First Person: “The Tomb of Jesus”—My Take

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For a few months now, people have been asking me (and, more importunately, the BAR staff), “What does Hershel think?” referring to the notorious claim in a TV special that the Tomb of Jesus has been identified in the Talpiot neighborhood of Jerusalem.

I really had nothing to say. Fortunately, I would tell questioners, I was sunning myself in the Caribbean when the news broke and was unavailable for comment. If I had to tell my interlocutors more, I would say that I just don’t have a dog in this fight, so I have no views.

With the passage of time, however, I have developed some ideas that I can belatedly share with BAR readers.

Do I think the Talpiot tomb is the tomb of Jesus of Nazareth?

There are two ways I can truthfully answer this question. First, I can say, “Plainly, no.” And all the academics who have been slinging insults at the program will applaud—or at least nod in agreement. I can also answer the question truthfully in another way: “There is a possibility that it is the tomb of Jesus of Nazareth, but in my opinion it’s a very slim possibility.” Now the few academics who have defended Simcha Jacobovici’s TV special will applaud and say that that is all they have been saying: It’s a possibility. That’s even what Simcha himself says. (Full disclosure: He’s a friend of mine.)

Let me explain how these two different answers can both be truthful:

The first major hurdle to the contention that this is the tomb of Jesus of Nazareth is that it all depends on Jesus’ body having been moved after his initial burial in the rock-cut family tomb of Joseph of Arimathea. The overwhelming likelihood is that this tomb was located where the Church of the Holy Sepulchre now stands.^a If Jesus already had a family tomb in Talpiot, there would be no need to bury him in a temporary tomb, despite the onset of the Sabbath. It’s little more than a half-hour’s walk from Golgotha to Talpiot.

For me, that pretty much settles it. But I have to add that my friend Professor Jodi Magness thinks it is “possible that followers [of Jesus] or family members removed Jesus’ body from Joseph [of Arimathea’s] tomb,”^b although she vociferously rejects the notion that Jesus was thereafter buried in the Talpiot tomb. If Jodi Magness tells me that Jesus’ initial burial possibly was only temporary, that’s a powerful statement for me. So I have to consider that there’s a good chance I am wrong.

So I must proceed:

What seems clear to almost all expert observers (pace Stephen Pfann, of the University of the Holy Land in Jerusalem) is that one of the bone boxes in the cave is inscribed “Jesus son of Joseph.” So there is a possibility that this is the tomb of Jesus of Nazareth—very slight, but a possibility. Admittedly, both names were extremely common in the first century. But still, it’s a possibility. Then of course another ossuary in the tomb is inscribed “Mary.” This increases the chances, but only very slightly, for it, too, is a very common name.

That, for me, is it. I don’t buy all the contortions that Simcha goes through to find other names in Jesus’ family, including his alleged wife and son, inscribed on ossuaries found inside this tomb. That part of his argument simply builds very slim possibility upon very slim possibility until likelihood dissolves into evanescence.

And the suggestion that the ossuary inscribed “James son of Joseph, brother 072of Jesus”^c is the missing tenth ossuary that was originally found in the Talpiot tomb is, to my mind, nonsense. New evidence shows that the owner of the James ossuary, Oded Golan, had the ossuary in his antiquities collection at least since March 1976, years before the “Jesus Tomb” was discovered in 1980. Moreover, the measurements of the missing tenth ossuary are different from those of the James ossuary.

Still, I cannot say there is no possibility that this is Jesus’ family tomb. As early as 1926, another ossuary inscribed “Jesus son of Joseph” was acquired on the antiquities market. The names were so common that no one even thought to argue that this ossuary had once held Jesus’ bones—although that, too, was a possibility. (And no one has ever suggested that it was a forgery.) The addition of an ossuary inscribed “Mary” in the same tomb with an ossuary inscribed “Jesus son of Joseph” adds very little to the argument.

What about the statistical argument? There’s only one chance in 600 that this is not Jesus of Nazareth’s tomb, proclaims the TV special. And what about the DNA evidence, which the TV special also touts?

I’m neither a statistician nor a DNA expert. However, I’ve been in this business long enough to know that, in time, someone who knows more than I do is going to come along (in fact someone already has) and tell us why the statistics and the DNA argument are unsound.

But that’s not the end of the matter. It’s really just the beginning. There are many other questions. Why, for instance, has this TV special raised such a storm? If you Google this controversy, I am told that more than a million and a half items will come up on your screen. (So you can see why it’s difficult to be au courant on this debate.)

One reason for this flurry of attention is that if the Talpiot ossuary once contained the bones of Jesus, this would disturb the religious faith of millions of Christians who believe that Jesus was bodily resurrected and ascended into heaven (to say nothing of his mother Mary, who was also bodily assumed into heaven).

I put the following hypothetical to some of my friends: Suppose tenth-century B.C. potsherds were found in a cave by the Dead Sea. In writing up this story in BAR, suppose the author stated that this might even be the cave where David fled from King Saul. No one would get excited, although there are really not that many caves in the Judean desert with tenth-century B.C. potsherds in them. In short, the suggestion that David once fled to this cave is possible but quite unlikely. Yet the reaction to this suggestion would be very different from the reaction to the suggestion that the Talpiot tomb might possibly be the tomb of Jesus. Why the difference?

The first answer, as I previously suggested, is that if the Talpiot tomb is the tomb of Jesus, that would undercut the theological conviction of hundreds of millions of people. According to one report, over a million e-mails have been sent opposing any reruns of the film.

If the film’s thesis is theologically disturbing, this might explain the reaction on the street—or in the pew—but it does not explain the reaction of academics, where most of the vitriol is coming from. Why are they talking about “archaeo-porn” and “pimping the Bible”?

There are several possible answers:

First, academics often don’t like non-academics poking around in their flower garden. I’ve been doing that for more than 30 years and now I’m pretty much accepted, but I remember the old days when the reception I often got would freeze me to the bone. But even this does not account for the intensity of the academic reaction to Simcha’s film. (I’m not sure I can account for it.)

One other possibility is simply that scholars are angry that Simcha poses as having grounded his arguments academically while, in fact, almost all academics would reject them. In this sense, he is poisoning the academic pond. His method takes one slim possibility and adds more very slim possibilities on top of it (Jesus’ wife and son) until the conclusion reaches absurdity.

I do believe that some scholars enjoy the opportunity to really dump on an outsider. Academics are also sensitive, and they sometimes exaggerate the danger to their authority of a sometimes-foolish TV special.

But there is something else—something more personal. Simcha misuses scholars. One might even say that he abuses them. He makes them appear to be saying things they don’t agree with. This happened in an earlier TV special Simcha produced titled “The Exodus Decoded.” Two very prominent Egyptologists appeared in that program—Manfred Bietak and Donald Redford—and both claimed they were quoted out of context and that their views were thereby misrepresented. In his film on the tomb of Jesus, Simcha got Frank Moore Cross, one of the world’s most distinguished epigraphers, to read the script of the ossuary inscribed “Jesus son of Joseph.” In his film, Simcha showed Cross reading the inscription, leaving the impression that Cross somehow supported the view that this was Jesus’ tomb. Simcha would innocently respond, “But I only showed what the man actually said.” Technically that is true, but the film manages in this way to give the impression of scholarly support that is not there. I recently talked to Cross, who told me he was “upset” at his appearance in the film; Simcha had used only his reading of the ossuary, not his view that this was not the tomb of Jesus. Israeli scholar Tal Ilan similarly expressed outrage at the use of her interview in the film. This does seem to be a pattern in Simcha’s films. Even The New York Times, whose reviewer prescreened the film, got the impression that “almost all the scholars interviewed [in the film] support the filmmakers’ case.” Well, that’s simply not true.

A Jerusalem Post story published not long after the screening of “The Lost Tomb of Jesus” concluded that “the juggernaut is rolling. And dismissive derision is not going to stop it now.” My prediction is that by the time you read this, the whole “juggernaut” will be a thing of the past. It will simply be something for the history books, but not taken seriously. However, everyone will remember the Talpiot tomb.

For a few months now, people have been asking me (and, more importunately, the BAR staff), “What does Hershel think?” referring to the notorious claim in a TV special that the Tomb of Jesus has been identified in the Talpiot neighborhood of Jerusalem. I really had nothing to say. Fortunately, I would tell questioners, I was sunning myself in the Caribbean when the news broke and was unavailable for comment. If I had to tell my interlocutors more, I would say that I just don’t have a dog in this fight, so I have no views. With the passage […]