The Jesus Dynasty / James Tabor

Having just returned from Jerusalem I have only now had opportunity to work through the various media reports and Blogs on the Internet regarding the results of the Princeton Symposium discussion of the Talpiot tomb. Here are a few reflections in an effort to shed some “light” on the “heat.”

1. There was no official “conclusion” made by the participants, nor were any polls taken, other than the agreement at the end that there should be further examination of the tomb itself in the future. My sense is that a few would say this tomb can not be the tomb of Jesus, but that the vast majority would say that although it might be possible, there is no compelling evidence, given what we now know or possibly can know, and for some, there is evidence pointing against such an identification. Since there are no bone reports, or apparently, the possibility of full DNA testing, we seem left with what we have. A very few of those who think it might be possible would go on to say it has a probability of being the Jesus family tomb. Still, to be fair here, of those who are not convinced, I would say most find the evidence in favor to be flimsy at best. My own sense is that some of this negative judgment results from an inadequate airing of the full evidence, especially on DNA and statistics. Language here can be tricky of course. For example, Shimon Gibson said at the conclusion of the conference that based on all the evidence he “does not think this is the Jesus tomb,” but that should not be taken to mean he would say it is impossible, which I have never heard him say. He simply, like most, does not find the evidence compelling enough to move to the “probably” side of things.

I am with the “possible to likely” group, and it is not always easy to take positions that are in the minority, but my conclusions are based on my own sense of “best evidence,” and I have published them in Near Eastern Archaeology. I also think there is more to be said about the DNA testing as well as the statistical studies, some of which was misunderstood, in my view at least, at the Symposium. I will be writing more on this in coming days.

Lots of confusion comes at this point as people mix the matter of the “site” of Talpiot, with what was said in the “Lost Tomb of Jesus” film produced by Cameron and Jacobovici. I have urged, as much as possible, to separate consideration of the “site” from the “film,” but as it turned out that was often not possible, given the ways in which the film had generated lots of the issues we discussed (DNA tests, statistical studies, etc.).

2. The headline that the Symposium “vindicated” the Jacobovici film is misleading and untrue and was apparently based on a misunderstanding of an interview in which Jacobovici said: “We feel totally vindicated. My work with James Cameron was the catalyst for an international symposium that has finally considered the evidence and is opening the door for further research.” The truth is, the Symposium as a whole brought into question many important elements of the film and dealt with it rather critically, but that is not to say the issues were closed. If anything, as Jacobovici states, they were opened. I think the word “vindicated” was ill advised, but the context helps to put it in proper perspective.

3. The statement that Rut Gat, the widow of the excavator Yosi Gat, read at the close of the Symposium has grabbed a few headlines but what is causing great rancor is the charge that Jacobovici somehow orchestrated or even wrote her statement as a publicity stunt, and that her husband never said such a thing–namely that he thought the Talpiot tomb belonged to the Jesus family. No one I have talked to, including Charlesworth, had any idea what Ms. Gat might say, other than expressing thanks for remembering her husband, and Jacobovici has stated that he did not in any way shape her statement and was surprised himself when he first heard it. I think it is understandable but unfortunate that the Gat issue has taken center stage at a conference that otherwise has offered so much in terms of debate and information on the Talpiot tomb. After all, the views of the late excavator are interesting, but really offer nothing evidentially in terms of the academic evaluation of the tomb. Given the time and money Charlesworth put into the Symposium, I hope we can all look toward the substance of the conference itself, the published volume that will result, and leave personality and media issues behind. For that reason I have done no media interviews whatsoever in that I have not wanted to contribute to this misdirected flurry and confusion.

That said, I do indeed think we can construct a plausible scenario through which Yosi Gat would have not only known but have discussed the ossuary inscriptions before his death and their publication in 1994 by Rahmani. I am in the process, through interviews, of confirming this. I have to agree here with April DeConick, who remarked that it was rather ironic, given our papers on Mary Magdalene at the conference and how her testimony as a woman was discounted, that the conference echoed this at the end in the judgment of a few who were critical of this part of the program. Is it not more than a tiny bit insulting to Ms. Gat to charge that she is naive, easily manipulated, and would not be able to recount accurately her own conversations with her husband.
What I find more interesting than Ms. Gat’s recollection is the source that editor Horovitz quoted in his Friday Jerusalem Post story, which I think refers, more correctly to the 1996 “publicity” the tomb received as a result of the BBC film and was confused with the Gat matter:

In the wake of Wednesday’s declaration by Mrs. Gat that her husband knew he’d found Jesus’s tomb, an expert who insisted on anonymity charged to the Post Thursday that Israel had deliberately “covered up” the significance of the find for fear of the anti-Semitic backlash to which Mrs. Gat referred. “The Jews have suffered for 2,000 years, being blamed for the death of Jesus,” the expert said. “The last thing Israel needed was to find proof of Jesus’s earthly remains. Our relations with the Vatican would never have recovered.”

Therefore, he said, Gat and other senior archeologists and experts decided they would reject any suggestion that the coincidence of apparent Jesus-related names on the ossuaries in the tomb was significant. “When that combination of names came up, it was like winning the lottery,” this expert said. “But it was agreed that the ‘Jesus talk’ would be denied, and that it would be argued that the names were extremely common and their presence in a single Jerusalem tomb thus statistically unimportant. Mrs. Gat told the truth,” he said, “because she’s not a politician.”

My understanding is that this “expert” was involved in the meetings and deliberations on this matter, that they involved IAA meetings called by late director Drori, but that this individual feels in the present atmosphere he can not agree to be identified. Unlike Gibson, quoted in the Post story, I would not characterize such things as “conspiracy” but simply a matter of practical fact–how could Israel best handle the unbridled speculations that would result as a result of the publication of the names in the tomb, especially in the media. My hope is in a new atmosphere the full story can emerge, but it looks like that won’t be soon.

In any event I want to honor and thank Prof. James Charlesworth for all his hard work in making the Symposium possible and being willing to bring together in the same room all those who had been involved, regardless of emotions and passions. The concrete results of the conference lie ahead, both in new investigation and the publishing of the papers of this Symposium, to be published next year by Eerdman’s Press. This product will prove more lasting and enduring than media reports for a day.

The Princeton Symposium on Judaism and Christian Origins that focused on the Talpiot “Jesus Tomb” in the context of Jewish Burial in late 2nd Temple times has concluded with a flurry of news stories, heated charges and counter-charges, and a few concrete results–truly a mixture of heat and light. I was able to attend every session and as time permits I will offer a detailed analysis of the various issues that were put on the table and discussed. Quite a few matters were clarified, and there is lots to discuss. Here are some links to a sampling of the main stories on the Web this weekend, reflecting various perspectives. I am sure there will be many more, plus analyses by other participants.

CNN Video

This report by Ben Wedeman contains a serious error in that it is said that Cameron & Jacobovici, in their film, hold the view that Jesus did not die on the cross but survived to father children with Mary Magdalene, a’ la Baigent & Brown. Such is not the case.
TIME

Jerusalem Post initial story

Jerusalem Post followup story

HaAretz

Christian Post

The Jerusalem conference on the Talpiot “Jesus” Tomb is fully underway this week. We are meeting just outside the Old City at the beautiful and historic Mishkenot Sha’ananim. I intend to write a series of extensive reports on the various papers, ideas, issues, and information that emerges when I return to the States. So far our gatherings have been extraordinarily beneficial, with respectful exchanges, plenty of sharp differences, and all of us learning a great deal. I thought I might post the program and participants for those who might be interested. I am grateful to Professor James Charlesworth and Princeton Theological Seminary for putting together such a fine program. All the papers, as well as those of contributors who were not able to attend will be fully published. I will provide full details as they become available.

Jewish Views of the After Life and Burial Practices in Second Temple Judaism
Evaluating the Talpiot Tomb in Context
Jan 13-16, 2008 in Mishkenot Sha’ananim, Jerusalem

*****= can’t appear. Will send a paper

Carefully re-reading Jane Schaberg’s book, The Resurrection of Mary Magdalene, has set me to thinking and working through all the texts related to her once again, particularly those in our New Testament gospels. I wanted to do a bit of “thinking aloud” here, covering various thoughts and ideas that have come to me of late.

I begin with Mark, whose references to Mary Magdalene form the core of the Synoptic gospels account of her. He mentions her three times, at the crucifixion, at Jesus’ burial, and at the empty tomb on Sunday morning (Mk 15:40-41; 15:47; 16:1). She is named first among two other women from Galilee, Mary the mother of James and Joses, and Salome, but according to Mark they are part of a larger contingent of “many other women” who had followed Jesus from Galilee where they had provided (Greek: diakoneo) for him. This reference to a large group of Galilean women who form a base of support, presumably financial and otherwise, is something Luke picks up on and elaborates (8:1-3), but it fundamentally comes to us from Mark. I presented arguments in my book, The Jesus Dynasty, that this second Mary of Mark’s group, is Jesus’ mother, with Salome most likely his sister. At any rate, it is these three, led by Mary Magdalene, who make preparations to attend to the intimate task of preparing the corpse of Jesus for burial, buying spices on Saturday evening with the intention of anointing his body early Sunday morning. Thus they come to discover the empty tomb early Sunday morning.

Matthew, clearly relying on Mark as his source, has the same three references to Mary Magdalene, at the crucifixion, the burial, and early Sunday morning at the tomb. She is paired with the “other Mary,” and he does not name Salome, though he implies she might be the “mother of the sons of Zebedee. Regardless, it is the two Marys who witness the burial and visit the tomb Sunday morning (Matt 27:55-56, 27:61; 28:1).

Luke, also following Mark, makes some significant changes to Mark’s basic structure. He too has women from Galilee standing at the cross but he names none of them (Luke 23:49). Likewise, at the burial, these women from Galilee remain unnamed (Luke 23:55-56). Finally at the empty tomb he says the women who came to complete the rites of burial were Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and “the other women with them” (Luke 24:10). This means that Luke only names Mary Magdalene once in the three scenes that Mark has introduced her. As we will see, this is absolutely deliberate and calculated. What he does is introduce her much earlier, back in Galilee, among this group of many women who had provided for Jesus, picking up on Mark’s reference. But there he adds that she was part of a group of women who had been cured of “evil spirits and infirmities” naming Joanna and another woman, Susanna, but adding that Mary Magdalene herself was positively deranged beyond description, in that she had been possessed by seven demons! (Luke 8:1-3). Luke is keen to make the point that the presence of these women, who do not need to be even named, is of no credible importance, since they come from such shady backgrounds, epitomizing the hysterical “female” whose testimony would be considered an “idle tale,” thus preparing the way for the true and reliable male witnesses to Jesus’ resurrection (Luke 24:11). All he really has to go on is Mark, but he skillfully recasts Mark’s material in this way, thus marginalizing Mary Magdalene, and “demonizing” her, quite literally, cured or not, lest anyone might think the resurrection faith was first proclaimed by such a witness. But there is more. Just before Luke introduces the deranged woman in chapter 8, as followers of Jesus from Galilee, he constructs a scene, in Galilee, of an unnamed woman of an unnamed city, a “sinner,” who comes to Jesus at a dinner with an ointment, who then weeps uncontrollably, bathes his feet with her tears, wiping them with her hair, and anointing them (Luke 7:36-50). Jesus forgives her many sins, and she presumably becomes his follower. And thus Mary Magdalene is introduced in the next passage. The juxtaposition is deliberate. Although Luke is not bold enough to say that Mary Magdalene herself is this forgiven harlot, the contextualizing is enough, coupled with her deranged mental past. Interestingly enough, Mark also has a story of an anonymous woman anointing Jesus, but it is a few days before Jesus’ death, in Jerusalem, and she is honored not as a forgiven sinner, but one whose anointing prepared him “beforehand” for his burial (Mark 14:3-9).

What Mark fundamentally tells us then about Mary Magdalene is that she is first among a group of women from Galilee who provided for Jesus, that she is involved (with his mother) in the intimate rites of preparing Jesus’ body for burial, and that she, Mary, and Salome, are the “first witnesses” to Jesus’ resurrection. Mark knows nothing of appearances of Jesus to these women, but they hear the proclamation, “He has been raised, he is not here.” The disciples, led by Peter, are to “see him in Galilee,” though the scene is never reported by Mark. Matthew elaborates Mark’s disturbingly sparse account, with Jesus subsequently encountering the women who linger at the tomb, and a mysterious “foggy mountain” appearance to the Eleven somewhere in Galilee (with some doubting!). Luke feels compelled to go further. There is no disputing the women were involved, at the cross, the burial, and the empty tomb–but as a group they are unnamed, and even when named, identified as “formerly” deranged and contextualized with the unnamed “harlot” whom Jesus forgives for her many sins. Luke wants nothing of appearances in Galilee, nor of the deranged women who might have proclaimed such as “first witnesses.” For him the resurrection of Jesus rests solidly on his Jerusalem based appearances to reliable male witnesses, including to Peter and the Eleven.

And then there is the gospel of John. John also has Mary Magdalene at the cross, and he clearly identifies Jesus’ mother there as well. He does not mention the women at the burial but his account of what happened early Sunday morning is significantly different from that of Mark. Rather than the group of women arriving together, John relates that Mary Magdalene came alone, very early, while it was still dark, and saw the stone removed from the tomb (John 20:1-10). She runs to tell Peter, and he, and an unnamed disciple rush to the tomb, confirming her story, but not yet coming to the conclusion Jesus was raised. There are no messengers, angelic or otherwise, as in Mark, Matthew, and Luke, to tell the women Jesus is raised–it is simple a case of someone having “taken the master out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him” (20:2).

I find this account in John strangely compelling. Mark’s young man in white linen, proclaiming Jesus is risen, seems wholly theological, not to mention Matthews fantastic expansion where we have a dazzling angel who comes like lightening from heaven, heralded by an earthquake, who rolls back the stone and proclaims Jesus is risen. Luke’s two men in dazzling clothing is cut from the same cloth. In contrast, John’s core account has nothing fantastic or even theological. It deserves our careful attention, and at the heart of this account is the singular experience of a woman–namely Mary Magdalene.

According to John the tomb is found empty very early Sunday morning, even at dark. The logical conclusion is that someone has removed the body and placed it elsewhere, perhaps the gardener, or as the rumor in Matthew has it, some of his disciples. Schaberg effectively argues, in my judgment, that what happens next in John’s gospel (20:11-18), namely Jesus’ encounter with Mary Magdalene, still in the garden near the tomb where he was missing, is our earliest and most fundamental witness to Jesus’ resurrection, and that further, the form and structure by which John narrates this encounter, implies an Elijah-Elisha like succession story, of Jesus passing on this witness to his chosen and intimate follower, Mary Magdalene. In this extraordinary account we have dialogue between Jesus and Mary. She is Maria in the narrative but Jesus calls her name directly, “Miriam,” and she replies with the affectionate diminutive “Rabbouni,” my dear/little Master. What she is told is that she must not grasp him for he is ascending to the Father.

Like Matthew and Luke, John includes other appearance stories, both to the disciples in Jerusalem, and in Galilee. But this core account, found now in John 20:1-18, is perhaps our best window for reconstructing what might have happened that early Sunday morning. Based on the Mary Magdalene account, found only in John, I am convinced that the discovery of the empty tomb should be given historical weight. It is what John’s account does not say that makes it compelling. With no angelic messengers proclaiming the resurrection, and Mary not even told to go tell the rest that they too would see Jesus, it seems to me we should give the Mary Magdalene story priority. The subsequent accounts of Mark, Matthew, Luke, and even the supplemental accounts in John, all seem to be accretions to this core account.

Mark does not dispute that Mary Magdalene and the other women first discovered the tomb, but his account is clearly a generalized expansion of an earlier core story, much elaborated by Matthew, and radically re-contextualized by Luke. But they do not venture to remove the Magdalene. Only Paul does that, in his roll call of appearances of the heavenly Jesus in 1 Corinthians 15:1-11. There Mary Magdalene is completely eliminated. In effect, that has already begun to happen in Mark, since the women “say nothing to anyone” and are mainly pointers to the male Eleven who will see Jesus in Galilee. In Matthew the main point of resurrection is the “commission,” and that would not be given to women, but only to the male Eleven. Likewise in Luke, who has Jesus appear to the Eleven, telling them to take his message to all the nations.

In my view John 20:1-18 stands separate and isolated from all these subsequently embellished traditions. John is able to contextualize it with subsequent appearances to the male leaders, but read as “first testimony” it has a most compelling ring to it. I find it the only account that lends itself to some measure of credible historical reconstruction. It essentially is what I make most use of in my own reconstruction in The Jesus Dynasty:

Jesus is hastily buried in a temporary tomb that happened to be nearby in a garden at the place of crucifixion. The intent was to move his body to a permanent place after the festival/Sabbath was past. Mary Magdalene arrives early Sunday morning, while it is still dark, and finds the stone rolled away and the tomb empty. She alerts Peter and the others. No one thinks Jesus has been raised, but they draw the logical conclusion, that someone has moved him. Presumably that someone would be either other family members, or more likely Joseph of Arimathea. Lingering near the tomb Mary has a visionary encounter with Jesus himself. She is told by him that he is ascending to heaven and that is what she reports to the others. Mary then becomes first witness, and as such, “successor” to the ascending Jesus. She alone is given the message–Jesus has ascended to the Father.

It is difficult to read this account as it stands without interjecting subsequent stories from Matthew, Luke, and John. But that Mark, writing as late as the 70s AD, has no appearances, yet he does have Mary Magdalene at the tomb, supports the essential core of John’s Mary Magdalene story. Historians have rightly judged that the series of expanded and dramatic appearances of Jesus to his various male followers are theologically cast apologetics. As such, the singular appearance to Mary Magdalene, did not fare so well. Luke begins the long history of her demise and defamation–yes, she was there, but remember, she and the others were surely less than reliable witnesses. What is important is that even in Mark she can not be eliminated. She is there at the first, and she is clearly the first, if John is to be given any weight at all.

One puzzle in John is that he, like Mark and Luke, also has a scene at which Jesus is anointed by a woman (John 12:1-8). His account is clearly parallel to that of Mark in several of its key elements, but then it departs significantly therefrom. John’s story takes place a few days earlier than Mark’s, six days before Passover. John identifies the woman as Mary of Bethany, sister of Martha and Lazarus, whereas Mark leaves her unnamed. Rather than Jesus’ head, as in Mark, this Mary anoints his feet with a costly perfume and wipes them with her hair–which in turn reminds one of the Luke story of the “woman of the city,” that is the “sinner.” In John Jesus does not say that she has anointed him beforehand for his burial, but rather that the costly perfume was well spent and that she can store it up to use in the future on the day of his burial! One would then expect her to appear in some manner, at the burial scene, to anoint Jesus’ body, as Mark has Mary Magdalene do. I see no easy way to sort through these three anointing stories. I think behind them lies some event that took place the last week of Jesus’ life, in Jerusalem. We can surely discount Luke’s moving the story much earlier, and placing it in Galilee, as well as his implication that the woman who anoints Jesus is a “sinner.” But that Luke juxtapositions his redeemed harlot story with his own introduction of Mary Magdalene as formerly “deranged” or demon possessed, gives one pause. Does Luke fear that Mark’s story might imply that the anointing woman is none other than Mary Magdalene–who subsequently comes to the tomb to complete her prophetic/proleptic act of devotion? The intimacy implied in John’s story, namely the wiping of the feet with the hair, given Jewish custom, is also present in Luke but not in Mark. It is all more than confusing but one is tempted to say at the core of these accounts is a story of involving intimacy, anointing, and burial. I do not think it makes sense to identify Mary of Bethany with Mary Magdalene, as some have suggested. However, it might make sense that final editors of John wanted to distance Mary Magdalene from such an intimate act by some substitution of names, whereas Mark simply leaves her anonymous.

Dr. April DeConick of Rice University has posted more details on her popular Blog, Forbidden Gospels, regarding the upcoming international conference in Jerusalem dealing with the Talpiot Tomb in historical and archaeological context. She is obviously impressed with both the agenda and the participants. This conference, organized by Prof. James Charlesworth, of Princeton Theological Seminary, is precisely what various leading scholars called for months ago–among them Michael Stone of Hebrew University and Eric Meyers of Duke University, namely a sane, sober, academic consideration of all aspects of the Talpiot “Jesus” tomb in its wider context. This is in contrast to the near hysteria and dearth of accurate factual information on the subject that flooded the print, TV, and Internet media back in the Spring. I post here Dr. DeConick’s comments:

In case you haven’t heard yet, Professor Charlesworth, for the Third Princeton Symposium on Judaism and Christian Origins, is holding a three-day conference in Jerusalem called “Evaluating the Talpiot Tomb in Context.” Dates are Jan 13-16, 2008. The provisional agenda that I was sent looks outstanding in terms of coverage and folks involved. Actually amazing might be closer to the mark.

Topics to be covered in special sessions:
Ancient Beliefs about the Afterlife and Burial Customs
Tombs, Ossuaries, and Burial Practices: The Archaeological Evidence
Burial Beliefs and Practices: The Textual Evidence
Onomastics and Prosopography in Second Temple Judaism
The Talpiot Ossuaries and their Epigraphy
Paleo-DNA and its Archaeological Applications
Patina Testing and its Archaeological Applications
The Talpiot Tomb in March 1980
Mary Magdalene in Early Christian Tradition
Relating Tomb Archaeology with Historical Figures: Possibilities and Problem Discoveries
The Palestinian Jesus Movement: Correlating Textual and Archaeological Evidence for Jewish Christianity
The Burial of Jesus, the Empty Tomb, and the Jesus Family
Statistics and the Talpiot Tomb

This is exactly the kind of academic forum that I suggested (on this blog) was needed when all the media hoopla engaged the Talpiot Tomb. I am looking forward to participating in the Jerusalem conference, and want to thank Professor Charlesworth for organizing it.

The program is still being finalized but most of the leading scholars involved in these topics have been invited and many have already confirmed their participation. I echo Dr. DeConick’s thanks to Prof. Charlesworth for putting together such a timely conference. When full details become available I will post them here.

I wanted to mention three items of news related to the ongoing academic discussion and evaluation of the Talpiot “Jesus” family tomb.

The latest issue of Near Eastern Archaeology (Vol 69:3-4 September-December 2006) has a special Forum feature on the Tomb with the following essays:

Eric M Meyers, “The Jesus tomb controversy: an overview”
Shimon Gibson, “Is the Talpiot Tomb Really the family tomb of Jesus?”
Sandra Scham, “Trial by statistics”
Christopher A. Rollston, “Inscribed Ossuaries: Personal names, statistics, and laboratory tests”
Stephen J. Pfann, “Mary Magdalene has left the room: A suggested new reading of ossuary CJO 701″
James D. Tabor, “Testing a hypothesis”

This set of essays, fully illustrated with photos and drawings, is quite comprehensive, offering a nice summary of the various issues and approaches represented by this mix of scholars. For information on subscriptions or purchasing this particular issue see the ASOR Web site. Copies of this latest issue will be available at the upcoming annual meeting of ASOR in San Diego, November 14-17th, as well as at the ASOR booth at the annual meetings of the Society of Biblical Literature and the American Academy of Religion which meet in San Diego that weekend.

The Talpiot tomb is one featured topic at the 9th annual Batcheler Biblical Archaeology Conference at the University of Nebraska, November 8-10th, hosted by Rami Arav and Richard Freund. Prof. Dan Bahat and I will be discussing the pros and cons of identifying the Tomb with Jesus of Nazareth and I will deliver a plenary lecture on the “Jesus Family Tomb.” Sessions are open to the public. For details contact Rami Arav.

Prof. James Charlesworth of Princeton Theological Seminary has just announced that the third Princeton Symposium on Judaism and Christian Origins, to be held January 13-16, 2008 in Jerusalem, will consider the topic “Jewish Views of the After Life and Burial Practices in Second Temple Judaism Evaluating the Talpiot Tomb in Context.” The preliminary program lists an impressive international roster of scholars in the various fields related to the subject, including biblical and historical studies, archeology, DNA, statistics, prosopography and onomastics, and epigraphy. Charlesworth’s previous Jerusalem Symposia on “Jesus and Hillel” and “Jesus and Archaeology,” both resulted in the publication of impressive volumes collecting together the various papers. Apparently he has such a volume planned for this conference as well. It is good to learn that the Talpiot tomb will be evaluated in such an academic setting, moving things beyond sensational press reports and Internet discussion.

A comprehensive new paper titled “Probability, Statistics, and the Talpiot Tomb,” authored by Profs. Kevin Kilty and Mark Elliot, has just been posted on the Web. It is exceptionally clear in argument, thoroughly academic in approach and method, and in my view advances the discussion of the Talpiot tomb to a new level. I believe that this paper clears the air on any number of convoluted issues, but particularly the matter of whether or not the cluster of names found in the tomb are common and statistically insignificant, or rare and unique. The most common response to the possibility that the Jesus in the Talpiot tomb might be Jesus of Nazareth has been “the names in the tomb are common.” As Kilty and Elliot demonstrate, statistic probability can often be counter intuitive. I highly recommend a close reading of this challenging and ground-breaking paper.

I want to initiate a series of posts on the names on the six inscribed ossuaries found in the Talpiot “Jesus” tomb. There has been quite a bit of discussion of these on the Web, and more recently in print, and I hope I can offer some helpful discussion on a number of issues that have been raised. I have found the work of Stephen and Claire Pfann to be particularly helpful and provocative, though as readers will see below, and in subsequent posts, their conclusions and my own are quite different. Clearly, any case made for this tomb being that of Jesus of Nazareth, in the end, will turn on these inscribed names, how they are to be read or deciphered, and what possible correspondence they might have to the named family of Jesus as known to us in various textual sources.

Ossuary 80.504 in the State of Israel collection (no. 705 in the Rahmani Catalogue of Jewish Ossuaries) is a case in point. It is a plain or undecorated ossuary with the following clear Hebrew/Aramaic inscription, namely the letters Yod, Vav, Samech, and Heh:

It is properly read or pronounced in English as Yoseh. It is a shortened form of the full name Joseph/Yehosef, the most common male Jewish name in the period. Although a few scholars have suggested the pronunciation Yosah, this is incorrect for the simple reason that no Hebrew or Greek name Yosah ever existed. Yoseh is built from the Greek form Iose (Ιωσε/Ιωση) and is always found with the Greek letters eta or epsilon, but never with an alpha, which would be necessary to form a pronunciation ending in an “a” sound.

In the time of Jesus, that is, in 2nd Temple times, before the Destruction of Jerusalem in 70 CE, this nickname Yoseh is extremely rare in either Hebrew or Greek. As far as Hebrew goes, it is found only here, in the Talpiot tomb, on an ossuary, and one other time in a slightly different, but equivalent spelling (Yod, Samech, Hey), on an ossuary from Mt. Scopus. It is also found once on a tomb inscription from the period (Jason’s Tomb), and once in a papyrus from Wadi Muraba’at (pre-135 CE). In Greek, its equivalent forms (Ιωσε/Ιωση/Ιωσης), which are usually translated Yose/Jose or Joses/Joses in English, occur on only five ossuaries. In contrast, the full name Joseph/Yehosef is found on 32 ossuaries and many dozens of literary references in the period. The table to the left is based on the exhaustive work of Tal Ilan (Lexicon of Jewish Names in Late Antiquity) from Palestinian sources over a particulary broad chronological range of 330 BCE to 200CE. It shows all the variations of the name Joseph in Hebrew, Greek, and Latin from ossuary as well as other sources with the forms of Yose separated out at the bottom. The tag F refers to a fictitious name, the rest are presumed to be real individuals.

This nickname Jose/Joses in Greek is found in Mark 6:3 as the nickname for Jesus’ brother Joseph. There are two further references at the end of Mark that I also take to be that same brother (Mark 15:40, 47, see my arguments in The Jesus Dynasty, chap. 4). Luke removes the names of Jesus brothers from his gospel entirely, while Matthew offers the full name “Joseph” in his parallel to Mark (Matthew 13:55; 27:56). However, it is worth noting that in some manuscripts of Matthew the shortened nickname, Jose/Joses remains, whether as a correction based on Mark or just part of an alternative textual tradition.

In later texts, from the 2nd and 3rd century CE onward, the name Yoseh/Yose in Hebrew does become quite common. It is found in some synagogue inscriptions in Galilee but particularly in rabbinic sources. A comparison of various manuscripts of the Mishnah shows that the form of the name in Hebrew Yosey (Yod, Vav, Samech, Yod) and Yoseh are equivalent, and were pronounced the same–thus we get the English Yose in most translations of these rabbinic sources. The Kaufmann manuscript of the Mishnah (used by Accordance software), which is the best and most reliable, regularly has the form Yoseh where other versions have Yosey, but the vocalization (Nikud) in the manuscript marks both forms with a double-dot or “e” sound, showing one is an alternative spelling of the other, but the pronunciation is the same. At one time I had incorrectly concluded that while the name Yoseh was rare, the nickname Yosi, as it is pronounced in Israel today, was quite common in 2nd Temple times. This is wrong. Yoseh and Yosey are different spelling of the same name, pronounced the same. The spelling ending in the letter Yod never occurs on a single ossuary and is a product of a later literary spelling that became common in some rabbinic manuscripts. This accounts for Tal Ilan’s tally of 29 examples of Yosey–in Kaufmann all of these become Yoseh–spelled with a Heh at the end rather than a Yod.

What we can conclude about this nickname Yose, found on the Talpiot ossuary and in Greek for Jesus’ brother Joseph in Mark, is that it was really quite rare in 2nd Temple times, in Hebrew or in Greek. Even when it does become more common in much later 3rd century CE sources, such as the Mishnah, the sages with this nickname are almost always mid-late 2nd century CE and beyond. Two exceptions, of course, are the first of the famous “pairs,” namely Yoseh son of Yoezer and Yoseh son of Yochanan (mAbot 1:4; mChagiga 2:2), who lived in the 2nd century BCE! The rest of the Mishnaic Yosehs, such as Yoseh of Galilee, Yoseh son of HaOtef of Efrat, Yoseh son of Meshulam, and Yoseh son of R. Yehuda, are late 2nd to early 3rd century CE figures. Since we have good inscriptional and manuscript evidence for the rareness of this nickname in the time of Jesus, that is before the Destruction, it would be very bad method to project back into the late 1st century CE a usage that only can be verified as “common” in texts dating from the 3rd century CE.

Of course this alone does not prove that the Yoseh in the Talpiot tomb is the brother of Jesus. But the data does indeed argue that as a rare nickname, known only on a handful of ossuaries and from two inscriptions of the period, found in a tomb with a “Jesus son of Joseph,” Yoseh is quite striking. And that Mark knows this as the unique and rare nickname of Jesus’ brother Joseph, is surely significant evidence. The occurrence of this nickname can then be combined with the historical data we know about Jesus’ “missing” brother Joseph–since we have not a single reference to him beyond the Gospels, and he does not take over leadership of the Nazarene community after the death of James in 62 CE, though he was 2nd after James by birth. I argue this point more fully in the forthcoming issue of Near Eastern Archaeology in which I suggest a different method be used for evaluating the hypothetical prosopography of the Talpiot tomb names. I think it is quite important, rather than suggesting all sorts of “possible” folk that this Yoseh might be, to recognize that the one Yoseh we know anything about in the family of Jesus, and one of the few males in the period who bore this nickname, was none other than Jesus’ 2nd brother Joseph.

Much of the statistical work on the Talpiot cluster of names has been done using the nickname Yoseh as if it was the equivalent to the much more common name Joseph/Yehosef (8.6% of male names), which it plainly is not. All the rhetoric about “these are the most common names of the period,” begins to have much less force if this is taken into account. I know of two new statistical studies that have factored in this nickname as it occurs in the 2nd Temple period, and the results are startlingly different. One is a paper authored by Profs. Kevin Kilty and Mark Elliot, that will be posted on their college Web site later this week. I will publish the link when it is up. The other is the formal paper presented by Prof. Andrey Feuerverger of the University of Toronto, in a fully peer-reviewed session of the Joint Statistical Meeting in Salt Lake City in July, and now being prepared for publication. My sense is that the discussion of the names in the Talpiot tomb is going to take a significant shift when these and other factors come to full play in our ongoing discussions.

The first time the Talpiot “Jesus” tomb received any public attention was sixteen years after its excavation when a BBC produced documentary titled “The Body in Question” aired in the UK on Easter 1996. The London Sunday Times ran a feature story titled “The Tomb that Dare Not Speak Its Name,” based on that documentary. Both the documentary and the newspaper article called attention to the interesting cluster of names inscribed on six ossuaries found in the tomb: Jesus son of Joseph, two Marys, a Joseph, a Matthew, and a Jude son of Jesus. A flurry of wire stories followed with headlines that the “tomb of Jesus” had perhaps been found. Archaeologists, officials from the Israel Antiquities Authority, and biblical scholars quickly weighed in, assuring the public that “the names were common.” One lone voice, Joe Zias, an anthropologist with the IAA at the Rockefeller at that time, demurred, stating that the cluster of names considered together was so significant that had he not known they were from a provenanced IAA excavation he would have been certain they were forged. Zias called for further investigation. Within a short time the press dropped the story and no one in the academy other than Zias saw any reason for more to be done. It was in response to that 1996 story, and the attention that it drew, that Amir Drori, director of the IAA, asked Amos Kloner to write up an official report on the tomb, published later that year in ‘Atiquot (this and other original sources available for download at the Discovery Web site)

The current 2007 discussion of the tomb, also prompted by a TV documentary, though heated and passionate in some quarters, has also prompted a few academic responses, though most all who have written on the subject have found the evidence lacking for identifying this particular “Jesus” tomb with that of the historical Jesus of Nazareth and his family, and most consider the hypothesis overly speculative or even academically irresponsible.

My view is quite the opposite. I am convinced that there is a surprisingly close fit between what we might postulate as a hypothetical pre-70 CE Jesus family tomb based on our textual records, and this particular tomb with its contents. Rather than starting with the tomb and its six inscribed ossuaries, and exploring all the alternative possibilities, which given the scarcity of data, are endless, I take different approach. It is true, for example, that a name like Yose, appearing alone without patronym, could be any male of a Jewish clan, whether father, brother, son, nephew, or uncle. But if we begin with our historical records asking a different question—who was the “Yose” in Jesus’ life and is there any reason we might expect him to be in a hypothetical pre-70 CE Jesus tomb?—the answer is specific and singular. Rather than starting with an endlessly open and undetermined set of “unknowns,” my approach, in terms of method, is to begin with the specific “knowns.” Essentially what I want to do is test a hypothesis, something we constantly do when we seek to correlate the material evidence of archaeology within our known textual and chronological “horizons.” It is obvious, no matter what one’s theory might be, that one can always posit other possibilities and alternatives. That is why some can still not agree on whether or not there is a “fit” between the sect described in the Dead Sea Scrolls and the site of Qumran. In terms of method I think what I suggest here can turn out to be quite enlightening and I hope it will contribute to the discussion in a positive way.

What I want to ask here is what one might imagine for a hypothetical, pre-70 CE, Jerusalem tomb of Jesus and his family? Given our textual evidence, what might we reasonably construct in terms of likelihood?

The Second Burial of Jesus
I begin with what we know about the burial of Jesus of Nazareth. Nearly everyone seems to assume that the gospels report that Joseph of Arimathea took the corpse of Jesus and laid it in his own new tomb late Friday night. A group of women, Mary Magdalene and others, followed, noting the location of the tomb. Sunday morning when they visited, to complete the Jewish rites of burial, the tomb was empty. The problem with this assumption is that our best evidence indicates that this tomb, into which Jesus was temporarily placed, did not belong to Joseph of Arimathea. Mark, our earliest account, says the following:

And he [Joseph of Arimathea] bought a linen shroud, and taking him down, wrapped him in the linen shroud and laid him in a tomb that had been hewn out of the rock; and he rolled a stone against the door of the tomb” (Mark 15:46).

John’s gospel, reflecting an independent tradition, offers a further explanation:

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).

Mark does not explain the choice of the tomb, but according to the gospel of John this initial burial of Jesus by Joseph of Arimathea was a temporary, emergency measure, with the Passover Sabbath hours away. It was a burial of necessity and opportunity. This particular tomb was chosen because it was unused and happened to be near. The idea that this tomb belonged to Joseph of Arimathea makes no sense. What are the chances that he would just happen to have his own new family tomb conveniently located near the Place of the Skull, or Golgotha, where the Romans regularly crucified their victims?

Mark indicates that the intention of those involved was to complete the full and proper rites of Jewish burial after Passover. Given these circumstances, one would expect the body of Jesus to be placed in a second tomb as a permanent resting place. This second tomb would presumably be one that either belonged to, or was provided by, Joseph of Arimathea, who had both the means and the will to honor Jesus and his family in this way. Accordingly, one would not expect the permanent tomb of Jesus, and subsequently his family, to be near Golgotha, but in a rock-hewn tomb elsewhere in Jerusalem. These circumstances also address the issue that some have raised that the Talpiot tomb could not be that of Jesus since he is poor and from Galilee. James, the brother of Jesus, becomes leader of the Jesus movement following Jesus’ death in 30 CE. Our evidence indicates that the movement is headquartered in Jerusalem until 70 CE. The core group of followers, banded around Jesus’ family and the Council of Twelve, took up residence there as well, even though most of them are from Galilee. This evidence points strongly toward the possibility of a Jesus family tomb in Jerusalem, but different from the temporary burial cave into which Jesus’ body was first placed.

A Jesus Family Prosopography
Based on our earliest textual sources I propose the following list of individuals as potential candidates for burial in a hypothetical Jesus family tomb:

There had to be, of course, many other names we simply do not know, with various connections to the Jesus family, but these names and relationships we can at least consider as hypothetically likely. I realize the matter of Jesus having a wife and children is usually seen as unlikely but one has to factor in the nature of our records and the social context in which Jesus lived. None of the wives or children of any apostles or the brothers of Jesus are ever named in the gospels, yet Mark indicates that Peter was married (Mark 1:30), and Paul mentions that the apostles and brothers of Jesus traveled about with their wives (1 Corinthians 9:5). Silence regarding women, in late, post-70 CE, theological sources such as our New Testament gospels, does not imply non-existence. Also, when Paul strongly recommends celibacy as a superior spiritual lifestyle he fails to use Jesus as an example even in a context where he is desperate to refer to him for authority (1 Corinthians 7:8-12).

If we next ask which of these individuals might hypothetically be buried in a pre-70 CE Jesus family tomb in Jerusalem, after the year 30 CE when Jesus was crucified, we come up with a more chronologically restricted list of potential candidates:

Jesus’ father Joseph we would eliminate because he seems to have died decades earlier, probably in Galilee, and we have no record of him in Jerusalem in this period (see Acts 1:14). Jesus’ mother Mary, given her age, could well have died before 70CE, and as a widow, according to Jewish custom, would be put in the tomb of her oldest son. Jesus’ brothers Simon and Jude apparently lived past 70 CE based on our records, so they should be eliminated from our list. Jesus’ brother Joses is a strong candidate since he is the “missing brother” in our historical records. When James is murdered in 62 CE, it is Simon, the third brother, not Joses, the second, who takes over leadership of the movement. The N.T. letters of James and Jude testify to their influence, and we even have an account of the death of Simon by crucifixion, but nothing survives whatsoever regarding the brother Joses. Given the culture it is likely that either of Jesus’ sisters would be married, and thus buried in the tombs of their husbands, so they are not prime first level candidates either. Since we have no textual record of a wife or children we can only say, hypothetically, that if such existed they might be included.

The Talpiot Tomb
There were ten ossuaries in the Talpiot tomb with six of them inscribed. This is an exceptionally high percentage. For example, just taking the sample of ossuaries retained in the Israeli State Collection only about 20% are inscribed, but that percentage is much too high for ossuaries in general, since plain ones are regularly discarded. It is not the case, as has been reported, that the remains of up to 35 additional individuals were found in this tomb. As Kloner makes clear in his article, this is a demographic estimate, not data based on any kind of anthropological study of the Talpiot tomb remains. There were remains of at least two or possibly three individuals—skulls vertebrae, and limb bones—apparently swept from the arcosolia, and found just below on the floor, perhaps by intruders in antiquity. That the bones of these individuals were never gathered and put in ossuaries seems to indicate that the 70 CE destruction of Jerusalem terminated the family use of the tomb. Although it is possible that the bones of more than one individual were placed in the ossuaries, the mitDNA results of the two that could be tested, that of Yeshua and Mariamene, showed clear singular profiles. The Talpiot tomb seems to be a small (2.9 x 2.9 meter), modest, pre-70 CE family burial cave with remains of a dozen or so individuals.

The six inscriptions in the Talpiot tomb show a rather remarkable correspondence to the chronologically restricted hypothetical list of potential candidates we can construct from our textual evidence:
1. Yeshua bar Yehosef (Aramaic)
2. Maria (Aramaic)
3. Yose (Aramaic)
4. Mariemene [also known as] Mara (Greek & decorated)
5. Yehuda bar Yeshua (Aramaic & decorated)
6. Matya (Aramaic)

Yeshua bar Yehosef is an appropriate inscription for Jesus of Nazareth. Its messy informal style, and the lack of honorific titles (“the Messiah,” or “our Lord”) fit what I would expect for his burial in 30 CE. I would also not expect the toponym “of Nazareth” since the use of the terms Nazareth/Nazarene, like the titles, might be more reflective of later theology than contemporary informal usage—especially within the family. The Aramaic form of the nickname Yose (Yod Vav Samech Hey), short for Yehosef/Joseph, is rare in the 2nd Temple period, only found here on an ossuary and two other inscriptional examples. It is equivalent to the later popular spelling of this nickname as Yosey (Yod Vav Samech Yod), found in rabbinic texts from the late 2nd to 3rd century CE. It corresponds to an equally rare form of the name in Greek, namely Yoses or Yose, that occurs only five times in all our sources, literary and inscriptional. This is in fact the precise form of the nickname by which the gospel of Mark, our earliest source, knows Jesus second brother Joseph (Mark 6:3).

There are two “Marys” in this tomb, known by different forms of that name, namely Maria and Mariamene. The mitDNA test indicates the Mariamene in this tomb is not related to Yeshua as mother or sister on the maternal side. That leaves open the likelihood that Maria could well be the mother, especially if we have two of her sons, Yeshua and Yose, in this tomb. It would make sense that she would be buried with her children in this intimate, small, family tomb and that her ossuary would be inscribed Maria.

Given the presence of the named son of Yeshua in this tomb, namely Yehuda/Jude, and based on the mitDNA evidence, it seems quite likely that Mariamene is the mother of this son. The speculation, if this is indeed the tomb of Jesus of Nazareth, that she might be Mary Magdalene, is based on a cluster of later evidence.

There were three intimate “Marys” in Jesus’ life, his mother, his sister, and Mary Magdalene. Indeed, it was Mary Magdalene, his mother, and his other sister Salome, that attended to his burial rites (Mark 16:1). Family intimates carried out this important rite of washing and anointing the corpse for burial. If Mariamene is not Jesus’ mother or sister, as the mitDNA indicates, it seems a logical possibility then that she could be that “third” Mary, namely Mary Magdalene, his follower and close companion, based on her inclusion as a named intimate in our earliest records. We don’t know much about Mary Magdalene in our N. T. sources, but she does seem to be a woman of means and she is associated with several other women of standing from Galilee (Luke 8: 1-3). The Mariamene ossuary is decorated and the inscription is in Greek, which surely fits this data, as Migdal, according to the record of Josephus, was a large, thriving, and culturally diverse “Romanized” city with theatre, hippodrome, and a large aqueduct system. Despite alternative proposals (Pfann, et al.) I accept the reading of Rachmani (available for download at Discovery Web site), recently confirmed by Leah Di Segni, that Mariamene is a diminutive or endearing form of the name Mariamne, derived from Mariame, a name that is associated with Mary Magdalene in early Christian tradition (Hippolytus, Acts of Philip, Origen, Greek fragments of the Gospel of Mary). That she is also known by the Aramaic name “Mara,” (the absolute feminine of Mar’) which like “Martha,” (the emphatic feminine) means “lordess,” seems all the more appropriate. Recent scholarship (Schaberg, King, Marjanen, Bovon, Brock) on Mary Magdalene has gone a long way toward rehabilitating her important place in earliest history of the Jesus movement. In a diverse collection of early Christian sources dating from the late 1st century through the 4th, she is a prominent leader and voice among the apostles and an intimate companion of Jesus, holding her place over against better-known male disciples.

I find it striking that five of the six inscriptions correspond so closely to a hypothetical pre-70 CE family tomb of Jesus in Jerusalem as we might imagine it based on textual evidence. The one inscription we can’t account for, Matya or Matthew, remains a puzzle. The name is relatively rare (2.4% of males, compared to Joseph at 8.6% and Yeshua at 3.9%). It is worth noting that Matthew is a name known within the family of Jesus (see the genealogies of Matthew 1; Luke 3). Also, the only Matthew known to us in the gospels, also called Levi, is said to be of the Alphaeus family clan (Mark 2:14). In some early Christian traditions this Alphaeus or Clophas is the brother of Joseph, the father of Jesus. Still, just who this particular Matthew was and why he would be in this tomb, if it did belong to Jesus and his family, we simply to not know.

I find this hypothetical “fit” between the intimate pre-70 CE family of Jesus and Nazareth and the names found in this tomb quite impressive and it argues strongly against an out of hand dismissal of the tomb as possibly, or even likely, associated with Jesus of Nazareth.

I have been amazed over the years at what one can assume is in the New Testament Gospels and what is actually there. I have been teaching these texts for over 25 years and hardly a year goes by when I don’t see something I had missed, or have something pointed out by my students that I simply had incorrect.

A case in point. Everyone “knows” that according to all four of our N.T. Gospels Joseph of Arimathea, elsewhere unmentioned, goes to Pontius Pilate, the governor of Judea, and gets permission to remove Jesus’ body from the cross. He takes the corpse and lays it in his own new tomb late Friday night. A group of women, Mary Magdalene and others, follow and see the location of the tomb. Sunday morning when they visit, to complete the Jewish rites of burial, the tomb is empty.

Sounds accurate, according to the Gospels, except that the part in italics, that everyone assumes, is apparently not the case. The tomb into which Jesus is temporarily placed does not belong to Joseph of Arimathea but every book, film, and preacher tells it that way.

Mark is our earliest account. Notice his words carefully:

And he [Joseph of Arimathea] bought a linen shroud, and taking him down, wrapped him in the linen shroud and laid him in a tomb that had been hewn out of the rock; and he rolled a stone against the door of the tomb” (Mark 15:46).

This is our core Synoptic account. Mark is the source for both Luke and Matthew. But notice, nothing is said about Joseph putting Jesus in his own family tomb.

John, who offers us an independent tradition, offers a further explanation:

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).

So, as I often tell my students, “thank God for Mark and John.” Mark does not really explain the choice of the tomb but John makes it clear that this initial burial of Jesus by Joseph of Arimathea is a temporary and emergency burial of opportunity. That the tomb is new and unused meant that it could be used for a few hours, until the Sabbath and Passover holiday was past. This particular tomb is chosen because it just happened to be near, as John plainly explains. The idea that this tomb belonged to Joseph of Arimathea makes no sense at all. What are the chances that he would just happen to have his own new family tomb conveniently located near the Place of the Skull, or Golgotha, where the Romans regularly crucified their victims. It is ludicrous even to imagine, but neither Mark nor John say anything of the sort.

Everyone has assumed Jesus is placed in Joseph’s own tomb because of two words added by Matthew in his editing of Mark, namely “he laid it in his own new tomb” (Matthew 27:60). Luke does not have this. And Mark and John are crystal clear as to why this tomb was chosen. This interpolation by Matthew is clearly added for theological reasons, to claim that Jesus’ burial fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah 53:9, that the grave of Yahweh’s “Servant” would be “with a rich man.” It has absolutely nothing to do with the historical Jesus.

Taking then what we learn from Mark and John we are in a position to make some clear sense out of our core tradition. Jesus is hastily buried just before the Passover Sabbath. After all, what does one do with a corpse a few hours before the Seder, and how can it best be protected from predators? The new tomb, unused and possibly incomplete, that happened to be nearby, was a perfect temporary solution. The idea was that after the festival the full and proper rites of Jewish burial could be carried out and Jesus could be placed in a second tomb, as a permanent resting place.

In the Talpiot tomb discussion quite a few objectors have made the point that any Jesus tomb should be near the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, where Joseph of Armimathea had his tomb. I have no confidence that this site is the place of the crucifixion in the first place, but even it if was, given what we learn in our core traditions of Mark and John we would expect that Jesus would have been respectfully reburied in another tomb–not in that initial temporary one.

I suppose the best guess would be that Joseph of Arimathea provided the second tomb, as a permanent family place of burial. He had the means and the influence and it makes sense that if he bothered to go to Pilate to get the body he would have seen that it was placed in a proper and permanent place. He seems to be the right person at the right time with the means and intention to carry out this most respectful of rites for a slain leader who he respected and perhaps even believed in.