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.