Conference scholars reject 'Jesus tomb' claim
Pastor Dale Morgan
Conference scholars reject 'Jesus tomb' claim*
Say filmmaker's identification of burial site falls on statistical, DNA,
epigraphic evidence
Posted: January 26, 2008
8:00 p.m. Eastern
A group of scholars is disputing the positive media coverage given a
Jerusalem conference earlier this month on the so-called tomb of Jesus
popularized last year by "Titanic" director James Cameron and Jewish
investigative journalist and filmmaker Simcha Jacobovici, saying the
majority of experts and academics in attendence either rejected the
identification of the site excavated in 1980 as belonging to Jesus'
family or find the claim highly speculative.
As was reported in February 2007, the Oscar-winning director's film
project, "The Lost Tomb of Jesus," claimed the discovery of 10 stone
coffins in a Jerusalem suburb is actually the family crypt of Jesus of
Nazareth.
The 90-minute film, made for the Discovery Channel, makes the case that
Jesus had a son named Judah with Mary Magdalene.
Cameron and his director, Jacobovici, claimed also to have DNA evidence
to back their story.
"People who believe in a physical ascension – that he took his body to
heaven – those people will say, 'Wait a minute,'" warned Jacobovici.
According to the filmmakers, 10 ossuaries, or stone boxes containing
bones, found in the first century tomb are almost certain to hold the
remains of Jesus, Mary Magdalene his wife, Judah their son and other
family members.
One of the ossuaries is reportedly inscribed, "Jesus son of Joseph,"
another "Mariemene e Mara," which in some early Christian texts was
believed to refer to Mary Magdalene, and another "Judah son of Jesus."
DNA analysis of the bones reportedly showed Jesus and Mariemene were
unrelated adults, leading to the conclusion they were husband and wife.
Other ossuaries were inscribed with the names Mary, Mathew, and Jofa.
The news came a year after release of "The Da Vinci Code" movie, based
on the best-selling novel of 2004 by Dan Brown, both of which also
claimed Mary Magdalene was the wife of Jesus.
"This is archaeology," claims James Tabor, chairman of the religious
studies department at the University of North Carolina, who is
interviewed throughout the documentary. "We've got the casket. We've got
the bones. I think we can say, in all probability, Jesus had this son,
Judah, presumably through Mary Magdalene."
Cameron and Jacobovici cited statistical analysis that suggested finding
the combination of related historical names in a first century crypt at
600 to 1.
Those claims were the subject of the "Third Princeton Theological
Seminary Symposium on Jewish Views of the Afterlife and Burial Practices
in Second Temple Judaism: Evaluating the Talpiot Tomb in Context," held
Jan. 13-16, 2008, in Jerusalem. The conference was attended by some
fifty international and Israeli scholars.
According to a posting on the Princeton Theological Seminary website,
the consensus of the participants was against the tomb being related to
Christianity's founder.
"Unfortunately, many of the initial reports in the press following the
symposium gave almost the exact opposite impression, stating, instead,
that the conference proceedings gave credence to the identification of
the Talpiot tomb with a putative family tomb of Jesus of Nazareth. As is
abundantly clear from the statements to the contrary that have been
issued since the symposium by many of the participants, such
representations are patently false and blatantly misrepresent the spirit
and scholarly content of the deliberations."
Several scholars issued a statement on the Duke University Religion
Department's website indicating their rejection of the filmmakers'
claims and disputing the press coverage.
* Professor Mordechai Aviam, University of Rochester
* Professor Ann Graham Brock, Iliff School of Theology, University of Denver
* Professor F.W. Dobbs-Allsopp, Princeton Theological Seminary
* Professor C.D. Elledge, Gustavus Adolphus College
* Professor Shimon Gibson, University of North Carolina at Charlotte
* Professor Rachel Hachlili, University of Haifa
* Professor Amos Kloner, Bar-Ilan University
* Professor Jodi Magness, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
* Professor Lee McDonald, Arcadia Seminary
* Professor Eric M. Meyers, Duke University
* Professor Stephen Pfann, University of the Holy Land
* Professor Jonathan Price, Tel Aviv University
* Professor Christopher Rollston, Emmanuel School of Religion
* Professor Alan F. Segal, Barnard College, Columbia University
* Professor Choon-Leong Seow, Princeton Theological Seminary
* Mr. Joe Zias, Science and Antiquity Group, Jerusalem
* Dr. Boaz Zissu, Bar-Ilan University
The conference featured a challenge to the identification of "Mariemene"
with Mary Magdalene, a crucial part of the statistical analysis behind
Cameron's and Jacobovici's confidence.
Professor Stephen Pfann, of the University of the Holy Land in
Jerusalem, said the inscription does not read "Mariemene e Mara" at all
but instead "Mariame" and "kai Mara," suggesting the ossuary contained
bones of two women, Mary and Martha. Further, other scholars of early
church history dismissed the link between "Mariamene" and Mary Magdelene.
"A statistical analysis of the names engraved on the ossuaries leaves no
doubt that the probability of the Talpiot tomb belonging to Jesus'
family is virtually nil if the Mariamene named on one of the ossuaries
is not Mary Magdalene," wrote Duke University Professor Eric M. Meyers.
"Even the reading of the inscribed name as 'Mariamene' was contested by
epigraphers at the conference," he wrote. "Furthermore, Mary Magdalene
is not referred to by the Greek name Mariamene in any literary sources
before the late second-third century AD. An expert panel of scholars on
the subject of Mary in the early church dismissed out of hand the
suggestion that Mary Magdalene was married to Jesus, and no traditions
refer to a son of Jesus named Judah."
Myer also disputed the DNA claims of the filmmakers, citing a report by
the head of the DNA laboratory at Hebrew University that concluded the
sampling of the bone material was invalid and contaminated and could not
be used to infer that "Jesus" and "Mariemene" were unrelated adults and,
therefore, likely husband and wife.
"It was not even worth discussion. That should have closed the case,"
Myers told Christian Post.
The "smoking gun" at the conference, said Myers, was a surprise
appearance by Ruth Gat, the widow of the archaeologist who excavated the
tomb in 1980 and has since passed away.
Gat told the scholars her husband Yosef knew he had found "the burial
tomb of Jesus Christ," but had "serious concerns and fears" over
publicizing his discovery. Having been a child in Nazi-occupied Poland,
he feared "a wave of anti-Semitism" because of his find.
Gat told the Jerusalem Post after her address her husband had been
"staggered" by the discovery, and that he had discussed it with her "at
the kitchen table."
Film director Jacobovici, who attended the symposium, said he "fell off
the chair" when he heard her and claimed he had been vindicated by Gat's
statement.
But Gat's claim was disputed by panelist Shimon Gibson, who was a young
archeologist on the 1980 dig. He said Yosef never told him he believed
the tomb was Jesus'.
Amos Kloner, former Jerusalem District archeologist, who wrote the
excavation report from Gat's minimal notes 16 years after the find, said
the notion Gat believed he had found Jesus' tomb was "absolutely not the
case."
Further, noted Myers, Gat was a field archaelogist and did not have the
epigraphic expertise to read the inscriptions.
According to Kloner, who called Jacobovici "a liar" at one session of
the symposium and earlier branded the documentary "brain confusion,"
most of the bones found in the ossuaries 28 years ago were badly
decomposed. Because of pressures from religious Jews, they were never
subjected to anthropological tests and were transferred to the Religious
Affairs Ministry for immediate reburial along with other remains found
in construction projects and archaeological excavations. Their location
is not known.