The Lost Tomb of Jesus

***The Lost Tomb of Jesus*** is a docudrama co-produced by the Discovery Channel and Vision TV in Canada. It was directed by Canadian documentary and film maker Simcha Jacobovici, executive produced by James Cameron and narrated by Ron White. It premiered on March 4, 2007.

## Content

The film describes the finding of the Talpiot Tomb during a housing construction project and posits that it was the family tomb of Jesus. The film states that ten ossuaries were found in the cave, of which six are brought into focus. Further, it claims that one of the ten ossuaries went missing years ago, possibly stolen.

Six of the nine remaining ossuaries bear inscriptions relating to the Gospels. The meaning of the paragraphs is disputed, with the documentary makers claiming that four leading epigraphers have corroborated their interpretations of the inscriptions. They read as follows:

* *Yeshua bar Yehosef* - Aramaic for "Jesus son of Joseph"
* *Maria* - written in Aramaic, but a Latin form of the Hebrew name "Miriam" ("Mary")
* *Yose* - a diminutive of "Joseph" mentioned as the name of one of Jesus' brothers in the New Testament (Mark 6:3)
* *Yehuda bar Yeshua* - possibly Aramaic for "Judah son of Jesus"
* *Mariamene e Mara* - according to the filmmakers, this is Greek for "Mary known as the master". The similar name "Mariamne" is found in the Acts of Philip.
* *Matya* - Hebrew for 'Matthew' - not claimed to be Matthew the Evangelist but "possibly a husband of one of the women in an unmarked ossuary". The filmmakers claim that there is evidence that Mary mother of Jesus had many relatives named Matthew.

The film further claims that the tenth ossuary, which went missing years ago, is the James Ossuary purported to contain the body of James, the brother of Jesus.

## DNA tests

Mitochondrial DNA of human residue was found in two of the ossuaries marked "Jesus son of Mary" and "Mariamne" or "Mary", and extracted for analysis at Lakehead University. The makers of the documentary suggest, based on these tests, that "Jesus" and "Mariamne" were probably married "because otherwise they would have been buried together in a family tomb", but the remains were not dated using radiocarbon to further sustain this supposition. Neither was any DNA from the other ossuaries tested to see whether or not any familial relation existed there. Additionally, scholars argue that the DNA tests only prove that they did not have the same mother and they could easily have been father/daughter, cousins, half-brother/sister, or any number of possibilities that do not include a matrilineage line.

## Ratings

The film drew in 4.19 million viewers and made a 3.2 household rating, beating out the History Channel's *The Dark Ages*, which pulled a 1.9 rating/2.29 million viewers.

## Criticism

*The Lost Tomb of Jesus* received massive criticism following its premiere, with critics, religious groups and academics describing it as nonsensical, inaccurate, inconsistent, and based on bad assumptions. The backlash was so severe that planned reruns were cancelled.

### Scholars misquoted

Some scholars interviewed in the documentary protested and accused the filmmakers of distorting their words:

* Archaeologist Shimon Gibson (University of North Carolina at Charlotte) stated that he never claimed that Talpiot Tomb may be related to Jesus of Nazareth. In fact, he had clearly stated that he was skeptical about that claim.
* Epigrapher Frank Moore Cross (Harvard University) denied having claimed that the names on the ossuary were related to the family of Jesus of Nazareth, noting that those names were extremely common in the 1st century CE and that the statistics in the movie were unpersuasive.
* Genetist Carney Matheson (Griffith University) denied supporting the idea that the Yeshua and Mariamne in the Talpiot Tomb is Mary Magdalene.
* Father Jerome Murphy-O'Connor (École Biblique) denied having supported the idea that the Talpiot Tomb is Jesus' family tomb and dismissed the movie as "a commercial ploy".

### DNA tests

Others have discussed the DNA tests, which they described as inconsistent. The most common was the James ossuary, which was revealed to have been from Silwan, not Talpiot, and that it had dirt on it that matched up with the soil in that particular part of Jerusalem. In addition, a photo taken of the ossuary, based on a test by the FBI photo lab, was taken in the 1970s, making it impossible for it have been discovered with the rest of the Talpiot ossuaries in the 1980s.

Jodi Magness, an archaeologist at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, notes 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 writes, "If Jesus' family had been wealthy enough to afford a rock-cut tomb, it would have been in Nazareth, not Jerusalem". According to Magness, the names on the Talpiot 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 hometown.

There is no information on analyzing relation of "Mary" and "Jesus son of Joseph" or any other tomb occupants. In Jewish tradition at the time, after one year, when bodies in rock-cut tombs were decomposed, bones were collected, cleaned and then finally placed in an ossuary. Due to this conduct, there is no real assurance that what filmmakers have really examined of "Mariamne e Mara" and "Jesus son of Joseph".

### Inscription interpretations

It has been pointed out that the names on the inscriptions of the ossuaries were very common names of the 1st century, and that the inscription of "Jesus son of Joseph" is not sufficient proof that that cave was the burial site of Jesus and his family. Professor Amos Kloner (Israel Antiquities Authority) told the *Yedioth Ahronoth* newspaper that the name Jesus was found 71 times in burial caves at that time. Furthermore, he said that the inscription of the ossuary is not clear enough to ascertain, and it failed to hold up by archaeological standards.

Richard Bauckham (University of St. Andrews) catalogued ossuary names from that region since 1980. He records that based on the catalogue, "Jesus" was the sixth most popular name of Jewish men, and "Mary/Mariamne" was the single most popular name of Jewish women at the time. Therefore, finding two ossuaries containing the names "Jesus" and "Mary" is not significant at all, and the changes of it being the ossuaries of Jesus and Mary Magdalene are very small.

Concerning the inscription attributed to Jesus son of Joseph, Steve Caruso, a professional Aramaic translator using a computer to visualize interpretations, claims that although it is *possible* to read it as "Yeshua" that "overall it is a very strong possibility that this inscription is not "*Yeshua' bar Yehosef*".

The name "Mary" and its derivatives may have been used by up to 25% of Jewish women at the time.

### Publicity

According to a review by the *Washington Post*, leading archaeologists in Israel and the United States denounced the purported discovery of the tomb as a publicity stunt. Criticism came not just from Christian but also Jewish scholars and secular experts who said their judgments were unaffected by any desire to uphold Christian orthodoxy.

### Symposium and media coverage

In January 2008, media interest in the Talpiot tomb was reignited following a symposium at Princeton Theological Seminary. *Time* and CNN devoted extensive coverage implying that the case had been reopened.

Scholars who had been present at the symposium accused Jacobovici and Cameron of misleading the media in claiming the symposium reopened their theory as viable. Several scholars, including all the archeologists and epigraphers who delivered papers at the symposium, issued an open letter of complaint claiming misinterpretation, saying that Jacobovici and Cameron's claims of support from the symposium are "nothing further from the truth" and also "the majority of scholars in attendance - including all of the archeologists and epigraphers who presented papers relating to the tomb - either reject the identification of the Talpiot tomb as belonging to Jesus' family or find this claim highly speculative" and that "the probability of the Talpiot tomb belonging to Jesus' family is virtually nil". James Charles worth edited and published the proceedings of the symposium, which at the end stated that "Most archaeologists, epigraphers, and other scientists argued persuasively that there is no reason to conclude that the Talpiot tomb was Jesus' tomb".