'Jesus tomb' film factually inaccurate - scholar

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."