KellanStec

This is going to be good. And I mean that in the most sarcastic way possible. For those of you who do not know what I am talking about, there was a discovery made about 27 years ago of a tomb containing ten bone boxes–some of which contain names of Biblical significance. There’s a documentary set to air this Sunday, March 4 on the Discovery Channel brought to you by the same man who brought us the vomit-inducing three hours that is The Titanic: James Cameron. The names found in the tomb include:

• Yeshua` bar Yehosef - “Jesus son of Joseph”
• Maryah - “Mary”
• Yoseh - “Joseph”
• Mariamene e Mara - “Mary also known as Mara”
• Mattiah - “Matthew”
• Yehudah bar Yeshua` - “Judas son of Jesus”

Before we jump to any conclusions, let us look at the facts. Tombs like these are discovered all the time. Hundreds of tombs and thousands of bone boxes have been discovered in the Jerusalem area since the 1970s. Not only are the tombs common, but the names inscribed on the bone boxes are commonly from a pool of fifteen or so names. From our current discoveries, there are 45 bone boxes labeled “Joseph”, 22 labeled “Jesus”, and 42 labeled “Mary”.

But we are talking about something explicit. Right there it is: a bone box containing Jesus, son of someone named Joseph. How likely is it that these two names are found in the same tomb, one claiming to be the father of another, which seems to match the biblical story? Well, David Mavorah, a custodian of the Israel museum in Jerusalem, points out just how common these names were. “We know that Joseph, Jesus and Mariamene were all among the most common names of the period” he says, “To start with all these names being together in a single tomb and leap from there to say this is the tomb of Jesus is a little far-fetched, to put it politely.” Is it wrong to assume the connection, though?

There are several problems with the assumption that it must be the same family the bible describes. First, it presupposes that it was extremely unlikely that a man named Joseph ever sired a man named Jesus. This is one of the reason that the filmmakers turned to statisticians to verify the unlikelihood of coincidence. The odds that these names would be found together run anywhere from 1:600 to 1:1 million, depending on the statistician you turn to. These aren’t particularly good odds on which to base an assertion–especially since we know how common these names really were. Just to give you an example, Jesus was the sixth most popular name of Jewish men. Mary was more popular still, ranked at number one among women. But let’s look at the second problem: translation.

Things written two thousand years ago, even when carved into stone, don’t conserve as well as we would like them to. Aside from the difficulty in reading, translating the names has generated a fair amount of controversy. Stephen Pfann, a biblical scholar at the University of the Holy Land in Jerusalem is even uncertain that the name Jesus on the caskets was read properly. He thinks it’s more probably the name “Hanun.” Ancient Semitic script is infamously tricky to translate. Just check out the picture to the left.

A third consideration, and possibly the most damaging facet to the claim (aside from the utter lack of historical evidence that Jesus ever existed, although I suspect he probably did), is the extreme unlikelihood that the Jesus of the Bible and his family were ever buried in such a tomb. Archaeologist Amos Kloner is unconvinced of the connection, and even states that Jesus’ family probably never had a tomb, much less a tomb in Jerusalem. “It makes a great story for TV, but it’s nonsense,” he told the Jerusalem Post in February. “There is no likelihood that Jesus and his relatives had a family tomb. They were a Galilee family with no Jerusalem ties. The Talpiot tomb belonged to a middle-class family from the 1st century CE.”

Alright, so it’s not very likely that these bone boxes contain the same family written about in the Bible. However, James Cameron remains determined to somehow connect this discovery to the Da Vinci Code. Laughably, he plans to do this using DNA evidence to show that the Jesus and one of the Marys in the tomb are not genetically related, giving credence to the theory that Mary Magdalene and Jesus were romantically involved. You read right. James Cameron is perverting science and archaeology to support something that Dan Brown just made up.

This sick publicity stunt is designed from the inside out to profit James Cameron and his pseudoscience and pseudo history. The worst part is, the profit will be coming from innocent people who are unable to differentiate a fabrication from reality. This could lend a damaging blow to people’s faith that Jesus resurrected on the third day–something many hold dear. The idea that Jesus rose from the dead and is now in heaven is essential to the Christian faith. This depends on an empty tomb.

In conclusion, there is little credible evidence that suggests we should think this tomb contains the family described in the Bible. There are several major problems associated with the assumption that they are connected, and the documentary has little basis in fact. I’m kind of curious to know exactly where Cameron will go with this.

What do you think?

Filed under: Science, Religion, Media by kellanstec