The Jesus Tomb: Is It Fact or Fiction? Scholars Chime in [Englisch] [Taschenbuch]

I just finished reading this book, and was positively surprised. Which is why I rated it four stars. Other than some irrelevant attempt at impeachment of the makers of the Discovery channel documentary on personal grounds, it's a good, professional compilation of arguments against the
conclusions of that documentary. However, these contrary arguments themselves are shallow, in my opinion, as follows:

The critics of this find's significance as "Jesus' Tomb" or "Jesus' Family Tomb," reflected in this book, advance essentially the following arguments:

1. That the Jesus family would be buried in Nazareth, not Talpiot;
2. That the Jesus family couldn't have afforded a tomb like the Talpiot tomb;
3. That the "Jesus son of Joseph" ossuary is not inscribed "Yeshua" (Jesus) at all.
4. That the "Mariamne" ossuary doesn't belong to Mary Magdalene, but to two other women.

I believe the first three of these allegations against the discovery's premise don't carry much water. The fourth argument actually supports the conclusion that this is the real thing. My comments on these points:

1. Talpiot is the right place for Jesus' family tomb- Per Luke, 2:3-4, the family's LEGAL residence was Bethlehem, not Nazareth. The fact that Joseph and the pregnant Mary could not take the census in Nazareth but had to take it in Bethlehem indicates that Bethlehem was their DOMICILIUM under Roman Law. That basically means that they had no intention to reside in Nazareth permanently. Therefore it would have made little sense for them to have a family tomb in Nazareth, that they wouldn't be able to frequently visit at a later stage in their lives. They would have wanted a family tomb close to Bethlehem and Jerusalem, easily accessible also to future generations of the family. The fact is indeed that Mary and her children moved to Jerusalem around 30 AD.

The traditional name of Jesus in Hebrew, as reflected in the Talmud, is "Yeshu Hanotzri." This appellation stemms from "Netzer" (Shoot or Branch). It alludes clearly to Isaiah 11:1, indicating the Royal birth of Jesus, to substantiate his claim for Jewish messianship. Not to indicate the place he comes from.

There's actually no evidence in Jewish sources, such as the Old Testament or the Mishna and Talmud, that a place called "Nazareth" even existed in or before the first century. I'm not disputing the evidence per the NT, that there was indeed a place called Nazareth. But to the best of my knowledge, there's no mention of Nazareth at all in any ancient writings outside the New Testament. So the place existed, but nobody knew about it. Therefore there was no reason to call Jesus "of Nazareth." Either in life or on an ossuary. He was called "Jesus the Branch" (of David) in Hebrew/Aramaic.

The line of argumentation detracting this discovery around the supposed Nazareth origin of Jesus' family may therefore be based on a very shaky foundation.

2. Talpiot is located about 2.5 miles North of Bethlehem. Jesus' family, of Davidic descent according to the New Testament, could have held the burial cave there even before it moved to Nazareth. Davidic birth was absolutely the most exalted in Judaism, always. The suggestion that any person of Davidic descent could be of the lowest social echelon, that couldn't fund or get funding for a burial cave, doesn't make much sense, if any. There's substantial evidence to the contrary, e.g. 1. Jesus had some very wealthy active supporters like Joseph of Arimatea and Nicodemus (known as Nakdimon ben Gorion in post biblical Jewish sources-one of the richest Jews in Judea); 2. Josephus A.J.,XX, 9:1. Note the prominence of James brother of Jesus.

3. The inscription on the Jesus ossuary does say "Yeshua bar Yehosef" ("Jesus son of Joseph")to my eye. All letters but one are quite clearly there. The only letter which is somewhat more difficult to discern at first blush is the second letter- "Shin". That's because it's written in a somewhat irregular form (in a regular Shin there are three teeth in the fork, pointing upwards. Here there are two teeth, pointing sideways to the right.) But that particular irregularity appears also on other ossuaries- notably numbers 9 (this one has two "Shin"- one with three teeth pointing to the right, and one with TWO teeth pointing to the right. Exactly like the subject inscription) and 121 in the Rahmani catalogue, which both feature also a "Yeshua." All this is NOT difficult for a Hebrew speaking person to identify.

4. "The inscription, Pfann said, is made up of two names inscribed by two different hands: the first, "Mariame,'' was inscribed in a formal Greek script, and later, when the bones of another woman were added to the box, another scribe using a different cursive script added the words "kai Mara,'' meaning "and Mara.'' Mara is a different form of the name Martha.

According to Pfann's reading, the ossuary did not house the bones of "Mary the teacher,'' but rather of two women, "Mary and Martha.'"

My comment:

If the Mariamne ossuary indeed housed the bones of Mary and Martha, these are two sisters of NT fame. One of them could have been married to "Jesus son of Joseph." -Whether or not she was Mary Magdalene (Maybe the Mary who ointed Jesus feet and then dried them with her hair- very intimate scene.) The other sister would than also automatically belong in the family. It still fits. Actually it increases the statistical odds that this is the real thing quite substantially.

This is a very intriguing possibility indeed. Some posters on an internet group where I participate actually suggested once that similar anointing with spikenard oil was part of pre-wedding ritual of a Davidic King, per certain passages in the Song of Songs. Reminds me of the reaction to this find of a BBC reporter in 1996- It seems like all balls in a national lottery coming together.

BOTTOM LINE- Ask yourself inversely a hypothetical question- If the Talpiot tomb hadn't yet been found, how would Jesus' family tomb have looked , which ossuaries would it have contained, to when would it have been dated and where would it have been located. Even if, like me, you're not formally educated specifically in any field related to this subject, anyone with general education and common sense who's curious enough could educate himself to form a reasonably valid opinion. The scholars cited in this book are also less than perfectly qualified for the task- they are either archeologists with no thorough knowledge of the New Testament and other Christian writings, or experts in Christianity with no thorough knowledge of Hebrew and Judaism.

In any event, I would have thought of a tomb just like the tomb we're discussing. It fits perfectly with what I'd have expected Jesus' family tomb to be. Right place, right period, right names. In addition, there's substantial corroborating evidence having to do with ancient Judaic and early Christian symbolism, that this book completely omits, maybe because the Discovery documentary also overlooks it.

That doesn't mean that the Talpiot tomb is the real thing beyond reasonable doubt, only that if you had a jury of completely unbiased people, either way, and that jury were presented with all material evidence, pro and con, it could quite logically have found that this is the real thing by preponderance of the evidence.

Itamar Bernstein

I was hoping when I read this that it would change my mind on the whole Jesus tomb idea. Having watched the Jesus Tomb DVD and read the accompanying book, it seems to me that we have probably found the Historical Jesus' tomb. I had gone into reading this particular book hoping it would say "Look dummy, you have it all wrong." I didn't get that from this book. It came off as "This can't be true because the people involved aren't scientists or Christians."
For me, they didn't offer enough evidence to contradict the evidence provided by Simcha Jacobovici and Charles Pellegrino. In fact, this was almost a turn off from the beginning. They make a point to tell you Simcha is an Orthodox Jew, Pellegrino is agnostic, and Tabor only 'calls' himself Christian.
A few thought provoking questions are brought up in this book, hence the high review. And some of it will make you think. But it also just seems like a bunch of scared people trying to disprove that which cannot be 100% proved. Even if we were to find a tomb that says "Jesus of Nazereth" or "Jesus of Bethelehem" it would still not definitively prove it is the Biblical Jesus. As this book states (as does the Jesus Family Tomb book), Jesus was a common name.
It all comes down to belief. I'm not going to try to make you believe my view on the Jesus Tomb. The best I can say is to read the book by C. Pellegrino and S. Jacobovici. Then read this book. I always try to see the coin (as it were) from both sides. This particular book does a decent job of trying to refute the findings made. Sometimes they seem to grasp at straws, sometimes they come up with a good thought. So, I guess I would say, read both sides of the story and decide for yourself whether this is true or not.

I read this volume at the behest of a reviewer who contested my review of The Jesus Family Tomb: The Discovery, the Investigation, and the Evidence That Could Change History, a book that I found intriguing and a fun read--but then I'm not a strong adherent to heavily structured religion--although I'm tolerant of others who are. That reader directed me to a number of books for further information, so I decided that to be fair I should read at least one. (In fact I purchased all 3).

I found the present book a little pedantic. In fact I found it very pedantic. There are even "study questions" at the end of each chapter! My impression was that the authors felt under the gun to defend an "alternative" point of view and in reading further, it seemed to me a strong and specific religious point of view.

To the latter end, their approach seemed to be to forcibly focus the reader's attention on the backgrounds and purported agendas of the individuals who produced the film. I don't mean to imply that this is an illegitimate pursuit; in fact I was taught in just this manner in a history seminar during my master's program. I do however expect that the background of authors have some relevance to the critique. Instead I found an alarming inclination to attack their opponents for rather odd things: like being Jewish, atheist/agnostic, or believing in evolution, etc. It was very evident that the authors were coming at this from a religious perspective that not everyone in the world shares rather than from a more clinical perspective.

The present authors do however approached the book with a critical eye and were able to point out some very valid intellectual objections to Jacobovici and Pelligrino's methods of validation and identification of the occupants of the tomb. They also were able to overcome the exciting, attention riveting, and sensational rhetoric of these authors in order to point out for their readers some important objections to Jacobovici and Pelligrino's approach to "scholarship," archaeological method, public pre-publication of results, and most definitely blatant invasion of privacy issues. These are important points; ones well worth pointing out to a student of history or of media messages and persuasion, for whom this text is a good introduction. For this reason I give the book a strong "4." I think critical thinking is important and is not strongly enough stressed in modern academia, especially in grade and high schools.

Since the authors of The Jesus Family Tomb did not attack the divinity of Jesus or the existence of God, I found the knee jerk response to the book rather odd. One can only imagine that the present authors are concerned that God or religion, or at least in this case Christianity, is threatened in some way by the conclusions proposed by the book. I cannot imagine that.

I think my favorite of the present author's criticisms was that the authors of the Jesus Family Tomb have a "history" of providing provocative media presentations regarding Christianity uncomfortably close to religious holidays, in this case Easter.

Considering that the "culprits" are in the business of making money by making interesting and popular films, I can only ask, "when else would they introduce the material?" People who are interested in Easter enjoy programs about their religion during the holidays, and the producers are interested in having them do so! It's good for business. I saw a program on the death of Jesus and what may have been the venue of these events, also before Easter, some time ago and found it very interesting; it never occurred to me that the film makers were attempting to persuade me for or against the possible divinity of Jesus, only that they were attempting to make me think. I enjoy thinking. I consider it my God given right.