During a February 2007 press briefing about the Discovery Channel’s documentary The Lost Tomb of Jesus, then channel president/general manager, Jane Root asserted “the evidence is compelling” and the “consequences are enormous (Millstein).” The Lost Tomb covers the discovery of a tomb in 1980, during the construction of apartment housing in the Talpiot neighborhood of southern Jerusalem; and presents archeological, genetic, and statistical evidence that this Talpiot Tomb may have been the actual final resting place of Jesus of Nazareth and some of his family members [as opposed to the Church of the Holy Sepulcher]. The documentary premiered on the Discovery Channel and Vision TV in Canada on March 4, 2007, and was directed by controversial Israeli-born Canadian film director, producer, and freelance journalist, Simcha Jacobovici. Felix Golubev and Ric Esther Bienstock were the producers along with acclaimed filmmaker, James Cameron as executive producer. The Lost Tomb of Jesus marks one of many collaborative efforts between Jacobovici, Golubev, and Bienstock. The documentary is an offspring of The Jesus Family Tomb, a book co-authored by Jacobovici and Dr. Charles A. Pelligrino.
Both book and documentary garnered an avalanche of much acclaim and also controversy among archeological, theological, and biblical-linguistic scholars. Ms. Root’s statement was apt considering that The Lost Tomb’s findings challenge traditional Christian doctrine.
Since the 4th century orthodox Christianity centered in Rome [IE: the Roman Catholic Church and its offshoots], has been a significant molder/shaper of Western civilization. Christianity has 1.5 to 2.1 billion adherents, thus is one of the world’s largest religions, and is the state religion of several nations. Its fundamental tenets purportedly revolve around the life/teachings of Jesus of Nazareth [Yeshua bar Yosef] as presented in the New Testament.
Christians contend that Jesus is the prophesied Messiah in the Hebrew Bible and the Son of God. Orthodox Christian theology asserts that he suffered as well as died for the sins of humanity and then ascended into heaven, and will return one day to judge all humanity, living and dead [IE: his Second Coming]. The discovery of this tomb, however, brings some of traditional Christianity’s fundamental tenets into question– the resurrection and ascension, celibacy, and the significance of the Holy Sepulcher. Thus The Lost Tomb posed an array of intriguing and monumental questions regarding the traditions of orthodox Christianity.
Under the auspices of the Israel Antiquities Authority, 10 ossuaries [burial chests] containing remnants of human remains were excavated from the Talpiot Tomb. The tenth chest mysteriously disappeared, and The Lost Tomb suggests this might be the controversial James brother of Jesus Ossuary [aka Yacov]. Six chests had ancient Hebrew/Aramaic inscriptions, which four leading epigraphers contend read as follows: Yeshua bar Yehosef (Jesus son of Joseph), Maria (Miriam, Mary), Yosay (diminutive of Joseph), Yehuda bar Yeshua, Mariamne’ he Mara (Mariamne’ is a Greek form of Mary- he Mara means: she is the Teacher), and Matiyah (Mathew). Jacobovici asserts that the tomb houses the New Testament biblical family, and attempts to substantiate his claim with statistical data, DNA, and mineral testing.
Mitochondrial DNA testing, which tracks matrilineal roots, was done by Lakehead University in Thunder Bay, Ontario on Yeshua bar Yehosef and Mariamne’. It concluded that they were not siblings [at least via a mother], thus leaving the possibility that they may have been married [thus buried together], and possibly the parents of Yehuda bar Yeshua [this name certainly suggests Yeshua was his father].
Professor of Statistics and Mathematics, Andrey Feuerverger, concluded that depending on certain variables the conservative odds are at least 600 to 1 that this cluster of the names [IE: Yeshua bar Yehosef, Yosay, Mary, and Mariamne the Mara], though some were fairly common in 1rt century Jerusalem, would be found together by chance. As Feuerverger expounds, “the role of statistics here is primarily to attempt to assess the odds of an equally (or more) ‘compelling‘ cluster of names arising purely by chance under certain random sampling assumptions and certain historical assumptions.”
A distinguished cadre of scholars contributed their expertise to the documentary, among them Israeli archeologist and associate professor, Amos Kloner, of the Martin Szusz Department of the Land of Israel Studies at Bar Ilan University in Ramat Gan, Israel. A teacher of Roman, Hellenistic, and Byzantine archaeology, Kloner lead theoriginal excavation in 1980.
Interestingly, he and several key contributors dispute Jacobovici’s claims on the premise that when they were initially consulted, Jacobovici was disingenuous about his original intent which they presume was to undermine Christian theology. “Their movie is not serious” Kloner expounds. “They say they are discovering things. But they haven’t discovered anything….Everything had already been published…there is no basis on which to make a story out of this or to identify this as the family of Jesus (Milstein).” In 1994, archeologist, Levy Yitzkhak, published the official findings in A Catalogue of Jewish Ossuaries in the Collections of the State of Israel followed by Kloner’s scholarly article in 1996. Another contributor and eventual critic were Francois Bovon, Frothingham Professor of the History of Religion, at Harvard Divinity School. Bovon, in a letter to the Society of Biblical Literature, states:
As I was interviewed for the Discovery Channel’s program The Lost Tomb of Jesus, I would like to express my opinion here. First, I have now seen the program and am not convinced of its main thesis. When I was questioned by Simcha Jacobovici and his team the questions were directed toward the Acts of Philip and the role of Mariamne in this text. I was not informed of the whole program and the orientation of the script. Second, having watched the film, in listening to it, I hear two voices, a kind of double discourse. On one hand, there is the wish to open a scholarly discussion; on the other, there is the wish to push a personal agenda. I must say that the reconstructions of Jesus’ marriage with Mary Magdalene and the birth of a child belong to me to science fiction. Third, to be more credible, the program should deal with the very ancient tradition of the Holy Sepulcher, since the emperor Constantine in the fourth century C.E. built this monument on the spot at which the emperor Hadrian in the second century C.E. erected the forum of Aelia Capitolina and built on it a temple to Aphrodite at the place where Jesus’ tomb was venerated. Fourth, I do not believe that Mariamne is the real name of Mary of Magdalene. Mariamne is, besides Maria or Mariam, a possible Greek equivalent, attested by Josephus, Origen, and the Acts of Philip, for the Semitic Myriam. Fifth, the “Mariamne of the Acts of Philip” is part of the apostolic team with Philip and Bartholomew; she teaches and baptizes. In the beginning, her faith is stronger than Philip’s faith. This portrayal of Mariamne fits very well with the portrayal of Mary of Magdala in the Manichean Psalms, the Gospel of Mary, and Pistis Sophia. My interest is not historical but on the level of literary traditions. I have suggested this identification in 1984 already in an article on New Testament Studies.
Kloner is correct in that the findings were published, but they were not in the public domain for general public discourse until the release ofThe Lost Tom”. Before then knowledge about the Talpiot Tomb circulated among an exclusive scholarly circle. Bovon’s statement is, in essence, indicative “of double discourse”- his fifth point contradicts his forth. The Church of The Holy Sepulcher/Church of the Resurrection is venerated among Christians purporting to be the site of Jesus’ death, burial, and resurrection. However, originally it was the site of a temple of Venus, the Roman Goddess of Love. Around 325 ACE, Roman Emperor Constantine I ordered Macarius- Bishop of Jerusalem to build a church or basilica in its stead in conjunction with Constantine’s mother Helena [Emperor Constantine and Helena built the 3 most important foundational Catholic churches- the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, Church of Nativity in Bethlehem, and St Peter Basilica in Rome]. To date, however, no conclusive (statistical, DNA, etc.) evidence has been presented to prove such authenticity because as Bovon asserts they are “ancient Christian traditions.” And from a strictly scientific and historical viewpoint – absent Christian doctrinal bias – why would he assert that a marital relation between Jesus and Mary Magdalene and a child from that marriage is science fiction? Could such a label be equally applied to the traditions of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher [IE: the resurrection and ascension], and the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception?
James Tabor, Chair of the Department of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, was a key religious consultant and advisor to the Lost Tomb. The documentary’s official website contains Tabor’s written response to the avalanche of criticisms and is entitled “The Talpiot Tomb: Separating Truth from Fiction” (April 29, 2009 – filed under Talpiot Jesus Family Tomb – James Tabor @ 9:00 a.m.). In response to the notion that the tomb as it relates to Jesus of Nazareth shows “contempt for Christianity and is an attack on the faith of millions,” Tabor purports:
Any scientific or academic investigation of an archaeological site related to biblical history, by definition, cannot be an ‘attack’ on faith….’good history can never be an enemy of proper faith.’ Historians neither disallow nor preclude evidence and the methods and task of history cross all lines of faith. The proper historical investigation involves posing hypotheses and testing them to determine what we can know, what we might suppose, and what we might responsibly assume to be the case. In the case of the Talpiot tomb, which is a tomb of a 1st century Jew named ‘Jesus son of Joseph’, it is entirely proper to investigate objectively whether this particular Jesus might be identified with Jesus of Nazareth.
A chief critic of The Lost Tomb is Joe Zias of the Science and Antiquity Group. But Mr. Tabor notes this quote by Mr. Zias from a BBC documentary in 1996:
Zias first noted the ossuary ‘Jesus son of Joseph’ with its interesting cluster of names from the Talpiot Tomb while filming with a BBC crew in 1996. He stated that the cluster of names was so unusually impressive that if they were not from the verified provenance of a licensed excavation site- he would wonder about the possibility of forgery. He also called for further investigation of the tomb and its ossuaries. (Tabor)
Documentaries theoretically address the interests of objectivity, which is a skill that involves the ability to describe and perceive something accurately and unbiased without being influenced by individual perceptions, emotions, and prejudices. The point of objectivity is the presumption that the filmmaker will essentially be factual- though not necessarily without a viewpoint; as long as there is no deliberate attempt to deceive. Although the demand for imaginative entertainment is at an all-time high, interest in the realities of the world is also on the rise. They are comprised of real people, world events, places, and social conditions – documenting history, reality. “Documentary cinema is intimately tied to historical memory. Not only does it seek to reconstruct the historical narrative, but it often functions as a historical document itself (Rabinowitz).” The Bible is a document of undoubted spiritual and historical significance. Its fundamental theme revolves around God’s nature and the nature of the human family via key biblical figures and families in the Holy Land, such as Yeshua [aka Jesus]. This history is of fundamental importance to mankind. Dismissing Jacobovici’s findings as mere hype, nonsense, and an opportunity to “pimp the bible”; without a serious examination of his evidence, does injustice to the possible historical significance of the Talpiot Family Tomb in the Holy Land.
Bibliography
The Lost Tomb of Jesus DVD/Official Website. Web.
Bovon, Francois. “Lost Tomb of Jesus: Letter to the Society of Biblical Literature.” Web.
Milstein, Mati. “Jesus’ Tom Claim Slammed by Scholars.” National Geographic News. 2007. National Graphic News.com.
Rabinowitz, Paula. “Wreckage upon Wreckage: History, Documentary and the Ruins of Memory.” History and Theory, Vol. 32, No. 2. (1993), pp. 119-137.