Jesus: Tales from the Crypt

Brace yourself. James Cameron, the man who brought you 'The Titanic' is back with another blockbuster. This time, the ship he's sinking is Christianity.

In a new documentary, Producer Cameron and his director, Simcha Jacobovici, make the starting claim that Jesus wasn't resurrected --the cornerstone of Christian faith-- and that his burial cave was discovered near Jerusalem. And, get this, Jesus sired a son with Mary Magdelene.

No, it's not a re-make of "The Da Vinci Codes'. It's supposed to be true.

Let's go back 27 years, when Israeli construction workers were gouging out the foundations for a new building in the industrial park in the Talpiyot, a Jerusalem suburb. of Jerusalem. The earth gave way, revealing a 2,000 year old cave with 10 stone caskets. Archologists were summoned, and the stone caskets carted away for examination. It took 20 years for experts to decipher the names on the ten tombs. They were: Jesua, son of Joseph, Mary, Mary, Mathew, Jofa and Judah, son of Jesua.
Israel's prominent archeologist Professor Amos Kloner didn't associate the crypt with the New Testament Jesus. His father, after all, was a humble carpenter who couldn't afford a luxury crypt for his family. And all were common Jewish names.

There was also this little inconvenience that a few miles away, in the old city of Jerusalem, Christians for centuries had been worshipping the empty tomb of Christ at the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. Christ's resurrection, after all, is the main foundation of the faith, proof that a boy born to a carpenter's wife in a manger is the Son of God.

But film-makers Cameron and Jacobovici claim to have amassed evidence through DNA tests, archeological evidence and Biblical studies, that the 10 coffins belong to Jesus and his family.

Ever the showman, (Why does this remind me of the impresario in another movie,"King Kong", whose hubris blinds him to the dangers of an angry and very large ape?) Cameron is holding a New York press conference on Monday at which he will reveal three coffins, supposedly those of Jesus of Nazareth, his mother Mary and Mary Magdalene. News about the film, which will be shown soon on Discovery Channel, Britain's Channel 4, Canada's Vision, and Israel's Channel 8, has been a hot blog topic in the Middle East (check out a personal favorite: Israelity Bites) Here in the Holy Land, Biblical Archeology is a dangerous profession. This 90-minute documentary is bound to outrage Christians and stir up a titanic debate between believers and skeptics. Stay tuned.

anything that brings down Christianity/organized religion is good in my book.

Heh heh, good one.

Has the DNA of Jesus Christ been found?

MICHAEL POSNER

Globe and Mail Update

Has the DNA of Jesus Christ been found?

That tantalizing question underpins The Lost Tomb of Jesus — a new book and feature documentary film with potentially profound implications for Christianity.

The two provocative works suggest that ossuaries once containing the bones of Jesus of Nazareth and his family are now stored in a warehouse belonging to the Israel Antiquity Authority in Bet Shemesh, outside Jerusalem.

Although the evidence contained in the film and book is hardly definitive, it is compelling. Inscribed in Hebrew, Latin or Greek, six boxes — taken from a 2,000-year-old cave discovered in March, 1980, during excavation for a housing project in Talpiyot, south of Jerusalem — bear the names: Yeshua (Jesus) bar Yosef (son of Joseph); Maria (the Latin version of Miriam, which is the English Mary); Matia (the Hebrew equivalent of Matthew, a name common in the lineage of both Mary and Joseph); Yose; (the Gospel of Mark refers to Yose as a brother of Jesus); Yehuda bar Yeshua, or Judah, son of Jesus; and in Greek, Mariamne e mara — meaning 'Mariamne, known as the master.' According to Harvard professor Francois Bovon, interviewed in the film, Mariamne was Mary Magdalene's real name.

The bones once contained in the boxes have long since been reburied, according to Jewish custom — in unmarked graves in Israel.

If the evidence adduced is correct, the bone boxes — and microscopic remains of DNA still contained inside — would constitute the first archaeological evidence of the existence of the Christian saviour and his family.

Tests on mitochondrial DNA obtained from the Jesus and Mariamne boxes and conducted at Lakehead University's Paleo-DNA laboratory, in Thunder Bay, Ont., show conclusively that the two individuals were not maternally related. According to Dr. Carney Matheson, the lab's head, this likely means they were related by marriage.

Thus, the book and film raise seminal questions, not only about the early movement of Judeo-Christians that Jesus led, but about whether, as some scholars believe, he might have been married to Mary Magdalene and fathered a family.

Nothing in the film or book challenges traditional Christian dogma regarding the resurrection. But it could pose a problem for those that believe Jesus' ascension, 40 days after the resurrection, was both physical and spiritual. And, if further DNA testing were to link Jesus and Yose with Mary, it would call into question the entire doctrine of the Virgin Birth.

The $4-million documentary is the work two Canadians — Emmy-award winner director Simcha Jacobovici and his executive producer, Oscar-award winning filmmaker James Cameron. It will air on Canada's Vision TV on March 6th and later next month on Discovery US and Britain's Channel 4. A companion book, The Jesus Family Tomb, by Mr. Jacobovici and Dr. Charles Pellegrino, has just been released (Harper Collins).

Mr. Jacobovici and Mr. Cameron are scheduled to hold a press conference Monday morning at the New York Public Library, with the Jesus and Mary Magdelene ossuaries, flown in from Israel, on display.

Meanwhile, security agents have been hired to stand guard outside the Talpiyot apartments beneath which the tomb lies, covered by a large cement plate.

"I don't think this changes the fundamentals of faith," Mr. Cameron said in an interview this week. "But the evidence is pretty darn compelling and it definitely bears further study."

Not everyone agrees. "It's a beautiful story, but without any proof whatsoever," archaeologist Dr. Amos Kloner, who wrote the original report on the Talpiyot cave findings, told an Israeli reporter last week. "The names...found on the tombs are names that are similar to the names of the family of Jesus. But those were the most common names found among Jews in the first centuries BCE and CE."

Yet if the individual names were common, the film and book ask: what is the likelihood that this particular group of names, so resonant of the Jesus story, would appear together, contained in the same family tomb?

"There are really only two possibilities," says director Jacobovici. "Either this cluster of names represents the tomb of Jesus of Nazareth and his family. Or some other family, with this very same constellation of names, existed at precisely the same time in history in Jerusalem."

To calculate the odds, Mr. Jacobovici took the data to University of Toronto mathematician Dr. Andrey Feuerverger. Factoring in the commonality of these names in first-Century Israel, Dr. Feuerverger puts the odds of this tomb not belonging to Jesus and his family at one in 600.

Another estimate, commissioned by Dr. James Tabor, chair of the department of religion studies at the University of North Carolina, puts the odds at one in 42 million. "If you took the entire population of Jerusalem at the time," says Dr. Taber, "and put it in a stadium, and asked everyone named Jesus to stand up, you'd have about 2,700 men. Then you'd ask only those with a father named Joseph and a mother named Mary to remain standing. And then those with a brother named Yose and a brother named James. Statistically, you end up with one person."

The James reference is significant because of the 10 ossuaries found at Talpiyot, one later disappeared. Many experts believe that coffin is the now infamous 'James, son of Joseph, brother of Jesus' ossuary that turned up a few years ago and was put on public display at the Royal Ontario Museum.

Although many scholars have called the inscription 'brother of Jesus' a modern-day forgery, at least as many academics continue to believe in its authenticity.

Moreover, tests conducted for The Lost Tomb of Jesus show that the patina encrusted on the James ossuary bears precisely the same chemical thumbprint as the other ossuaries found at Talpiyot.

Neither the provenance nor the age of the ossuaries is not in dispute. The boxes, never out of the control of professional archaeologists, are effectively self-dating, since the practice of re-interring the bones of the dead in limestone boxes a year after death was conducted by Jews in the Holy Land for a period of only 100 years. Prominent families stored the boxes in family tombs.

Moreover, all the inscriptions have been corroborated by some of the world's leading epigraphers, including Harvard's Frank Moore Cross.

The 'Jesus, son of Joseph' marking is considered rare; of thousands of inscriptions so far catalogued, only one other bone coffin contained the same construction.

No Christian tradition suggests that Jesus had a son, but the Gospel of John does refer to "the beloved disciple" who rests on Jesus' lap at the last supper.

And perhaps, says Mr. Jacobovici, "although this is pure speculation, when Jesus on the cross says 'mother, behold thy son,' he's not referring to himself or to his mother, but to his son, who is there with Mary Magdalene".

The book of Mark, he adds, also contains a passage that might allude to a son — a reference to a young man, wearing nothing but linen who follows Jesus after his arrest and, when guards try to apprehend him, slips out of his clothes and escapes naked.

"That's a very odd story," says Mr. Jacobovici. "There's no name is given for the young lad, but the gospel writer obviously thought it was important to tell it."

"None of us," maintains Dr. Tabor, "are gleefully presenting this as though we've trumped Christianity. If anything, it might help clarify and refine it a bit. Some people will immediately say this is sensationalism. I don't agree with that. I know enough about it to say this is a subject that deserves serious and continued investigation."

Indeed, it's likely that there will be sequel to The Lost Tomb of Jesus. While searching for the original Talpiyot cave, the filmmakers stumbled upon a second crypt, only 20 meters away that has never been explored by archaeologists. A miniature camera inserted into the tomb revealed three ossuaries.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/ ... Front/home

The question is, why didn't this happen a lot sooner?

I would be shocked that he didn't rise from the dead. It is in the bible.

I bet next they'll tell me Mary wasn't a virgin.

supposedly when people found out about kevin smith's dogma he recieved death threats...and that actually promoted christianity, just not in the typical sense.

i bet james cameron is killed by some nut job ultra religious scumbag...which is ironic, seeing as you're supposed to love your neighbor and not kill and accept everyone for what they are and all that other happy horseshit

and...


you're kidding, right?

I want to play Jesus. My hair is getting pretty long and i'm growing a beard. Plus i have a huge pakaki just like the real Jesus. My people will be getting a hold of Mr Cameron very soon

I thought this thread was going to be about KIRK Cameron and Jesus.

http://forums.theskyiscrape.com/vie ... hp?t=40424

http://www.myspace.com/noyieldingcode

look at the default picture...that was me about a year ago

I'm waiting for this to turn out to be a giant hoax in order to gain vast publicity for Cameron's next big screen film.

http://www.cnn.com/2007/TECH/science/02 ... index.html

Archaeologists, scholars dispute Jesus documentary
• Documentary claims to have found bones of Jesus' family
• Film suggests Jesus may have had son
• Archaeologists, Religious scholars skeptical
• Oscar-winner James Cameron directed film
JERUSALEM (AP) -- Archaeologists and clergymen in the Holy Land derided claims in a new documentary produced by the Oscar-winning director James Cameron that contradict major Christian tenets.

"The Lost Tomb of Christ," which the Discovery Channel will run on March 4, argues that 10 ancient ossuaries -- small caskets used to store bones -- discovered in a suburb of Jerusalem in 1980 may have contained the bones of Jesus and his family, according to a press release issued by the Discovery Channel.

One of the caskets even bears the title, "Judah, son of Jesus," hinting that Jesus may have had a son. And the very fact that Jesus had an ossuary would contradict the Christian belief that he was resurrected and ascended to heaven.

Most Christians believe Jesus' body spent three days at the site of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem's Old City. The burial site identified in Cameron's documentary is in a southern Jerusalem neighborhood nowhere near the church.

In 1996, when the BBC aired a short documentary on the same subject, archaeologists challenged the claims. Amos Kloner, the first archaeologist to examine the site, said the idea fails to hold up by archaeological standards but makes for profitable television.

"They just want to get money for it," Kloner said.

The claims have raised the ire of Christian leaders in the Holy Land.

"The historical, religious and archaeological evidence show that the place where Christ was buried is the Church of the Resurrection," said Attallah Hana, a Greek Orthodox clergyman in Jerusalem. The documentary, he said, "contradicts the religious principles and the historic and spiritual principles that we hold tightly to."

Stephen Pfann, a biblical scholar at the University of the Holy Land in Jerusalem who was interviewed in the documentary, said the film's hypothesis holds little weight.

"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."

"How possible is it?" Pfann said. "On a scale of one through 10 -- 10 being completely possible -- it's probably a one, maybe a one and a half."

Pfann is even unsure that the name "Jesus" on the caskets was read correctly. He thinks it's more likely the name "Hanun."

Kloner also said the filmmakers' assertions are false.

"It was an ordinary middle-class Jerusalem burial cave," Kloner said. "The names on the caskets are the most common names found among Jews at the time."

Archaeologists also balk at the filmmaker's claim that the James Ossuary -- the center of a famous antiquities fraud in Israel -- might have originated from the same cave. In 2005, Israel charged five suspects with forgery in connection with the infamous bone box.

"I don't think the James Ossuary came from the same cave," said Dan Bahat, an archaeologist at Bar-Ilan University. "If it were found there, the man who made the forgery would have taken something better. He would have taken Jesus."

Although the documentary makers claim to have found the tomb of Jesus, the British Broadcasting Corporation beat them to the punch by 11 years.

Osnat Goaz, a spokeswoman for the Israeli government agency responsible for archaeology, declined to comment before the documentary was aired.

In before utter failure

They probably couldn't have found an audience for this before the Davinci Code. I hate that book if only for it creating an entire generation of amateur biblical scholars.

The controversy surrounding this one ought to be fun.

Maybe I should go see this flick.

I *LOVE* the irony when Xtians get pissed over this stuff. They're so upset that it's destroying their mythology that they ignore the fact that it could be actual proof that Jesus was a real person. Maybe that's the problem. He was a REAL PERSON. No more, no less. I don't know why that pisses people off so much.

He existed. Had some good ideas, and they carried by word of mouth after he died. Then his followers took bits and pieces of other existing religions - virgin birth, angels, ressurection, divine decent, etc . . . in order to persuade (read: force, lol) people into converting. I don't think it's such a bad truth.

I'm no 'Xtian', but I find it even sillier when people try to cook up conspiracy theories and the like to discredit Christianity. Dan Brown is the leading scholar on early church history? O RLY? Just because its controversial and interesting doesn't make it any less bunk.

If you are so intent on crushing their mythologies, come back with some real evidence, not whatever you find easiest to cook up.

why can't someone write an article explaining why (or why not) this evidence can stand up to archaeological standards? i hate all these articles quoting archaeologists saying "it works" or "it doesn't work" without explaining why.



what evidence is this clergyman referring to in the first part of the quote? could i open an archaeological textbook and see it written "Jesus of Nazareth was buried in the Church of the Resurrection because of evidence x"?

this seems like yet another debate between those looking for a sensational story and those who want to defend their beliefs, with no undisputed facts on either side's argument.