Heat and Light: The Talpiot Tomb
I have had a front row side-line seat for the past seven days on the news, commentary, and Blogs regarding the Talpiot tomb and the claim that it can be identified with Jesus of Nazareth and his family. Over 5000 e-mails, dozens of interiews, a couple of death threats, and my own communications with colleagues, has helped me to take the pulse on this story. I wanted to make a few observations from this vantage point.
The hostile, often ugly (even antisemitic), and hysterical reactions of the fundamentalist Christian community was of course no surprise. After all, if one believes the corpse of Jesus came alive and that he ascended to heaven, bones, flesh, inner organs, and all, with no body left behind, then finding his tomb is surely a problem. Then there is the issue of Jesus being married and having a child. From my own reading of theology I do not think that these, or for that matter any other historical findings, are a fundamental threat to Christianity. In every religion so much has to do with interpretation of language, and surely there are ways of affirming such things in a less literalistic and perhaps more significant way. Also, Paul, our earliest witness to resurrection, speaks of a “physical body” and a “spiritual body,” and though it is a body, he clearly presents both the resurrection of Jesus and the future resurrection of the dead at the end of the age, as putting off the flesh like a garment and being transformed into a higher spirit life. I hold none of these views myself but the point I am making here is that I understand why people are upset but wonder, should the evidence end up turning more toward this being Jesus’ tomb, whether it might be a good thing–even for faith?
In contrast, the evangelical Christian academic community has also reacted quite negatively, but with some notable exceptions, the tone of that discussion has been civil and enlightening. The BiblioBlog world has been quite busy to the point one can not keep up with it all. What bothers me however, within these circles, is the unstated operative assumption that Jesus’ ossuary can not be found, by definition, so that what we really have in the end is not an open examination of the evidence but an apologetic attempt to destroy a thesis no matter what. There is nothing wrong with critical probes, that is what scholarship is all about, but one does have to be open to where evidence might lead, and I fear that with the matter of the Jesus tomb, such is not the case. The “end” or result is determined beforehand and is absolutely set. One begins to wonder, are we having an open discussion of evidence or are we conducting a holy battle against the “unbelievers”? I have seen quite a few stories and Blogs today that triumphantly declare that the case for the “Tomb of Jesus” is dead before it even set sail, with all the obvious “It’s Greek to me” kind of trite quips (you know, the “sinking the Titanic lines). In some cases there is an almost breathless glee, and a sign of relief, at the latest “report” out in the Blogosphere. Just today, in about ten minutes, I learned the following:
The dimensions of the 10th ossuary do not match that of James ossuary!
The ossuary in question actually has the name of a guy named “Hanun,” not Jesus!
A “smoking gun,” has been found, the 10th missing ossuary is in the yard behind the Rockefeller!
No responsible academic (thank you) supports this case of Talpiot being the Jesus tomb!
The stats are flawed! The patina tests are bogus!
Jesus followers were poor and they would have just buried him in a ditch!
One concerned colleague wrote that he feared I was ruining my reputation. Another wrote in a Blog that my credibility was taking some major hits. But why would one’s credibility be effected by honestly pursuing evidence? I have researched the Talpiot tomb for three years, consulting with those who were there, gathering all the original files from the IAA, and I have followed the facts wherever they lead me. If we were dealing with a tomb containing the ossuary of Gamaliel and his family it is obvious to me that there would be an entirely different tone to the exchanges. I understand that, but still, it does say something important about how evidence is being examined.
My academic colleagues have mostly remained silent, or chosen to communicate privately with me, mostly positively and in an encouraging way. There are exceptions. I have been amazed at the few who are prepared to give interviews on the Talpiot tomb to the press, denouncing the whole thing as a sham, without having examined any of the evidence whatsoever, and even getting some of the most basic facts wrong. In fact, I know for certain that some of the more vociferous commentators on this subject have based what they said on press reports and what they have been able to pick up since Monday. That is not a lot of lead time for something that has taken some of us three years to sort through. The charge that the Talpiot tomb case should have been “peer reviewed” first is one I want to address in a separate post, but keep in mind that basic information on the tomb was available to scholars since 1996 with Kloner’s report and the almost universal reaction was “the names are common.” It was universally declared that the site it was not worthy of further study, even though it was the only provenanced example of this cluster of names ever found, including the ossuary inscribed “Yeshua bar Yehosef.” Also, so many of the comments I have seen or heard hardly reflect a high standard of peer review, since they are mainly ad hominem reactions. It seems we have a classic case of the pot calling the kettle black. If I can go on national TV and talk about something I learned two or three days ago from the press that hardly seems to reflect any commitment to serious peer review or in depth research.
Finally, the thing that has disappointed me the most are the cuttingly hostile remarks and personal slander directed against James Cameron and Simcha Jacobovici. Cameron is an incredibly gifted and brilliant human being whose accomplishments, honor, and good character are unquestionable. Simcha’s record of Emmy award winning films speaks for itself, and the titles show a lifetime of dedication to shedding light on important issues. If we don’t like the film or decide its basic story thread is flawed that is one thing, but the personal slander is quite another and I think it is unethical. Cameron and Jacobovici do not deserve to be trashed in this way for faciliatating an investigation that involved so many disparate areas of expertise, locating the tomb so it can be further studied, initiating the DNA tests and the patina tests, commissioning the statistical studies, consulting with the most renowned epigraphers and prosopographers. And such would be the case even if one did not finally agree with their interpretation. After all, are there any interpretations within the entire field of Christian Origins with which everyone agrees. Again, I say it is more the “heat” factor at work here, the proverbial “raw nerve.”
What I hope is that we can all watch the program on Sunday night and maybe things can then calm down and we can have an open and extended discussion of its main theses on a level of great light and less heat.