Joe Zias on the Talpiot Tomb
“Had these names not been found in a single tomb that was professionally excavated I would have said, 100 percent, that what we are looking at are simple forgeries. I find it very interesting that we have this completely unique combination of names. This thing definitely, I think, is worth some further research.” Joe Zias to the BBC
A little history here. Back in 1996 when the existence of the Talpiot tomb and its interesting cluster of names broke headlines (see the Introduction to my book, The Jesus Dynasty for an account of how this unfolded) via a BBC special produced by Ray Bruce and his associates, just about everyone interviewed, from Tom Wright to Amos Kloner all said the same thing: these are common names, and they mean nothing in terms of this “Jesus son of Joseph” being potentially related to the Nazarene Jesus. At that time there was only one lone voice to the contrary, and that was Joe Zias, then curator at the Rockefeller museum. Through years of dealing with ossuaries, epitaphs, and even fakes and forgeries, Joe immediately realized that if these names indeed came from a single tomb it was the cluster or grouping of names that made this tomb significant and he called for further investigation when everyone else could only talk of how “common” the names were. He was in fact so impressed with this cluster that he said had he not known they were from a single tomb, excavated by competent archaeologists (Joseph Gath, Shimon Gibson, and Amos Kloner), he would have to assume the names were forged since they were so unique as a set.
I agree with Joe to this day and I think his trained instincts were right. Accordingly I welcome the latest investigations that have surfaced this week. There is still a lot to sort out but the dismissal of the entire matter with the refrain, “the names are common,” simply shows that one has not seriously examined the evidence (see my post below for my own outline thereof).