenting it or setting it up as though we have a discovery and you can react and it's all legitimate and valid which it's not.
She is absolutely correct. Her main arguments about peer review and wikipedia form of scholarship are central to the debate on how liberal activists misrepresent science to further their agenda. This is exactly what is being done on fronts such as global warming and embryonic stem cell research. Those who wish to silence debate are afraid to give a voice to those who have a plethora of evidence that calls their claims into question. Thus they collect a group of like minded individuals, shut down discussion and fund research that supports preconceived notions; a perfect unscientific consensus.
But as they say, never let the facts knock you off your agenda - liberalism depends on it.
It is ironic that a film on religion serves so perfectly to demonstrate the underhanded tactics that liberals use to further their agenda. But it does in the sort of perfect circle that is found on a much more spiritual level than many on the left are able to comprehend.

A TV special fails to unearth convincing tale of Jesus' tomb

2007-03-05T16:41:00.000-05:00

Monday, March 05, 2007
By LESLIE PALMA-SIMONCEK
ADVANCE RELIGION EDITOR

http://www.silive.com/living/advance/index.ssf?/base/living/1173100534219690.xml&coll=1

STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- Anyone thinking that a two-hour TV special was going to shake the very foundations of Christianity went to bed disappointed last night.
The Discovery Channel documentary "The Lost Tomb of Jesus" made extraordinary claims -- suggesting that Jesus did not experience a bodily resurrection, as a majority of Christians believe.
The documentary, while plodding and liberally sprinkled with commercials, did provide an interesting look at burial customs of first century Israel and it presented a whole cadre of experts in a variety of fields speculating on the possibilities, many of them tantalizing. But none of the evidence was overwhelmingly convincing.
It's rare to find an issue that unifies Christians across their denominational divides, but the so-called Jesus tomb seems to have accomplished just that.
The most liberal Mainline Protestants to the most passionate evangelical Christians all greeted with deep skepticism the news that a 1980 archaeological dig in Jerusalem unearthed 10 burial boxes, or ossuaries, that contain not only the bones of Jesus, but also those of his presumed wife, Mary Magdalene, and their son, Judah.
DNA tests performed on remains of the box with the inscription "Yeshua, son of Yosef," -- or Jesus, son of Joseph -- and the one marked "Mariamne," a woman believed to be Mary Magdalene, concluded that the two did not share the same mother and thus must have been husband and wife. It was too much of a leap, and a panel discussion after the show, moderated by Ted Koppel, took Israeli-born filmmaker Simcha Jacobovici to task on the point.
The show, produced by James Cameron of "Titanic" fame, built in its own critics, whose certainty that the bones are not that of Jesus seemed more credible than the arguments of those claiming they are. "The Lost Tomb of Jesus" provided some tricky moments for Catholic parents watching with their children.
The filmmakers presented as established fact that Jesus had two sisters and four brothers, and while these siblings are mentioned in the Gospels, Catholic teaching has always held that Jesus' mother Mary remained a virgin throughout her life, and that these siblings were actually cousins.
The very mention of the possibility that Jesus himself could have been married and fathered a child borders on blasphemous for many Christians, although the most liberal denominations have no trouble accepting such a concept.
The documentary tossed a bone or two, if you will, to those who believe that women played a much more prominent role in the early church. In its sometimes hokey dramatizations, Mary Magdalene was shown preaching and teaching, and Jesus' mother Mary also was shown as a powerful leader after Jesus' crucifixion.
But these are not new theories and don't require the bones of Jesus to back them up.
The documentary opened and closed with an invitation for viewers to use their own judgment in deciding whether or not to believe its radical claims, and at a gathering earlier in the day yesterday, 60 people, most of them Episcopalians, already had made up their minds.
"It seems to me people are looking for a secular Jesus," Rosemary Loffredo of Grymes Hill said. "This is all a little annoying."
Ms. Loffredo had come to Canterbury House in Rosebank to hear New Testament scholar Dr. Deirdre Good discuss the non-canonical gospels, accounts of Jesus' life, ministry and teachings that were not included in the Bible.
Dr. Good, whose books include one on Mary Magdalene and a new one called "Jesus' Family Values," sided with the skeptics.
"There are so many problems with the evidence of the tombs," said Dr. Good, citing the inconclusive DNA results and a simplistic statistical analysis of the likelihood of the names of Jesus' family members -- including his parents, Joseph and Mary -- appearing together.
Buy beyond questioning what modern science can discover about a 2,000-year-old family, she said it was unlikely Jesus would have been buried in Jerusalem.
"I don't think this is Jesus' family," Dr. Good said. "Jesus family is in Galilee. If the inscription said Jesus of Nazareth, I would be much more persuaded."
Her audience agreed.
"Ridiculous," said Great Kills resident William MacDonald, a Catholic who holds a divinity degree.
"If you look at the history and the scientific research, it really causes me to doubt the authenticity," said Deacon Geraldine Swanson of the Church of the Ascension in West Brighton.
Dr. Good noted that the season of Lent, when even the most lapsed Christians draw closer, if fleetingly, to their faith, is often when the most radical theories are proposed. Last year's explosive Lenten discovery was the Gospel of Judas, which initially seemed to suggest that the disciple who sold Jesus out to the authorities was not the villain of the Easter story.
The year before that, it was the novel "The Da Vinci Code," which also theorized that Jesus married Mary Magdalene.
"It's all hype," said Ms. Loffredo. "It's all publicity."

Examining the 'Jesus Tomb' Evidence

2007-03-05T16:35:00.000-05:00

By Jay Cost
Mon Mar 5, 11:30 AM ET

http://news.yahoo.com/s/realclearpolitics/20070305/cm_rcp/examining_the_jesus_tomb_evide

I. Introduction
In 1980 an ancient tomb was found in Talpiot, a Jerusalem neighborhood. It contained 10 ossuaries (bone boxes) dated roughly to the time of Jesus of Nazareth. One was inscribed "Jesus son of Joseph," two were inscribed with slightly different versions of "Mary," one with a slightly different version of "Joseph," one with "Matthew," and one with "Judah son of Jesus." Four bore no inscriptions and which went missing. Last night , Simcha Jacobovici, Charles Pellegrino, and James Cameron presented a Discovery Channel documentary that argues that this tomb belongs to Jesus of Nazareth (henceforth just Jesus), whom Christians believe is the resurrected Son of God.
The documentarians' claim is not valid. The Cameron-sponsored Jesus Family Tomb proffers a specious claim based upon bad theory, bad statistics, and bad history. A careful examination of their evidence demands that their claim be rejected.
II. Chemical Evidence?
Several years ago, an ossuary was found, independent of Talpiot that bears the inscription, "James son of Joseph, brother of Jesus." The antiquities dealer behind the "James" ossuary is currently on trial in Israel for running a forgery ring. Nevertheless, many scholars believe that the "James" ossuary is legitimate and that it will be vindicated. This is the position of the documentarians, who further claim that the "James" ossuary is the missing tenth ossuary.
Their evidence is twofold: (1) the size of the "James" ossuary is the size of the ossuary from Talpiot, and (2) the chemical residue, or patina, found on the "James" ossuary is consistent with the chemical residue on the ossuaries from Talpiot.
The second is peculiar. The documentarians claim to have developed a new procedure known as "patina fingerprinting." This shows a high correlation between the patina, or chemical residue, on the "James" ossuary and the patina from Talpiot. They infer from their procedure that they have "matched" the "James" ossuary to the Talpiot tomb. However, the data they provide falls far short of this claim. In their book, they report comparisons of the "James" and Talpiot patinas to eight patinas from other environments. Five of these are, according to the documentarians, not similar to the environment at Talpiot. However, all control samples should have been taken from a similar environment. It is a waste of time to test patinas known to have been from radically different environments than the "James" and Talpiot patinas. This is especially necessary considering that the type of soil at Talpiot - terra rosa - is not uncommon in Jerusalem. Indeed, the only appropriate test is to test patina from all places where terra rosa is known to be. Why waste time and resources on other environments? At least as far as their book goes, the documentarians tests are insufficient to prove that the "James" ossuary came from the Talpiot tomb.
In addition, one cannot in a single trial (a) test the validity of a new methodology and (b) apply it. How do we know the method is valid? It proved the two patinas to be similar. How do we know the two patinas are similar? The method proved it. This is circular, which is why the documentarians first must show that the "fingerprint" correctly identifies all sorts of items whose origins are known.
Generally, their reported results are far from convincing. There is nothing but anecdotal recounting, not the sort of systematic presentation of evidence required to make the claim they do. Furthermore, it is inappropriate to announce results like this to the general public, which lacks the expertise to evaluate the claim, without first having it thoroughly vetted by scholars and experts.
Thus, the documentarians only show that the "James" ossuary could be from this tomb. Beyond that, theirs is an argument from silence. Unfortunately for them, the record is not silent. Consider:
i. The Talpiot tomb was discovered in 1980. Just last month, a photograph dated prior to 1980 emerged that clearly shows the "James" ossuary.
ii. The earliest tradition regarding James indicates that he was buried near the Temple Mount, some distance from Talpiot.
iii. Ben Witherington, one of the principal scholars of the "James" ossuary, has statedthat the soil within the "James" ossuary does not correspond to the soil at Talpiot. Rather, it corresponds to an area that is consistent with the original tradition regarding the burial site of James.
iv. Two of the original archaeologists of the Talpiot tomb - Amos Kloner and Joe Zias - claim in no uncertain terms that the "James" ossuary is not the tenth missing ossuary. Instead, they say, the missing tenth was bereft of all inscriptions, names or otherwise.
v. Amos Kloner also claims that the tenth ossuary is a different size than the "James" ossuary.
vi. The documentarians largely rely upon Kloner's initial research into the ossuaries found at Talpiot, except when he disagrees with their thesis about the "James" ossuary. One cannot variably accept and reject a source based upon how well it supports one's claim.
III. Statistical Evidence?
The documentarians offer statistical analysis proving beyond a doubt - a 599 in 600 chance, they claim - that this particular tomb was Jesus'.
In actuality, this number is merely the reworked probability that any set of four people from the time will have four names - "Jesus son of Joseph," "Joseph," "Mary" and "Mary." It does not speak to the probability that this tomb was Jesus'.
Even so, it could, in theory, be helpful for indicating the number of candidates for this tomb who are as "qualified" as Jesus. Unfortunately, the theory upon which the calculation is based is hopelessly misguided. There are three major problems with it. (1) As I shall make clear later, there is no reason to include the second Mary in the calculation; and (2) this is a multi-generational tomb that could contain, according to New Testament scholar Richard Bauckham, up to 35 people. Thus, if one is interested in finding the population of people who are at least as likely as Jesus to be in this tomb, one must find the number of people named "Jesus son of Joseph" who would have at least two family members, out of 34, whose names correspond to the six names in the tomb. Finally, (3) it treats the incidences of "Jesus son of Joseph" and "Joseph" as independent events, which is not appropriate; the observation of one increases the likelihood of observing the other. The same also for the incidences of "Mary," which are not independent.
When these factors are considered, the following is clear: Virtually everybody named "Jesus son of Joseph" is as good a candidate for this tomb as Jesus. And, for that matter, a strong majority would be a better candidate. For instance, more than 97% of all people named "Jesus son of Joseph" would be expected to have at least two women named Mary among 34 relatives. When we factor all of the different ways to combine the five names in this tomb, we can be sure that this tomb could belong to anybody named "Jesus son of Joseph" -- at least 141 people from the time period. This, in turn, means that a majority would be a better candidate for burial because they would have more names than Jesus.
Can we actually derive a probability that this is Jesus' tomb? We can, if we consider the tomb in light of the historical record. It is relevant on two points.
First, it seems highly unlikely that Jesus would be a candidate for burial in this tomb. This is the case for at least six reasons.
i. Few scholars - including those who think Jesus was not bodily resurrected - believe that he was buried at all. There is good reason for this. The earliest testimony indicates that the tomb was empty. Later testimony is consistent with this. This testimony further indicates that all parties - the Romans, the Jewish temple authority, the Christians - agreed that the body had gone missing.
ii. Even if we assume that Jesus was buried, it is exceedingly unlikely that he would be buried in or around Jerusalem. Everybody had an interest in finding his body. It would have been a prize "get" for early Christian opponents - who were of course centered in Jerusalem - to produce it. How did they miss it when it was so close by? One would expect the Jesus family tomb, if it did exist, to be either in the north (the family's first century A.D. home), or in the south (the family's ancestral home). There is no reason to expect it to be in or near Jerusalem. Indeed, one of the contributing experts on this documentary, Professor James Tabor, the only one with academic credentials in New Testament studies affiliated with this documentary, just last year publisheda work asserting that Jesus was buried in Galilee.
iii. This pictureof the exterior of the tomb shows that it is ornately decorated. This tomb is not secretive. It is not possible to bury a person outside, but the Jesus in this tomb comes close. Again - how could Jesus, the production of whose body would have saved certain authorities many headaches, not have been unearthed from this tomb prior to 1980?
iv. Jesus' was a lower-class family from Galilee. Where did they acquire the resources to purchase what the original investigators call a tomb for a middle-class family?
v. The ossuary in question is unadorned. It bears only chicken-scratch writing that simply says, "Jesus son of Joseph." Most scholars consider Jesus minimally to have been a teacher, probably a healer, with a devoted following. Would his followers have treated him so shabbily in his internment, considering how much care was taken to anoint the body? Meanwhile, other ossuaries found at Talpiot are well-adorned, with names not so carelessly scratched into decorated ossuaries. Why would his followers give a more "worthy" box to others?
vi. The name on the ossuary, "Jesus son of Joseph," was not how followers addressed Jesus. As a matter of fact, this is what Jesus' opponents called him.
Second, the tomb includes people who, at least according to the historical record, should not be there and it lacks people who should be there.
There is no historical evidence of any kind that indicates that Jesus had a son named Judah or a close relative named Matthew. Actually, Jesus had two ancestors named Matthew. If we follow the genealogies in the Gospels Matthew and Luke, two great-grandfathers were named Matthew, but they would either have been buried in the north or the south. Interestingly, he did have a maternal aunt named Mary. However, the documentarians conducted mitochondrial DNA testing on remains from the "Jesus son of Joseph" ossuary and the second "Mary" ossuary. They found that the two are not matrilineally related. Thus, their hypothesis - that this is Jesus' family tomb - fails to account for three of the six ossuaries.
The documentarians argue that the specific spelling of the second "Mary" ossuary is consistent with a spelling of Mary Magdalene's name found only in the so-called "Acts of Philip," an apocryphal document produced sometime in the fourth century. Thus, they infer, she was his wife. However, the use of this document is not valid as an estimator of Mary's name. It was written some 200 years after she would have expired. How would the author of this know what she would have been called by her contemporaries? If he did know, why would prior writers - temporally closer to Mary - not use the same name? And, furthermore, while a few fringe scholars have suggested that Jesus and Mary were married, the overwhelming majority reject the thesis. Thus, one must conclude that the second "Mary" ossuary is a surprise.
Meanwhile, what about those who are missing? Where is his father Joseph? Where are his brothers, James, Simon and Jude? Where are his sisters? Where is his aunt? Of at least 9 people known to have been in Jesus' family, we only have three ossuaries. The "1 in 600" figure supposedly takes into account the missing names. The documentarians increase the base likelihood - 1 in 2.4 million - by a factor of four to account for what they call "unintentional biases" in the historical record. This is an ad hoc, insufficient, and inappropriate way to deal with the fact that 75% of his known family is missing. What is more, the extent to which this changes the probability is more than lost by the fact that they have included the second Mary in their analysis (which lowers the probability by a factor of 160). At any rate, there is a proper way to deal with the absence of six family members, and this is not it.
All of this contrary historical evidence has the potential to create a major problem for the documentarians. To see this, let us calculate the probability that this is Jesus' tomb with all of the information - for and against - now laid out.
We will use Bayes' theorem, which is a way to calculate the probability of a former event occurring (in this case the burial of Jesus in this ossuary) based upon the occurrence, or non-occurrence, of a latter event (in this case, the burial of the others in this tomb).
This is technical but bear with me. The documentarians take advantage, intentional or not, of the fact that the public does not understand statistics. Statistics themselves do not lie. They are only misused, which is what has happened here. To put things right, Bayes' theorem states:
Probability that this is Jesus' ossuary, given the other names equals
Probability that this is Jesus' ossuary multiplied by
Probability of finding the other names, given that this is Jesus' ossuary divided by
Probability of finding the other names.
It should be clear that the documentarians offer nothing approaching this. Their figure, 1 in 600, does not speak to any of these factors.
Examine the equation in light of our discussion of the historical record. Suppose that we found Jesus' ossuary in a tomb. What is the probability, based upon what we know about Jesus from the historical record, that he would be buried with these people? It is zero. There is no reason, independent of the tomb, to expect a Matthew, a son named Judah, or a second Mary. There is reason to expect at least six other names. Thus, the third term drops to 0. And, accordingly, the probability that this is Jesus drops to 0.
Now consider the probability that this is Jesus' ossuary, which is the probability that an ossuary found in this environment inscribed "Jesus son of Joseph" would belong Jesus. This term is 0, too. There is no reason, independent of the tomb, to expect him to have been buried at all -- buried in Jerusalem; buried in a middle class, ornamented tomb; and buried in an unadorned ossuary with this inscription. Hence, the second term drops to 0, too.
It is idle for the documentarians to speculate that it is possible for Jesus to have been buried in this tomb with these people. Such speculation has virtually no affect on the final result. Let us allow a 1% probability that he might be a candidate for burial in Jerusalem (in a tomb like this, etc.), and a 1% probability that he might be a candidate for burial with these strangers. Thus, we allow that it is possible that the historical record contains grievous and systematic errors that nobody has identified in nearly 2,000 years of digging, studying and reflecting. However - as they have no evidence to indicate that this is true - we assign a probability that is consistent with saying, "Anything is possible." With these allowances, we can say that the probability that this is Jesus is 1 in 1.4 million.
This probability is so low because it is unlikely that (a) Jesus would ever be found (b) especially with these five strangers. The probability that a given ossuary inscribed "Jesus son of Joseph" is Jesus' at all, which - even when we spot them a 1% chance that Jesus could be among the possible contenders for it - is only 1 in 14,100. What is more, when we spot them 1% that Jesus could be with these five people, the chances that Jesus' tomb could contain these five names is still only 1 in 57 million
Thus, I would assign a 1 in 1.4 million chance that this tomb belonged to Jesus. These odds are a little better than the odds that I will die in a tractor accident this year.
IV. Conclusion
Scientific method demands a careful, systematic weighing of all the evidence, for and against. The documentarians have not done this. They have systematically ignored the unfavorable evidence: (1) they ignored those who should not be in the tomb, (2) they did not properly consider those who should be in the tomb; (3) they ignored the strong likelihood that Jesus could not be buried in the tomb. Their method is essentially, "Evidence that favors the theory is included. The rest is excluded."
This is how a freak accident becomes a sure thing.
What they offer here is not science, but pseudo-science -- polemic dressed in scientific language. Numbers and "tests" are trotted out, but only for the sake of appearance. The hypothesis is never actually in danger because the falsifying evidence is excised before the evaluation begins. In other words, the rules of the game are: heads they win, tails you lose. The game was rigged from the start.

'Lost Tomb of Jesus' is old news, scholars say

2007-03-03T19:53:00.000-05:00

By Peter Smith
psmith@courier-journal.com
The Courier-Journal

http://www.courier-journal.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070303/NEWS01/703030464/1008

For three decades, Joseph Trafton has been studying artifacts like the Dead Sea Scrolls, and he keeps up on what has been dug up in the Holy Land.
So the Western Kentucky University professor was amazed at this week's breathless news reports on something scholars had known about for years -- a tomb near Jerusalem containing burial boxes engraved with names that appear to include Jesus, Mary and Joseph.
The uproar stems from a new documentary, "The Lost Tomb of Jesus," which airs tomorrow night on the Discovery Channel -- and makes claims that challenge the traditional Christian belief in the Resurrection.
But Trafton notes that most archaeologists have largely rejected the claims.
The names Jesus, Joseph and Mary were common among ancient Jews, for example, and finding them in an ancient tomb is like going to Cave Hill Cemetery and seeing names like "John" and "Smith," said Joel Drinkard, professor of Old Testament, Hebrew and archaeology at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville.
Drinkard, who directs the seminary's museum of biblical-era artifacts, has been on his share of archaeological digs in the Middle East. The painstaking work of archaeologists, he said, is to sort through often ordinary artifacts and slowly build a picture of what life was like then.
"We have a culture in America that likes the sensational," Drinkard said. "The Indiana Jones-type movies are wonderful as thrillers, but they're horrible at showing archaeology as it really is."
Even so, Trafton and other religion scholars say their field gets a boost from media extravaganzas announcing new or not-so-new claims.
Before this latest documentary produced by Oscar-winning director James Cameron, there was the long-lost "Gospel of Judas." There was a burial box allegedly linked to Jesus' brother James. And there were claims in "The Da Vinci Code" of a church conspiracy to hide Jesus' true life as a mortal who married and had a family.
"These kinds of claims and specials and books can make a connection that most of us academics fail at," said Roy Fuller, who teaches at Indiana University Southeast and other area schools.
Students in his classes brought up the news of Cameron's announcement on Monday. "They wanted to know what was going on," he said.
Fuller, who lectured to a packed house at the Speed Art Museum last year before the release of "The Da Vinci Code" movie, seizes upon such events as "opportunities" to teach people about what scholars really think.
So does Ben Witherington III, a professor at Asbury Theological Seminary in Wilmore, Ky., who has written books on "The Da Vinci Code" and the burial box linked to James.
He believes that some people making such claims want to disprove, or prove, a biblical account, and that many people are quick to believe them because they know little about the biblical era and how historians weigh evidence.
Fuller agreed, although he would argue that the daring claims are not always so daring.
For example, if Jesus were married, as suggested in "The Da Vinci Code" and "The Lost Tomb of Jesus," that wouldn't necessarily contradict his divinity.
And while belief in Jesus' physical resurrection is widespread among Christians, Fuller said, the Cameron program provides an opportunity to teach people about another viewpoint -- that Jesus rose from the dead spiritually but not physically.
"Let's suppose for a moment that we could prove there's a tomb for Jesus somewhere and bones in an ossuary," he said. "For some Christians that would be heresy and blasphemy and wrong, and for others I don't think it's going to be a big shock. They have a faith that doesn't necessarily depend on that."
While some Gospel passages indicate a spiritual resurrection, Drinkard said, "putting all of the texts together, I just hold to that more traditional understanding of a physical resurrection."
Tomorrow's documentary claims it is almost statistically certain that the names of the people in the tomb that's been found were part of Jesus' family -- with added hints that perhaps the son of a married Jesus and Mary Magdalene is included.
"My job is not to prove anything, my job is to report," documentary director Simcha Jacobovici said in a promotional video. "… It's a hot story. It's not about an Egyptian mummy. It's Jesus of Nazareth."
The tomb yielded several ossuaries, or boxes in which ancient Jews interred bones after the flesh of a deceased person decayed.
But the documentary's claims have been met with widespread scorn from scholars.
"It is a good example of a first-century tomb" -- and that's about all, Drinkard said.
When the tomb was first discovered years ago, he said, it "may have gotten a brief notice in one of the journals somewhere, but no more attention until someone comes along and says, 'Here's a way I can sensationalize it.' I don't think it's accidental it comes just as we're leading up to Easter."

Bible scholar finds claims of 'Jesus tomb' implausible

2007-03-03T19:50:00.000-05:00

Author will discuss claims in new documentary during her lecture at St. John's Episcopal Church
Saturday, March 03, 2007
By LESLIE PALMA-SIMONCEK ADVANCE STAFF WRITER

http://www.silive.com/living/advance/index.ssf?/base/living/1172914215323720.xml&coll=1

STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- New Testament scholar Dr. Deirdre Good finds it "implausible" that the so-called "Jesus tomb" is authentic.
Dr. Good will be at St. John's Episcopal Church in Rosebank tomorrow to discuss the gospels that were not included in the Bible, but with the claim -- widely circulated this week and the subject of a televised documentary tomorrow night -- that 10 ossuaries found in 1980 in Jerusalem may have contained the bones of Jesus, Mary Magdalene and their son, she expects a lively discussion about the find as well.
"I think it will be very interesting to people," said Dr. Good, a professor at General Theological Seminary in Manhattan and the author of "Mariam, the Magdalen and the Mother." Copies of her latest book, "Jesus' Family Values," will be available at St. John's tomorrow.
Her talk is being sponsored by the Richmond Inter-Parish Council of the Episcopal Church.
Dr. Good said she is "not opposed to considering" the possibility that Jesus was married, had a son and did not experience a bodily resurrection.
"But it just seems to me there are too many loopholes," she added.
Dr. Good said the DNA and statistical evidence is unconvincing, and the names of the people identified in six of the 10 ossuaries are so common as to prove nothing definitively.
"We know that generations are buried in that tomb," she said. Finding an inscription for the "'son of Yeshua' doesn't compel us to think of Jesus of Nazareth."
The tomb's location in Jerusalem is also problematic, she said.
"As far as we know, Jesus and his family lived most of the time in Galilee," she said. Also, according to Scripture, Jesus was buried in a borrowed tomb.
"Having a tomb is an indication of a family that seems to have been a little bit better off," than evidence suggests of Jesus' family.
Leading archaeologists in Israel and the United States on Tuesday denounced the purported discovery of the tomb as a publicity stunt and Christians of all denominations have blasted it as just another example of Christian-bashing.
"Not a Lenten season goes by without some author or TV program seeking to cast doubt on the divinity of Jesus and/or the resurrection," said William Donohue of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights.
Dr. Good's talk tomorrow is open to the public. "The Lost Tomb of Jesus" will be shown tomorrow night at 9 on the Discovery Channel.

Professor critiques film on purported Jesus tomb

2007-03-03T19:37:00.000-05:00

10:22 AM CST on Saturday, March 3, 2007

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/religion/arts/stories/DN-relq&abock_03met.ART.East.Edition1.44671e7.html

A remarkable announcement came from a news conference in New York on Monday: A team of archaeologists, theologians and filmmaker James Cameron (Titanic) claimed that they had found evidence that a tomb in Jerusalem might have held the bones of Jesus and his family.
Mr. Cameron produced a documentary laying out the hypothesis; it's slated to premiere Sunday on the Discovery Channel.
The announcement is the latest in a series of pop culture challenges to mainstream Christian teachings. They include the fictional Da Vinci Code, the "lost gospel" of Judas, the "James ossuary" that supposedly held the bones of Jesus' brother, and the tale of the "Jesus Dynasty."
Whether or not the latest claim is true – and many scholars spent the rest of the week challenging that – it's still remarkable. It's also remarkable that most of the scholars critiquing the premise had not seen the documentary.
One exception was Darrell Bock, a professor at Dallas Theological Seminary and author of The Missing Gospels: Unearthing the Truth Behind Alternative Christianities. He was asked by a public relations agency two weeks ago to review the documentary for the Discovery Channel. He spoke with staff writer Jeffrey Weiss this week about what he thought of it. Here are excerpts:
What did you think when you saw it?
I thought to myself, "You have no idea how many people you've offended or how many problems there are with it."
What kinds of problems?
The show is filled with assumption after assumption, and "perhaps" goes to "is" very quickly.
How did the Discovery Channel react to your critique?
Their attitude has consistently been "let the discussion go forward and the hypothesis play itself out."
You're a conservative Christian scholar who believes the New Testament account of Jesus' resurrection, so your reaction couldn't have surprised network officials. What did you suggest to them?
I told them to be sure that the other side is out there. Set up a Web site where the other side is represented. Make sure both sides get a full airing.
What would you suggest for viewers of the show or readers of the book?
Look at the discussion from both sides. I don't think you'll need rocket science to figure this out.
What should discerning viewers look for?
I compare it to a slide show, with 20 slides. There's a hypothesis on every one, and every one needs to line up the same way for it to work.
What does the hoopla say about American culture?
All of this shows a lot of gullibility. Hopefully, we as a society are more discerning than that. We need to be more realistic about the hard edges of life.
Dr. Bock's full analysis of the documentary can be found at dev.bible.org/bock.

Says Scholar Whose Work Was Used in the Upcoming Jesus Tomb Documentary: "I think it's completely mishandled. I am angry."

2007-03-03T19:28:00.000-05:00

http://blog.sciam.com/index.php?title=says_scholar_whose_work_was_used_in_the_&more=1&c=1&tb=1&pb=1

In researching our special report on the upcoming Jesus Tomb documentary, fronted by James Cameron (of Titanic fame), I encountered more than a few angry scholars and archaeologists.
Of special note was Tal Ilan, whose Lexicon of Jewish Names was essential to the statistical calculation made by Andrey Feuerverger, the U. of Toronto professor of statistics and mathematics who is quoted in the documentary as saying that the odds that any family other than that of the historical Jesus family would have the same names as that family, and be buried in the Tomb the documentary covers, are 600 to 1. In other words, that number argues, the odds are slim that this isn't the tomb of Jesus.
You'd be forgiven for finding such claims far-fetched, and with the exception of the historian, James Tabor, who was consulted for the film, the professionals in the field appear to find these claims no less incredible.
In an interview I conducted this morning, the scholar Tal Ilan, without whose work these calculations would have been impossible, expressed outrage over the film and its use of her work--she's the source of the quotation in the headline of this post.
Jodi Magness, a professor of archaeology and Jewish history of that period at UNC Chapel Hill, had this to say in an interview conducted yesterday:

Let me tell you what I think. So first of all if you're writing for Scientific
American, so it's important to point out that this debate is taking place in a
most unscientific of manners.
Archaeology is a scientific and academic
discipline and there are proper fora for these discussions--if you're a scholar
and you have something you want to present to the larger world, there are proper
ways of doing that, specifically publishing papers in peer reviewed journals or
at meetings, so your colleageus can respond to it.
If after that you can go
ahead and announce that and people can say "Well I've responded to this," then
that's fine. But I've been slammed with [interviews for] this now - it was
announced in the public media.
I'm reacting to something that has not been
published or peer reviewed and I haven't even seen the film - the entire way
this has been done has been an injustice to the entire discipline and also to
the public.
I think it's a very important point to make - that this is almost
a wikipedia form of scholarship. They're presenting it or setting it up as
though we have a discovery and you can react and it's all legitimate and valid
which it's not.

I also spoke to James Tabor, the biblical historian who consulted on the documentary who has, by his own account, excavated over 500 tombs in Jerusalem. He was very sure of himself and was quite knowledgeable, even though some of what he said is obviously still up for debate, judging by how many of his peers have directly contradicted some of the things he has said publicly.
In Tabor's defense, I will say that though he is in many respects the nexus of the debate on this documentary, at least scientifically, the credit (or blame) probably can't be laid at his feet. This project was put together by Simcha Jacobovici, a filmmaker and investigative journalism. The reason all this data was ever synthesized at all is probably largely, or even entirely, due to his efforts.
When I asked Tabor why this was brought into the public eye in the form of a documentary and not in peer-reviewed journals, he said this:

I could publish something on the names and someone else on the stats and the DNA
and over 4 or 5 years you could finally have enough scholarly articles to see
what's going on. I couldn't do that myself, I could do something on the names
and the history, one article, then I would need someone else to do the
statistics article and a DNA report and on and on.
Now that it's come out,
gibson (shimon) and I are going to write a comprehensive academic article on the
question. It's like the dead sea scrolls and so much came out and over 50 years,
and people sorted it out slowly.
Another thing I'd say in Simcha's defense,
he felt for 10 years this was important (it surfaced in 96) everyone said it's
not important. He felt if anyone was going to do it, then they should do it, but
they were all dismissing it.
He's a facilitator - no one had ever contacted a
statistician or a DNA person. There's a sense in which one reason he did this is
that I wasn't thinking of doing this, and the DNA guy wasn't thinking about
it--it almost needed a single person to say "This is what I want to do." Then it
just began to skyrocket because Cameron came in and it became high profile and
that gave us the budget. If we were just talking about one subject, the names,
then I think it would be correct that we would not say let's have a documentary
on that - we'd publish first.
The publicity of its all then was then picked
up by Discovery, but that's their decision - they've taken a lot of heat for it.
I don't want to be critical of that--I'm not paid by them in any way. I and
about 4 other people were brought in as consultants - shimon gibson for
archaeolgoy, me for history etc. Nobody was paid - they paid our expenses, but
no stipends and we have no stake in the film.

Finally, Carney Matheson, whose titles include everything from mortuary archaeologist to forensic examiner, conducted the DNA examination the film cites. Basically, the filmmakers scraped a tiny amount of biological material out of the ossuary (or bone box) labeled Jesus, and a tiny amount out of the one that they think belonged to Mary Magdalene. Matheson then sequenced the mitochondrial DNA in both samples in order to establish that whoever those two boxes once contained was not related on their mother's side--in other words, they're not family. It's a negative result that doesn't say much (and it begs the question - if you were gathering material for testing, why not test the boxes that you believed belonged to related people, such as Jesus and his mother, as well?)
Matheson had this to say:

The only conclusions we made was that these two sets were not maternally
related. To me it sounds like absolutely nothing.

So the experts have weighed in--but don't expect that to end the spotlight on this controversy any time soon. Even if scholars conclude the whole thing is bunk, I have a feeling this will become a permanent part of the our culture's conspiracy lore, like the JFK conspiracy, the staging of the moon landing, the Turin Shroud, and all the rest before it.

The DNA of Jesus? Don’t be so sure, Mr Cameron

2007-03-02T11:49:00.000-05:00

By James Morgan | The Herald

http://www.theherald.co.uk/features/features/display.var.1226604.0.0.php

It doesn't get bigger than this," said Titanic director James Cameron, standing in front of a 2000-year-old stone box which he claimed contained the remains of Jesus Christ.

JC had found JC. And he had "DNA evidence" to prove it. Not only that, he had next to him a professor of statistics who had calculated that the odds of it being Jesus were 600-1 on.

The box was one of 10 found in 1980 in a cave known as the Talpiot tomb. Five of the boxes were inscribed with names including Jesus, Mary, Joseph and Mary Magdalene.

After being approached by the makers of a new film called The Lost Tomb of Christ - of which Cameron is executive producer - Dr Andrey Feuerverger, a mathematician at the University of Toronto, performed a controversial statistical analysis. He examined how often these names appeared in the first century BC and considered the possible number of tombs that might have existed in Jerusalem during that time, a figure he put at 1000.

His conclusion? "Taking into account the chances that these names would be clustered together in a family tomb the odds on the most conservative basis are 600 to one in favour of this being the Jesus family tomb." In other words, he said, the chances of the tomb not being that of Jesus's family were 600 to one.

It sounds impressive. But when I put the figures to a respected independent statistician, he wasn't so sure. "The figure of 600 to one is highly misleading," says Colin Aitken, professor of forensic statistics at Edinburgh University. "The calculation is based on a number of assumptions. The first is that there is a tomb of Jesus. For many people, including Christians, that's a non-starter. Then are we assuming that Jesus and his whole family lived their entire lives and died in Jerusalem? And the figure of 1000 graves doesn't seem very many.

"Furthermore, even if we accept the assumptions, 600 to one is certainly not the odds in favour of this tomb being Jesus," adds Aitken. "To explain why not, let me give you a criminal analogy. If you went to a crime scene, found a DNA sample, and then found a suspect whose DNA was a one in 600 chance of a match, it would not follow that the odds were 600 to one on them being guilty."

So what, if anything, does this 600 figure mean? "If you accept the assumptions, the 600 figure simply means the probability that the tomb belongs to Jesus is now 600 times more likely than it was before. But, given the odds before were probably minuscule, to multiply it by 600 doesn't make it particularly likely."

Still, let's suppose for a moment that the odds are correct and that, no matter how unlikely, this is in fact the tomb of Jesus. Do we now have a sample of the DNA of Christ?

After performing a DNA test on residue taken from the tombs, a laboratory in Ontario concluded that the bodies in two ossaries marked "Jesus" and "Mary Magdalene" were not related on their mother's side. From this, the film-makers deduce Jesus and Mary Magdalene were a couple, because otherwise they would not have been buried together in a family tomb. But not only does that contradict one of the central tenets of Christian belief; it is scientifically implausible, according to one of the world's leading experts in ancient DNA.

Dr Ian Barnes of Royal Holloway, University of London, says: "DNA degrades over time. At high temperatures, it degrades even faster. I've worked in the Middle East we did not have any success even a few hundred years back, let alone 2000 years.

"What worries me most is that the sample they took was not from bones. That may be acceptable in a criminal investigation, where the crime scene is only a few years old, but this is a 2000-year-old tomb. The potential for contamination is clearly enormous. It is highly possible that the DNA belongs to someone who excavated the tomb, or even someone in the lab carrying out the tests. That to me would seem far more likely.

"Most disappointing of all, we still don't know who Jesus's father is, because they didn't test his Y chromosome. Was it God or the Holy Spirit? I for one am very disappointed."

Biblical scholars reject filmmakers' claim about tomb of Jesus

2007-03-02T11:46:00.000-05:00

By Judith Sudilovsky

http://www.the-tidings.com/2007/030207/tomb_text.htm

Catholic biblical scholars and an Israeli archaeologist rejected filmmakers' claim that a tomb uncovered nearly 30 years ago in Jerusalem is the burial site of Jesus and his family.

Dominican Father Jerome Murphy-O'Connor, a biblical archaeologist and expert in the New Testament at the French Biblical and Archaeological School of Jerusalem who was interviewed for the film two years ago, said he did not believe there was any truth to the claim.

"It is a commercial ploy that all the media is playing into," he told Catholic News Service Feb. 27.

Amos Kloner, an Israeli archaeologist who wrote the original excavation report on the site for the predecessor of the Israel Antiquities Authority, called the claim "nonsense."

"In their movie they are billing it as 'never before reported information,' but it is not new. I published all the details in the Antiqot journal in 1996, and I didn't say it was the tomb of Jesus' family," said Kloner, now a professor of archaeology at Israel's Bar-Ilan University.

"I think it is very unserious work. I do scholarly work ... based on other studies," he said.

Toronto filmmaker Simcha Jacobovici and Oscar-winning Canadian director James Cameron announced at a press conference in New York City Feb. 26 that by using new technology and DNA studies they have determined that among the 10 ossuaries --- burial boxes used in biblical times to house the bones of the dead --- found in the cave by Kloner in 1980 are those of Jesus, his brothers, Mary, another Mary whom they believe is Mary Magdalene, and "Judah, son of Jesus."

The documentary film by Jacobovici and Cameron is to be aired on the Discovery Channel March 4 and in Canada March 6 on Vision TV. A book on the topic, written by Jacobovici and Charles Pellegrino and published by HarperCollins, is to go on sale Feb. 27.

Father Murphy-O'Connor said the names found on the ossuaries "are a combination of very common names."

"Fifty percent of all Jewish women in the first century were called either Mary or Salome. It doesn't mean much at all," he said. "You can prove anything with statistics."

The DNA tests could "only prove that they are human" but "certainly did not prove" any familial connection, he said.

Father Murphy-O'Connor noted that Kloner had written about the findings a decade ago, and though it was all out in the public domain nobody had been interested.

According to press reports, the filmmakers said they had worked on the project with world-renowned scientists, including DNA specialists, archaeologists and statisticians. They said the ossuaries were not identified as belonging to Jesus' family when they were first discovered because the archaeologists at the time did not have the knowledge and scientific tools that now exist.

But Kloner noted that Jesus' family was from Galilee and had no ties to Jerusalem, casting serious doubt that they would have had a burial cave in Jerusalem. He added that the names on the ossuaries were common during that time and their discovery in the same cave is purely coincidental.

He said the tomb belonged to a middle- or upper-middle-class Jewish family during the first century and the cave was in use for 70-100 years by the family.

Other books, films and articles about the tomb, including a full-page feature in London's The Sunday Times, a British Broadcasting Corp. documentary film and a book called "The Jesus Dynasty" by James D. Tabor, have been published and produced on the topic in the years since the tomb's discovery.

At the New York press conference, Jacobovici said he thought the so-called "James ossuary," purported by its owner, Oded Golan, to have belonged to James, the brother of Jesus, was also from the tomb, and he cited a forensic technique used to determine this.

He did not mention that in 2003 the Israel Antiquities Authority declared the inscription on the James ossuary a forgery or that Golan is currently on trial for forging part of the inscription.

Basilian Father Thomas Rosica, a biblical scholar and head of Toronto's Salt and Light Catholic Media Foundation, said this latest film shows that "self-proclaimed experts" have learned nothing from the James ossuary incident.

"One would think that we learned some powerful lessons from the media hype surrounding the James ossuary several years ago, and how important public institutions like the ROM (Royal Ontario Museum of Toronto) were duped in their hosting such fraudulent works," he said.

Father Rosica said: "Why did the so-called archaeologists of this latest scoop wait 27 years before doing anything about the discovery? James Cameron is far better off making movies about the Titanic rather than dabbling in areas of religious history of which he knows nothing."

A spokeswoman for the Israel Antiquities Authority said two of the ossuaries had been loaned to the filmmakers for their press conference as is customary for such requests for exhibiting antiquities as long as certain conditions are met. The loan was made in the name of freedom of expression and creativity, she said, and did not mean the authority supported their claims.

She said one of the Mary ossuaries has been on display for many years at Jerusalem's Israel Museum; the Judah ossuary is on display in Fort Lauderdale, Fla.; two ossuaries are currently with the filmmakers; and the other six are in the authority's warehouse just outside Jerusalem.

Claims swirl around 'tomb of Jesus'

2007-03-02T11:40:00.000-05:00

Archaeologists and scholars challenge the evidence from a TV documentary that would challenge Christianity's foundations.

By Jane Lampman | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0301/p13s02-lire.htm

The makers of a new TV documentary claim to have uncovered the biggest archaeological story of the century – the tomb of Jesus and Mary Magdalene. But several archaeologists and biblical scholars challenge the evidence. One calls it "much ado about nothing much."

In resurrecting the theme of "The Da Vinci Code," the Discovery Channel film plays into the public fascination and controversy over Jesus and legends surrounding his life. The producers fed that fascination at a New York news conference this week by unveiling two limestone ossuaries on loan from the Israel Antiquities Authority said to contain residue from the pair's remains,

"The Lost Tomb of Jesus" will air Sunday, March 4, on the Discovery Channel. It is the work of Oscar- winning filmmaker James Cameron ("Titanic") and fellow Canadian Simcha Jacobovici, an Israeli-born film director.

The tomb at the center of the story was actually discovered in 1980 in Jerusalem's Talpiot neighborhood. (The BBC covered it in a documentary in 1996.) The filmmakers assert that it is the tomb of Jesus' family. The crypt contained 10 ossuaries, six of them with inscriptions. Four of them reportedly read "Jesus son of Joseph," two names for Mary, and "Judah the son of Jesus."

If the evidence proved convincing, it would represent a challenge to the New Testament and the foundations of Christianity.

Mr. Jacobovici, an Emmy Award- winning investigative reporter, says in an interview that he learned about the ossuaries three years ago from Israeli archaeologist Amos Kloner while working on another story. But Professor Kloner, who excavated the tomb in 1980, dismissed the inscriptions as insignificant, saying the names were all very common during that period. Yet as a journalist, Jacobovici says, he was intrigued.

During a three-year investigation, he enlisted statisticians, experts in ancient texts and records, archaeologists, and DNA specialists.

What really pushed him along, he says, was determining that one of the Marys represented Mary Magdalene (the other, they posit, is the mother of Jesus). It is the only inscription written in Greek, as "Mariamene." Jacobovici says that a Harvard professor, François Bovon, has determined from a 4th- or 5th-century text, the "Acts of Phillip," that Mariamene is the name for Mary Magdalene.

"Mariamene provided the linchpin, so the second Mary fell into place," Jacobovici says.

The other evidence presented? DNA tests, which determined that the residues in the Jesus and Mariamene ossuaries showed that the two individuals were not related by blood, leading him to deduce they were married. Then Jacobovici commissioned a statistical analysis by an expert at the University of Toronto, who calculated the probability of this combination of names appearing on ossuaries in the same crypt at 600 to 1.

"The tomb is a fact, the names are facts, the DNA relationship is a fact, the statistical studies are facts," insists Jacobovici. "There was enough to say it's time to bring this to the attention of the world and let a scientific, academic, theological debate begin."

And begin it has. While film producer James Cameron calls the evidence "compelling," Professor Kloner himself remains unconvinced.

"It makes a great story for TV, but ... it's nonsense," he told the Jerusalem Post this week. "There is no likelihood that Jesus and his relatives had a family tomb. They were a Galilee family with no Jerusalem ties. The Talpiot tomb belonged to a middle-class family from the 1st century CE [Christian Era]."

He also says that the name, "Jesus son of Joseph," has appeared on at least three or four ossuaries. Others insist that neither Jesus' followers nor his family would have thought of Jesus as the son of Joseph and used that inscription.

"The names are coincidental," says Paul Maier, professor of ancient history at Western Michigan University. "The historian Josephus records 21 Yeshuas [Jesus], and those are people famous enough to be included in his histories. And 25 percent of Jewish women at the time had the name Mary."

He also strongly disputes the equating of Mariamene with Mary Magdalene.

Joe Zias, a former senior curator at the Israel Antiquities Authority, suggests in an e-mail that this is among a list of recent dubious discoveries. He sees "too many people ... on the gravy train without so much as any sentiment for scientific truth."

As for the DNA evidence, critics say the idea captures people's attention today, but there is no DNA evidence related to the historical Jesus. "They simply say they've demonstrated that the two people are not related by DNA," says Ben Witherington, a New Testament expert and author of "What Have They Done With Jesus?" "That proves nothing. There are [many] explanations for why you could have two people in the same extended family tomb that are not related by DNA."

The testing was done on residue in the limestone boxes, since the bones they contained were buried in a cemetery after the tomb was excavated, in line with Jewish custom. DNA tests were not conducted on the other ossuaries, such as the one belonging to "Judah, son of Jesus."

Dr. Witherington also challenges the statistical analysis, charging that it involved a more selective sampling than should have been used. "Another problem is that the majority of the statistics are still in the ground – in ossuaries that haven't been dug up yet." he says. "We can't assume the evidence we have is representative of what is still in the ground."

Jacobovici stands by the analysis, and says the expert, Andrey Feuerverger, has submitted it to a statistical journal for peer review. Apparently unfazed – perhaps even pleased – by all the controversy (the bloggers are in full cry already), he concedes that the evidence "isn't 100 percent."

"All I'm saying is that you have here an interesting tomb, a compelling cluster of names, the DNA doesn't undermine the theory. Hey, world, let's look at this."

The critics have a different take. "It's the same hype that attended 'The Da Vinci Code,' which was plainly fiction. Yet this is cast as fact," says Dr. Maier. "The guy is a showman, an Indiana Jones wannabe."

More ifs and maybes than fact in 'Lost Tomb'

2007-03-02T11:32:00.000-05:00

Published March 1, 2007

http://www.chicagotribune.com/entertainment/ny-etoff015113375mar01,1,1440666.column?coll=chi-entertainmentfront-hed

Weighing in at just two letters, "if" can still be one of the mightiest words in the language, closely followed by "maybe." Give me enough "ifs" and "maybes" and I'll have you believe - or try to anyway - that the moon is a hunk of moldy green cheese, after all.

Mountains of speculation can be perched on these two words and (yes) mischief, too, which sums up "The Lost Tomb of Jesus" (Sunday at 9 p.m. on Discovery Channel).

Already blessed with the holy trinity of controversy, buzz and star power - film director James Cameron bankrolled it - "Lost Tomb" is often fascinating, occasionally impenetrable, and almost totally unconvincing.

Thanks to a brilliant marketing campaign, the documentary's reputation precedes it. The show purports to have located the tomb of Jesus of Nazareth, along with various family members as well as Mary Magdalene and their son, Judah. It's a big claim, and for those not up on their Christian theology, here's why: On the third day after Jesus was crucified, he ascended into heaven where he's seated at the right hand of the Father. That's it - the core of the Christian faith, uncluttered by ifs or maybes. No body was left behind. No brothers (only the Gospel of Mark says otherwise). Certainly no love child. His body was supposed to have been set near a site now occupied by the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.

"Lost Tomb" nukes it all. Based on an archeological find in the East Talpiyot neighborhood of Jerusalem in 1980, "Lost Tomb" rests its claim on a tomb where a handful of ossuaries - small limestone coffins - bore the Aramaic inscriptions Jesus, Son of Joseph, Maria, Matthew, "Jose" - presumably a nickname for Jesus' brother - and in Greek, "Miriamene" for Mary Magdalene.

Some experts say the inscriptions look real, and then the conga line of ifs and maybes begins.

This elaborate edifice is built by Simcha Jacobovici, a well-known Canadian TV personality and anchor of History Channel's "The Naked Archeologist." As a TV type, he's quite amusing: With a knit cap and bushy mane, he's clearly smart, eccentric, and so enamored by the most Important Find in History that he brooks no opposition. Just 15 seconds are given to some doubting Thomases.

Why? You'll just have to read some newspaper stories to find out. Amos Kloner, the Jerusalem District archeologist who worked on the tomb back in 1980, was quoted in the Jerusalem Post this week saying the documentary's claims are "nonsense" and he's not the only one. Among the many objections, "Jesus" and "Mary" were common names, and if Jesus was poor and from Nazareth, then what was he doing in a wealthy family tomb in Jerusalem?

Most troublesome, though, is Jacobovici's assertions about the reputed ossuary holding the remains of James, another reputed brother of Jesus. "Tomb" argues that James was also buried in the family tomb, except that his ossuary was missing from the tomb back in 1980. Through forensic analysis, "Tomb" argues that a "James ossuary" owned by an Israeli antiques dealer named Oded Golan was originally there. If so, then the odds are overwhelmingly in favor of this being the family tomb - or so says "Tomb."

Unfortunately for "Lost Tomb of Jesus," Golan was arrested four years ago and he's currently on trial in Israel for forging the name "James" on the ossuary. A red flag? Not to Jacobovici or his willfully gullible supporters.

I could go on, but why bother? If "The Lost Tomb" had been prepared to consider all the evidence - pro and con - then maybe this might be a more compelling theory. (Discovery has scheduled a Ted Koppel-hosted discussion on the subject to follow "Tomb" at 11 p.m.)

Or, maybe no theory at all.

UNH expert urging caution about Jesus tomb

2007-03-02T11:17:00.000-05:00

By MALLORY SCHAFER
Democrat Staff Writer
Article published Mar 2, 2007

http://www.fosters.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070302/FOSTERS01/103020188

DURHAM — A local scholar cautions against making quick conclusions about recently unveiled ancient tombs found in Israel that may have contained the remains of Jesus of Nazareth and Mary Magdalene.

David Frankfurter, a religious studies and history professor at the University of New Hampshire, has taken an interest in the tombs, also called ossuaries. He said the names on them were very common in Roman Palestine.

The tombs were unveiled Monday six days before a documentary on "The Lost Tomb of Jesus" is scheduled to air on the Discovery Channel. They were shown to the press in New York by the show's producer James Cameron and director Simcha Jacobovici. The tombs were discovered in 1980 during excavation for apartments in Jerusalem. Bones found in them were reburied.

The documentary's contention is that the 2,000-year-old tomb may have contained the remains of Jesus and his family, including possibly his wife, Mary Magdalene, and their young son. It airs Sunday at 9 p.m.

"The argument for associating these names with Jesus of Nazareth is statistical," Frankfurter said, with the premise being "what is the possibility for all these names in one tomb?" He said he has not seen enough evidence to regard the tomb as Jesus of Nazareth's.

"We should be very careful not to draw wild preliminary conclusions based on these statistics and based on this find," he said, adding that much of the excitement has been generated by the "Da Vinci Code" movie.

Though there is a large demand for historical fakes in Israel, Frankfurter said the tombs are likely authentic. He said "proper archaeology should not be done to service the Bible or its authenticity," but it's important to incorporate the tombs into history.

He said there are several impacts on Christianity as a result of the discovery.

These include questions about the resurrection of Jesus, and why his bones would remain, and whether he had a child. Frankfurter said the "implications of Jesus having a child would have an impact on the traditions of celibacy."

Frankfurter, a specialist in ancient Mediterranean religions, is the author of "Evil Incarnate: Rumors of Demonic Conspiracy and Satanic Abuse in History." He also is the author of "Religion in Roman Egypt," which won the 1999 award for excellence in the historical study of religion from the American Academy of Religion.

'Lost Tomb of Jesus' Claim Called a Stunt

2007-03-01T14:40:00.000-05:00

Archaeologists Decry TV Film

By Alan Cooperman Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, February 28, 2007

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/02/26/AR2007022600442.html

Leading archaeologists in Israel and the United States yesterday denounced the purported discovery of the tomb of Jesus as a publicity stunt.
Scorn for the Discovery Channel's claim to have found the burial place of Jesus, Mary Magdalene and -- most explosively -- their possible son came not just from Christian scholars but also from Jewish and secular experts who said their judgments were unaffected by any desire to uphold Christian orthodoxy.
"I'm not a Christian. I'm not a believer. I don't have a dog in this fight," said 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 just think it's a shame the way this story is being hyped and manipulated."
The Discovery Channel held a news conference in New York on Monday to unveil a TV documentary, "The Lost Tomb of Jesus," and a companion book about a tomb that was unearthed during construction of an apartment building in the Talpiyot neighborhood of Jerusalem in 1980.
James Cameron, the filmmaker who explored the wreck of the Titanic and directed an Oscar-winning feature film based on its sinking, is executive producer of the documentary. Its claims are based on six ossuaries, or stone boxes for holding human bones, found in the tomb.
The filmmakers contend that 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). They maintain that "Mariamene e Mara" is Mary Magdalene and that Yehuda bar Yeshua may be her son by Jesus.
Simcha Jacobovici, the film's Israeli-born director, said in a telephone interview yesterday that he commissioned four statistical studies that concluded that the odds of those particular names appearing in a single family tomb from the 1st century are "somewhere between 600 and 2.4 million to one."
Jacobovici also said tests on the patina, or surface residue, of the "James Ossuary," which surfaced in 2002, indicate that it also came from the Talpiyot tomb. Israeli authorities have pronounced the James Ossuary, which purportedly held the bones of a brother of Jesus, a forgery and are prosecuting its owner. Jacobovici, who made a 2003 Discovery Channel film about it, maintains it is real.
Dever, a retired professor of archaeology at the University of Arizona, said that some of the inscriptions on the Talpiyot ossuaries are unclear, but that all of the names are common.
"I've know 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," he said. "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."
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."
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.
Magness noted that at the time of Jesus, 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.
She said Jesus came from a poor family that, like most Jews of the time, probably buried their dead in ordinary graves. "If Jesus' family had been wealthy enough to afford a rock-cut tomb, it would have been in Nazareth, not Jerusalem," she said.
Magness also said 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, she said.
"This whole case [for the tomb of Jesus] is flawed from beginning to end," she said.

Scholars, Clergy Slam Jesus Documentary

2007-03-01T14:35:00.000-05:00

Scholars, Clergy Slam Jesus Documentary Feb 26 1:04 PM US/Eastern

By MARSHALL THOMPSON Associated Press Writer

http://www.breitbart.com/news/2007/02/26/D8NHI2MO2.html

JERUSALEM (AP) -- Archaeologists and clergymen in the Holy Land derided claims in a new documentary produced by James Cameron that contradict major Christian tenets, but the Oscar-winning director said the evidence was based on sound statistics.
"The Lost Tomb of Christ," which the Discovery Channel will run on March 4, argues that 10 ancient ossuaries _ small caskets used to store bones _ discovered in a suburb of Jerusalem in 1980 may have contained the bones of Jesus and his family, according to a press release issued by the Discovery Channel.

One of the caskets even bears the title, "Judah, son of Jesus," hinting that Jesus may have had a son, according to the documentary. And the very fact that Jesus had an ossuary would contradict the Christian belief that he was resurrected and ascended to heaven.
Cameron told NBC'S "Today" show that statisticians found "in the range of a couple of million to one in favor of it being them." Simcha Jacobovici, the Toronto filmmaker who directed the documentary, said the implications "are huge."
"But they're not necessarily the implications people think they are. For example, some believers are going to say, well this challenges the resurrection. I don't know why, if Jesus rose from one tomb, he couldn't have risen from the other tomb," Jacobovici told "Today."
Most Christians believe Jesus' body spent three days at the site of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem's Old City. The burial site identified in Cameron's documentary is in a southern Jerusalem neighborhood nowhere near the church.
In 1996, when the British Broadcasting Corp. aired a short documentary on the same subject, archaeologists challenged the claims. Amos Kloner, the first archaeologist to examine the site, said the idea fails to hold up by archaeological standards but makes for profitable television.
"They just want to get money for it," Kloner said.
Cameron said his critics should withhold comment until they see his film.
"I'm not a theologist. I'm not an archaeologist. I'm a documentary film maker," he said.
The film's claims, however, have raised the ire of Christian leaders in the Holy Land.
"The historical, religious and archaeological evidence show that the place where Christ was buried is the Church of the Resurrection," said Attallah Hana, a Greek Orthodox clergyman in Jerusalem. The documentary, he said, "contradicts the religious principles and the historic and spiritual principles that we hold tightly to."
Stephen Pfann, a biblical scholar at the University of the Holy Land in Jerusalem who was interviewed in the documentary, said the film's hypothesis holds little weight.
"I don't think that Christians are going to buy into this," Pfann said. "But skeptics, in general, would like to see something that pokes holes into the story that so many people hold dear."
"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 is even unsure that the name "Jesus" on the caskets was read correctly. He thinks it's more likely the name "Hanun." Ancient Semitic script is notoriously difficult to decipher.
Kloner also said the filmmakers' assertions are false.
"It was an ordinary middle-class Jerusalem burial cave," Kloner said. "The names on the caskets are the most common names found among Jews at the time."
Archaeologists also balk at the filmmaker's claim that the James Ossuary _ the center of a famous antiquities fraud in Israel _ might have originated from the same cave. In 2005, Israel charged five suspects with forgery in connection with the infamous bone box.
"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."
None of the experts interviewed by The Associated Press had seen the whole documentary.

Bryan prof refutes claim of Jesus’ tomb

2007-03-01T14:34:00.001-05:00

By: Jim Ashley Source: The Herald-News 02-28-2007

http://www.rhea.xtn.net/index.php?template=news.view.subscriber&table=news&newsid=138054

Claims this week in a Canadian documentary that a tomb located in a Jerusalem cave belonged to Jesus Christ are totally unfounded, says Dr. Doug Kennard, head of the Biblical Studies Department at Bryan College.
The claim was made on Monday morning by Israeli-born Canadian documentary film maker Simcha Jacobovici and three-time, Oscar-winning Canadian film director James Cameron (Titanic, The Terminator).
The film, titled “The Burial Cave of Jesus,” is based on years of research by “world-renowned archaeologists, statisticians, experts in ancient scripts and in DNA,” said Jacobovici and Cameron.
The 2000-year-old cave, according to the film, had already been discovered in 1980 in Jerusalem’s Talpiyot neighborhood and included 10 coffins, six of which bore inscriptions, which — translated into English — included the names “Jesus son of Joseph,” twice “Maria,” and “Judah son of Jesus.”
The second Maria is hypothesized to be Mary Magdalene, while the tomb bearing the name Judah could indicate Jesus had a son, the documentary claims.
“I don’t know any archaeologists supporting the claim,” Kennard said of the documentary, adding that “we know of something like 72 or 75 ossuaries (bone boxes) from the first century, so why is this one the definitive Jesus?”
The name Jesus was “very common” in Israel at the time of Christ, he said, pointing out that it would be as familiar as the names “Bill or Tom” in today’s society.
“It would be like coming to a tomb and saying, Tom is buried here, so it must be Thomas Edison,” Kennard said.
Of the ossuaries in question, he commented, “The particular bone box they are claiming is the definitive Jesus may not even be a Jesus at all.”
The name is written Aramaic may be Josea, he noted.
Kennard also noted that there have been a few people who stated that “there’s not been any historical evidence prior to this and now here’s definitive evidence.”
But that statement, he said, “is clearly not right.”
Bible scholar John P. Meier, he pointed out, “has done a three-volume work on the historical Jesus, “A Marginal Jew,” and he claims he is working with 85 historical citations of Jesus.”
Concerning the documentary’s claim that Jesus and Mary Magdalene had a marital relationship, Kennard noted that the Bible says she calls Him rabboni (teacher) when she sees Him after the resurrection.
“If they had a marriage relationship, that would probably not be how she would greet Him,” especially after he had come back from the dead, he said.
Regarding the DNA findings that the film claims, Kennard said, “I guess they have some material from inside a bone box tested with some other material inside another bone box.
“And they’re saying there’s some relationship between the two. … The fact they found these bone boxes in the same tomb would argue that as well.”
However, said Kennard, “The wealthy family is going to have a tomb, and they’ll bury the whole family in that tomb. So, I’m not surprised that the DNA evidence is saying some of them are related.
“But that is no way indicating that it’s the definitive Jesus or that the definitive Jesus is part of this definitive family.”

The Talpiot/Jesus tomb: point and counterpoint, item 1

2007-03-01T14:34:00.000-05:00

Interesting thoughts on the DNA work

http://www.heardworld.com/higgaion/?p=541

Okay, I had intended to leave this topic mostly to my New Testament colleagues, but it’s rather interesting and there seems to be a lot of “talking past” going on. Ben Witherington, together with other New Testament scholars, has issued a press release (through Christian Newswire—why choose such a limited outlet?) listing “Ten Reasons Why the Jesus Tomb Claim is Bogus.” The “ten reasons” are stated as “bullet points,” without much unpacking or analysis. James Tabor, author of The Jesus Dynasty and, as far as I can tell, the only actual scholar who supports the identifications proposed in The Lost Tomb of Jesus, has answered some of these points (though some of his critics don’t seem to have noticed). Let’s lay out both sides of the arguments, using Witherington et alii’s ten points as a structure.
1. DNA Evidence
The “anti-tomb” press release states that “There is no DNA evidence that this is the historical Jesus of Nazareth.” Of course there isn’t, nor could there be. We don’t possess a database filled with the genetic “fingerprints” of first-century CE Galileans and Judeans. Without a sample of DNA known to be that of Jesus of Nazareth, there’s no way that any DNA recoverable from the ossuaries could be “matched” to any particular historical individual.
What available DNA strands could provide is some degree of information about the family relationships between the persons whose bones are in those ossuaries. As it turns out, the only DNA-based claim made by the filmmakers is that the Talpiot tomb’s Mariamne Mara was neither Yeshua bar Yehosef’s sister nor mother. This is a fairly modest claim, and needs to be evaluated for the claim that it is, not for some other claim that critics set up as a straw opponent.
And yet this does not mean that there are no problems with the DNA evidence. The Discovery Channel website specifically says that the DNA tested was mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA):
The human remains were analyzed by Carney Matheson, a scientist at the Paleo-DNA Laboratory at Lakehead University in Ontario, Canada. Mitochondrial DNA examination determined the individual in the Jesus ossuary and the person in the ossuary linked to Mary Magdalene were not related.
As I understand it, the chain of reasoning then goes as follows: (1) The Talpiot tomb is a family tomb. (2) The only women buried in a family tomb would be (a) women who married into the family or (b) women born into the family who, at the time of their death, had never been married. (3) Since Yeshua and Miriamne were not related, Miriamne must have married into the family.
That much seems reasonable, but there remain some unresolved issues. One major problem is the gratuitous assumption that, if Miriamne married into the family, she married Yeshua. Four of the six ossuary inscriptions name men. Why should it be assumed that Miriamne was Yeshua’s wife? Why not Yehudah’s wife, or Yose’s wife, or Matia’s wife? And, of course, the possibility would still remain that she was Yeshua’s daughter, or Yehudah’s or Yose’s or Matia’s daughter, and so on down the line. The full range of possibilities has not been explored. Rather, the filmmakers have jumped to a “sexy” conclusion that is not contravened by the available evidence, but neither is it really supported by the evidence.
Another major problem here is that, if I understand things correctly, mtDNA testing could only reveal whether Yeshua and Miriamne had the same mother, not the same father:
Mitochondrial DNA maternal lineage testing is used to determine whether two or more individuals are related through their mother’s ancestral line. This test may be used to provide additional evidence in difficult maternity cases where the alleged mother is not available for testing, or in cases where a single non-matching genetic system is observed between the alleged mother and the child in question. A single non-matching genetic variation in a maternity test is often the result of a mutation (a random change in the DNA which occurs in the formation of the egg used for conception). Since mtDNA is inherited through the maternal line, all sons and daughters inherit their mother’s mtDNA. However, only daughters pass on their mother’s mtDNA to their offspring. mtDNA is composed of a string of DNA nucleotides (the 4 building blocks of DNA represented by the letters A, C, G and T) in a particular sequence. In the mtDNA maternal lineage test, a short segment of the mtDNA is sequenced (the order of DNA molecules is determined) and the mtDNA sequences from each individual are compared to see if they could come from the same maternal line. Everyone from the same maternal line will have similar mtDNA sequences. mtDNA maternal lineage testing takes much more time to complete as compared to other types of DNA paternity or maternity testing. UNTHSC is one of only a small number of labs in the country capable of performing this type of DNA testing. (University of North Texas Health Science Center at Forth Worth, DNA Identity Lab, with thanks to my student Chris Thomas for introducing me to this aspect of DNA testing)
Since mtDNA testing could only reveal common maternity, if Yeshua and Miriamne had the same father but different mothers, mitochondrial DNA testing would not reveal their common paternity. Filmmaker Simcha Jacobovici appears to be aware of this—see the quotation from the New York Times a bit lower in this post—but apparently he blithely ignores any other possibilities than “related on their mothers’ side” and “married.” And yet, that is at most what mtDNA testing could reveal: that Yeshua and Miriamne had different mothers. Everything else is speculation.
This consideration of DNA testing brings up another, very important issue: why was the only DNA test that was conducted focused on Yeshua’s and Miriamne’s common maternity? The filmmakers also claim that one of the occupants of another ossuary, Maria, was Yeshua’s mother. Why didn’t they test Yeshua’s and Mariah’s mtDNA to see whether Mariah really was Yeshua’s mother? They also claim that Miriamne was the mother of Yehudah bar Yeshua; why didn’t they test Yehudah’s mtDNA to determine whether Miriamne really was Yehudah’s mother? It turns out that the answer is that the filmmakers were impatient. Read more about this in Carl Zimmer’s post on his fine science journalism blog, The Loom (hat tip to Duane Smith—although I also keep Carl’s blog on my RSS feed, I saw the discussion first on Abnormal Interests).
There is another important dimension to the DNA “evidence” that I have not yet seen explicitly discussed (though it may have been discussed and I just missed it). According to the New York Times article that prompted Carl Zimmer’s above-mentioned blog post:
The filmmakers commissioned DNA testing on the residue in the boxes said to have held Jesus and Mary Magdalene. There are no bones left, because the religious custom in Israel is to bury archeological remains in a cemetery.
However, the documentary’s director and its driving force, Simcha Jacobovici, an Israeli-born Canadian, said there was enough mitochondrial DNA for a laboratory in Ontario to conclude that the bodies in the “Jesus” and “Mary Magdalene” ossuaries were not related on their mothers’ side. From this, Mr. Jacobovici deduced that they were a couple, because otherwise they would not have been buried together in a family tomb.
See above on the hasty generalization from “children of different mothers” to “married,” but down here I want to address a different point. The reports I have seen thus far are quite vague on where the DNA came from. Presumably, the DNA came from within the relevant ossuaries. But how do we know that the DNA in the ossuary came from the person named on the ossuary’s inscription? People do not put themselves into ossuaries, and they do not take themselves out of ossuaries. Several different people will have handled the ossuaries and the bones inside of them, not only in the first year but over the centuries, and they won’t have been wearing latex gloves á là CSI. How does Jacobovici know that his lab was really testing Yeshua bar Yehosef’s DNA against Miriamne Mara’s DNA, and not, to be fanciful, Amos Kloner’s DNA against Levi Rahmani’s DNA? Unless the DNA in question can be shown to have come from the person named in the ossuary’s inscription, the DNA evidence is absolutely meaningless for reconstructing the relationship between the parties buried in the tomb.
So Witherington et al. have targeted bullet point #1 against a straw argument. Nobody is claiming that the DNA from the Yeshua ossuary is a “match” for the historical Jesus of Nazareth. The bullet misses its target, since the target is a much more modest claim. Even that more modest claim, however, is rife with difficulties, and very difficult to take as a serious and powerful contribution toward the identification of the Talpiot tomb’s Yeshua bar Yehosef with Christian history’s Jesus of Nazareth.

Scholars skeptical about 'Jesus tomb' film claims

2007-03-01T14:33:00.005-05:00

Updated Mon. Feb. 26 2007 11:36 PM ET

CTV.ca News Staff

http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20070226/jesus_tomb_060226/20070226?hub=TopStories

Religious scholars have wasted no time attacking the claims of filmmakers who say that 10 small caskets discovered in 1980 may have held the bones of Jesus Christ and his family.
"I don't think that Christians are going to buy into this," said biblical scholar Stephen Pfann, who was interviewed in the forthcoming documentary The Lost Tomb of Jesus. "But skeptics, in general, would like to see something that pokes holes into the story that so many people hold dear."
"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."
Michele Piccirillo of the Franciscan Archeological Institute said: "Before, archeology was used to do politics. Now archeology is just to do money."
He also added, 'There are some people interested in destroying the faith of others and that's not good.'
John Marshall, a religious studies professor at the University of Toronto, said he'd like to know how a family from Galilee would have ended up being buried in Jerusalem.
"To persuade me of these claims, I'd want to know that the names are as old as the boxes, that the characters named on the boxes are the characters we know from Christianity ... and we would want to know the DNA evidence is uncontaminated," he told CTV.
"Beyond this, we would want to know how a married Jesus can be reconciled with Jesus teaching against sexual activity."
Oscar-winning director James Cameron defended his controversial new documentary against allegations the film was trying to undermine Christianity.
"I think there will certainly be those that will say we are attempting to in some way undermine Christianity, but that's really very, very far from the case," Cameron said at a Monday morning press conference in New York announcing the documentary.
Instead, the documentary that follows the discovery of the tomb of Jesus Christ and his family celebrates their existence, Cameron said.
"What this film and the investigation that the film shows is able to bring to light is for the first time, tangible, physical, archeological and in some cases, forensic evidence, that can be analyzed scientifically in the same manner that one would in a criminal investigation in terms of DNA evidence," Cameron said.
The message that Jesus delivered 2,000 years ago resounds even today, said Cameron, the documentary's producer.
"My feeling is that his message of compassion, humility, love and forgiveness is every bit as much needed now in this divisive, materialistic and war-torn world," said Cameron, who won the Academy Award for Best Director in 1998 for Titanic.
In their documentary, Cameron and the director, Canadian filmmaker Simcha Jacobovici, say that the tomb of Jesus Christ and his family has been found, a claim that would have profound implications for the Christian faith.
"This has been a three-year journey that seems more incredible than fiction," Jacobovici, an Emmy-award winning filmmaker, said earlier. "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."
The film suggests that ossuaries once containing the bones of Jesus and his family are now stored in a warehouse belonging to the Israel Antiquities Authority in Bet Shemesh, outside Jerusalem.
The tomb where the remains were found was unearthed in the Talpiot neighbourhood of Jerusalem during the construction of an apartment building in 1980.
CTV's Middle East Bureau Chief Janis Mackey Frayer described the site as a concrete slab in the ground behind an apartment building, which is about half-a metre by one-metre in size.
During the excavation, archeologists found 10 ossuaries and three skulls. Six of the ossuaries had names inscribed into them: Jesus son of Joseph, Judah son of Jesus, Maria, Mariamne, Joseph and Matthew.
At the time, the finding raised few alarms, as these had been very common names at the time of Jesus.
According to Cameron and Jacobovici, the bones discovered in the limestone boxes in 1980 were quickly reburied, following the Jewish traditions.
Years later, a BBC crew that stumbled across the collection in a store room belonging to the Israeli Antiquities Authorities began work program that focused on the tomb.
Jacobovici's documentary uses scientific methods, including DNA testing, statistical analysis and forensic examination not available to the BBC 11 years ago.
If the claims are correct, and the tombs belonged to the holiest family in Christendom, the discovery could shake the foundations of the Christian faith with the speculation that Jesus fathered a child with Mary Magdalene.
Canadian scientists worked on project
DNA tests conducted for the documentary at Lakehead University on two ossuaries -- one inscribed Jesus son of Joseph and the other Mariamne, or Mary -- confirm that the two were not related by blood, so they were likely married.
"Perhaps Jesus and Mary Magdalene were married as the DNA results from the Talpiot ossuaries suggest and perhaps their union was kept secret to protect a potential dynasty - a secret hidden through the ages," narrator Ron White says in the documentary.
"A secret we just may be able to uncover in the holy family tomb."
Traditional Christian beliefs maintain that Jesus was physically resurrected to heaven while more liberal interpretations have permitted for a spiritual ascension.
Church representatives and archeologists reject the claims of the documentary.
"The historical, religious and archaeological evidence show that the place where Christ was buried is the Church of the Resurrection," Attallah Hana, a Greek Orthodox clergyman in Jerusalem, told The Associated Press.
The documentary, he said, "contradicts the religious principles and the historic and spiritual principles that we hold tightly to."
Pfann is even unsure that the name "Jesus" on the caskets was interpreted properly. He thinks it is more likely the name "Hanun," as ancient Semitic script is notoriously difficult to decipher.
Jacobovici has said the findings should not threaten anyone's belief in the resurrection, as he does not argue that Jesus did not ascend to heaven at least spiritually.
But critics say the theory holds no merit.
Amos Kloner, professor at Israel's Bar-Ilan University, who was the archeologist who first revealed the discovery, believes the cave and its contents hold no significance.
Kloner told CTV that the names found on the tombs are common ones at the time.
"These are the most common names among Jews in these centuries," said Kloner, who published his findings in 1996.
"It's very interesting," he said of all of the names of Jesus' family being found on ossuaries in the same cave, "but it's not a convincing proof that it's the family of Jesus." He knows of at least two other ossuaries that bear the name of Jesus, son of Joseph.
Calculating the odds
In the documentary, University of Toronto statistician Andre Feuerverger calculates that the chances of the names being found together are 600 to one.
He said that the Maria on one of the ossuaries is the mother of the Jesus found on another box, that Mariamne is his wife and that Joseph -- inscribed as the nickname Jose -- is his brother.
Jesus' mother was known after his death as Maria, the Latin form of Mary, as more Romans became followers. Mariamne is the Greek form of Mary. Mary Magdalene is believed to have spoken and preached in Greek. Jose was the nickname used for Jesus' little brother.
Furthermore, the tomb is the only site where ossuaries have been found with the names Mariamne and Jose, the documentary's creators claim.
Another famous ossuary, inscribed "James, son of Joseph. brother of Jesus," is also featured in the documentary.
Of the 10 ossuaries found at Talpiot, one later went missing. Many experts have speculated the coffin is that of James, which was put on public display at the Royal Ontario Museum.
Furthermore, forensic testing of the patina on the Jesus ossuary and that of James concluded they came from the same tomb.
Feuerverger says that if James is added to the equation, there is a 30,000 to one chance that the Talpiot Tomb belonged to Jesus' family.
Another calculation, commissioned by James Tabor, chair of the department of religion studies at the University of North Carolina, puts the odds at one in 42 million.
Archaeologists balk at the filmmaker's claim that the James Ossuary might have originated from the same cave.
In 2005, Israel charged five suspects with forgery in connection with the infamous bone box.
"I don't think the James Ossuary came from the same cave," Dan Bahat, an archaeologist at Bar-Ilan University told AP. "If it were found there, the man who made the forgery would have taken something better. He would have taken Jesus."
The $4-million documentary will air on Canada's Vision TV on March 6 and two days earlier on Discovery U.S.
The companion book, The Jesus Family Tomb (HarperCollins) by Jacobovici and Charles Pellegrino, has just been released.

Melbourne scholar says Jesus tomb claims "bizarre"

2007-03-01T14:33:00.004-05:00

http://www.cathnews.com/news/702/155.php

Melbourne New Testament expert, Fr Brendan Byrne, has described as "bizarre" claims in a new documentary that an ancient tomb unearthed in Jerusalem 27 years ago was the burial tomb of Jesus and his family.The James Cameron-produced documentary, The Burial Cave of Jesus, by the US Discovery Channel, says the crypt contains coffins with residue of the remains of Jesus and Mary Magdalene and their son, Judah, the Age reports.But Fr Byrne says the claims are "pretty bizarre", noting that the Bible said Jesus was buried in Joseph of Arimathea's tomb."If they found bones, it would be problematic, because it would suggest Jesus didn't rise physically from the dead," he added."But Jesus and Joseph and Miriam and Judah are four of the most common names of the time. To assert that this group of names is the family of Jesus is a very remote possibility."The tomb in question was discovered in 1980 when construction workers accidentally uncovered the crypt, with 10 stone coffins, six of which had inscriptions.Archaeologists have reportedly deciphered the names on the tombs, including Yeshua (Hebrew for Jesus) son of Joseph, Mary, Mary and Judah, son of Yeshua.Unveiling two of the coffins he claims belonged to Jesus and Mary Magdalene, the Titanic movie director Cameron said. "I think this is the biggest archaeological story of the century"."It is absolutely not a publicity stunt."

Jesus 'remains' report is seasonal anti-Christian propaganda - cleric

2007-03-01T14:33:00.003-05:00

http://www.interfax-religion.com/?act=news&div=2650

Moscow, February 26, Interfax- There must be a 'seasonal' connection between the recent report on the alleged discovery of Jesus Christ's remains in Jerusalem and the previous sensation regarding the Gospel of Judas, which call into question Christian postulates and regularly trigger a broad international response, Moscow Theological Academy Prof. Deacon Andrey Kurayev told Interfax.The U.S. television channel Discovery said on Monday that the ancient urns found in Jerusalem in 1980 might have contained the remains of Jesus Christ and some apostles. Researchers who had studied the remains' DNA and urn captions said that people called Jesus, Maria Magdalena and their possible son Judas were buried in those urns. They also claimed that other urns allegedly contained the remains of Joseph, Maria and Matthew."The Western media releases plenty of such reports each spring before the Catholic Easter holiday. They discharge a portion of poison, which allegedly is to question our evangelic belief. A refutation will be published in small letters by June, but few people will read it," he said."Anti-Christian provocative reports in the Western media similar to the Da Vinci Code and the Gospel of Judas have become a 'seasonal phenomenon.' They are also a sign of the existence of a modern Priory of Zion, or something under a different name, which has broad access to the media and persistent hatred for Christianity," he said."The cold war against Christianity goes on in the Western world," he said.

Unlike NBC, CBS and ABC Express Skepticism Over ‘Jesus Tomb’ Claims

2007-03-01T14:33:00.002-05:00

Posted by Scott Whitlock on February 27, 2007 - 16:50.

http://newsbusters.org/node/11087

As noted in NewsBusters on Monday, NBC’s "Today" show breathlessly reported the claims, articulated by filmmaker James Cameron in a new Discovery Channel documentary, that the tomb of Jesus, with Christ buried inside, has been located. Co-anchor Matt Lauer hyped the network’s exclusive interview with Cameron by credulously repeating the documentary’s assertions and stating the film could "rock Christianity to its core."
In contrast, the other networks provided a more skeptical interpretation. On the February 26 edition of ABC’s "Nightline," anchor Terry Moran repeatedly noted that many archaeologists are skeptical of the claims that the tomb of Jesus and a reported family have been found. On Tuesday’s "Good Morning America," reporter Dan Harris prefaced a segment on the subject by observing, "If the claims in this new documentary are true, and many people doubt that they are, they would challenge some of Christianity's central articles of faith..." Over on CBS, "Early Show" anchor Hannah Storm peppered the film’s director, Simcha Jacobovici, with a number of tough questions:
Hannah Storm: "Simcha, are you attacking the basic tenets of Christianity that Jesus indeed rose from the dead?"
Hannah Storm: "What about people who say this is nothing more than a publicity stunt, Simcha?"
On Monday’s "Nightline," in a segment that aired at 11:35pm, host Terry Moran and reporter Wilf Dinnick commented on the skepticism the project has been receiving. Dinnick also featured a clip of archaeologist Amos Kolner, the man who helped locate the tomb 27 years ago and doesn't believe Mr. Cameron's claims:
Terry Moran: "Good evening, I'm Terry Moran. Today there is news that has archaeologists, skeptical, and many Christians up in arms. The director, James Cameron, he won an Oscar for 'Titanic,’ says he's now found evidence of the burial place of Jesus Christ. And Cameron claims Christ's family was buried there, too. So did the man who called himself king of the world really find the tomb of the king of kings? There are certainly skeptics. ABC's Wilf Dinnick has the latest installment of our series, 'Faith Matters," from Jerusalem."
Wilf Dinnick: "It is the very heart of the Christian faith, the church of the Holy Sepulcher, the place where most Christians believe Jesus died, was buried, and resurrected. For the faithful, a story that is very real. Hollywood producer and director, James Cameron, the man who brought you the blockbuster movie, 'Titanic,’ claims to have uncovered evidence proving the body of Jesus never rose to heaven, but instead, was buried here several miles from the Holy Sepulcher. And this is it, where the filmmaker say Jesus and his family were buried. Today, it's on the outskirts of Jerusalem in an apartment complex. The filmmaker has claimed the tomb, uncovered in 1980, actually held the bodies of Jesus and his family."
James Cameron: "I think we have found a very, very compelling or have made a very, very compelling case for what we're saying, that this is the tomb of the Jesus family."
Dinnick: " Here is the theory, 10 coffins or ossuaries were found in the tomb, all of them inscribed with biblical names translated to Mary, Joseph, and Jesus. The filmmakers argue it has to be more than just a coincidence, all these names in the same tomb dating back to the same time as Jesus. But we found the man who first discovered the tomb 27 years ago. Amos Kolner was in charge of archaeological finds in Jerusalem at the time. He says there have been 900 similar tombs uncovered in Jerusalem from that era. And contrary to what the filmmakers say, there is nothing special about this one or those names, all very popular at the time."
Amos Kolner: "We have 71 cases, and I mentioning it in my study, of individuals having the name Yoshua, Yeshua, or Jesois"
Dinnick: "Be of Jesus?"
Kolner: "Be of Jesus. So it's a very common name found on ossuaries, found in scriptures, found every place."
On the February 27 edition of "Good Morning America," reporter Dan Harris again featured Kolner and the segment, which aired at 7:10am, also maintained a level of skepticism that was lacking in NBC’s report:
Diane Sawyer: "Well this morning, scientists and theologians are rejecting controversial claims in a new documentary that strike at some of the basic tenets of Christianity. The film is by Academy Award winning director James Cameron of ‘Titanic’ fame. And he says the remains of Jesus Christ have been found, and not only those of Jesus, but his family, including Mary Magdalene and Jesus’ son? ABC’s Dan Harris has more. Dan?"
Dan Harris: "Diane, good morning. If the claims in this new documentary are true, and many people doubt that they are, they would challenge some of Christianity's central articles of faith, including the resurrection of Jesus Christ. The documentary, called ‘The Lost Tomb of Christ,’ airing on the Discovery Channel this weekend, reexamines the contents of this tomb, first found in 1980 on the outskirts of Jerusalem. The film argues that stone caskets, also called ossuaries, found here, may have held the remains of Jesus and his family. Executive producer James Cameron of ‘Titanic’ and ‘Terminator’ fame unraveled the ossuaries in New York with experts and fellow film makers."
James Cameron: "There is a definite sense that you have to pinch yourself, that what you’re doing, that the e-mail you just wrote is, is real."
Harris: "If the remains of Jesus were entombed, that raises questions about the Biblical assertion that Jesus was resurrected from the site that of what is now the site of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, a site Diane Sawyer toured this past November. But the film goes even further, arguing that Jesus may have been entombed next to the woman who may have been his wife, Mary Magdalene and their son Judah. These are the same claims spelled out in ‘The Da Vinci Code.’"
[‘Da Vinci Code clip]
Harris: "Scientists and theologians are widely and roundly rejecting these claims."
ABC hasn’t always been so skeptical of anti-Christian claims. As noted in an MRC special report, this is the same network that devoted an entire hour to the legend of "Pope Joan":
ABC aired an entire 60-minute PrimeTime special last December 29 spreading the anti-Catholic legend of "Pope Joan," a supposed female Pope slaughtered by the faithful when she when into labor pains. Host Diane Sawyer, the same one who demanded facts from Mel Gibson, was clearly enamored by this feminist-pleasing tale: "Amid the clues, the controversy, denials, and from scholars, ridicule...But something whispers across the years. If it is myth is there a meaning?...Legend, fact, fantasy. Tonight, the astonishing tale ripped from a dark-age headline, the woman said to have become the Holy Father, the mystery of Pope Joan."
In the 7am hour of Tuesday’s "Early Show," co-host Hannah Storm questioned the film’s director on some of his claims. Also featured in the interview is author Bruce Feiler:
Hannah Storm: "Simcha Jacobovici is director of 'The Lost Tomb of Jesus' and co--author of the companion book, 'The Jesus Family Tomb,' and Bruce Feiler is a best-selling author and adventurer who has explored many places in the Bible for his latest book 'Where God Was Born.' Good morning to both of you."
Bruce Feiler, ("Where God Was Born," Author): "Good morning Hannah."
Hannah Storm: "Simcha, are you attacking the basic tenets of Christianity that Jesus indeed rose from the dead?"
Simcha Jacobovici, "The Lost Tomb of Jesus," Director: "First of all, I'm not a theologian I'm not attacking anybody. I'm a reporter. And I'm reporting a set of facts. It's interesting that people want God's DNA and whatever. I'm not in the business of theology. I'm reporting a set of facts. It's a fact that the tomb was found. It's a fact that there's a Jesus son of Joseph buried in that tomb. There's two Marys, there's a Judas son of Jesus. These are facts. So what we are doing is reporting saying, hey, world, pay attention. Don't discuss theology. First let's discuss the facts and then let's see the implications on theology."
Hannah Storm: "Alright, let's discuss a few of the facts, starting with the names. Could that be coincidental? How popular were the names that he just stated at that time?"
Bruce Feiler: "21 percent of all women were called Mary at the time, Joseph and Jesus were among the top three names. And I think that the facts are very important. And the facts are, there is no DNA proof. All they have is the DNA proof is that one of the bones of the women are not related to one of the bones of the men patrilineally."
Hannah Storm: "Which could be total coincidence."
Bruce Feiler: "We have no evidence --"
Hannah Storm: "It doesn't mean anything, does it?"
Simcha Jacobovici: "I just want to point out something, I'm a journalist. I'm not an expert. Just like Bruce is not an expert. When I want to discuss statistics, I don't make up statistics. I went to statisticians. Four studies we commissioned. Professor , a professor of mathematics from the University of Toronto was the most conservative. He said 600 to 1 in favor of this tomb, based on the names that Bruce just mentioned, that it is the tomb of Jesus of Nazareth. Now, if other statisticians now want to weigh in, that's great. But why are people who don't know anything about statistics, including me, talking statistics?"
A few minutes later, Ms. Storm closed the interview with this blunt question:
Hannah Storm: "What about people who say this is nothing more than a publicity stunt, Simcha?"
Simcha Jacobovici: "You know, again, I can just say we put forward a set of facts. And the set of facts, the tomb is real. The inscriptions are real. DNA was gathered, it's real. We know he was buried in a tomb, the Gospels tell us so. We know he could afford a tomb in Jerusalem because the Gospels tell us so. The question is which tomb? The Church of the Holy Sepulchre or the one we're presenting. We brought statistical evidence, now people have to see the film, read the book and weigh the facts instead of coming with these emotional reactions about beloved stories."
As noted earlier, ABC and CBS haven’t always been so skeptical when it comes to dubious anti-religious and anti Christian claims, but in this case, they certainly expressed more skepticism than NBC.

The Jesus Tomb: Primeval Stupidity

2007-03-01T14:33:00.001-05:00

Robert Eisenman Tue Feb 27, 9:11 PM ET

http://news.yahoo.com/s/huffpost/20070228/cm_huffpost/042235

The latest 'discovery' of the so-called "Jesus Tomb" or "Jesus Cave" is so preposterous that it has to be laughed out of court.
For starters one must say that one must be glad that ossuaries of this kind in Israel are finally getting the publicity they deserve and that sites in which they occur will, as a result, finally be open to and become visited by the public. They are so rich and beautiful that they demonstrate what a richly beautiful life was being led in Eretz-Israel or "The Holy Land" at the time before - as D.H. Lawrence might have put it as he did the Etruscans - the Romans crushed the breath or spark of life out of it
First of all, all these names -- which are mostly "Maccabean," primarily demonstrating the popularity of the Maccabean family in Israel at the time and not what our intrepid 'archaeologists' seem to think they demonstrate -- found in the "Jesus Burial Cave" on the outskirts of Jerusalem (as many have now already said) were so widespread at the time that finding a family tomb with ossuaries inscribed with them proves nothing at all.
But even more to the point:
1) To think that an inscription seemingly bearing the name of one "Mariamne" has anything whatever to do with some character we think was called "Mary Magdalene" (only mentioned about three times in the Gospels and this cursorily or in passing) is a stretch of immense proportions. All "Mary"s in Josephus are called "Mariamne" in Greek. First disinformation. And what of this "Mary"'s other descendant all Gnostic Gospel enthusiasts and those wishing for the eternal feminine (to say nothing of "the bloodline of the Holy Grail" ) fantasize over, "Sarah"?
2) Then, of course, "Jesus"' father (if he existed or there was one) probably wasn't even called "Joseph" ( really the patronymical tribal name of the Samaritan Messiah). Most contemporary texts give Jesus' father or Mary's husband as "Clopas" or 'Cleophas". Even the Gospel of John does this, unless this was her second husband or there were two "Mary"s or three!
3) And what was "Matthew" (diminutive or otherwise) doing in this tomb - a "statistical" outlier, no? And "Mary"'s DNA didn't match "Jesus"', so they were married, right?
4) And "Jose" was Jesus' brother, right? Why not father - meaning,the one mentioned on the alleged "Jesus ossuary"? And what is Jose's DNA, since we seem to have "Jesus"' and "Mary"'s, or weren't we able to get a sample?
5) And who is this mysterious "Judas"? Of course, "Mary's child" by "Jesus" - why didn't I think of that? Again, another 'statistical outlier". And what were the results of his DNA if they were taken? Did we get a fix on this? Who was his mother?
6) Oh yes, and I forgot, "the James ossuary" was pilfered from here. Why of course. How sensible. And therefore, it wasn't forged (or was it from the Antiquities Authority's storeroom) - again, why didn't I think of that?
"Though I am no statistician" (sic - as they say), I would say that the statistical probability of this kind of primeval stupidity is about 666,000 to one.
Still, let's not take one's eye off the ball - the fact of a cave with such beautiful ossuaries is interesting in itself and should be examined for and by itself and not just sealed or stored somewhere out of sight. Hoorah, that it will now become part of the tourist itinerary. One plus from this sorry charade and display of historical ignorance anyhow! How beautiful and comely was thy daughter, O Children of Zion