I watched a good comedy Sunday evening: the Discovery Channel’s showing of The Jesus Tomb. It was truly laughable. At the same time, I realize that the kids we teach can be very impressionable and might be swayed by such programs simply because a lot of scientific jargon was tossed around (those of us who are Trekkies refer to it as “techno-babble”…impressive sounding nonsense used in Star Trek episodes to solve seemingly unsolveable problems). With that in mind, I offer the following talking points from the U.S. bishops.
On Sunday, March 4, the Discovery Channel will present a program called “The Lost Tomb of Jesus.” A number of claims made in the program have been the subject of severe criticism by a wide-ranging group of scholars. The backgrounder below attempts to juxtapose some of the assertions in the program against known facts. We hope it is helpful. The “Claim vs. Fact” list will also be posted on www.JesusDecoded.com, the Web site developed by the Catholic Communications Campaign last year as a source of public information on authentic teaching about Jesus Christ. The upcoming Discovery Channel program “The Lost Tomb of Jesus” has occasioned a number of inquiries. The claims made in the program have already been roundly denounced by biblical scholars and archaeologists, by no means all of them Christian. They have also been the subject of serious scrutiny in the secular media. The following Talking Points, prepared by the Office of Media Relations and done in a “claim vs. fact” format, are meant to address some of the principal assertions in the program. They are largely derived from the Catholic News Service story “Biblical scholars reject filmmakers’ claim about tomb of Jesus,” which is on the Conference Web site. http://www.catholicnews.com/data/stories/cns/0701131.htmCLAIM: The filmmakers suggest they have discovered something new, a tomb that was the burial site of Jesus and his family.
FACT: The tomb was discovered nearly 30 years ago in Jerusalem. The Israeli archaeologist who wrote the original excavation report on the site calls the claim “nonsense.”“In their movie they are billing it as ‘never before reported information’ but it is not new,” said Amos Kloner, professor of archaeology at Bar-llan University in Israel. “I published all the details in…1996, and I didn’t say it was the tomb of Jesus’ family.”
Dominican Father Jerome Murphy-O’Connor, a biblical archaeologist and expert in the New Testament at the French Biblical and Archaeological School in Jerusalem, who was interviewed for the film, said Kloner had written about the findings a decade ago, and though it was all out in the public domain, nobody had been interested. “It’s a commercial ploy that all the media is playing into,” Father Murphy-O’Connor said.
CLAIM: The filmmakers claim that by using new technology and DNA studies they have determined that among the 10 ossuaries—burial boxes used in biblical times to house the bones of the dead which were found in the cave in 1980—are the ossuaries of Jesus, his brothers, Mary, another Mary whom they say is Mary Magdalene, and “Judah, son of Jesus.”
FACT: The names found on the ossuaries “are a combination of very common names,” according to Fr. Murphy-O’Connor. “Fifty percent of all Jewish women in the first century were called either Mary or Salome. It doesn’t mean much at all. You can prove anything with statistics.” Fr. Murphy-O’Connor said the DNA tests could “only prove that they are human” but “certainly did not prove any familial connection.”
CLAIM: The filmmakers claim the ossuaries were not identified as belonging to Jesus’ family when they were first discovered because present day knowledge and scientific tools were not available.
FACT: Jesus’ family was from Galilee and had no ties to Jerusalem, casting serious doubt that they would have had a burial cave in Jerusalem. Kloner said the names on the ossuaries were common during that time and their presence in the tomb was coincidental.
CLAIM: The filmmakers say the so-called “James Ossuary,” which came to public attention several years ago and was purported by its owner, Oded Golan, to have belonged to the brother of Jesus, was also from the tomb, and that a forensic technique was used to determine this.
FACT: In 2003 the Israel Antiquities Authority declared the inscription on the James ossuary a forgery. Golan is currently on trial for forging the inscription.
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
Seven Star Hand (LW Page) 03.04.07 at 11:03 pm
Lying about the name Jesus, for profit, yet again…
Hello Joe and all,
The most interesting aspect of this Jesus Tomb story revolves around the actual names on the bone boxes compared to what is being asserted in the effort to make a profit. Pay special attention to the tortured explanations of how names like Jesus, Mary, Matthew, Joseph, and others were “translated” (interpolated) from inscriptions that actually say otherwise. Most specifically, both Christians and those who are promoting this “Jesus Tomb” discovery and its associated assertions are profiting from the very same long-term process of obfuscation and meticulous misdirection. For anyone, whether Christian leaders and adherents or James Cameron to keep a straight face while claiming that the name Jesus was one of the most common in Second Temple Israel is highly instructive. The name that is commonly translated as Joshua was very common, but the name Jesus is a very unique and narrowly targeted construction of recent centuries that simply cannot have truthfully appeared anywhere in the ancient Near East. Likewise, many are writing that Jesus is instead the english form of Joshua, as if the millions of english speaking Christians and Jews named Joshua have foreign names. Furthermore, does anyone know of any person named Joshua who would seriously assert that the English form of their name is Jesus? These deceptive assertions are beyond absurd.
This long-term charade about a name that simply could not have been written or pronounced in Aramaic, Hebrew, Greek, or even Latin, which is now being touted as one of the more common names from ancient Israel/Judea, serves as an illuminating microcosm for the entire New Testament and the many dubious assertions and activities that have accompanied it and Christianity throughout their entire existence. As Christians rally to “prove” that this archeological find can’t be the tomb and bones of the “Jesus” and “Mary” of the New Testament, they too should honestly answer questions about why it is correct to interpolate those names in such a unique way to support the veracity of the most profitable story in history, but not to interpret an archeological discovery. Christians must truthfully answer the question of why it is wrong for the “Jesus Tomb” crew to use Christianity’s own methodology to arrive at the names now being asserted as appearing on those bone boxes.
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Joe D. 03.05.07 at 2:41 pm
You must ask yourself this question first!
Implicitly you must accuse James, Peter and John of fraud and coverup. Are we really to believe that they knew Jesus didn’t rise bodily from the dead but perpetrated a fraudulent religion, for which they and others were prepared to die?
Johnny 03.06.07 at 1:23 pm
My priest (as usual) had the simplest most direct approach: The Bible may be written in man’s hand, but it’s devinely inspired. If someone works this hard to defame The Word, whose work is he doing?
We can go on and on for pages about who said what and who’s DNA is on the sweater, er, ossuary. But we should not give the dark side our time or attention. Especially, we should try always to ignore any temptation of doubting The Word.