Documentary Claims Jesus Was Married

[Cypros]

The Toronto Star has a fairly thorough article:
http://www.thestar.com/News/article/185708

An MSNBC is four pages long. I haven't finished reading it but it is pretty through coverage of the controversy:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17328478/site/newsweek/

I love this quote:
"Simcha has no credibility whatsoever," says Joe Zias, who was the curator for anthropology and archeology at the Rockefeller Museum in Jerusalem from 1972 to 1997 and personally numbered the Talpiot ossuaries. "He's pimping off the Bible … He got this guy Cameron, who made 'Titanic' or something like that—what does this guy know about archeology? I am an archeologist, but if I were to write a book about brain surgery, you would say, 'Who is this guy?' People want signs and wonders. Projects like these make a mockery of the archeological profession."

 

[fundiva]

mtDNA analysis will inform us if the individuals buried in the tomb are related, but it does not tell us if they are the Mary, Jesus, etc. of the New Testament. These were all very common names at the time.

I hope that the documentary will provide information about the discovery of these ossuaries. Who excavated them? What was done with the finds at that time? Who has been in charge of the finds the last 25 years?


Oh! CNN is covering this story right now!

But they have run all the info through mathematicians to find out what the odds are that a similar family would have all the same names in the family, with the mother being Mary, Jesus being married to Miriam (Mary Magdeline), that lived in the same area, had births and deaths around the same time, etc. The odds are insurmountable that there would be another family that similar.

 

[LovelyPigeon]

The odds are insurmountable that there would be another family that similar.

Some of the "experts" (or at least one that I read) doubt the name of "Jesus" on the ossuary, believing it should be read as some other name instead.

It's fascinating reading, though--all of it.

 

[LovelyPigeon]

Here's the link to the Discovery Channel about the documentary The Lost Tomb of Jesus: http://dsc.discovery.com/convergence/tomb/about/about.html

Premieres Sun, March 4, at 9 p.m. ET/PT

 

[Nova]

The New Testament is a historical document whose accuracy has been proven many times over. So, because of this, we can be pretty sure that anything recorded in the New Testament actually happened.

Ouch! This is so not true, my friend. The Gospels themselves don't even agree, much of the time. Most weren't written until long after the events they describe and not necessarily by first-hand witnesses, despite the attribution to original disciples.

And to top it all off, we have the original version of none of them, only copies made long afterward by copyists who may or may not have been slavishly literal.

 

[Nova]

Yes, DK, there were witnesses. The vast majority of historical scholars, and not only Christian scholars, believe that Jesus' body did not remain in His burial tomb. If the Romans could have produced a body, they would have done so at the time. They would not have let the claims of the apostles, who believed in the truth of the resurrection, go unchallenged.

Except we don't know that those claims were made at that time. They may well date from decades later.

Some of the extant non-synoptic gospels ("gnostic" or otherwise) show even the disciples debating whether Jesus's resurrection was a physical event or merely a fantasy.

 

[fundiva]

The Toronto Star has a fairly thorough article:
http://www.thestar.com/News/article/185708

An MSNBC is four pages long. I haven't finished reading it but it is pretty through coverage of the controversy:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17328478/site/newsweek/

I love this quote:
"Simcha has no credibility whatsoever," says Joe Zias, who was the curator for anthropology and archeology at the Rockefeller Museum in Jerusalem from 1972 to 1997 and personally numbered the Talpiot ossuaries. "He's pimping off the Bible … He got this guy Cameron, who made 'Titanic' or something like that—what does this guy know about archeology? I am an archeologist, but if I were to write a book about brain surgery, you would say, 'Who is this guy?' People want signs and wonders. Projects like these make a mockery of the archeological profession."

Zias was one of the archeologists that was there when the tomb was discouvered. He obviously believed something to search for it for so long and to spend the money and the time digging for it. Interestingly, the burial boxes were discovered in 1980 and have set on shelves for 27 years with the archeologists doing nothing with them. Shouldn't they have been interested enough, after spending so much time looking for them, to complete their research on the project? I don't Zias is being completely straight forward about this participation in the matter.

 

[poco]

His birth and death are generally accepted as fact, but the resurrection has to be something of a matter of faith, since it isn't something one can prove. But there were witnesess, obviously, whose testimony I trust, otherwise I wouldn't believe their God-inspired writings, either, lol.

Mary's acsension is also a matter of faith for the same reasons.

I still want to know whose DNA Cameron is going to compare it to! The guy is nuts.

Do I believe in Jesus Christ? I most certainly do and accept this as fact. Do I believe in a resurrection happening as it is recorded in the bible - No, I do not. Why, because it is something that cannot be proved!!!! As for those witnesses, how in the world can you trust "testimony" from people you don't even know "as being the gospel?"

 

[Cypros]

Zias was one of the archeologists that was there when the tomb was discouvered. He obviously believed something to search for it for so long and to spend the money and the time digging for it. Interestingly, the burial boxes were discovered in 1980 and have set on shelves for 27 years with the archeologists doing nothing with them. Shouldn't they have been interested enough, after spending so much time looking for them, to complete their research on the project? I don't Zias is being completely straight forward about this participation in the matter.

Did you read the articles? The tomb was discovered by accident during a construction project. It was discovered with a bulldozer! This is not an uncommon occurrence in Israel but there was hardly any longtime planning and research to discover the location of the tomb. It was an accidental discovery and the excavation was operated as a quick salvage project.

There is no reason to get all excited by either a first century tomb nor some ossuaries in Israel. They are a dime a dozen.

Museums in the Middle East are FILLED with thousands of artifacts that do not receive special attention or publication partly because so much comes out of the ground every day and partly because they are duplicates of everything else. I worked in the Rockefeller Museum where these ossuaries have been in storage and, believe me, these ossuaries are nothing special. The names are common. There is no way to confirm that they belong to some of the biblical characters.

 

[Melisinde]

You know, I don't want to start a fight... but uhm, wouldn't it be a good thing if Jesus were married? Not looking at his body and all of that stuff but... if he were married, well, wouldn't the movement against gay marriage be happy? I mean, if Jesus was married, then... it speaks to the whole "sanctity of marriage", right?

 

[Dark Knight]

Well, there was similar excitement recently when the ossuary of James brother of Jesus was found--It appeared authentic but eventually Israeli scholars declared it a clever forgery

Some archeologists such as BAR magazine found their methods to be very suspect and most likely biased. The ossuary remains quite the discussion as a result.

 

[LovelyPigeon]

if he were married, well, wouldn't the movement against gay marriage be happy?

Plenty of gay men have been married to heterosexual women, so happy or not, it wouldn't prove a thing about gay-ness if Jesus were married.

If Jesus wasn't married by age 30 it would have been an unusual position to be in among his peers of that age.

The canonical Bible doesn't say Jesus was married. It doesn't say he wasn't, either. Extra-biblical ancient writings do claim he was married.

It doesn't matter to me, either way, and it's difficult to imagine how it could be proven, either way.

 

[Dark Knight]

Here is the CNN article on the documentary

http://www.cnn.com/2007/TECH/science/02/26/jesus.sburial.ap/index.html

I also want to add that Jacobovic is an amateur wannabe archaeologist whose TV show focuses on Old Testament biblical archaeology and trying to prove the Hebrew version of events. He is not interested in Jesus being the Messiah and, as LP said, the discovery of his ossuary with bones in it works against the Christian belief in a resurrection.

The ossuary didn't claim to contain the bones of Jesus, so it was irrelevant to the Resurrection.

ETA: I thought you meant the James ossuary, sorry if you mean Cameron's.

 

[Cypros]

But they have run all the info through mathematicians to find out what the odds are that a similar family would have all the same names in the family, with the mother being Mary, Jesus being married to Miriam (Mary Magdeline), that lived in the same area, had births and deaths around the same time, etc. The odds are insurmountable that there would be another family that similar.

Hardly insurmountable. There are no complete census record so what are they basing their calculations on?

Go to the Middle East and make a census of names in families. You will find that virtually every family has a Mohammed, plus some variation of Mohammed (Ahmed, Mahmoud, Hamed, Hamoudi, etc), and Ali. Female names seem to be a bit less repetitive, but virtually every family has a Fatima ad most have a Miriam.. There are also regional favorites. In Jordan, for example, Ismael, Haroun, Musa, Yusef, Ibrahim and Abdullah are especially popular. It is not like in the U.S. where individualism is so important. It is as if there is a limited list of names to choose from -- names of historical and religious figures that are important to the family's (tribe's) ancestry and cultural heritage. It was like this in the ancient times. So much confusion in the bible is due to common names. Just look at what happened to Mary Magdelene! She was labeled a *advertiser censored* because the Church father's decided to lump her in with the other Marys. And what about the Disciples? Again the later Church assigned different names to several because too many of them had the same names and caused confusion.

 

[LovelyPigeon]

Well, there was similar excitement recently when the ossuary of James brother of Jesus was found--It appeared authentic but eventually Israeli scholars declared it a clever forgery

Yet Biblical Archeology Review, a Christian publication which first featured the ossuary of James, still stands behind its authenticity. http://www.bib-arch.org/bswbOOossuaryarchive.asp?PubID=BSBA&Volume=28&Issue=6&ArticleID=1

 

[Maral]

Ouch! This is so not true, my friend. The Gospels themselves don't even agree, much of the time. Most weren't written until long after the events they describe and not necessarily by first-hand witnesses, despite the attribution to original disciples.

And to top it all off, we have the original version of none of them, only copies made long afterward by copyists who may or may not have been slavishly literal.

The Canonical Gospels were written anywhere from 30-60 years after Christ's death. They all agree in their essential portrayal of Christ.

The late Sir Frederic Kenyon, former director and principal librarian of the British Museum, was one of the leading authorities on the reliability of ancient manuscripts. He wrote:
"The interval then, between the dates of original composition and the earliest extant evidence becomes so small as to be in fact negligible, and the last foundation for any doubt that the Scriptures have come down to us substantially as they were written has now been removed. Both the authenticity and the general integrity of the books of the New Testament may be regarded as finally established." Kenyon, F. G. The Bible and Archaeology. (New York and London: Harper, 1940)

 

[Dark Knight]

The Canonical Gospels were written anywhere from 30-60 years after Christ's death. They all agree in their essential portrayal of Christ.

The late Sir Frederic Kenyon, former director and principal librarian of the British Museum, was one of the leading authorities on the reliability of ancient manuscripts. He wrote:
"The interval then, between the dates of original composition and the earliest extant evidence becomes so small as to be in fact negligible, and the last foundation for any doubt that the Scriptures have come down to us substantially as they were written has now been removed. Both the authenticity and the general integrity of the books of the New Testament may be regarded as finally established." Kenyon, F. G. The Bible and Archaeology. (New York and London: Harper, 1940)

Correct. While the Gnostic gospels were written 200-400 years after Christ.

This quote from the article summed everything up well:

Stephen Pfann, a biblical scholar at the University of the Holy Land in Jerusalem: "I don't think that Christians are going to buy into this," Pfann said. "But skeptics, in general, would like to see something that pokes holes into the story that so many people hold dear."

He's right. Anything, no matter how arcane or far fetched, will be used by skeptics.

 

[Cypros]

Some archeologists such as BAR magazine found their methods to be very suspect and most likely biased. The ossuary remains quite the discussion as a result.

BAR is not exactly an example to follow. The magazine's editor, Hershel Shanks, made a great investment in the James ossuary early on and so was humiliated and criticized when the whole story of the ossuary came out and its forgery status proved. Shanks is also a huge proponent of selling antiquities -- not popular with scholarly archaeologists who are desperately trying to protect archaeological sites and who argue that the selling of antiquities promotes looting. The James ossuary falls right into this issue. It was not discovered through scientific excavation and lots of money passed hands in the race to publish and exhibit it. BAR was a big promoter and then lost face.

 

[Cypros]

Correct. While the Gnostic gospels were written 200-400 years after Christ.

This quote from the article summed everything up well:

Stephen Pfann, a biblical scholar at the University of the Holy Land in Jerusalem: "I don't think that Christians are going to buy into this," Pfann said. "But skeptics, in general, would like to see something that pokes holes into the story that so many people hold dear."

He's right. Anything, no matter how arcane or far fetched, will be used by skeptics.

So, according to Pfann's argument, any skeptic who doesn't believe that Jesus was resurrected should be jumping on the bandwagon with this story of a Jesus ossuary which, if true, demonstrates that Jesus was just a man and dies and was buried just like any other man. Well, I am a "skeptic" (meaning that I respect scientific method and critical thinking over blind faith) and yet I am not buying this Jesus ossuary business. It is not scientifically provable.

 

[LovelyPigeon]

The Canonical Gospels were written anywhere from 30-60 years after Christ's death. They all agree in their essential portrayal of Christ.

That is the generally accepted range of dates for the originals, but there are no originals that survived. What has survived are copies, and those copies have altered through the years by those who made copies of them. One obvious example is the story of the woman caught in adultery, brought to Jesus, and then released when Jesus told the crowd that the first without sin should throw the first stone (John 8: 1-11) That passage isn't found in the earliest copies of the Gospel of John--in other words, it was added at some later date and apparently wasn't included in the original gospel. Some copies of John include the story, but put it into a different chapter.

According to the 4 gospels we have included in the modern Bible, there were gospels written earlier. None of those have survived even as copies.