Jesus Dynasty / James Tabor

In our New Testament gospels there are four women named Mary who are closely associated with Jesus:

• His mother, first and foremost, who raised him and a large family of four other boys and at least two girls (Mark 6:30
• Tradition has it that the names of his two sisters were Mary and Salome (Mark 6:3; 16:1; Epiphanius, Pan. 78.8,1 & 78.9, 6)
• Mary of Bethany, the sister of Martha and Lazarus (Luke 10:38-42; John 11:1-5; 12:1-3; Mark 11:11-12)
• Mary Magdalene (Luke 8:1-3; Mark 15:40, 47; 16:1; Matt 28:1-10; John 20:1-18)

Three of these Marys, in particular, are singled out in early Christian traditions as having “always walked with him.” As the Gospel of Philip puts it, “His sister and his mother and his companion were each a Mary” (59, 12). Mary, is the English form of the Hebrew Miriam, the name of the sister of Moses and Aaron (Exo 15:20). It comes down to us in several forms in Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek: Mariam, Maria, Mariame, Mariamne; but in English the name is commonly rendered simply “Mary.” If one tabulates all the references to Jewish names of women from archaeological and literary sources from Palestine in late antiquity (Tal Ilan’s Lexicon), the name Mary occurs 70 times of the 320 total examples of female names. That means we can estimate that approximately 21% of Jewish women were named Mary. This popularity might have to do with Miriam the sister of Moses, but it also has been traced to the women in the Hashmonean or Maccabean line who favored this name. It seems that names of the Maccabees, both male and female, were extraordinarily popular in late 2nd Temple Palestinian Judaism, perhaps for patriotic reasons.

As far as these Marys, we know precious little about any of them, and whether historian or devotee of Jesus, we wish we knew much more. Mary Magdalene, first witness to Jesus’ resurrection according to Matthew and John, is perhaps the most intriguing, both to scholars and the public alike. A Google search for “Mary Magdalene” yields over a million and a half “hits.” An Amazon search registers over 15,000 books that are in some way related her. The titles say a lot:

The Secret Magdalene; The Crucifixion of Mary Magdalene; The Magdalene Legacy; Secrets of Mary Magdalene: The Unfold Story; Searching for Mary Magdalene; The Magdalene Code; De-coding Mary Magdalene; Unveiling Mary Magdalene; The Complete Idiots Guide to Mary Magdalene; The Everything Mary Magdalene Book; Peter, Paul, and Mary Magdalene, and so on.*

The Wikipedia entry, Mary Magdalene, provides a good overview to what might be called the “Mary Magdalene” craze. Dan Brown’s novel, The Davinci Code (and the subsequent film) has now spread a version of the popular fascination with Mary Magdalene around the globe in every marketable language.

No one could possible keep up with the popular phenomenon and even getting a hold on the more academic and scholarly treatments of Mary Magdalene is a daunting task. So where does one even begin?

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For those interested in some of the chronological matters related to the discovery of the Talpiot tomb in 1980 it just so happens that the days of the week and days of the month coincide on the Jewish calendar for the year 1980 and this year 2007. That makes “today” the anniversary date of the first report of the opening of the Tomb.

Gregorian/Jewish Years: 1980 (5740) and 2007 (5767):

Passover began/begins on Monday night, Nisan 14th

Tomb reported to IAA by building crew on previous Thursday, Nisan 10th

Initial inspection by Amos Kloner, Friday, Nisan 11th

Tomb open and unattended over Shabbat (Shabbat HaGadol in Jewish tradition), Nisan 12th

Active beginning of the excavation by Yosi Gath with Shimon Gibson and three workers, Sunday, Nisan 13th

For a fuller discussion of what we know of that weekend in 1980 based on the original excavation notes of Joseph Gath see my March 21, 2007 post, A Passover in 1980.

The late great Hebrew University scholar Gershom Scholem (1897-1982), who devoted his life to the study of Jewish mysticism and messianism has been quoted as having once said:

“Nonsense is nonsense, but the academic study of nonsense is legitimate scholarship.”

I can’t remember when or from whom I first heard this, or even if I read it years ago*, but it always stuck with me as a particularly wise observation. I find it more than appropriate to my own specialty, a historical study of the apocalyptic Jesus movement in its wider ancient Jewish and Greco-Roman contexts. Such a study involves one in a thick complex of overlapping areas including magic and miracles, angelology and demonology, journeys to heavenly realms, revelatory epiphanies, messianism, and a range of cosmological and eschatological models of world transformation. These and many other related categories seem to have one thing in common. They involve “imagining the world” based on claims of religious experience that tend to move outside the purview of a scientific understanding of reality. Indeed, for many post-Enlightenment thinkers they involve a way of thinking about the world that can best be described as “fantasy,” or if taken seriously enough, outright delusion.

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Bruce Fisk has posted a thoughtful treatment of the view of Paul and other early Christians on the “physicality” of the notion of resurrection of the dead by Robert Gundry. Prof. Gundry focuses on the the issue of the resurrection of Jesus in particular, but then extends his analysis to cover Paul’s more general notion of the resurrection of those “dead in Christ” when he returns from heaven. Gundry offers a critical evaluation of my views as published in The Jesus Dynasty as well as here on my Blog. I appreciate the input and the respectful consideration and I want to take up some of the issues he raises in subsequent posts on this Blog.

I am in the process of writing a book on Paul (working title: The Paul Dynasty: A New Historical Invesigation of Paul’s Program of World Transformation) that will offer a sustained interpretation of Paul’s career, mission, and message, the outlines of which I hinted at in chapter 16 of The Jesus Dynasty, and the foundation of which I published in Things Unutterable (1986).

The issues that Prof. Gundry highlights relate directly to the notion of finding a Jesus Family tomb, including an ossuary with the bones of Jesus of Nazareth, and what that might say about the development of early Christian views of Jesus and the Messianic Kingdom that he intended to inaugurate. So much of this depends on how we can reconstruct the days and weeks following the death of Jesus. The amalgamated accounts of Luke and John, both of which stress “physical” (or quasi-physical) appearances of Jesus in Jerusalem to his disciples over a period of weeks following that fateful Passover, have become the unconscious master “Easter narrative” in our heads, much like conflated versions of the Christmas Story. Backing off a bit, and sorting things out, is difficult, but it can be done, if one gives careful attention to our sources, particularly Mark and Q, but also the development of the “resurrection” story in Matthew as well, as a backdrop to what we find in Paul.

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There has been a lot of discussion regarding statistical methods as applied to the names on the ossuaries in the Talpiot tomb. I offer here a short clarification, and refer folks to more extensive discussions, if anyone is interested, on earlier entries on this Blog. These are easily located by a search for the term “statistics.”

The confusion, as I understand it, has had to do with the use, or perceived misuse, of “statistics” on onomastic data of this type. Dr. Feuerverger does not need me to defend him or his incredible accomplishments and intellect. His Bio speaks for itself. I regret that things got very confused with the way in which Feuerverger’s work was intially reported by Discovery. That has now, thankfully, been clarified on both the Discovery Web site and the home page of Dr. Feuerverger thanks to the helpful input of Joe D’Mello and other statisticians who contacted both Dr. Feuerverger and Discovery.

I am not a statistician but I have consulted with several, including Feuerverger, as well as a half dozen others who have been critical of his conclusions, as well as my own posts on the subject. We have had an exceptionally open and friendly give-and-take through private e-mail over the past few weeks. My own position is the following.

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There has been some discussion of to what degree the James ossuary might be described as “plain” or “decorated,” and as “inscribed” or “uninscribed.” The late Joseph Gath makes it clear in his final excavation report that when the ossuaries were removed and tagged in the field, during the first two days of the rescue archaeological operation (March 30 & 31, 1980) that only four of the six inscriptions had been noticed but none were yet “deciphered.” The task of the excavation was not to carefully examine the ossuaries but to remove them, excavate the cave, and record and tag any of the findings as well as produce an accurate survey map. Those tasks were all carried out, under the supervision of Amos Kloner, and with the assistance of Shimon Gibson, according to proper and established procedures. Even several months later when Gath produced his printed report on the ossuaries he simply notes that “Some inscriptions in Greek and Aramaic were found in the cave that have not been deciphered yet.” Lots of ossuaries from tombs were being brought into the Israel Department of Antiquities in those days and those responsible had no reason to pay any special attention to this group. An inscription “Yeshua bar Yehosef” might have been of some interest had it been noticed, but it is quite difficult to read and could well have been one of the two inscriptions recognized only later when they were cleaned, examined, and photographed.

Here are two very clear photos of the James ossuary with views of both the inscribed and the uninscribed sides. One can barely make out the beginnings of an extremely faint rossette pattern on the side without the inscription though whether one might then classify it as “decorated” in the sense of the the others in the tomb is questionable. Depending on how the ossuaries are found in a tomb one sometimes finds soil adhering to surfaces obscuring some features until the ossuaries can be brushed and carefully examined in good light for either decorations or inscriptions.

The five decorated ossuaries, two of which were inscibed (”Mariamene Mara” and the “Jude son of Jesus.”), are actually quite elaborate in contrast to the “plain” look of the James ossuary. Here is 80.506 as a comparative example:

Whether the James ossuary might possibly be the so-called “missing 10th” from Talpiot, or otherwise associated with the Talpiot tomb, remains to be demonstrated, but all we know about the 10th (IAA 80. 509) are two data: the dimensions and the one word description “plain,” with no surviving photo. A excavator’s initial field description of “plain,” without note of an inscription, is fully in keeping with Gath’s preliminary notes and records.

The two things I think I have heard repeated most often in the discussion of the Talpit tomb, both mistaken in my view, are: 1) that Jesus would not have had a family tomb in Jerusalem, either because he was from Galilee or that he was too poor; and 2) that since the “names are common” in the Talpiot tomb (Peter, Paul, & Mary) the site can not possibly be connected to Jesus of Nazareth. The following essay offers some thoughts on both issues.

Two, not one–the Burials of Jesus of Nazareth and the Talpiot Yeshua Tomb

Jodi Magness has recently argued at the SBL Web site and elsewhere that the east Talpiot tomb of recent controversy can not be the tomb of Jesus of Nazareth and his family because: (1) such an idea contradicts the canonical gospel accounts; (2) it ignores the lower class status of Jesus’ family and their non-Judean origins; (3) and finally, even if the family might have had such a tomb it would be in Nazareth not Jerusalem. Christopher Rollston has now contributed a piece on the same Web site site arguing that the inscriptions on the six ossuaries found in the Talpiot tomb are sufficiently common, generic, and lacking in patronymic data, so as to preclude any convincing prosopographic identification with the family of Jesus of Nazareth. I take it that Rollston is not arguing the impossibility of the identification but rather its lack of convincing data. I agree with Magness that Jesus was buried twice, but my own view, contrary to Magness, is that the Talpiot tomb fits nicely within our earliest canonical sources (gospels as well as Paul) as to the nature and location of that second burial. At the end of my treatment here I will offer some very brief observations on Rollston’s welcome contribution. The nature of the question, with its theological and emotional overtones, coupled with the way the issue was put before the public and the academy (i.e., through a documentary film and a trade book) has understandably galvanized the responses into “yes” or “no,” (mostly “no”), when reasonable alternatives might be “possible but uncertain,” to even “probable but not certain,” but in any case a call for further investigation. I will make some suggestions at the end of this piece regarding directions for future research.

1. Why the tomb does not contradict the Gospel Accounts: Dead but Twice Buried
Our earliest testimony to the death and burial of Jesus comes from a letter of Paul to his followers at Corinth in the early 50s CE. He purports to pass on a tradition that he had received, namely “that Christ died…that he was buried…that he was raised on the third day. . .that he was seen…” (1 Cor 15:3-5). Leaving aside the matter of the nature of these “sightings” of Jesus, including Paul’s own claim in that regard years after the crucifixion, it is significant that Paul writes that Jesus was buried. Burial implies a tomb, of whatever type, and he clearly intends the phrase “raised on the third day” to imply that that tomb was empty. In that regard I have to agree with evangelical apologists that Paul knows an “empty tomb” tradition. I cannot see how his language can make any sense otherwise.

Chronologically Mark would be our next source, assuming one is convinced, as I am, of the priority of his account of the burial and the empty tomb. Mark relates that an influential sympathizer of Jesus and his movement, namely Joseph of Arimathea, obtained permission from Pontius Pilate to remove Jesus’ body from the cross and to bury him in haste before the Sabbath arrived. Mark writes that Joseph wrapped the corpse in a linen shroud, laid it in a rock-hewn tomb, and blocked the entrance to the tomb with a stone or golal (Mk 15:42-47). He also notes that Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of James and Joses (whom I take to be Jesus’ mother, see The Jesus Dynasty, pp. 77-81) were present at this burial. Here one must read carefully, as Mark does not say, as often assumed, that this tomb belonged to Joseph of Arimathea, nor does Luke, who is following Mark, or John, who clearly has independent material. The only source for the commonly held assumption that this tomb belonged to Joseph is a gloss in Matthew, whereby Joseph becomes a “rich man” who puts Jesus in “his own new tomb.” This is clearly not history but Matthew’s tendentious attempt to show a fulfillment of prophecy, namely, Isaiah 53:9, where the suffering servant is buried in the tomb of a rich man.

If we discount Matthew’s theological embellishment and rely upon the core source Mark, we find that it comports well with John, who offers an independent but corollary account. John also knows the Joseph of Arimathea tradition but he adds a critical point: “Now in the place where he was crucified there was a garden, and in the garden a new tomb, where no one had ever been laid. So because of the Jewish day of Preparation, as the tomb was close at hand, they laid Jesus there” (John 19:41-42). Both Mark and John, two independent sources, see this burial as hastily done and John makes it clear that it was a burial of temporary necessity in constrained emergency circumstances. What does one do with a corpse as the Sabbath approaches (and according to John, the Passover seder)? How can it be kept from predators until the rites of burial are completed? This initial burial of Jesus was by definition a temporary and emergency move, based on necessity, until something more permanent could be worked out or arranged.

What happened next in terms of when and how the corpse of Jesus was taken from that temporary tomb is unfortunately a matter about which historians can say little, given the theological nature of our sources, and their relatively late apologetic character. Mark, our earliest narrative source, reports that the tomb was empty by early Sunday morning and that Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome were told by a “young man” waiting for them in the empty tomb that Jesus had been taken up (aorist passive of egeiro) and would see them in Galilee. Mark ends abruptly with no sightings, but according to some, including my teacher Norman Perrin, his community looked in hope to the promise of a parousia appearance in Galilee, something they still anxiously awaited in the time Mark composed his gospel in the 70s CE.

One must assume that the corpse was taken and reburied, perhaps as soon as the Sabbath was over just after sundown Saturday night. If one were speculating one might suppose that Joseph of Arimathea, the one who had taken responsibility for the corpse in the first place, would have retrieved the body as soon as Jewish law permitted. Whether the family was involved, or whether we are to trust the accounts of the Sunday morning visits to the tomb, are questions that take us beyond history to a later apologetic stance intended to defend a view that Jesus had been raised bodily and taken to heaven (Luke and John). As historians we can reasonably expect that the “tomb” would be empty, given that the tomb near the crucifixion site was never intended as a permanent place for Jesus’ corpse in the first place but seized upon in an emergency fashion until other arrangements could be made.

At this point we enter what John Dominic Crossan has called the “dark age” of early Christian origins. Jesus died in 30 CE but we have no records until Paul, in the 50s CE, of what the early Jerusalem followers of Jesus, now led by his brother James, might have preached or taught regarding the death of Jesus. For centuries everyone has “filled in” those twenty years based on the narratives of Luke-Acts, and the sharply polemical account of Paul in his letter to the Galatians, but many of us have become convinced that Luke’s creation of a “myth of origins,” and Paul’s claim that his “gospel” was accepted by the Jerusalem “pillars,” (James, Cephas, and John) should be radically questioned (see SBL symposium papers, Redescribing Christian Origins, eds. Cameron and Miller).

My purpose in this piece is not to argue these complex issues but to make the simple point that from a critical reading of our earliest sources on the emergency burial of Jesus’ corpse we would expect that first tomb to be empty within twenty-four hours. And I think we can safely assume that it was.

2. Was Jesus poor and lower class, and so most likely buried in a Trench Tomb?
Magness argues that whoever took the body would have buried him in a simple trench grave with no marker since the family was too poor to have afforded a rock-hewn tomb. Yet, she seems to allow that at least one follower of influence and means, namely Joseph of Arimathea, did in fact see to the initial burial. Why would one assume that either Joseph, or other followers of means who were devoted to his messianic program, would not be able to provide a permanent tomb? The Jesus movement, now led by James his brother, was headquartered in Jerusalem for the next 40 years and their numbers and influence were enough to be noted by Josephus in the Antiquities. The family of Mary, Martha, and Lazarus, who lived in Bethany, and with whom Jesus was intimately connected, could afford to bury their dead in a rock-hewn tomb. I also find the evidence presented by Mancini, Bagatti and Milik, and Sukenik and Avigad, regarding rock-tomb burials with inscribed ossuaries elsewhere in Talpiot, at Dominus Flevit, and on the Mt. of Offense, as convincingly connected to the early followers of Jesus (Finegan, Archaeology of the N.T. 359-374).

On more general grounds what Magness overlooks, in my view, is the extraordinary devotion that followers exhibit toward their spiritual/messianic leaders. Mark tells us that the followers of John the Baptizer went to collect his body and that they placed him in a tomb (Mark 6:29). The Syriac “Ascents of James,” for example, recounts how devout followers of James buried another murdered leader, known in some traditions as Stephen, in a tomb to which they made an annual pilgrimage close to Jericho (see Van Voorst, Ascents SBLDS 112). I have studied apocalyptic and messianic movements, both ancient and modern, for thirty years now and I have never encountered anything close to the scenario that Magness imagines when it comes to such groups burying a murdered leader. It is an open and debated question in the field of Christian origins as to whether Jesus was poor and without means of any sort, but even if that were granted, to rule out the likelihood that devoted followers of means would have provided him and his family with a place of burial is unwarranted.

I have been in the Talpiot tomb and it is quite modest in size and arrangement measuring under 3 x 3 meters and less than 2 meters high. It is nothing like the more monumental decorated tombs closer to the city. Also, of the six inscribed ossuaries four are “plain,” and only two are “decorated,” (Mariamene Mara and Yehuda bar Yeshua). I am not convinced that the mere existence of a modest rock-hewn tomb of this type indicates high status and wealth. Indeed, Kloner’s survey of rock-hewn burial tombs in and around Jerusalem seems to show that as one moves away from the “front row” seat near the Old City, the tombs south of Akeldama, around the Mt. of Offense, and south into Talpiot, are often more modest in form and size: thus the old adage, location, location, location.

3. The likelihood of a Jesus family tomb in Jerusalem and the question of toponymic markers
Finally I would expect rather than question that a tomb of Jesus and his family would be in the Jerusalem area rather than in the Galilee. We have no record that in the period from 30-70 CE that James and his brothers, and presumably their mother and sisters, lived anywhere but Jerusalem. Crossan has even argued, somewhat convincingly I think, that James might have established himself in Jerusalem long before the death of Jesus. Again, it is the nature of a messianic movement of this type to band together in hope and expectation, rather than to scatter and go back to business as usual. The solidarity of the movement in the 40s, 50s, and 60s surely depended on fervent apocalyptic and messianic expectations that focused on the fate and future of Jerusalem (Mark 13). Jerusalem was the “50-yard-line of the apocalypse” and everyone wanted a front row seat. When Mark addressed the community, with the 70 CE disaster in mind, his word was “Let those who are in Judea, flee to the mountains.” The “sign” the community is waiting for was the “desolating sacrilege” of Daniel in which a foreign ruler would erect some sort of offensive image in the Temple, echoing the pattern of Antiochus IV. The incident with Caligula in 41 CE provided a contemporary example of what might be possible.

It is the case, as Magness notes, that ossuaries sometimes included toponyms, especially for native places of origin outside Roman Palestine, but to insist that all those from places other than Judea must have such toponyms is unlikely. Also, toponyms known from literary sources (“Judas the Galilean,” “Jesus of Nazareth”), written decades after a person’s life, are not necessarily reflective of contemporary oral or epigraphic designations.

4. A few notes on prosopography and the Talpiot Tomb
Strictly speaking Rollston is correct that the inscriptions on the six ossuaries found in the Talpiot tomb are sufficiently common, generic, and lacking in patronymic data, so as to preclude any convincing prosopographic identification with the family of Jesus of Nazareth. I think to some degree it is a question of rigor. There is a good deal of latitude between prosopographic certainty and flights of irresponsible fantasy. Indeed, it is often the case with historical data that if we demanded absolute rigor we could say hardly anything. In the case of the Talpiot tomb I am convinced that there is more we can say, but not necessarily prove. Let me suggest an alternative way of approaching the prosopographic data that has more to do with testing a hypothesis rather than drawing an absolute conclusion.

One has only to page through the 895 entry catalogue of Rahmani listing ossuaries in the State of Israel collection to realize that the east Talpiot tomb stands out in a rather striking manner. Only 227 ossuaries in the catalogue are inscribed (25%), and yet this tomb has six out of ten, including the only provenanced example ever found of an ossuary inscribed “Yeshua bar Yehosef.” The cluster of names, even with their limited patronymics, appear to have statistical relevance based on purely mathematical considerations regarding name frequency data for the period.

Let’s pose the hypothetical question—of the named individuals we know, either as part of the Jesus family, or intimately connected thereto, who might we expect in a pre-70 CE family tomb? I would list Jesus himself, his mother Mary, his brother Joses, perhaps his brother James who was murdered in 62 CE, his sisters Mary and Salome, and possibly Mary Magdalene, who seems intimately involved with the mother and the sisters in the burial rites (Mark 15:40; 16:1). Of those unnamed we might have spouses and children of the brothers and sisters, if they had any, but we have no names. This seems to me to be our “tight” list of named intimates. We would not expect the brothers Simon or Judah in a pre-70 CE tomb since Simon took over leadership of the movement at the death of James in 62 CE, and Judas and his sons (or grandsons) are also known in later accounts after 70 CE. Since Simon succeeded James, rather than the brother Joses, who was next by birth, and we know nothing else of this “missing brother,” it might well be that he died before 70 CE.

The Talpiot tomb has inscribed ossuaries naming a Jesus son of Joseph, a Mary (Maria), another Mary (Mariamene/Mara), a Joseph (Jose), a Matthew (Matya), and a Jude son of Jesus (Yehuda). Four of the six names correspond to names we might predict in a pre-70 CE intimate family tomb of Jesus. The name Yose, only found here on an ossuary, is quite rare as a nickname, and corresponds well with the Greek nickname in Mark (6:3; 15:40, 47) by which Jesus’ second brother, Joses, is known. Of the two Marys, the only DNA test that was possible indicates that Mariamene is neither Jesus’ mother nor his sister. Since there are three “Marys” that are intimate in the life of Jesus, his mother, his sister, and Mary Magdalene, one might suggest a hypothetical identification of this Mariamene with Mary Magdalene. This is, of course, by no means certain, but it is based on eliminating her as mother of sister. She could, of course be any other Mary, even one we know nothing about, since Mary is a common name (25%). However, if we stay here with our list of hypothesized pre-70 named intimates, she can be logically included for consideration. Maria, the other Mary, is an appropriate name in Aramaic for Jesus’ mother in early Christian texts, and she is sometimes distinguished from Mary Magdalene, who is given forms of the name Miriame/Miriamne. Matthew is a name we would not have predicted, though it is found multiple times in both genealogical records of the Jesus family (Matt 1, Luke 3), so we really can say nothing about him. Judah son of Jesus is unexpected, as we have no clear literary evidence of Jesus of Nazareth having a son, though one might assume, in the case of this particular Talpiot Jesus, that one of the Marys named might be the mother, and we do know that Mariamene is not a sister of Jesus or his mother. I am not persuaded that the presence of a son of this Jesus precludes his identification with Jesus of Nazareth.

Taken as a whole it seems to me that this tomb and its possible identification with Jesus and Nazareth and his family should not be dismissed. The evidence from the gospels I have surveyed, coupled with the cluster of significant names that fit our hypothetical expectations for a posited pre-70 Jesus family tomb, is strong, and should be further tested. Of course, if the ossuary inscribed “James son of Joseph,” is added to the cluster, and the evidence for that possibility is unresolved at this point, the correspondence would be all the more striking. What is needed is further work on the epigraphy, expanded patina tests, further DNA testing if that is possible, and since the tomb in 1980 had to be excavated so quickly, but now has been located, a fuller archaeological examination of the site itself.

The following is based on official documents and records from the Israel Antiquities Authority excavation archives, as well as Darrel Bock’s most helpful recent informal interview with Professor Amos Kloner, who was in 1980 the district supervisor of excavations in the Jerusalem, and Kloner’s extensive excavation report published in Atiqot 29 (1996): 15-22.

The east Talpiot tomb, exposed to view by demolition by the the Solel Boneh construction crew, was reported by engineer A. Shochat to the Israel Department of Antiquities on March 27, 1980. That was a Thursday.

Eliot Braun, representing the IDA, made an initial inspection and reported to Amos Kloner, who visited the site, and wrote up a preliminary hand written memo to Department of Antiquities director Abi Eitan dated Friday, March 28, 1980. He requested a rescue excavation permit with Yosef Gath as director of excavations. Kloner included in his memo a prelimnary sketch of the tomb with its outer courtyard, its entrance with the interesting facade, and the inner chamber with six kokhim, and two archosolia, or primary burial shelves, on the north and west walls. With the Sabbath approaching the tomb was left open until Sunday morning. The permit for a rescue excavation was officially issued on Monday, March 31st, by Eitan, and registered as license # 938

Gath, along with Shimon Gibson, who was invited by Kloner to serve as the surveyer, showed up Sunday morning to begin their work with the assistance of 3-4 workers. In his director’s report, filed on April 15, 1980, Gath notes April 11th as the official “end” of the excavation and records that work proceeded “intermittently” over that period, which of course, included, the eight days of Passover. Monday, the second day of the excavation, was Nisan 14 on the Jewish calendar, Erev Pesach, the night of the Seder, so much of the work was done on Sunday and Monday, including the removal of 10 ossuaries, the removal of a .5m of soil that had filled the central chamber, the tagging and registration of the artifacts, and sending them to the IDA.

Gibson carefully recorded on his official sketch the location of the ossuaries in the various kokhim, which were numbered 2-7. Kokhim 2, 3, and 6 had two ossuaries, kok 5 had one, kok 7 had three, and kok 4 had none. On the original floor, under the fill, in front of each of the archosolium, was a human skull with remnants of arm and leg bones, both noted in Gath’s April 15th report. Gibson also includes in his sketch a third skull in the southeast corner of the central chamber, not specifically mentioned by Gath. A few ceramic pottery sherds were found that were dated ER/early Roman. There were no primary burials in the kokim and on the surface of the arcosolia were crushed bones packed in a few centimeters of soil. No covers were found for the kokhim, there was no golal, or blocking stone for the entrance to the tomb found, two broken ossuary lids were found on the floor under the fill–all indicating, according to Gath, that the tomb had been disturbed in ancient times.

Bones: Kloner remembers that the bones from the floor of the tomb were eventually turned over to the Jewish religious authorities but it is not clear whether any or all of them were first examined by an anthropologist. Joe Zias has checked his own personal records and says they were not given to him. There is no anthropological report in the IAA files. Kloner also notes that the bones in the ossuaries were in an advanced state of deterioration. As far as the number of individuals in the tomb Kloner makes clear in both his article (footnote #2), and in his interview, that his numbers as based on demographic averages or estimates, taken from tombs of this type, not any precise anthropological inventory of the bones actually found in this particular tomb. He calculates 1.7 individuals per ossuary (thus 17 individuals), plus an average of the same number outside (18) for a total of 35 as a total estimate.

Inscriptions: It is apparently not the case, as some have imagined, that the inscriptions on the six ossuaries were read instantly in the field by Gath or others. In Gath’s official excavation report, filed on April 15, 1980, four days after the excavation was officially completed, he notes that “up to this point four ossuaries appear to be inscribed,” indicating that two of the six inscribed were not yet so identified. He says nothing about the names themselves. Gibson does not recall any discussion of the inscriptions or the names in the field. This is further confirmed by line in Gath’s preliminary report published some time after the excavation was completed: “Some inscriptions in Greek and Aramaic were found in the cave that have not been deciphered yet.” According to Kloner the deciphering and translation of all six inscriptions was done subsequently by L. Rahmani sometime after they arrived at the Rockefeller and could be properly cleaned and studied. Just when this took place I do not know.

Kloner is also of the view that ossuary 80.509, the 10th, which was uninscribed and plain, was put in the courtyard of the Rockefeller for reasons of lack of space and like many other nondescript ossuaries was not included in Rahmani’s catalogue. I am not sure if he knows this independently or is basing it on Joe Zias’s claim that he now remembers putting that ossuary out there. Kloner is quite sure it can not be the so-called James ossuary, the inscription of which he judges to be forged (I am not sure if he thinks in whole or in part), because, although the height and width measurements match, the the upper length of the two is off by 4 centimeters based on his information (60cm vs. 56cm). He is also certain that all 10 were delivered to the Rockefeller for photographing and examination.

I remain completely open to any and all evidence on the so-called “missing ossuary,” (a term first used by the IAA not by me). In my book The Jesus Dynasty, I focus on what evidence exists regarding the provenance of the James ossuary, the inscription of which I believe to be authentic (”James son of Joseph, brother of Jesus”). I discuss what Oded Golan told Rafi Lewis in a private conversation that would seem to indicate that the James ossuary came from a tomb in Akeldama, perhaps as recently as 2001 or a bit earlier, according to the government indictment of Golan. I also discuss the east Talpiot tomb with its interesting cluster of names, including “Jesus son of Joseph,” and whether the James ossuary might possibly be the missing 10th since there is no photo or description of it surviving other than the one word “plain.” I also note that the dimensions of the James ossuary, as recently remeasured by the IAA, match up so closely. Also, Golan insists he had had the ossuary for decades, which puts one back at least to 1980 or earlier, but in his first interviews he was not precise about the date. The stamp on the photo that has now been admitted into evidence in his trial, “Expiry 76,” apparently indicates the expiration date of the paper upon which the photo is printed. I should clarify that in raising the question about the James ossuary being the missing 10th of Talpiot I have never implied there was any kind of fraud or smuggling on the part of any of the officials involved, or that anything was improperly handled.

Only recently, with the preliminary patina tests done on the James ossuary and the Jesus son of Joseph ossuary from Talpiot, is there new evidence that the James ossuary might have indeed come from the Talpiot tomb. Shimon Gibson has never been convinced of the 10th missing ossuary option, but he has raised another possibility, that the James ossuary might be a missing 11th ossuary, removed from the tomb prior to the inventory of the official 10, particularly if the patina tests are indicative of its provenance. There are several questions in this regard that are unresolved. Was the entrance to the tomb accessible even before the blast on March 27th exposed it to full view by blowing open the porch and its roof? The absence of a blocking stone might indicate such. Or alternatively, if the tomb was left open and exposed on the Sabbath between its discovery and the excavation that began on Sunday morning, who knows who might have entered it? Neighbors report children playing with the bones and a general local stir over the exposure of the tomb itself for the first two days.

Krumbein’s tests have indicated that the James ossuary shows erosion and plant growth along the bottom as if it were exposed to outside elements at some point in its history, either in ancient or modern times. His initial estimate of a period of 200 years he has recently said was not precise, and the period of such exposure could be much shorter. The oddly faint pattern on one side of the James ossuary, along with its faded color makes one wonder whether it might have had a complex history even in ancient times. It does not have the “like new” look of most ossuaries that are sealed in a single tomb undisturbed for 2000 years. What is needed is a further refinement of the patina comparisons with a wider sample of ossuaries from more tombs in the area, plus any other types of comparative tests between the James ossuary and the nine we have from the east Talpiot tomb.

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So what is “new” in this report? I have put in a lot of detail that might not be generally available but the points and issues that stand out for me are the following:

• When Gath wrote his final report on April 15, 1980 only four of the ossuaries had been recognized as inscribed
• Kloner’s estimates of the individuals buried in the tomb are not counts but demographic estimates
• The tomb was open and exposed from March 27 to March 30th
• It would be helpful to know which ossuaries were grouped in which kokhim and perhaps Kloner has notes on that
• When were the ossuaries measured and tagged? In the field or later at the Rockefeller? Are there forms and records?
• Are there photos of the inside of the tomb, of the ossuaries themselves at the dig site, or any of the excavation itself?

I have shared this post with Kloner and asked for his input and any corrections he might suggest.

There has been a lot of confusion on the Web and in the media regarding the statistical probabilities cited in the Discovery Documentary as 600/1 that the Talpiot tomb is the tomb of Jesus of Nazareth. This conclusion, ultimately, but not directly, was based on the calculations of Prof. Andrey Feuerverger of the University of Toronto. I offer a few observations that I hope might clarify things in this regard.

As I see it, the basic calculations of the statistician, standing alone, do not in and of themselves establish whether or not the Talpiot tomb is, or is not, the likely tomb of Jesus of Nazareth. That determination, if it can be made, makes use of the math, but in the end takes one beyond simple probability calculations. What the statistician is asked to do is to determine the probability of the cluster of names, with their specific relationships and configurations, based on name frequency data in late 2nd Temple Jewish Jerusalem as well as other implicit factors.

Accordingly, a statistician, as statistician, is not primarily focusing on prosopography, that is, matching ancient names to known historical characters. That is the task of the historian who then seeks to determine if there is any potential “fit” between this cluster of names, with its configurations, and that of any identifiable persons/family in our records. Now if the “cluster” was sufficiently common, even if there might be some potential “fit” with some known individuals, then such a cluster would not be significant in terms of probable identification. So, for example, if we had a family group of x son of b, j, r, s, and t son of x, but we determined there would statistically be about 100 such configurations in a given culture/area/period, even if we came up with a “fit” in our historical records for this cluster, there would only be a 1/100 chance that the tomb we found was in fact that of the proposed family.

What happened with the Discovery documentary is that both these tasks, the statistics and Simcha’s proposed identifications (i.e., “fits”), were understandably linked into one. This could, however, give the impression that Feuerverger alone, on the basis of the “cluster rarity,” and its configurations was offering a 600/1 probability that Talpiot was the tomb of Jesus. There were also charges that Simcha had somehow set up Feuerverger by asking him to work with faulty assumptions. I have seen no evidence of any intent to deceive on the part of anyone involved. When several of us talked through this after the NY press conference, the Discovery executives were keen on clarifying whatever needed to be claified. Although the 600/1 probability was indeed the film’s conclusion, it could not be derived from Feuerverger’s stats alone, but only with the assumptions that Simcha was making in the film about prosopography. If the case of identification fails it is not because of “bad math,” but that the assumptions made regarding probable identifications do not hold up. Feuerverger has neither changed his calculations nor repudiated his initial work, as has been reported by some, although he has continued to work on a final version of his paper that is being written for his professional colleages. I think these issues have been clarified on the Discovery Web site and at Feuerverger’s Web site as well. [FN]

Feuerverger ended up focusing on just the four names in the specific form they occurred and the one relationship specified: Jesus son of Joseph, Maria, Mariamene, and Yose, as names potentially associated with the Jesus family based on textual evidence. His thinking was that if these four alone, as a cluster, could be shown to be sufficiently rare, then he could tell Simcha that although the generic forms of these names were indeed common, their specific forms, in these configurations, would not be. Feuerverger assigned frequency values to the individual names based on a synthesis of the figures in Tal Ilan and Hachlili. His initial calculation of 1/2,400,000 was quite high, but he then made two other moves that drastically reduced it. He divided by 4 for “unintentional biases in the historical sources,” and then he divided that result by 1000 to adjust for all possible 1st century tombs–thus his 1/600 computation.

Clearly Feuerverger is interested in the historical identification questions, as we all are, but he also recognizes this area is not his specialty. Math alone is not going to determine to what degree this cluster of names, in their configurations, are “appropriate,” or “highly appropriate,” as names for the Jesus family. That task, finally, rests upon the judgment of the historian who must make the case that such identifications are expected and likely.

It is of course quite possible to use statistics in ways that go beyond simple probabilities based on name frequencies and their specified configurations. I am not optimistic that more advanced statistical models can be effectively applied to questions of historical prosopography since the kinds of identifications and subtle correspondences used are not easily quantified. Is Mariamene an appropriate name for MM? How could you put a number on it? Is it significant that her ossuary is decorated and her inscription is in informal Greek? How is that quantified? Does it matter that the name Yeshua bar Yehosef is written in a very messy graffiti style while the others are elegant and block? How do you put a number on that? What of how the ossuaries were placed in the various kokim, and with names grouped in twos and threes? Are there hints of potential relationships implied? I have about 25 other factors of this sort that I am considering in formulating my own prosopographic proposal, including the symbol on the tomb that comes from contemporary temple gate imagery. As far as I can tell many of these factors can not be quantified.

I am not of course here implying that theoretical statistics are confined to simple probability theory. Obviously the application of advanced statistics has many applications of a complexity beyond the comprehension of the non-specialist. But in the case of the Talpiot tomb and its cluster of names, I think it has been demonstrated through simple probability statistics that although common as individual names, this “set,” with its specific configurations, would not occur hundreds of times in family tombs in and around 1st century Jerusalem. Whether the names are a good fit with those we know, or could expect, in a family tomb of Jesus is the matter at hand. The Discovery film has passed the ball now to the historians, the epigraphers, and the statisticians, and I anticipate the outcome will be enlightening to us all.

[FN]Dr. Andrey Feuerverger, professor of statistics at the University of Toronto, has concluded (subject to the stated historical assumptions) that it is unlikely that an equally “surprising” cluster of names would have arisen by chance under purely random sampling.

Taking into account the chances that these names would be clustered together in a family tomb, this statistical study concludes that the probability under random chance of observing a cluster of names as compelling as this one within the given population parameters is 600 to 1, meaning that this conclusion works 599 times out of 600.

A statistical study commissioned by the broadcasters (Discovery Channel/Vision Canada/C4 UK) concludes that the probability factor is in the order of 600 to 1 that an equally “surprising” cluster of names would arise purely by chance under given assumptions.

Patina “fingerprinting” is the idea of scanning patina samples on stone surfaces, in this case samples from ossuaries taken at random from a dozen tombs from various locations in the Jerusalem area, with an electron microscope to reveal a chemical spectrum/measurement of elements such as magnesium, aluminum, phosphorus, potassium, titanium and iron. This is a new technique and preliminary results indicated the following:

The Talpiot Jesus ossuary, as expected, provided a close “echo” or correspondence to the patina spectrums taken from the surface walls of the tomb itself, as well as the other Talpiot ossuaries. The spikes and peaks of mineral accretion levels were very similar, just as one might expect from stone exposed to the same conditions over 2000 years. Ossuaries from the other tombs were then similarly tested with preference given to samples that seemed to be a close match visually, in terms of color, to the Talpiot ossuaries, but in no case did the spectrum or chemical pattern come close to that of the Talpiot tomb and its ossuaries. Patina samples were then taken from the 2002 ossuary owned by Oded Golan inscribed “James son of Joseph, brother of Jesus,” which is quite similar in size and shape to the Jesus ossuary but different in visual color. The chemical spectrum of the James ossuary strongly “echoed” those of the Talpiot wall surfaces and its ossuaries, whereas no other ossuaries from other tombs chosen at random approached any type of correspondence at all. These tests indicated that color or “visual” comparisons of ossuary patina can be misleading, in other words, what you can’t see is more important than what you can see.

These results appear to indicate that the James ossuary came from an environment such as that of the Talpiot tomb or one that was strikingly similar. These tests are preliminary and more samples are now being tested with the goal of assembling a data base of 100 ossuaries from diverse locations in the Jerusalem area. Both inorganic and organic accretions are measured.

Other tests are also underway that have to do with comparisons of the style, shape, size and stone cutting marks, pertaining to the Jesus and James ossuaries. So far they appear to match up rather well. The Jesus ossuary is 65 x 26 x 30 while the James ossuary is 57.5 x 26 x 30. Whether one can infer anything about the height of the deceased individual(s) from the length of the ossuary is unlikely, except in the case of a much smaller ossuary clearly intended for a child. In other words, individuals with short femur bones have been found in ossuaries of greater than average length, and vis-a-versa, longer femur bones have been found angled in ossuaries of less than average length.