What is the Evidence Against This Claim?
(1) One of the Israeli archaeologists who excavated the site (Amos Kloner) and the
anthropologist (Joe Zias) who examined the ossuary remains in 1980, have stated categorically
that this tomb has nothing to do with Jesus of Nazareth and that the claims the authors and
producers are making are nonsense.
(2) The name “Jesus” (“Joshua”) was one of the most popular names among Jews of the firstcentury.
James Charlesworth of Princeton Theological Seminary says he has a first-century letter
“written by someone named Jesus, addressed to someone else named Jesus and witnessed by a
third party named Jesus.” The New Testament also mentions a “Bar-Jesus” (Acts 13:6). In fact,
all of the names on the ossuaries make the top ten list of popular first-century names. Based on
account of 2,625 males with these names in the first century and/on discovered ossuaries we
find: Joseph 218/45, Judah (Judas) 164/44, Jesus 99/22, Matthew 62/17. Of 328 occurrences for
women we find: Mary/Mariamne 70/42 (21% of Jewish women were called Mariamne/Mary),
Martha 20/17. This reveals that the chance of the people in the ossuaries being the same
individuals mentioned in Gospels is extremely slight.
(3) The statistical analysis commissioned by the authors and producers is untrustworthy.
Statistical analysis is only as good as the numbers that were provided to the statistician. He did
not run numbers he did not have. In the follow-up critique program hosted by Ted Koppel (aired
on The Discovery Channel on March 4th), the statistician admitted that to get the high numbers
given in the book and on the program, one would have to accept the assumptions made about the
identifications and relationships (familial) of the individuals in the tomb have to be put into the
numbers pot. However, if only the individual names “Jesus,” “Mary,” and “Joseph” were used
the outcome would not be significant.
(4) According to the gospels, Matthew was not a family member, and a “Judas son of Jesus” is
nowhere mentioned in the New Testament or extra-biblical writings. In fact, there is no historical
evidence that Jesus was married or had a child. Therefore, this can’t be Jesus’ family tomb if
Matthew is there, and can’t be the Jesus of the Gospels if son named Judas there!
(5) The ossuaries are inscribed in different
languages: Aramaic, Hebrew, and Greek (“Jesus,”
and “Judah” are inscribed in Aramaic, “Joseph,”
“Maria,” and “Matthew” are in Hebrew, and
“Marianmene e Mara” in Greek). If the tomb is of Jesus' family, why are the inscriptions in
different languages? If “Marianmene e Mara” is really “Mary Magdelene” and she is Jesus’
wife, why isn’t her ossuary also in Hebrew? There is no evidence she was a Hellenistic Jew
(Jesus wasn’t). This evidence suggests that different individuals, perhaps of different
backgrounds, were buried in the tomb.
(6) The DNA evidence is suspect. Over the past five years my excavation team and I have
collected more than 50 bone deposits from Qumran. Despite the large number of bones
(including teeth), the excellent state of the bones, and our careful method of extraction and
preservation in view of DNA analysis, our genetics expert, Dr. Gila Kahila (who performed the
DNA analysis of the Dead Sea scroll fragments from Cave 4 at Qumran) has had little success in
getting any DNA samples. The bones of the ten ossuaries from the Talpiot tomb were given a
proper Jewish burial back in 1980, and any scant remains that may have been found in this new
investigation have probably been contaminated with the DNA of the excavators and others. All
one needs to do is breathe on a bone sample to contaminate it. The two ossuaries from which
their samples were taken had been cleaned of their bones, handled many times, and had been in
open storage for 25 years! Even if they had a good DNA sample, there is no DNA evidence that
this is the historical Jesus of Nazareth. We would also need an independent control sample from
some member of Jesus' family to confirm that these were members of Jesus' family. We do not
have that at all. Moreover, because only two boxes were tested and they show no relationship we
do not have enough information to even conclude this was a family tomb. In addition
mitacondrial DNA does not reveal genetic coding or XY chromosome make up anyway. They
would need nuclear DNA for that in any case. The only evidence is that the DNA of the
Mariamne and Jesus in the tomb do not match. This evidence does not prove she is a wife. It
simply says that this Jesus and this Mary are not biologically related. If it is a family tomb, then
she could just as easily have been the wife of any one of the other males in the tomb. In other
words, the DNA could prove the exact opposite of what is being claimed.
(7) The earliest followers of Jesus never called him "Jesus, son of Joseph." According to the New
Testament, “Jesus” was the legal son of Joseph, but not his biological son. From a study of
names in first-century Israel, it is known that there were regional designations for ossuary
inscriptions. If an individual was from Judea they would have been designated by their fathers
name: “Jesus ben (son of) Joseph;” if from the Galilee (Jesus home), then by the name of the
town: “Jesus of Nazareth” (as Jesus is consistently called in the New Testament). It was this title,
written as a legal designation by the Romans, that appeared in the inscription attached to Jesus
cross at His crucifixion (Matthew 27:37; Mark 15:26; Luke 23:38; John 19:19).
(
It is highly unlikely that Joseph, who died earlier in Galilee, was buried in Jerusalem, since
the historical record connects him only to his adult hometown of Nazareth or to his ancestral
home of Bethlehem. Moreover, the traditional tomb of Mary (the mother of Jesus) is in Ephesus,
where Christian tradition says she lived with John after he was released from his exile on the
island of Patmos.
(9) The ornamentation on the ossuaries in the Talpiot tomb indicate they would have belonged to
a rich family, which does not match the historical record for Jesus’ family. According to
Gospels, Jesus was buried in a rich man’s tomb (Mark 15:43), but it did not belong to his family,
but to Joseph of Arimathea, a member of the Sanhedrin. However, the ossuary for Jesus is of
inferior quality, the name merely scratched on the limestone surface like graffiti. If the family
could afford a rich man’s tomb and had an entire year prepare to an ossuary (the time it takes for
the flesh to decay from the bones) why would they choose a graffiti-like script to name their
dead hero. Surely they would have honored Jesus more than this? By contrast, the ossuary for
Mary is ornate and the name is beautifully chiseled. Was Mary more important than Jesus in the
New Testament? Would Jesus’ family have deliberately made His ossuary less ornate? Why?
Even though Jesus displayed humility during His life, why would His own family feel He needed
to be abnegated in death? Why not also Mary, since she had often humbled herself (cf. Luke
1:38, 48; 2:29)?
(10) The two Mary ossuaries do not mention anyone from “Migdal” (or “Magdala”), which
might be expected to distinguish Mary Magdalene (“Mary from Migdal/Magdala”), but simply
has the name “Mary.” The Aramaic term Mara in this first-century context does not mean
“master,” as is claimed, but is an abbreviated form of the name “Martha.” Most likely the
ossuary contained the remains of two women named “Mary” and “Martha” (Mariamne and
Mara), again common names of the time. Moreover, to get Mariamne to match Mary Magdalene
and not a host of any other Mary’s, one has to appeal to an apocryphal Acts of Philip, a late
fourth-century Gnostic (heretical) manuscript. Without this, there is not even a possibility of a
connection. The Acts of Philip and the Gospel of Mary Magdalene also state that Jesus was
married to Mary Magdalene (the basis for the claim in Dan Brown’s The DaVinci Code). Again,
these are fictional accounts written by a religion that opposed orthodox Christianity and was
branded as heretical. Therefore, we do not know Mary/Mariamne = Mary Magdalene, the key
point that has to be true for the claim of the authors and producers of “The Lost Tomb of Jesus”
to have any merit.
(11) By all ancient accounts, the tomb of Jesus was empty. This conflicts with the idea presented
in the book and program that Jesus’ body was moved to another tomb, decayed for one year's
time, and then His bones put in an ossuary. Hostile Jewish and Roman sources such as Josephus,
Suetonius, Pliny and Tacitus all say that it was believed by the early Christians that Jesus was
raised from the dead and that they worshipped as a god. Archaeological evidence also confirms
this: early Jewish-Christian ossuary inscriptions and graffiti found at the site of Dominus Flevit
on the Mt. of Olives (in Jerusalem) reveal that the earliest Christians prayed to Jesus and
committed themselves to Him in death. How could this have been done if they knew He had not
defeated death? Moreover, if Jesus’ family had a tomb had been known, both the Jewish
authorities and the Roman government, who wanted to stamp out the Jesus’ movement, would
have exposed Jesus’ bones and ended Christianity in the first-century. On the other hand, if the
tomb had been kept a secret, are we really to believe that Jesus’ disciples, who knew He didn't
rise bodily from the dead and were perpetrating a cover-up and a fraudulent religion, would die
for it as martyrs? Suppose even the disciples didn’t know? Who, then, removed the body? At
least James, who became the head of the church in Jerusalem and was Jesus' brother would have
known about his own family tomb! Yet, the New Testament records that he personally beheld the
risen Christ (1 Corinthians 15:7).
(12) The James ossuary could not have come from this tomb. Soil samples taken from inside the
James ossuary clearly links it with Kidron Valley area, not Talpiot. This matches the testimony
of Oded Golan (the owner of the James Ossuary) who says the ossuary came from Silwan (in the
Kidron Valley). According to the fourth-century church historian Eusebius, the body of James,
the brother of Jesus, was buried alone near the Temple Mount (where he was executed) and that
his tomb was visited in the early centuries. Two years ago Joe Zias discovered the fourth-century
Byzantine inscription on the “Tomb of Absalom” in the Kidron Valley (near the Silwan) that
said it was then known as the “Tomb of Zacharias,” the father of John the Baptist. Church
tradition says that James was buried in this same tomb. Moreover, Oded Golan is on trial for
forging the words “brother of Jesus” on the James ossuary. According to Joe Zias, who used to
inspect antiquities dealers on behalf of the Israeli Antiquities Authority, he saw the James
ossuary in an antiquity shop without these added words in the early 1990’s. However, during the
during the forgery trial of Oded Golan, former FBI agent Gerald Richard testified that a photo of
the James ossuary, showing it in Golan's home, was taken in the 1970s, based on tests done by
the FBI photo lab. If the ossuary was in Golan’s home in the 1970’s it could not have been
discovered in the Talpiot tomb in 1980. Remember, in order for the case to be made for this
being the Family Tomb of Jesus, this James ossuary has to be proven to have originally said
“brother of Jesus” and to have come from the Talpiot tomb.
Closing Quote: "In light of all the incredible number of problems with the recent claim that
Jesus' grave has been found, the time-honored, multi-faceted evidence for the bodily resurrection
of Jesus is more convincing than ever. Even the early opponents of the Christian message
acknowledged that Jesus' tomb was empty. And the evidence for Jesus' bodily resurrection
appearances has never been refuted." - Dr. Gary Habermas (Research Professor, Liberty
University and expert on the resurrection of Jesus and author of The Case for the Resurrection).
Subject: Bible is Quantum Communication by Angels. ?? 
Sat Mar 02, 2013 9:22 am
