Filmmaker Discovers Jesus' Tomb

[Guest]

pardon the run-on sentences, i dont have much time, and i have a lot to say


i actually dragged myself through the entire documentary, and it was definately deceiving on so many levels (mostly because i had listened to james white's critiques of the whole scenario), but what made me soooo sooo happy was that at the end of the show, there was a surprise! after all of the attacks on the documentary, they set up a dialogue/debate show after the documentary, on this, the 2 main guys from the documentary, and sat them in a chair, and brought in a SECULAR archaeologist(sp)/historian, who totally grilled the guys, and they had a christian scholar (not a well-known guy, but i think a good general conservative representative) who also knew all of the common statistics of the names from the time, and he totally grilled the film-makers, but he was pretty gentle about it, and the main guy who co-wrote the book, and got the ball rolling on the whole issue got pretty heated and even cut off the moderator saying "i dont want to talk about what you want to talk about, i want to talk about what i want to talk about", and from then on the film-makers looked completely foolish, also, later on they brought on a christian journalist, a catholic priest, and a professor from dallas theological seminary, and discussed the implications that the story (if it were true) would have on christianity, and that ended up with them arguing over the resurrection, was it physical, or was it spiritual? and the guy from dallas theological seminary was such a blessing on the show, he really held it down, to add fuel to the fire, they actually spoke with the geneticist featured in the documentary, and he said that he was used out of context in the film, and the film-makers replied saying that he just backed out because of the persecution from the religious right....

so... overall, anyone who watched the documentary, and watched the debate show afterwards, would have turned off their television that night knowing that the documentary was false, i was absolutely thrilled, and relieved

Jesus won (as always)

in Him alone,
Devin

[Guest]

Hi, guys,

The comments below are by Nehemia Gordon, a Karaite Jew and not a believer in Jesus of Nazareth. Nevertheless, he gives a critical appraisal of the recent tomb claims. Some of it has been dealt with above, but I found the treatment of "Mary"'s name worthy of notice.

Shlamaa,
Emmet

The Tomb of Yeshua son of Joseph in "East Talpiot"

by Nehemia Gordon

A few weeks ago while I was visiting in the United States a friend told me about a documentary that was going to be aired on the Discovery Channel. He told me that the makers of the documentary were claiming they found the tomb of Jesus of Nazareth. I was intrigued and agreed to watch the documentary with him. As it happened the documentary aired the night before I was scheduled to return to Israel. After two intense weeks on the road I was very tired and I fell asleep about 20 minutes into the documentary. Thankfully, I got hold of a Tivo recording of the documentary and finally got to watch the whole thing last night.

The documentary focuses on a burial tomb in the "East Talpiot" neighborhood of Jerusalem discovered in 1980. The burial tomb contained 10 ossuaries or bone boxes, some of which had Hebrew and Greek inscriptions on them. One ossuary bore the name Yeshua bar Yehoseph, commonly translated into English as Jesus son of Joseph. Of course, the name Yeshua was very common in Second Temple times. In the Tanach there are about 10 people named Yeshua, mostly from early Second Temple times, and there are many ossuaries from late Second Temple times bearing the name Yeshua. The documentary admitted this but pointed out that the other ossuaries in the "Talpiot Tomb" contained names of people related to Yeshua of Nazareth. According to the film-makers this proved that the ossuary was that of the Yeshua from the New Testament.

There were some obvious errors in the documentary along with some odd claims. For example, one of the ossuaries contained the name Yose, in Hebrew characters YWSH יוסה. According to Mark, the Jews of Yeshua's home town said about Yeshua:

"Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary and brother of James and JOSES and Judas and Simon, and are not his sisters here with us?" (Mark 6:3 [NRSV])

The name Joses or Yose is correctly identified in the documentary as an abbreviated form of Joseph (Yoseph). However, then the documentary goes on to call it "a rare nickname". Simcha Jacobovici, one of the authors of the documentary, makes a big deal about the uniqueness of the nickname Yose, arguing that only Yeshua of Nazareth had a brother with this nickname. Contrary to this claim, Yose was an extremely common nickname for Joseph. In fact, the name appears in the earliest manuscripts of the Mishnah, written exactly as it appeared on the ossuary: YWSH יוסה. Indeed, there are no less than 20 Rabbis in the Mishnah and Talmud named Yose (YWSH). Rabbi Yose the Galilean may have been the most famous of these rabbis but there were many others such as Rabbi Yose ben Chalafta and Yose ben Yoezer. So the claim that there was something particularly rare about the nickname Yose is simply not factual.

An odd claim in the documentary is that the name "Maria" מריה, written on one of the ossuaries in Hebrew characters, is "a rare Latinized version of Mary". The documentary points out that Yeshua's mother was named Miryam (MRYM מרים) but claims she was called "Maria" by the Latin-speaking followers of Yeshua and therefore the Latin version of her name was written on her ossuary. It is not clear to me why someone would write a Latin form of the name Miryam in Hebrew characters on a 1st century ossuary. If this is the Latinized form of the name shouldn't it appear in Latin letters? And why would Yeshua's Latin-speaking followers thousands of miles away influence the way his mother's name appeared on her ossuary? If the name is in Hebrew characters, it is strange to assume it is a "Latinized form" when it makes perfect sense as a native Hebrew name. The Hebrew letters MRYH מריה would most naturally be read as Merayah, which appears as the name of a male priest in Nehemiah 12:12. So rather than being a Latinized form of Maria, the ossuary in the "Talpiot Tomb" was probably from that of a man named Merayah.

The documentary goes to great lengths to compare the DNA from the Yeshua bar Yehoseph ossuary with the DNA from another ossuary bearing the name "Mariamne Mara". The documentary claims that Mariamne was Mary Magdalene and the fact that the DNA did not match proves they were husband and wife. This is a strange conclusion because they could just as easily have been a man and his sister-in-law. In any event, it is too bad they did not also test the DNA from the Merayah ossuary and compare it with the Yeshua ossuary. According to the documentary Merayah (or as they read it Maria) was the mother of Yeshua. This would have been very easy to prove through DNA tests but the test was never done on the Merayah ossuary.

I cannot make a final judgment about the Yeshua bar Yehoseph ossuary without researching the matter further. It is a fact that they found the tomb of a man named Yeshua son of Joseph. But was this the tomb of Yeshua of Nazareth? The name Yeshua son of Joseph is itself very intriguing and the main claim of the documentary is that this combination is very rare when found together with the names Maria, Yose, and Mariamne. Out of curiosity I did a search on the internet on my own name "Nehemia Gordon". The name Gordon is a very common Jewish name; there is even a Gordon Street in Tel Aviv named after one of Israel's national poets. On the other hand, the name Nehemia is quite rare today. While I am no statistician I would imagine that the combination "Nehemia Gordon" would be at least as rare as "Yeshua son of Joseph" in the 1st century if not more so. To my surprise I found two other Nehemia Gordons who are alive today (although they spell the first name differently in English). One of my professors once told me she had a great uncle who died many years ago named Nehemia Gordon. To my knowledge none of the other Nehemia Gordons are related to me in any way. If there can be four Nehemia Gordons I don't see why there couldn't be more than one Yeshua son of Joseph, especially considering that Yeshua was a very common name in the 1st century CE, far more common than "Nehemia" is today.

When I was done watching the documentary, despite all my criticisms I was intrigued by the possibility, however remote, that this was the tomb of Yeshua of Nazareth. I felt like I needed to go see the tomb....

Nehemia Gordon is the author of the book The Hebrew Yeshua vs. the Greek Jesus and holds a Masters Degree in Biblical Studies from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and a Bachelors Degree in Biblical Studies and Archaeology from the same university.