It looks as if James Cameron's announcement that he found Jesus' crypt has landed with a resounding thud. Perhaps the case of the purported James ossuary, now widely believed to be a hoax, has made scholars and reporters more wary of such claims.
Even some of the archaeologists involved in the dig have failed to endorse Cameron's sensationalistic interpretation of the results, according to a Reuters story.
Dr. Shimon Gibson, one of the archeologists who discovered the tomb, told Reuters at the news conference he had a "healthy skepticism" the tomb may have belonged to the family of Jesus, but the claims deserved to be investigated.
In Jerusalem, the Israeli archeologist who also carried out excavations at the tomb on behalf of the Israel Antiquities Authority, disputed the documentary's conclusions.
The archeologist, Amos Kloner, said the 2,000-year-old cave contained coffins belonging to a Jewish family whose names were similar to those of Jesus and his relatives.
"I can say positively that I don't accept the identification (as) ... belonging to the family of Jesus in Jerusalem," Kloner told Reuters. "I don't accept that the family of Miriam and Yosef (Mary and Joseph), the parents of Jesus, had a family tomb in Jerusalem."
"They were a very poor family. They resided in Nazareth, they came to Bethlehem in order to have the birth done there -- so I don't accept it, not historically, not archeologically," said Kloner, a professor in the Department of Land of Israel Studies and Archeology at Bar-Ilan University near Tel Aviv.
From a message board (HT: The Anomalist) comes an interesting comment about the statistical analysis used in this case. The writer first quotes the argument used to establish the ossuaries as belonging to Jesus and his relatives. (The source of this quotation isn't cited.)
Another estimate, commissioned by Dr. James Tabor, chair of the department of religion studies at the University of North Carolina, puts the odds at one in 42 million. "If you took the entire population of Jerusalem at the time," says Dr. Taber, "and put it in a stadium, and asked everyone named Jesus to stand up, you'd have about 2,700 men. Then you'd ask only those with a father named Joseph and a mother named Mary to remain standing. And then those with a brother named Yose and a brother named James. Statistically, you end up with one person."
Then the poster shows the fallacy in this line of reasoning.
Since they don't actually know the family relationships of the people whose ossuaries were apparently found together, that should read more like this. "If you took the entire population of Jerusalem at the time and put it in a stadium, and asked everyone named Jesus to stand up, you'd have about 2,700 men. Then you'd ask only those with a father named Joseph and relatives or close associates named Mary and Yose to remain standing." My guess is that only about half of those men would have sat down.
The same writer observes some oddities in the inscriptions on the ossuaries.
What I think throws the thing completely is the total lack of ambiguity in the names themselves, reminiscent of the James ossuary forgery. The 'Mary' ossuary is inscribed in the Latin MARIA as if deliberately targeting modern Catholics. The 'Mary Magdalene' ossuary is written in Greek, and is 'Mariamne e mara' (Miriam the master), which directly plays to the specific theology of modern Da Vinci/Holy blood followers, as well as classical gnostics. And Matia (Matthew) is inscribed in Hebrew, the one disciple known in early Christianity for his Hebraic fluency. Its just all a bit too perfectly matched to the kinds of things archeologists would be interested in.
To me, the most amusing thing in all this is a line from an item on a Web site called This Is London:
Apparently surprised at the hostility over his 'discovery', [Cameron] insisted it was not a publicity stunt and said his critics should wait and see the film.
"Apparently surprised at the hostility"?
Does this guy live in a plastic bubble? Did he think that claiming to have found Jesus' bones and disproved the Resurrection would not be controversial?
Even the "king of the world" should know better than that.
I think there is a back story to the discovery of these remains that is more significant than the ultimate consensus as to their origin. As various Christian spokesmen of the varying denominations of belief aptly demonstrate, there is a division of attention which appears to be indicating that there is a misplaced focus on the physical body of what has degenerated into a cult of personality, rather than the core of the Jesus teaching. If the same amount of consideration in thought were centered on the teaching rather than the teacher, all of this circus would roll up it's tent overnight and slip away into obscurity. I feel very confident that if Jesus were to reappear, he would not be pleased with this misplaced foolishness. It speaks volumes about the current state of his teaching rather than the validity of these relics, to whomever they may belong. All of this severely indicates the shallowness of depth of consideration when it is measured beneath the surface of appearances.
Posted by: Bruce Duensing | February 27, 2007 at 08:28 AM
Very good point, Bruce.
BTW, not all Christians have the same beliefs regarding the story of the bodily resurrection of Jesus. For example, Spiritist-Christians (based on the works of Allan Kardec) focus mainly on the teachings of Jesus. The so-called miracles, including the resurrection, are reasonably explained as spirit phenomena, since as Jesus said “anyone who has faith in me will do what I have been doing. He will do even greater things than these”.
Posted by: Ulysses | February 27, 2007 at 09:29 AM
I think the perennial quest of connecting the dots between the visible and invisible by seeking a locus of manfestation that intertwines both in a physical object that can be examined like a piece of furniture seems to be a hallmark of human nature. This miraculous hybrid is the holy grail of ESP, Ufology, Bigfoot, Loch Ness, etc. It's interesting to note the foundation of some belief systems of Christianity are essentially predicated upon this irony. It seems patently obvious that every day we inhabit an inner invisble world that interacts with a visble, sensate one and creates a third reality which we always seek outside of ourselves in a object of veneration. I am always amused by finding a rich vein of empirical fool's gold that is mined by determining which came first, the chicken or the egg?
Posted by: Bruce Duensing | February 27, 2007 at 09:52 AM
I agree. Cameron shouldn't have been surprised. However, there should be a distinction made between the words "controversy" and "hostility." It is possible to expect “controversy” without expecting “hostility.” Or at least it should be, especially when discussing “The Prince of Peace.” Were you intentionally twisting the words for your own agenda?
Posted by: Edward Wolf | February 27, 2007 at 11:01 AM
"What I think throws the thing completely is the total lack of ambiguity in the names themselves, reminiscent of the James ossuary forgery."
The site was uncovered during a construction project, so there's a "chain of custody" for the items. You're not dealing with a case like the James ossuary, where the object just appears on the scene. The tomb was apparently entered at some point previously, but it would have to have been in antiquity. It would be most unlikely that the tomb was discovered ages ago, inscriptions forged, then left undiscovered for centuries. So the fact that these names line up so well with the alternate theories is a positive, not a negative.
Regarding the statistics, Cameron's team got some (mitochrondrial?) DNA from the Jesus and Mariamne ossuaries and discovered they were not related, at least not maternally. This puts it as a greater possibility that the relation between the two would be husband and wife. It's also more likely that the people in the same tomb would be closely related as opposed to "relatives or close associates". We have names of Jesus, Mary, Joseph, a Mariamne not maternally related to Jesus, the name of one of those believed by non-Catholic Christians to be a brother of Jesus, and possibly "James" as well, if the documentary is successful in proving that the James ossuary was in this tomb at one time as well (the likely weakest bit of evidence in the case). I find this story fascinating and while it's expected that some would dismiss it out of hand before seeing the evidence, I think it will "have legs". We may have be on the dawn of discovering the greatest hoax in history if true.
Bruce - Christianity hinges on the Resurrection, for better or worse. Along the way it became about Christ "dying for our sins" and "redeeming" us. Without a resurrection, that central tenet is lost. Without a resurrection, Christ as a manifestation of God is lost. And most importantly, if Christ didn't rise from the dead, then trickery was employed to make people believe he did. The credibility of the apostles and the early church is also lost. Imagine if evidence surfaces that there are those in the church who have always known this, but suppressed it in order to keep the faithful... um... faithful? You'd witness the rapid destruction of the Catholic church and much of the rest of Christianity.
I think the implications will be staggering if Cameron can prove his case, and will be watching this event with extreme interest. I don't think anything Cameron can present at this time could prove the ultimate case, but if his initial evidence stands up it could lead to much more investigation... particularly into who broke into the tomb, when, and what were they doing there? (Cue Knights Templar. :-) )
Posted by: Joseph Mitzen | February 27, 2007 at 02:15 PM
Joseph- You are certainly right about the Catholic variant of Christianity and perhaps Baptists as well being directly impacted by such a revelation but I see this would not cause so much of a collapse as heralding a theological age of revisionists reinterpreting the material rather than throwing the baby out with the bathwater. I think that its unfortunate that the Islamic perspective which is a common tradition with Christianity up to Jesus is not better known, whose history of Jesus is more in line with the implications
of this finding.
Posted by: Bruce Duensing | February 27, 2007 at 02:49 PM
I'm no historian or biblical scholar, not even a Christian. Though I believe Jesus was a great spiritual teacher, even when I belonged to a Christian church I never got past the two logic twists in the gospels, of the virgin birth and physical resurrection.
I've come to suspect that the first rulers who converted to Christianity (likely because it was so popular that in order to keep people following them they had to), or perhaps early clergy with material agendas, inserted the idea of a physical resurrection in order to keep people focused on the material plane -- and serving the needs of worldly leaders.
If this is only hype for the movie, maybe Cameron feels he needs to do it because such a movie has already been done -- The Body, starring Antonio Banderas, although without the addition of Mary Magdalene and a child -- and he wants people to see this as new and original. And it did seem to aid Da Vinci Code's success for the front page to present certain ideas as fact that aren't exactly proven fact (one of them was even proven to be a hoax). It doesn't surprise me at all to see someone else follow a pattern used by a previous success in the world of fiction.
On the other hand this could be an attempt to figuratively and literally bury the whole idea of a Merovingian legacy, and even the authenticity of the Gospel of Mary. That stands out for me as the biggest difference between this so-called relic's implications and other theories about a marriage of Jesus and Mary. Gnostics, Margaret Starbird, and Da Vinci Code all follow the idea of Mary Magdalene surviving Jesus and relocating elsewhere. So does the existence of her gospel.
Posted by: Barbara | February 27, 2007 at 04:55 PM
>Were you intentionally twisting the words for your own agenda?
Yes.
Posted by: Michael Prescott | February 27, 2007 at 11:03 PM
Some very interesting observations and comments. I pretty much agree and don't understand why it should be a big deal to recognize that it was Jesus' etheric body rather than his physical body that was resurrected. If only Christianity could recognize this, its foundations would not have to be shaken. Of course, it would also have to shed the atonement doctrine. Incidentally, there was a movie, "The Body" with this very scenario about five years ago.
Posted by: Michael E. Tymn | February 27, 2007 at 11:04 PM
I think I'll side with the skeptics on this one.
extraordinary claim requires extraordinary evidence.
let's see:
ad homen: james cameron is one gullible man- must be because he's not so smart
self-fulfilling prophecy- he wants to disprove resurrection, therefore he goes out to find a tomb in middle east- where the deceased were happened to name jesus and mary...etc, etc.
not looking at all evidence- well, since he's gullible, we dont need to take the rest of evidence seriously. after all, we've already debunked him!
finally, dogmatism: well, it just can't be true because jesus wasn't even a real person!
wow, i'm getting better at thinking like a skeptic.
Posted by: Tom | February 28, 2007 at 11:48 AM
More skeptical reactions from archaeologists in this Washington Post article.
Also, the documentary filmmaker promoting this find, Simcha Jacobovici, is a controversial figure with no credentials as an archaeologist. He appears to be something of a sensationalist. In the comments section of this blog post at Captain's Quarters, a reader reports that Jacobovici has produced documentaries claiming "to have proven, via newly discovered archaeology 'evidence', that the Exodus had in fact, taken place, and they could prove it, and they also claimed to have scientifically proved the fact that all 10 plagues of the Bible did in fact, take place, as a result of the volcanic eruption on the Greek isle of Akroktir ...
"Additionally, Simcha, some years ago, produced a 'documentary', where he claimed he had discovered all lost 12 tribes of Israel..."
Posted by: Michael Prescott | February 28, 2007 at 10:02 PM
The Tomb, ossuaries and even the James ossuary, are probably all legit - it's hard to see how any hoax could've been perpetrated with so much detail, over decades. I've already read looney Xian sites which claim it's a Satanic fake.
It's not. But is there anyway of linking it to JC? The names make an interesting cluster, but the odds don't seem as fantastically unlikely as Jacobovici/Cameron crowd are making out. And the total lack of documentary evidence that JC had a son makes that claim a weak-link, and more evidence that it's mistaken identity.
But what if it is? James Tabor is involved in this one too, and his "The Jesus Dynasty" pretty convincingly argues that John the Baptist and Jesus saw themselves as the promised Twin Messiahs of First Century Judaism. How did their tale end up as the Gospels? Tabor reckons Paul "corrupted" their message, but I'm not so convinced. Something happened to derail their planned Earthly Kingdom - but what kick-started Xianity?
Posted by: Adam | March 01, 2007 at 05:10 AM
To me the symbol on the facade of the tomb is one of the most interesting aspects of the archaeological discovery. The All-Seeing-Eye of the Freemasons might have been a tradition passed down from the Knights Templar, who could have visited this unique mausoleum during the 12th century. See my blog for more:
http://theorionzone.blogspot.com
Posted by: Gary David | March 05, 2007 at 12:25 PM
I miss his sci-fi days :(
Posted by: Eric | March 07, 2007 at 08:39 AM
James Tabor is the same character at the center of the claim that an “Essene latrine” has been found near the site of Khirbet Qumran, where so-called traditional Qumranologists (including, it would appear, Tabor himself) continue to insist, in the face of mounting contrary evidence, that a sect of Essenes lived. Tabor is also involved in the current biased and misleading exhibits of the Dead Sea Scrolls traveling around the country.
For details, see http://jesus-crypt-fraud.blogspot.com/ and the other postings published by the authors of that blog.
Professor Jim Davila’s blog (March 6, 2007) http://paleojudaica.blogspot.com/ quotes Tabor as asserting to him in an email: “I have never excavated even one tomb, and I am not even an archaeologist and have never claimed to be such.” Yet Tabor himself, in an article published in the Charlotte Observer, excerpted on the same paleojudaica blog a year ago (February 13, 2006), wrote: “As an archaeologist, I have long observed and experienced the thrill that ancient discoveries cause in all of us. The look on the faces of my students as we uncover ancient ruins from the time of Jesus, or explore one of the caves where the scrolls were found, is unmistakable.”
Tabor's Ph.D. was awarded to him by the University of Chicago’s Department of New Testament and Christian Literature. (This department is housed in the University of Chicago’s Divinity School building, but it does give academic degrees and its teaching staff are culled from different departments of the University.) The title of his dissertation was “Things Unalterable: Paul’s Ascent to Paradise”. He clearly has no training as an archaeologist or historian, and we are only left to wonder at the motivations that led him to become involved in these phony scams.
Posted by: Charles Gadda | March 09, 2007 at 03:41 PM