This has to be one of the biggest Biblical archeological discoveries ever. Archeologists claim to have discovered the tomb where Jesus and Mary Magdalene were buried. And they may have had a son named Judah. No, it’s not April 1.
Read about it here.
The story makes what I believe to be a significant factual error. It claims there was a young boy in Jesus’ lap as discussed in the Gospel of John during the Last Supper and speculates this boy may have been Jesus’ son. I can’t find that reference, but there is the mention of the disciple whom Jesus loved (presumably John the Beloved) in John 13:23 “leaning on Jesus’ bosom.” I’m not sure how that became a “lad.” Perhaps I am missing something.
Anyway, here are the key paragraphs from the story:
Five of the 10 discovered boxes in the Talpiot tomb were inscribed with names believed to be associated with key figures in the New Testament: Jesus, Mary, Matthew, Joseph and Mary Magdalene. A sixth inscription, written in Aramaic, translates to “Judah Son of Jesus.”
“Such tombs are very typical for that region,” Aaron Brody, associate professor of Bible and archaeology at the Pacific School of Religion and director of California’s Bade Museum told Discovery News.
Ossuary Inscriptions
At least four leading epigraphers have corroborated the ossuary inscriptions for the documentary, according to the Discovery Channel.
Frank Moore Cross, a professor emeritus in the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations at Harvard University, told Discovery News, “The inscriptions are from the Herodian Period (which occurred from around 1 B.C. to 1 A.D.). The use of limestone ossuaries and the varied script styles are characteristic of that time.”
Jodi Magness, associate department chair of religious studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, told Discovery News that, based on the New Testament writings, “Jesus likely lived during the first century A.D.” (Editor’s comment: “ya think?”)
In addition to the “Judah son of Jesus” inscription, which is written in Aramaic on one of the ossuaries, another limestone burial box is labeled in Aramaic with “Jesus Son of Joseph.” Another bears the Hebrew inscription “Maria,” a Latin version of “Miriam,” or, in English, “Mary.” Yet another ossuary inscription, written in Hebrew, reads “Matia,” the original Hebrew word for “Matthew.” Only one of the inscriptions is written in Greek. It reads, “Mariamene e Mara,” which can be translated as, “Mary known as the master.”
Francois Bovon, professor of the history of religion at Harvard University, told Discovery News, “Mariamene, or Mariamne, probably was the actual name given to Mary Magdalene.”
From the perspective of Biblical archeology, this is fascinating stuff.
Expect Dan Brown to be shouting in triumph. Expect 100 new novels on the secret love life of Jesus. Expect evangelicals and conservative Christians to be taking apart any suggestion Jesus was married.
Luckily, as partakers of the fulness of the Gospel, we know Jesus could have been married (although we may never know for sure) and it won’t lessen our faith. If Jesus ever had a son named Judah, what happened to him and his blood line?
One small problem with this entire story: if Jesus was resurrected, based on the Biblical record, there should not be any body left, right?
You left out the part about the statitical chances of it being a coincidence. Joshua/Yeshua (Jesus’ name in Hebrew) was a common name back then.
You beat me to it, Geoff. I was going to put up a post about this.
Here’s a link to a story on how James Cameron made it public:
http://time-blog.com/middle_east/2007/02/jesus_tales_from_the_crypt.html
There’s also the small detail– and I’m no scholar so I don’t know quite how big or small it may actually be– that someone’s math seems to be slightly off.
Jesus died around 33 A.D. Herod the Great was long gone and the kingdom divided into four sections, some (but not all) of which had his sons as kings, if I recall correctly.
Further note: Um, I’m pretty sure the Herodian Period would have extended longer than 1 B.C. to 1 A.D. Certainly I’ve never heard of a designation for a time between B.C. and A.D.
While the body/resurrection issue certainly has potential, what about the DNA analysis between Jesus and his “father”? THAT sounds like an inflammatory issue if there ever was one.
If James Cameron can successfully goad the Evangelicals into turning his silly documentary into a big kerfuffle, he deserves all the Da Vinci Code-bandwagon money he makes off it. People of faith would do well to ignore all this.
Meh, I was pretty interested until the started using the James Ossuary, a known fake, as corraborating evidence.
Matt: I think the James Ossuary is still in the limbo of “maybe” rather than a known fake.
My problem is the one hundred year span when oussaries were used. It seems entirely likely that these people could have been followers of Jesus who named their kids after the early church big-names, or alternatively, people who took those names later in life, like at baptism. I have no idea if that occurred back then, but it seems that it’s a consideration.
I find the inscription “Mary known as the master” very, very interesting. Assuming this is the tomb of Jesus, it could be that Mary was, in fact, an apsotle/church leader like a lot of gnostics claimed.
That’s only a small problem?
The jewesh people stiil waithing a Savior and most of those experts are jewesh. Certainly they have interests: money, celebrity, faith
Another funny is the 1 in 600 chance based on names. The estimate is that 9 out of a thousand people die each year. If we estimate a million people lived in Jerusalem at the time. That means 9000 people died every year, and then we multiply this by the 100 year window of opportunity, we get 900,000 people who died, if 1 in every 600 could have had these names in their tomb, then there is a much less than 1% chance of this being the actual tomb…