The Lost Tomb of Jesus

Hey Folks,

OK. So Sunday night I watched the Jesus Tomb special on Discovery and then Ted Koppel’s show about it directly afterwards. Before I get into what I thought, let me first say that I’m ALWAYS available to talk to about things of this type that show up in the media from time to time (this, Di Vinci Code, the Gospel of Judas, etc).

For those of you that didn’t catch the docudrama (there’s your first clue…I didn’t call it a documentary), I’m sure it will be shown again on Discovery Channel. Plus, at the Discovery Channel website you can order the DVD of the show or the book that goes along with it. Oh, the official website is: http://www.jesusfamilytomb.com.

Alright, on with my reaction and reflection to this idea (the idea, in a nutshell, is that they suggest that the family tomb of Jesus has been found in southern Jerusalem and had the remains of Jesus, Jesus’ son, Mary, Mary Magdalene, Jesus’ brothers Jose and James, and another possible brother and 4 other unidentified family members in it).

Let me start with my above statement of ‘docudrama.’ I said this because my overall impression is that the film is intended to entertain more than inform. It has dramatic recreations and is formatted to have several ‘cliffhanger’ moments during the course of it. The feel is that they are trying to persuasively convince you of their hypothesis through these mechanisms, rather than trying to objectively present the evidence.

Aside from the overall presentation, let’s talk about their approach. They did the opposite of what I had hoped: they started with the idea they wanted to confirm, and then hunted for ways to make it happen. They started with the idea that Jesus was buried in that tomb. Then they proceeded to try and fit things into this theory. If they had started with considering all the evidence, and then drawing conclusions based upon it, it would have seemed less contrived to me.

That’s as far as I can go with generalizations. Personally, I’m not persuaded by the argument they lay out.

Now I’ll go on into specifics that will make the most sense if you’ve seen it:

1) They never addressed why Jesus’ family would have a tomb in Jerusalem in the first place. Jesus’ family was from Nazareth. If there were any tomb for the family of Jesus at all, it would be in Nazareth, where Jesus’ father Joseph was most likely already buried. The Bible talks about Jesus being laid in a tomb belonging to Joseph of Arimathea (its mentioned in all 4 Gospels: Mark 15, Matthew 27, Luke 23, John 19. If the Jesus family had a tomb in Jerusalem, it would have made no sense for Joseph of Arimathea to ask for the body.

2) In order to justify the bone box (ossuary) of ‘Matthew’, the show suggests that the genealogy in Luke 3 is that of Mary’s family. This has carried some weight in church tradition (for reasons I won’t get into here…but please ask me if you’re curious), but a lot of modern scholars now find this highly doubtful at best.

3) The show goes through a great effort to connect the ‘Mariamne’ ossuary to Mary Magdalene. It says that Mary Magdalene was referred to as Mariamne in the text the Acts of Philip (aka, The Gospel of Philip). My problem here is that this text was written sometime in the 300’s – a couple centuries after Mary Magdalene died. No Biblical text talking about Mary Magdalene refers to her in that way. Also, the name may not be ‘Mariamne’ on the ossuary at all. Go googling for the inscription, ‘MARIAMENOUMARA’, and you can find some interesting stuff about the translation (if you like reading about ancient Greek in the genitive form).

4) A mitochondrial DNA test shows the ‘Jesus’ remains and the ‘Mariamne’ remains are not maternally related, meaning they can’t be brother and sister or mother and son. From this the show concludes that they were married. But it does not even acknowledge the following possibilities: a paternal relationship (father/daughter for instance) or ‘Mariamne’ being married to any of the other at least 3 males in the tomb.

I have more tidbits, but those are some of the highlights anyway. On the whole, they present a confluence of circumstantial evidence and do it with theatrical flair. Entertaining, but not scientifically compelling. Have a good one everybody – and email me if you have questions or comments!

Peace,

Kevin