Excerpt: 'The Jesus Dynasty' by James D. Tabor

On November 17, 2003, Gibson and I made a formal request by letter to Shuka Dorfman, director of the Israel Antiquities Authority, that we be allowed to carry out such DNA tests on these skeletal fragments from the James Ossuary. Our thinking was that whether the inscription on the ossuary is authentic or forged -- and Dorfman is convinced it is forged -- it is nonetheless of scientific value to determine where the ossuary itself originated. Given the circumstantial evidence that it might have come from our Tomb of the Shroud, a DNA match or the lack thereof could help advance our knowledge, no matter what position one might hold about the inscription itself.

Our request was promptly denied on the grounds that the bones in the ossuary had been added by Golan to camouflage the forgery and have no connection to the original, thus rendering any tests unnecessary. We know that is not the case. But doing DNA tests on the bones of a "James" and a "Maria," particularly if that James had a brother named Jesus, means moving from the realm of science to that of theology. Our hope is that when the trial of Golan is completed and some of the emotions die down, we will still be able to pursue these scientific tests. But there is another intriguing side to this unfinished story.

The Mystery of the Talpiot Tomb

The "James Ossuary" story was not the first to generate worldwide headlines about ancient ossuaries and their possible relation to Jesus. Shortly before Easter in 1996 another dramatic story broke: "Jesus Family Tomb Discovered." It was reported that a tomb discovered back in 1980, but never brought to public attention, contained a significant cluster of names associated with the Jesus family, including a Mary, a Joseph, a second Mary, a Jude son of Jesus, a Matthew, and most significantly, a Jesus son of Joseph. The London Sunday Times paraded the story in a full front-page feature article under the title "The Tomb That Dare Not Speak Its Name" on March 31. On Easter morning the BBC aired a feature documentary on the tomb titled The Body in Question. The Associated Press, Reuters, and Gannett quickly cobbled stories from this initial in-depth treatment, and supplemented them with their own reports filed by correspondents who descended in droves upon unsuspecting officials of the IAA in the Old City of Jerusalem and clamored to know more. As with the James Ossuary, the Israelis were caught in the middle of things.

The questions mounted: When had the tomb been discovered? Why had it not immediately been reported to the public? Was there some type of cover-up due to the shocking contents of the tomb?12

In 1995, the year before the story broke, a BBC/CTVC British film crew led by Ray Bruce and Chris Mann was in Jerusalem filming a documentary on the Resurrection for their upcoming Easter special. Their aim was to bring to the British public the latest and best historical and archaeological evidence related to the reports of Jesus' empty tomb and his resurrection. They intended their program to be provocative and challenging, but they could not have imagined the surprise that awaited them.

They arrived at the archaeological warehouse of the Israel Antiquities Authority in Romemma, a rundown suburb of Jerusalem, where they had arranged for some routine filming of a few 1st-century "ossuaries." Ray Bruce and his fellow producer Chris Mann had done a bit of homework. They had learned from a catalogue published in 1994 by L. H. Rahmani13 that of the thousand or more ossuaries stored and catalogued in various Israeli collections, six bore the name "Jesus" (Yeshu, Yeshua, or Yehoshua in Hebrew), and of those six, two were inscribed with the designation "Jesus son of Joseph."

The first, found in 1926, is beautifully carved and clearly legible.14 The second, found in 1980, is nearly illegible, with the inscription scratched into the stone as if with a nail or sharp pointed object. As luck would have it, both were housed in the Romemma warehouse. The curator, Baruk Brendel, was willing to show the British crew both items.15 The crew was understandably pleased to be able to film an intact ossuary

with such an inscription from the very period of Jesus' lifetime. Still, things at this point were fairly routine, since even an ossuary with the name of "Jesus son of Joseph," however fascinating to the public, was not considered particularly noteworthy by the experts because both names were exceedingly common in that period. But then the excitement began. Chris and Ray asked Baruk whether any of the other ossuaries in the collection were related to either of the "Jesus son of Joseph" ossuaries. The catalogue and tags were examined and it turned out five others were shelved nearby that had all been found in the same tomb as the "Jesus son of Joseph" ossuary. The tomb was in East Talpiot, just south of Jerusalem's Old City. The tomb had been uncovered when TNT was detonated by a construction crew putting up a new apartment complex. Israeli archaeologist Joseph Gath, now deceased, excavated it quickly so the construction could proceed.

Out of curiosity, Ray and Chris asked about the names on the other five ossuaries. Chris later commented that as Brendel ticked off the names "it felt like the balls of the national lottery coming up and approaching the jackpot." In addition to the "Jesus son of Joseph" ossuary there was a Joseph; a Mary, presumably his wife; another Mary; a Jude son of Jesus; and a Matthew.16

For the crew this was a journalistic moment made in heaven. The traditional tomb where Jesus was buried after his crucifixion is just outside the Old City to the north, the site today of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. Jesus had been placed hastily in a tomb near the crucifixion site by an aristocratic and influential sympathizer, Joseph of Arimathea, and not in his own family tomb. Even the gospels imply that he was only temporarily put there, due to the rush of the Passover holiday. Although the family was from Nazareth, a town to the north in Galilee, the New Testament indicates that Mary as well as Jesus' brothers and sisters had taken up residence in Jerusalem. Tradition has it that Mary, mother of Jesus, did in fact die and was buried in Jerusalem, not Galilee, and there are no fewer than two sites shown today to tourists that lay claim to being the spot. Needless to say, this Talpiot tomb had not been put on any tourist map.

Was it possible that Jesus' mortal remains were finally buried with those of his father and mother? Might the other Mary be either a sister or his close companion Mary Magdalene? Could the "Jude son of Jesus" be his biological son? The possibilities were as intriguing as they were shocking and heretical.

The producers interviewed various Jewish and Christian archaeologists and historians familiar with the tomb. Everyone seemed to agree that although the names were interesting, they were so common in this period to make even such a grouping as this unique but inconclusive. Several pointed out that the name Mary was the most common female name in the period and the name Joseph the second most common male name, after Simon. Amos Kloner, who subsequently published the official report on the Talpiot excavation, maintained that the "possibility of it being Jesus' family [is] very close to zero."17 Motti Neiger, spokesperson for the Israel Antiquities Authority, agreed "that chances of these being the actual burials of the holy family are almost nil."18

But it was the "almost" that interested the producers. And everyone did seem to acknowledge that this particular cluster of names, among the hundreds of ossuaries catalogued, was unparalleled, however common the individual names might have been. Joe Zias, curator at the Rockefeller Museum and perhaps as familiar with Jewish tombs in the area as anyone, seemed to be the only expert that thought the grouping might be statistically significant and at least deserved further investigation. He commented: "Had it not been found in a tomb I would have said 100 percent of what we are looking at are forgeries. But this came from a very good, undisturbed archaeological context. It is not something that was invented."19

The only way anything else could be done scientifically would be to carry out mitochondrial DNA tests on the bone samples to at least ascertain how the individuals buried there might be maternally related. Such tests, no matter what the results, could not "prove" that this particular Jesus was the one who became known as Christ, but they could show whether any of these individuals were offspring of either of the two Marys, or had a sibling relationship to one another.

If neither of the Marys turned out to be mother to this "Jesus," it would at least eliminate the possibility that this was the mother and son of Christian faith. But one of the Marys could also be a sister. Since Joseph was such a common male name we should not assume that the ossuary with the name "Joseph" was necessarily for the father of the one called "Jesus son of Joseph." He could easily be related in another way, or not at all. For example, Jesus of Nazareth also had a brother named Joseph.

Neil Silberman once quoted David Flusser, the late and great professor of ancient Judaism and early Christianity at Hebrew University, on this subject:

Many years ago a man from the BBC came to me and he asked me if the Dead Sea Scrolls will harm Christianity. I said to him that nothing can harm Christianity. The only thing which could be dangerous to Christianity would be to find a tomb with the sarcophagus or ossuary of Jesus -- still containing his bones. And then I said I surely hope that it will not be found in the territory of the State of Israel.20

This is the stuff of which novels are made and there have been several published about "finding the bones of Jesus," but in the real world of archaeology such things smack of sensationalism. Biblical scholar Father Jerome Murphy O'Connor of Jerusalem's Ecole Biblique commented that although there was no way to prove the ossuary inscribed "Jesus son of Joseph" had contained the bones of Christ, if such proof could be made "the consequences for the faith would be disastrous."21

The Israelis are very sensitive to the Christian world and maintain official diplomatic relations with the Vatican. They are pleased to fill the role of the welcoming custodians for Christian tourism of the Holy Land. The last thing in which they want to be involved is some archaeological find that would spark controversy or provoke Christian theological debates. A Jesus "family tomb" would be problem enough, but one that contained an ossuary marked "Jesus son of Joseph" would surely place them in the most delicate situation imaginable.

Although it is impossible to prove that this particular tomb was related to Jesus of Nazareth, what made the tomb remarkable was not only the grouping of the names, but the fact that these ossuaries came from a documented and controlled archaeological context. The tomb and its remains could be scientifically studied. Perhaps there was more to learn from a careful reexamination of all the evidence related to the tomb or maybe even from a further investigation of the site itself. After all, Joseph Gath, the original excavator, was dead, and the official report on the tomb had not yet been published.

The media had reported, however, that an apartment building had been built over the site of the tomb shortly after its excavation in 1980, obliterating the site and foreclosing any possibility of further direct investigation. Until the official report on the tomb was published, there seemed to be little more to learn.

I had not the slightest inkling back in 1996 that this Talpiot tomb would become part of my own firsthand investigation in future years, nor how it might relate to my research on the Jesus dynasty. Shimon Gibson and I had not even met. Nearly a decade later, in early 2004, I learned that Gibson had assisted Gath in the excavation of this 1980 tomb and had done the official drawings for publication. Time and time again Shimon Gibson turns up as the right man at the right time, fortuitously linking discoveries that one would not suspect to be linked at all.

Ray Bruce and his crew had been told that the ossuaries were "empty" of bones, indicating that the tomb had likely been robbed at an earlier time and the bones lost or scattered. We now know that this was not the case. According to the official report on the Talpiot tomb published in 1996 by Amos Kloner, these ossuaries definitely held bones.22 By Israeli law, all human remains from the tomb have to have been turned over to the Orthodox Jewish authorities for reburial, apparently precluding the possibility of DNA or any other kinds of scientific tests. I say "apparently" because most ossuaries, even those in the Israeli state archive collection, still contain slight residues of human remains and fragments of bone material. Unless the ossuaries are scrubbed clean, which is not the normal practice, modern sophisticated DNA tests can yield evidence from the tiniest sample.

I asked Gibson about the Talpiot tomb on a visit to Israel in 2004. He recalled two very unusual things about that particular tomb in addition to the interesting cluster of family names. The front of the tomb had a strange decoration carved into the façade over the entrance -- a circle

with an inverted pyramid over it. No one seemed to know what it might mean or symbolize. Also there were three skulls placed curiously on the floor of the tomb, each directly in front of a loculus or shaft holding ossuaries. Gibson pulled an old photo of the entrance to the tomb from his files. He also spread out in front of me his detailed original drawing of the plan of the tomb. The skulls were clearly visible, included in his plan just as he had seen them.

Curiously, in the official report on the tomb that Amos Kloner published in 1996, Gibson's drawing appears but with the skulls carefully airbrushed away. Gibson and I decided to do a bit of sleuthing. I think we might have been the first archaeologists in history to go looking for an ancient tomb by going out knocking on doors.

We went back to the neighborhood, to the very street, where the tomb had once been visible nearly twenty-five years earlier. An apartment complex had indeed been built on the site. We began asking around and to our surprise long-term residents knew the location of an "apartment of the tomb." Many thought that apartment was jinxed, and it had become the subject of local ghost stories. We knocked on the door and the present owner confirmed for us that there was a tomb under the floor of his apartment, just off the kitchen, where there was a raised porch area. Two ventilation vents marked the spot. The builders had constructed things so that the tomb had been preserved. The owner told us that he had bought the place at a good price, despite the stories, and he was not a believer in such superstitions.