I haven’t had time recently to post more about the “tomb of Jesus.”  Possibly I’ll be able to in the next few days, though I’ll be traveling most of next week.  Instead, see a summary of some recent replies at Denny Burk’s blog.  I have added a few names to the list of scholars who think there is something to the theory and those who do not.  James Tabor is the only one I’ve seen who suggests that it is worthy of consideration.  I think his credibility is taking some big hits on this one.

In the recent barrage, there are a couple of interviews with scholars worthy of posting here.

From Atlanta Journal-Constitution:

Modern architects of fantastic finds try to provide an air of legitimacy by invoking scientific jargon, said Garrett G. Fagan, a classics professor at Penn State University and author of, “Archaeological Fantasies: How Pseudoarchaeology Misrepresents the Past and Misleads the Public” (RoutledgeFalmer, $46.95).
“They’re not scientists, but they need to dress themselves in the clothes of science to pass muster,” Fagan said.
Some choose prestigious channels that style themselves as vehicles for public education, he said.
“Television is not in the business of education, even with the so-called educational channels like Discovery,” Fagan said. “Ultimately, they’re in the business of making money.”
And when critics pounce on the discoveries, Fagan said it’s often too late.
“By the time the rebuttals come out, the mass media would have moved on to the next sensation,” Fagan said, “and people will have this vague notion that they have found the tomb of Jesus.”
Fagan said he expects more fantastic archaeological discoveries to be announced in the near future.
“Someone is going to say they’ve discovered Moses’ beard,” he said.

From the Washington Post:

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.

I think there are some significant problems with the theory in the statistical analysis, but it will probably be some time before a qualified expert has time to prepare and present a rebuttal.  And, as Fagan notes above, by then, the media will have moved on.  (In the meantime, see Mark Goodacre.)

I’ve compiled a short list of problems with the theory that Jesus’ family tomb has been located in Jerusalem. 

1. All historical evidence suggests that Jesus’ family lived in Galilee; no evidence suggests they lived in Jerusalem.  They visited for holidays and Jesus was killed there on one of the holidays.  Jesus’ brother James lived there several decades later.  But there is no evidence that Jesus’ mother, father, or Mary Magdalene lived in Jerusalem.
2. People were buried where they lived. There is no evidence that the bodies of Jesus’ family were transported from Galilee to Jerusalem.
3. There is no historical evidence that Jesus received a secondary burial (in an ossuary or otherwise).  All historical evidence suggests that he was buried once in a tomb near the crucifixion site.
4. There were many people in ancient Jerusalem who had the names Jesus, Mary, Judah, and Joseph. We do not know how many people lived in Jerusalem, we do not know the precise date of these ossuaries (anywhere between 50 B.C. and 70 A.D.), we do not know the relationship of any of the people in the tomb. It is possible that the Judah inscribed on one ossuary is the son of the same Jesus who is inscribed on another ossuary. And it is possible that it was a different Jesus. It was common for ancient peoples to use names in the family when naming their children.  Remember the wonder when Zechariah named his son John when no one else in their family had that name.  One of Joseph’s sons was named after his father.
5. Of the six inscribed ossuaries, only two give the name of the father (Jesus son of Joseph and Judah son of Jesus). The other individuals, including Joseph and Mary, could be related in any variety of ways to the other individuals. That Joseph is the brother of Jesus is only one possibility of many. That Mary is the wife of Jesus is only one possibility of many.
6. Mary Magdalene is always identified as such in the Gospels (see Matt 27:56, 61; 28:1; Mark 15:40, 47; 16:1,9; Luke 8:2; 24:10; John 19:25; 20:1,18). It is interesting, then, that if this is her ossuary, that she would not be similarly identified. Instead she is allegedly identified with a name which only appears in a late (4th c.) source of dubious value. 
7. It is a non-issue that DNA analysis shows that the Jesus and Mary buried in this tomb were not from the same family. All women buried in a family tomb would be there as a result of marriage, so none of them would be related to the men, with the exception of children or an unmarried woman. It would be worthy of mention if the woman was related to the man.
8. It is possible that the name Jesus has been misread and instead is the name “Hanun.” This may not be true, but it is mentioned by Stephen Pfann, one of the world’s best experts on Aramaic from the 1st century A.D.
9. It is difficult to imagine a scenario in which followers of Jesus died for a man who they knew was buried over the next hill.  When Peter declared to thousands of people in Jerusalem that “God raised [Jesus] from the dead,” I think someone would have raised their hand and mentioned the tomb.  How the fact that Jesus actually had a son (and a sexual relationship with a woman) was kept a secret until recent times is also quite hard to fathom. 

There may not be a “silver bullet” that makes this theory impossible, but the preponderance of the evidence makes it so unlikely as to require a tremendous amount of faith. If every assumption is accurate, then possibly this is the tomb of Jesus’ family. But if any one assumption is wrong, the whole thing falls apart. 

There are many who are writing about this, and some are mentioned in today’s links below.  See also the helpful analysis by Nathan Busenitz here. 

The location of the tomb is in the modern suburb of Talpiyot, about 2 miles south of the Old City.  Contrary to some assertions, the tomb is not too distant to be part of Jerusalem’s cemetery in the 1st century A.D.  The tomb with the ossuary of Caiaphas was found just north of Talpiyot.

Here’s a round-up of some of the latest on “Jesus’ tomb.”  The main AP story is everywhere, including here, and there is a slideshow with about 50 related images here.  ABC News and the NY Times have their own stories.  The JPost story includes some quotes from Shimon Gibson and Dan Bahat.  JPost also has a review of the documentary and Larry King had an interview with the documentary’s producers, Al Mohler and James Tabor.  Some of the original data from Kloner’s dig and Rahmani’s Catalogue of Jewish Ossuaries, including a drawing of the burial cave, is available in a pdf file at the Discovery website.

Ben Witherington has a lengthy response, and a few additional points in the comments section.  Leen Ritmeyer has a brief response, as does Darrell Bock.  The historian Paul Maier wrote a book on just such a fictional scenario (Jesus’ body being found), and his comments are posted here.  Christopher Rollston has some good insights here, as does Aren Maier, Mark Goodacre, and Chris Heard. 

Apocryphicity claims the Acts of Philip is not referring to Mary Magdalene but to a different Mary. 

Michael Heiser wrote an article related to the “James, brother of Jesus” ossuary several years ago that has a number of relevant points about this particular tomb and the frequency of the names.

If you don’t want to wait for the movie (March 4 on Discovery Channel), you can buy the book now. 

It’s currently ranked #6 at Amazon.  In one year, you’ll be able to buy it for three bucks or less (just like the “Cave of John the Baptist” book, which was a similar one-night sensation).

I’ve started a short list of scholars who are believe or reject this theory.


Reject it:

Non-Christian scholars: Amos Kloner, Dan Bahat, Aren Maier, Joe Zias, Jodi Magness, William
Dever, Lawrence Stager

Christian scholars: Stephen Pfann, Leen Ritmeyer, Ben Witherington, Paul Maier, Steven Notley, Andreas Köstenberger, Jerome Murphy-O’Connor
 
Believe it:

Non-Christian scholars: James Tabor

Christian scholars: None known

Non-committal:

Non-Christian scholars: Shimon Gibson (skeptical, but doesn’t rule out the possibility)

Christian scholars: None known

Update 3/1 and 3/2: Some scholars added to list.

If you’ve just heard about this story, you can read my initial comments here.  More sound analysis can be found at James White’s site and at the internetmonk.  Joe Zias, a retired expert in paleopathology in Israel, has some good comments on the ANE-2 list today (here and here, may require free membership to view).  And the Discovery Channel will have a discussion forum with experts including James Charlesworth, Amy-Jill Levine, and James D. Tabor.  Tabor will have more on his blog in days to come, and he appears to be a big promoter of this new theory, especially as it will help his book sales.  Tabor’s starting point is that Jesus certainly had a human father and he certainly never walked out of his tomb.

I hate these kind of stories, because everyone with any training in archaeology related to the Bible can see it’s a fraud from a mile away, but everyone else takes it so seriously.

The first thing to note in this “discovery” is that it was made by a filmmaker and a Hollywood director.  That should make you suspicious.  Why archaeologists and other scholars didn’t have any inkling of this until it was revealed by movie-makers should smell more like Indiana Jones than serious scholarship.  Of course, it is altogether possible that these amateurs did make the greatest discovery ever in biblical archaeology.  If so, it will be recognized as authentic by those who are experts in the field.  If not, the filmmakers can pour millions of dollars into creating a “documentary” that ignores the scholars and appeals directly to the (largely ignorant) public.

The previous work of these two filmmakers is not irrelevant to this story; this is not their first foray into biblical archaeology.  Their recent “The Exodus Decoded” reveals their methodology: partial presentation of evidence combined with twisted interpretation and a complete lack of scholarly support.  Add $3 million for amazing special effects and eye candy.  Simply put, no one with any knowledge of the field (secular, religious, liberal, conservative) buys what they were selling.  For a 14-part review, see Chris Heard’s blog.

The filmmakers don’t want to reveal specifics of their discovery of Jesus’ tomb, but they have leaked enough details to get excitement up for their Monday press conference.  So detailed analysis will have to wait (and if anyone else is doing it, I’m going to save time and simply link to them), but for now, here’s some that you won’t hear at the press conference or in the multi-million-dollar made-for-TV movie, from the the Jerusalem Post.

But Bar-Ilan University Prof. Amos Kloner, the Jerusalem District archeologist who officially oversaw the work at the tomb in 1980 and has published detailed findings on its contents, on Saturday night dismissed the claims. “It makes a great story for a TV film,” he told The Jerusalem Post. “But it’s impossible. It’s nonsense.”
Kloner, who said he was interviewed for the new film but has not seen it, said the names found on the ossuaries were common, and the fact that such apparently resonant names had been found together was of no significance. He added that “Jesus son of Joseph” inscriptions had been found on several other ossuaries over the years.
“There is no likelihood that Jesus and his relatives had a family tomb,” Kloner said. “They were a Galilee family with no ties in Jerusalem. The Talpiot tomb belonged to a middle-class family from the 1st century CE.”

This scholar is not a Christian and is not motivated to protect religous beliefs of Christians.  He is an expert on burials from the time of Christ.

In short, this “discovery” has nothing to do with facts and everything to do with financial gain.  You can make a lot of money and gain a lot of notoriety by creating the most sensational of discoveries.  It would all be so much better if journalists would call up a few experts, determine that the story is rubbish, and then publish nothing about it.  Unfortunately, journalists are complicit in perpetuating the fraud, because sensational stories like this are good for their ratings.