HAL9000
pointed out this article "refuting" the Talpiot tomb as being the Lost Tomb of Jesus and I am herein refuting the article. This woman is a real piece of work. If this is scholarship then I am 1,000,000 miles tall!Has the Tomb of Jesus Been Discovered?
by Jodi Magness
In a new documentary film (and related book), director Simcha Jacobovici and producer James Cameron claim to have identified the tomb of Jesus and his family in the Jerusalem suburb of Talpiyot. The tomb itself is not a new discovery; it was excavated in 1980 and published by Amos Kloner, an Israeli archaeologist. What is new is the sensational claim that this is the tomb of Jesus and his family. Although Jacobovici and Cameron are not scholars, their claim is supported by a handful of archaeologists and religious studies specialists. On the other hand, many archaeologists (including Kloner) and scholars of early Judaism and Christianity reject this claim. In this article I explain why the Talpiyot tomb cannot be the tomb of Jesus and his family. |
By first making the announcement in the popular media, those involved have precluded legitimate and vital academic discourse.
(Allow me to point out that Jacobovici and Cameron did in fact go to the academic community FIRST. The very academic community that has IGNORED this find since 1980! The “academics” rejected the evidence out of hand, wouldn’t even consider the data! What were Jacobovici and Cameron supposed to do? “Oh well, they won’t look at the evidence or even consider it rationally. They simply become angry and full of bluster and dismiss it out of hand. I guess we should give up. After all, they’re ‘The Experts.’ ” This is the first in a long series of misleading, prejudicial statements and outright lies by this “scholar.” If you can reach this woman via Internet or phone I challenge her to a debate anywhere in America. Tell her I should enjoy beating her about the head and shoulders (figuratively speaking) and trouncing her quite royally before spectators. I quite enjoy taking people such as herself down a few notches. Especially in a very public way.)
This is because it is impossible to explain the many flaws of their claim in a one-minute segment on TV or the radio, or in 2-3 sentences in the newspaper, as I have been asked to do repeatedly since the announcement was made.
(Here she makes a subtle insinuation that the documentary consists mainly of 2-3 minutes sound bytes, when actually that’s not at all true. There are many flaws in this rebuttal of hers, and I shall delightedly point them out, including her outright lies.)
The history and archaeology of Jerusalem in the first century are far too complex to be boiled down to a short sound bite, yet that is precisely what has happened here. This is a travesty to professional archaeologists and scholars of early Judaism and Christianity, and it is a disservice to the public.
(See? She has indicted the documentary as consisting of “sound bytes”thereby tarring it as unscholarly and unprofessional, when in fact it is a well thought out and presented documentary. Only desperate people, or liars, or both, resort to this sort of tactic.)
Now let us consider the claim itself. We have no contemporary accounts of the death and burial of Jesus. Our closest sources (in time) are the canonical Gospels, specifically the Synoptic Gospels (Mark, Matthew, Luke), which are thought to have been composed about 30-50 years after Jesus' death. Although the canonical Gospels are not accurate in every detail, most scholars agree they contain some historical information.
(“Not accurate in every detail”? They contain numerous inaccuracies both historical and geographical, as well as contradicting each other. For example, Matthew has the Holy family fleeing to Egypt immediately after the birth of Jesus. Luke has the Holy family in Jerusalem eight days after the birth of Jesus, being dedicated in the temple. One cannot be both fleeing for Egypt and in the Jerusalem temple simultaneously. Also, there was no Roman census that required people to travel to their place of birth to be counted. The Romans took census in a sane manner by counting the inhabitants of cities and towns. This “census” is just a clever ploy to have Jesus born in Bethlehem to "fulfill prophecy." There is not only no record of such a census, it makes no rational sense. It would have involved about ten million people moving all over Palestine at once. A nightmare for the Roman authorities and occupying forces, not to mention a wonderful opportunity for looters. This is something the practical and pragmatic Romans would not have done, and did not do. As she says, the synoptic were written 30-50 years, at the earliest, from the time of Jesus. This may explain their multitude of errors.)
The claim that the Talpiyot tomb is the tomb of Jesus and his family contradicts the canonical Gospel accounts and means that we must reject our earliest traditions about Jesus.
(At no point does the Talpiot--she needs to adjust her spelling--tomb contradict the “canonical” gospels as I shall demonstrate. It does not enatil rejecting any “traditions” let alone any facts about Jesus. There are damn few “facts” about Jesus by the way. This statement is made to set up a prejudice in the mind of the reader.)
Those who identify the Talpiyot tomb as the tomb of Jesus support their claim by citing later, non-canonical traditions such as the Gospel of Philip.
(I love the hypocrisy here. These “scholars” who reject the Talpiot tomb as being the lost tomb of Jesus support the Gospel of Philip when it suits their purpose and reject it when it does not. However, calling things “canonical” is not scholarly, but is a buzzword of the religious that she is using to gain sympathy for her position. “She is supporting the canonicals! She is our Bible-believing Hero! Let us attend to her words as oracular in nature!” The fact is that the “canonical” gospels are demonstrably erroneous and untrustworthy and became “canonical” by being selected by the Catholic church--both Roman and Byzantine--in a number of councils convened to sort out and settle the problem of which books would be accepted as "inspired." The Acts of Philip are no more or less “historical” and reliable than the gospels selected by the Catholic church, which are actually anonymous works, their authorship being a tradition of the Catholic church. The point of all this is to let the air out of her loaded term “canonical” for she is using it to prejudice the reader against the Gospel of Philip.)
The Gospel of Mark (15:42-46) describes as follows the death and burial of Jesus: "When the evening had come, and since it was the day of Preparation, that is the day before the Sabbath, Joseph of Arimathea, a respected member of the council [Matthew describes Joseph as a wealthy man], who was also himself waiting expectantly for the kingdom of God, went boldly to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus ... he [Pilate] granted the body to Joseph. Then Joseph bought a linen cloth, and taking down the body, wrapped it in the linen cloth, and laid it in a tomb that had been hewn out of the rock. He then rolled a stone against the door of the tomb."
(None of this is contrary to the Talpiot tomb being the tomb of Jesus)
How did the Jews of Jerusalem bury their dead in the time of Jesus? The Gospel accounts describe Jesus as having been laid to rest in a rock-cut tomb. Rock-cut tombs consisted of one or more burial chambers hewn into the bedrock slopes surrounding the city of Jerusalem. Burial chambers were lined by single rows of burial niches (called loculi), with each niche cut into the walls about the length of a person's body. Each rock-cut tomb belonged to a family and was used by the members of a family over the course of several generations. When a member of the family died, his/her body was wrapped in a shroud and placed in a loculus. The opening to the loculus was sealed with a stone slab, and the entrance to the rock-cut tomb was also sealed with a stone. Eventually, over the course of generations, the loculi became filled with burials. When this happened and it was necessary to make space for new burials, the earlier remains (consisting of bones and burial gifts) were cleared out of the loculi and placed in small boxes (ossuaries). Sometimes the relatives scribbled the name(s) of the deceased on the outside of the ossuary when they placed the remains in the box.
(None of this is contrary to the Talpiot tomb being the tomb of Jesus)
The Gospel accounts provide an accurate description of Joseph of Arimathea burying Jesus' body in a loculus in his family's rock-cut tomb.
(Lie number one from this “scholar” which she will repeat. NOWHERE do the gospels speak of “loculi” within the tomb that Joseph supplied. It’s true that these tombs contain loculi, as does the Talpiot tomb, but the Bible does not mention them. We will see in a bit the sneaky and deceptive reason why she tells this lie.)
Because rock-cut tombs had to be cut by hand out of bedrock, only the upper classes (wealthy Jews like Joseph) could afford them.
(Lie number two. There are many tombs in and around Jerusalem that were obviously owned by the wealthy. They have fabulously carved and smoothed exteriors and even some smoothed interiors. Yet, the Talpiot tomb, like many others, is not an ornate polished tomb. It was a middle-class tomb, so to speak, not a tomb of the wealthy. It’s certainly not the only such middle-class rock tomb. We will see why she tells this lie a little further on.)
The poorer classes of Jewish society — the majority of the population — buried their dead in simple, individual trench graves dug into the ground, similar to the way we bury our dead today. This involved digging a rectangular trench in the ground, placing the deceased (wrapped in a shroud) at the bottom, and filling the trench back in with earth. Usually a crude headstone was set up at one end of the grave. Ossuaries are associated only with rock-cut tombs, since once bodies were interred in trench graves they were not dug back up for deposition in an ossuary. Now let us reconsider the Gospel accounts. Jesus was crucified on Friday. This is consistent with what we know about Jesus' background, as the Romans generally reserved crucifixion for the poorer classes, who they regarded as common criminals. Why did Joseph of Arimathea request Pilate's permission to bury Jesus? The reason is that Jewish law requires burial within 24 hours of death. However, burials are prohibited on the Sabbath (sundown Friday to sundown Saturday). According to the Gospel accounts, Jesus died on the eve of the Sabbath (late Friday afternoon), just before sundown. For Jesus to be buried in accordance with Jewish law, he had to be buried before the Sabbath started; otherwise, it would have been necessary to wait until Saturday night, thereby exceeding the 24-hour time limit.
(Nothing here in contradiction to the Talpiot tomb)
Joseph of Arimathea, a wealthy follower of Jesus, was concerned to ensure that Jesus was buried in accordance with Jewish law. Jesus came from a poor family that presumably could not afford a rock-cut tomb. Under ordinary circumstances he would have been buried in a trench grave.
(No, Jesus would not have been buried in a trench grave as none of his followers and admirers would have allowed such a thing. We are told he was interred in a rock hewn tomb donated by Joseph of Arimathea, a wealthy follower of Jesus who was also a member of the Sanhedrin. Also, she is indeed PRESUMING when she says the family of Jesus would not have been able to afford a rock tomb. Jesus was well loved by a least one very wealthy man, and Mary Magdalene had wealthy friends from whom she received donations for Jesus. There is every reason to think that these people would have cared enough about the earthly remains of Jesus to have him interred above ground in a tomb. The Jews gave extreme care to the bodies of the dead because they expected them to rise on the Last Day, the Day of Resurrection. They weren’t cavalier about the bodies of the dead as modern Americans mainly are. Someone as dear to them as was Jesus would have been placed in a rock tomb, even if the body was later removed from the tomb of Joseph.)
However, there was no time to prepare (dig) a trench grave before the beginning of the Sabbath. Therefore, as the Gospels tell us, Joseph hastened to go to Pilate and requested permission to take Jesus' body. He laid it in a loculus in his own rock-cut tomb, something that was exceptional (due to the circumstances), as rock-cut tombs were family tombs. When the women entered the tomb of Joseph of Arimathea on Sunday morning, the loculus where Jesus' body had been laid was empty.
(AGAIN withh the loculus and loculi! Not mentioned in ANY or the Gospels, but definitely part of rock hewn tombs, including the Talpiot tomb. What she is trying to do here is to make it seem as though the Talpiot tomb does not contain loculi, hence it is not an authentic tomb. The Talpiot tomb does indeed contain loculi, as do all such rock-hewn tombs. This is a very subtle tactic she is employing, one must people will not notice.)
The theological explanation for this phenomenon is that Jesus was resurrected from the dead. However, once Jesus had been buried in accordance with Jewish law, there was no prohibition against removing the body from the tomb after the end of the Sabbath and reburying it. It is therefore possible that followers or family members removed Jesus' body from Joseph's tomb after the Sabbath ended and buried it in a trench grave, as it would have been unusual (to say the least) to leave a non-relative in a family tomb. Whatever explanation one prefers, the fact that Jesus' body did not remain in Joseph's tomb means that his bones could not have been collected in an ossuary, at least not if we follow the Gospel accounts.
(So much supposition here going under the guise of fact and “scholarship”! She is quite right there was no prohibition in removing the body from the tomb after the Sabbath, and in fact that is what the Jacobvici and Cameron postulate. Why do they make this postulation? Because the NT tells us that the Temple guards--not Roman guards, Josh McDowell is quite mistaken or lying--slept while guarding the tomb and the disciples came and stole the body.
It is this statement that she makes that elicited a gasp of amazement from me: “the fact that Jesus' body did not remain in Joseph's tomb means that his bones could not have been collected in an ossuary, at least not if we follow the Gospel accounts.” Exactly how does this logically or textually follow? There is no statement to this effect in the NT. Nowhere are we told this. Nor is there any bit of Jewish burial practice that would prohibit the body of Jesus from being removed from one rock-hewn tomb and relocated in another rock hewn tomb! It is speculation on her part that Jesus body MUST have been placed in a common trench grave after his reburying. [Notice she is contradicting the canonical gospels she earlier upheld! The canonicals do not present Jesus as having been reburied, but as resurrected from the tomb of Joseph of Arimathea. The “canonical” gospels are convenient to her as long as she can use them to make her dishonest points. Otherwise, she ignores them or contradicts them.]
It is the contention of Jacobvici and Cameron that the body of Jesus was in fact relocated to another tomb, the Talpiot tomb. Neither this woman nor Jacobvici are strictly following the “canonical” gospels, but at least Jacobvici comes right out and reminds the viewers and readers that he is not. Actually, Jacobvici and Cameron are at least following the bit of info in the NT that says certain parties were claiming that the body was stolen by the disciples while the temple guards slept. This Jodi person is simply talking through her hat!)
Her statement “
at least not if we follow the Gospel accounts” is therefore odd because she is NOT following the gospel accounts! The “canonical” gospels place Jesus firmly in the tomb of Joseph. Also, what verse or verses in the gospels say, “Yea and verily, once a corpse hath been removed from a rock hewn tomb said corpse musteth of necessity be placed in a common trench grave, noteth in another rock-hewn tomb.”? Nowhere. This is just some odd smoke and mirrors from this woman. This is a huge leap in logic she is making with nothing to back it up.)Although the Gospel accounts of the death and burial of Jesus might not be completely accurate from an historical point of view, they are consistent with our literary and archaeological information about how the Jews of Jerusalem buried their dead in the time of Jesus.
(“Might not be completely accurate”? This is a truly funny understatement and she knows it. The gospels are very inaccurate and untrustworthy. Regardless, there is nothing about the Talpiot tomb or the possibility that it is the final resting place of the body of Jesus that contradicts first century Jewish burial practices.)
The Gospels also show familiarity with Jewish law, conveying Joseph's concern to bury Jesus before the Sabbath. They make it clear that Joseph was not trying to "honor" Jesus by burying him in a rock-cut tomb (a modern, anachronistic concept, since there was no shame associated with burial in trench graves, which was the accepted practice). Instead Joseph wanted to ensure that Jesus was buried in accordance with Jewish law.
(The gospels “make it clear that Joseph was not trying to "honor" Jesus by burying him in a rock-cut tomb” ?Where does the text SAY this? Nowhere. This is a mere INFERENCE she is making based on the statement that the Sabbath was approaching and Joseph placed the corpse in his own tomb. One can just as easily infer that Joseph did indeed wish to HONOR Jesus by placing the Teacher in his own family tomb! Which makes more sense to you? She is also mistaken in saying that no shame would be associated with placing Jesus in a common grave. Think for a few moments: Jesus had many followers who loved him (including rich and powerful people), considered him to be the promised Messiah, and he had died the ignoble death of a common criminal. Would they not wish to do their best to undo that shame by placing him in a rock-hewn tomb rather than in the dirt as a commoner? It would certainly have made them feel better, and would also have made them look better to those who knew they had been followers of the “criminal” Jesus.
I am disturbed by this “scholar” and her multiple dirty debate tricks and pushing her assumptions forward as inescapable factual conclusions.
(“Oh what a tangled web we weave when we do practice to deceive!” First, there was no town of Nazareth at the time Jesus supposedly lived, and this lying woman knows that. If this woman is ignorant of that fact she has no business calling herself a scholar. The Romans kept detailed records of their conquered territories. Nazareth does not show up for at least a hundred years after the time of Jesus, probably more. The exact amount of time escapes me, but it is at least a century. So, Jesus would NOT have been buried in a town that did not exist.
How did the “Nazareth” fiction in the gospels come about? There are several ideas, but the one that makes the most sense to me is that Jesus was a Nazarite, as was Samson. As the decades passed after the destruction of Jerusalem, the Nazarite vow became almost unknown or very obscure, so the confused copyists changed “Jesus the Nazarite” to “Jesus the Nazarene.” Or, it could be a reference to the Messianic Jewish sect of the Nazoreans, early Christian Jews, and this was later corrupted to “Jesus of Nazareth” to obscure any connection of Jesus to this group. Regardless of what theory we embrace the fact remains that Nazareth did not exist in the time of Jesus.
Also, she contradicts her earlier statement that only the wealthy could afford rock hewn tombs! Here she admits there were “more modest” rock-hewn tombs. She’s hoping you don’t catch her in her deceptive tactics.
Also, nowhere in the “lost tomb of Jesus” documentary do Jacobvici and Cameron make the assertion that the tomb of Jesus was necessarily owned by the family. They imply, rather, that the followers of Jesus probably bought this tomb for the family to honor them. Tell me, if you believed Jesus was the Messiah, would you not want to raise money to honor him in this way? Especially if you were a first century Jew that strongly believed in the bodily resurrection on the Last Day? Of course you would, and of course they would too, given their belief structure.)
For example, when Simon, the last of the Maccabean brothers and one of the Hasmonean rulers, built a large tomb or mausoleum for his family, he constructed it in their hometown of Modiin. In fact, the Gospel accounts clearly indicate that Jesus' family did not own a rock-cut tomb in Jerusalem — for if they had, there would have been no need for Joseph of Arimathea to take Jesus' body and place it in his own family's rock-cut tomb! If Jesus' family did not own a rock-cut tomb, it means they also had no ossuaries.
(Here she build upon her false foundation of Nazareth having actually existed. We actually DO NOT KNOW WHERE JESUS WAS BORN OR RAISED! The Bethlehem story is a fiction, and besides Bethlehem is not where Jesus was raised. Nazareth didn’t exist in his time. So, we don’t know. It could have been anywhere in Palestine, including Talpiot. This woman is also presupposing an almost robotic adherence to Jewish custom by a group that BROKE with Jewish custom. They may well have had their own nontraditional reasons for burying the body at Talpiot. We simply don’t know. So making such sweeping statements as this woman is doing is unwarranted and unsubstantiated. We simply do not know where Jesus was born and raised. Why the rabid opposition to the Talpiot tomb? She is either motivated by ideology or mammon, or both. She has something vested in this opposition that leads her to resort to lies and misrepresentation.)A number of scholars including Kloner have pointed out that the names on the ossuaries in the Talpiyot tomb are extremely common among the Jewish population of Jerusalem in the first century.
(My GAWD is there no level too low for this woman to steep to? The documentary carefully addresses this issue using a professional statitician.
By themselves the names aren’t impressive. Here is what I wrote in my essay): True, these are common Jewish names of the first century, and have no significance when found alone, but when found in combination with other names associated with Jesus Christ in the Gospels their significance multiples nearly exponentially. This was dealt with in the docudrama if one was paying attention and not allowing one’s mind race ahead. This is another example of dishonesty on the part of the critics. They do not tell you that when these common names are found in combination with each other in the same tomb with “Jesus son of Joseph” the chances of their being anyone but the Jesus around whom Christianity was founded become nil. These statistical probabilities were pointed out clearly and plainly in the program, but I’ll review them here:
If you were to assemble all of the Jewish people of the first century into a single innumerable crowd, and were to call out “How many men here are named Jesus?” one out of every ten male hands would go up. That’s a multitude! If you were to call out, “How many men named Jesus also have a mother named Mary?” the numbers would thin out considerably to a fraction of the original number. Then if you were to call out, “How many men here named Jesus who have a mother named Mary also have a father or step father named Joseph?” the crowd would thin even more to a very tiny fraction of the original number.If you were then to call out “How many men named Jesus that have a mother named Mary, a father or stepfather named Joseph, also have a wife, sister, aunt, or cousin named Mariamene e Mara?” the number thins out to only one man. Why? Because the name Mariamene e Mara has only been found on this one single ossuary! Out of the many thousands of ossuaries found, the name Mariamene e Mara is found on none other! It is conceivable that such an ossuary still lies buried, but if so it has yet to be found.
To further complicate matters for critics, “Mariamene” only occurs in two places other than on the ossuary found in the tomb of Jesus. “Mariamene” occurs in the Gospel of Phillip--which is early, from the second century--and is applied to Mary Magdalene, as well as to the mother and a sister of Jesus. Here is the verse, verse 36, from the gospel of Philip:
“There were three Mariamenes who walked with the Lord at all times: his mother and sister and [the] Magdalene, this one who is called his companion. Thus his mother and sister and mate is [each named] Mariamene.”
Here we are informed that the mother of Jesus, his sister, and his mate/wife are all called Mariamene, therefore the name Mariamene is definitely connected with Magdalene, as well as his sister. So, the Mariamene ossuary might be the sister of Jesus or it might be his wife, the Magdalene. Which is more likely? Mitochondrial DNA tests of the bone material left in the Jesus and Mariamene ossuaries was tested and the bones are not of people of blood relation. Since they are not genetically related, that rules out a sister or mother or aunt or cousin and narrows it down to the Magdalene as being the Mariamene on the ossuary. She is called the mate of Jesus in the gospel of Philip.
This identification is further strengthened by the long tradition of the Eastern Orthodox Churches, which refer to Mary Magdalene as “Mariamene.” They have done so since the fourth century based on early liturgical textual evidence. Orthodox liturgical texts date back to the very early centuries, to at least as far back as the time of Saint Basil the Great, the early fourth century.
Probably much earlier, based on the Gospel of Phillip evidence.
On her Feast Day, Saint Mary Magdalene is honored in the Orthodox Churches as “Mariamene.” Now that the world is discovering, from the Gnostic Gospels, the place of Headship that Mary Magdalene played in early Christianity as “the apostle to the apostles” it becomes clear why she is called “Mara” or “Master!” Her place of leadership once surpassed that of any of the male apostles!” Notice that throughout this womans’ attack on the Talpiot tomb she never once addresses the STRONG arguments, the STRONG evidence in it’s favor, but instead focuses on weaknesses, ignoring the strengths. She also lies and tells half truths. This is not an honest woman writing for honest reasons. There is something sinister behind her opposition. Or, she is simply a dishonest individual. For example, she does not address the fact that the spelling of the name of the mother of Jesus, Maria, is a strange hybrid of two languages. A hybrid form of Miriam that is found nowhere else but in the NT AND ON AN OSSUARY FOUND IN THIS TOMB! Reread my essay and rediscover the facts, refresh your mind, and see just how much she is ignoring or otherwise being deceptive about. But beyond this there is a bigger problem. Being a Jew in the time of Jesus was not, strictly speaking, a religion, as it is today. Instead, Jews in the time of Jesus were Judeans — that is, people from the district of Judea, the area around Jerusalem. Judeans worshiped the national god of Judea (the God of Israel) and lived according to his laws. Other ancient peoples had their own national deities. During the two centuries before Christ, the Hasmonean kings (a Jewish dynasty descended from the Maccabees) had established an independent Jewish kingdom in Judea (this kingdom was eventually taken over by the Romans). The Hasmonean kings conducted a campaign of expansion, conquering neighboring peoples who they forcibly converted to Judaism. Under the Hasmoneans, Galilee (to the north of Judea) and Idumaea (to the south) were Judaized, which means their non-Jewish populations began to worship the God of Israel and live according to his laws. L. Y. Rahmani, an Israeli archaeologist who compiled a catalogue of all of the ossuaries in the collections of the state of Israel, observed that "In Jerusalem's tombs, the deceased's place of origin was noted when someone from outside Jerusalem was interred in a local tomb." On ossuaries in rock-cut tombs that belonged to Judean families, it was customary to indicate the ancestry or lineage of the deceased by naming the father, as, for example, Judah son of John (Yohanan); Honya son of Alexa; and Martha daughter of Hananya. But in rock-cut tombs owned by non-Judean families (or which contained the remains of relatives from outside Judea), it was customary to indicate the deceased's place of origin, as, for example, Simon of Ptolemais; Papias the Bethshanite (of Beth Shean); and Gaios son of Artemon from Berenike. Our historical and literary sources (such as the Gospels, Flavius Josephus, among others) often make the same distinctions between Judeans and non-Judeans (for example, Galileans, Idumaeans, Saul of Tarsus, Simon of Cyrene, and so on). If the Talpiyot tomb is indeed the tomb of Jesus and his family, we would expect at least some of the ossuary inscriptions to reflect their Galilean origins, by reading, for example, Jesus [son of Joseph] of Nazareth (or Jesus the Nazarene), Mary of Magdala, and so on. However, the inscriptions provide no indication that this is the tomb of a Galilean family and instead point to a Judean family.
(This argument is outside of the scope of my expertise. I find it suspect, though, based on what I AM able to confirm of this womans’ arguments. Elsewhere she LIES, distorts, tells half-truths, and otherwise leads people to think falsely about the Talpiot tomb…such as insinuating it does not have loculi by lying and saying the NT mentions loculi in the tomb of Joseph. [The Talpiot tomb does indeed have loculi] The NT doesn’t DENY the tomb of Joseph had loculi, it simply doesn’t mention them. By stating that the NT mentions loculi in the tomb she is hoping her readers will infer that the Talpiot tomb does not contain loculi.
This particular objection will have to be addressed by someone else. This woman, based on her track record so far, does not inspire confidence in me as to the truthfulness of her claims.)
The identification of the Talpiyot tomb as the tomb of Jesus and his family is based on a string of problematic and unsubstantiated claims,
(I see…unlike HER of course. She has lied about loculi, insinuating that Talpiot lacks them. She has lied about the town of Nazareth. She has gone against scholarship also in asserting the historical reliability of the “canonical” gospels, and has not explained the term canonical. She hopes thereby to look good in the eyes of the unknowing populace that look to “experts” like sheep. She has done other dishonest things as well. She is thoroughly unprofessional in this article.)
including adding an otherwise unattested Matthew (Matya) to the family of Jesus;
(The documentary very carefully pointed out that the name Matthew--or derivatives--occur a number of times in the geneology of Mary, making this a plausible name for a relative. The Matthew ossuary does not specify the familial relationship, and the producers do not say that it must be the apostle Matthew. This woman also fails to mention the JOSES ossuary. The names Joses is common in modern Palestine, but was extremely rare in the time of Jesus. It’s the diminutive of Joseph--akin to “Joey”-- and is found NOWHERE ELSE BUT IN THE GOSPELS AND ON THE JOSES OSSURARY FROM THE TALPIOT TOMB! Does this “scholarly” woman address this evidence? Of course not. She avoids any and all of the strong arguments in it’s favor, and repeats ignorant arguments as if she doesn’t know any better…such as repeating “these names are common names” when in fact finding them together in one tomb makes them statistically highly unlikely to be anyone but the Jesus of the gospels! She does not mention the unique spelling of Maria in the NT that we find only on the Maria ossuary in Talpiot.)
identifying an otherwise unknown son of Jesus named Judah;
(Again, this woman deliberately ignores evidence in favor of ignorant statements. I thought she wrote this article to address the “errors” of Jacobvici and Cameron? The NT doesn’t say that Jesus is married, yet as anyone can see by reading my essay, there is strong evidence that Jesus was wed at Cana in Galilee. Also, that Jesus was a rabbbi--there was no such thing as an “honorary rabbi”--and ALL RABBIS WERE REQUIRED TO BE MARRIED MEN! So, its no stretch that the child of Jesus and his wife…probably Mariamemne.. Was named Judah. “Judah” is the same name as “Judas” which is another strong link to the Gospel story. How ironic and sadly true to life if the son had betrayed the father? Regardless, the fact remains that this ossuary exists, it’s from the time of Jesus (remember: this Jewish practice of using ossuaries began around 30 BC and ended in 70 AD with the destruction of Jerusalem. This practice comes from a very narrow slice of time in Palestine.)
and identifying the Mariamne named on one of the ossuaries in the tomb as Mary Magdalene by interpreting the word Mara (which follows the name Mariamne) as the Aramaic term for "master" (arguing that Mariamne was a teacher and leader).
(I gasped again at how cavalierly this “scholar” brushed so much aside and under the rug! The evidence for identifying Mary Magdalene and the Mariamemne as one and the same comes primarily from the Eastern Orthodox practice of honoring Mary Magdalene as “Mariamemne e Mara” on her feast day! She is called “The Equal of the Apostles” and “The Apostke to the Apostles.” This practice of the Eastern Church goes back to at least Saint Basil, and obviously much further back because the second century Acts of Philip refer to her as “Mariamemne e Mara.”)
To account for the fact that Mary/Mariamne's name is written in Greek, the filmmakers transform the small Jewish town of Migdal/Magdala/Tarichaea on the Sea of Galilee (Mary's hometown) into "an important trading center" where Greek was spoken. Instead, as in other Jewish towns of this period, generally only the upper classes knew Greek, whereas poorer Jews spoke Aramaic as their everyday language.
(AGAIN this scholarly woman leaves out important facts and twists things! As I pointed out in my essay, Greek was the “lingua franca” of the Empire. No matter what ones native tongue, once also spoke Greek. It was the language of literature and commerce. This is common knowledge, even to a scholar of such stellar proportions as this Jodi Magness. Look closely at her deceptive statement: “whereas poorer Jews spoke Aramaic as their everyday language.” Nowhere do Jacobovici and Cameron deny this, but this woman is being deceptive in implying so! (That’s the obverse of her statement “whereas poorer Jews spoke Aramaic as their everyday language.”) Even wealthy Jews who spoke Greek used Aramaic as their primary language, not just the poor! She is trying to imply that Jacobvici and Cameron deny this. Also, she is mistaken that Greek was confined to the better off Jewish people. Romans and Jews of all stations in life spoke Greek as their second language, period. Again, this woman latches onto small arguments and ignores the big ones, and even then she distorts or even lies.)
Taken individually, each of these points weakens the case for the identification of the Talpiyot tomb as the tomb of Jesus and his family. Collectively these points are devastating, since the statistical analyses presented in the film are based on certain assumptions made about these names.
(I will repeat the same about this Jodi individual and her lies, half-truths, distortions, and avoidance of the big issues. Taken individually, her dishonest statements weaken her position greatly. Taken together, they demolish her credibility. This is an untrustworthy woman. She is not a scholar at all. She is a liar. The statistical analysis of the significance of these names took all the facts into consideration…the peculiar spelling of Mary we find only in the NT and in the Talpiot tomb, the singular Name Joses that is only found in the NT as one of the brothers of Jesus, and on the Joses ossuary from the Talpiot tomb. It also factors in the one-of-a-kind rarity of Mariamemne e Mara. The statistician also took into consideration the statistical unlikelihood of there being another man named Jesus who had a father named Joseph with a brother named Joses and a mother named Maria with the unique spelling we find in the NT. This Jodi person says “the statistical analyses presented in the film are based on certain assumptions made about these names” but she doesn’t enumerate these “assumptions.” Instead, by leaving her statement dangling in that manner it implies that all manner of idiotic assumptions were made. In actuality, the producers went with an overly conservative statistician, rather than the Ivy League statiticisn who made the odds 28,000,000 to one that this is not the tomb of the Jesus of the gospels. Instead, they went with a far more conservative figure, 1 in 600. Do you see how this woman slyly drags Jacobvici and Cameron thru the mud? )
To conclude, the identification of the Talpiyot tomb as the tomb of Jesus and his family contradicts the canonical Gospel accounts of the death and burial of Jesus and the earliest Christian traditions about Jesus.
(Oh gawd here she goes again doing her best to stir up emotional support from bible believers! NOWHERE does the Talpiot tomb contradict the “canonical” Gospels (other than having the bones of Jesus in it), but this woman certainly does---and hopes you don’t notice. So do Cameron and Jacobovici, but they come right out and tell you they are doing so.)
This claim is also inconsistent with all of the available information — historical and archaeological — about how Jews in the time of Jesus buried their dead, and specifically the evidence we have about poor, non-Judean families like that of Jesus. It is a sensationalistic claim without any scientific basis or support. Jodi Magness, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
(This womans’ entire thesis is buggered by her own dishonesty, lies, distortions, omissions, and evasions. Hers is a sensationalistic, maudlin response without any scientific basis or support. To anyone in the know she has revealed herself as a charlatan. -Martin Deane)