Claims swirl around ‘tomb of Jesus’ | csmonitor.com — A lot of this story is wishful thinking by everyone, especially the agnostic and atheist community who are, frankly, sick of the religiosity that surrounds and condemns them. Read this whole article, it seems very objective. The kicker to me is the assertion that 25-percent of all Jewish women at this time in history were named Mary. I guess John was a popular name for men. It’s the only name in the Bible that had two apostles by the same name — John and John the Baptist. It’s obviously a great name! But I digress. Read this instead.
What really pushed him along, he says, was determining that one of the Marys represented Mary Magdalene (the other, they posit, is the mother of Jesus). It is the only inscription written in Greek, as “Mariamene.” Jacobovici says that a Harvard professor, François Bovon, has determined from a 4th- or 5th-century text, the “Acts of Phillip,” that Mariamene is the name for Mary Magdalene. “Mariamene provided the linchpin, so the second Mary fell into place,” Jacobovici says.
The other evidence presented? DNA tests, which determined that the residues in the Jesus and Mariamene ossuaries showed that the two individuals were not related by blood, leading him to deduce they were married. Then Jacobovici commissioned a statistical analysis by an expert at the University of Toronto, who calculated the probability of this combination of names appearing on ossuaries in the same crypt at 600 to 1.
The deal killer for me might be this:
Professor Kloner himself remains unconvinced. “It makes a great story for TV, but … it’s nonsense,” he told the Jerusalem Post this week. “There is no likelihood that Jesus and his relatives had a family tomb. They were a Galilee family with no Jerusalem ties. The Talpiot tomb belonged to a middle-class family from the 1st century.”
He also says that the name, “Jesus son of Joseph,” has appeared on at least three or four ossuaries. Others insist that neither Jesus’ followers nor his family would have thought of Jesus as the son of Joseph and used that inscription.
Usually guys like Kloner have seen so much of this they tend to have a handle on it. Especially when compared to some guys from Hollywood. That said it will still jack up the fundamentalists who will see this as an attack and instead of being reasonable will go nuts. Perhaps that is the real goal here. What fun!
wtf is a jesus? is it expensive?
It’s great to see that the initial hype and sensationalism is subsiding to far more rational coverage. There is likely quite a bit to be learned from this archaeological find; but, all the pseudoscience does is distract from the real information to be had.
A lot of this story is wishful thinking by everyone, especially the faith community who are, frankly, sick of the anti-theims that surrounds and condemns them.
I haven’t bothered to investigate the details of this particular claim but it just seems so Area 51ish.
Every few years somebody claims to find Noah’s Ark and who takes them seriously?
In the zillion-to-one odds that somebody could find a specific person’s bones from that era, how the heck could you ever prove it?
The most remarkable aspect of this story is that James Cameron is willing to risk his personal credibility on something so unlikely — it reminds me of another “Titanic” disastrous career choice: Geraldo Rivera and that anti-climatic opening of the empty safe from the Titanic after weeks of breathy hype.
John, this is why I do not believe.
Because this shit is to confusing and everyone thinks a different story is the ‘true story of god’. Plus I find it way easier to just look at science and what it has proved the last couple of years.
#4 >> Plus I find it way easier to just look at science and what it has proved the last couple of years.
I’m curious: what has science proven about God in the last couple of years?
It takes a genius to look at the future and laugh at it.
Look at Charlie Chaplin with the Ford Assembly Line in the classic movie Modern Times where the hapless worker goes for a cigarette break in the washroom and the boss comes on a futureistic tv screen to threaten charlie back to work.
Woody Allen was also classic in the futuristic movie “Sleeper” where after being held in suspended animation for many years he is revived by rebels in the future in a totalitarian where among other things ., as relic from the past , with no documentation, he is asked by social scientists what the gag item chattering teeth are as well as the function of a playboy foldout, starts a relic vintage Volkswagen beetle car ( with a newspaper on the passenger siate which announced that the Pope’w wife has a second set of twin) and as well is involved in an attempt to stop an operation to recover ” our leader” who it turns out was involved in an abortive attack and is involved in a genetic engineering operation to clone the leader’s body back from all that remains of the leader – to clone the leader from the remaining parts of his body – his nose.
Shades of Dick Cheney and North Korea all in one.
why don’t they do a DNA test on Jesus and Joseph. if they’re related then it’s not the Jesus James Cameron thinks it is.
I don’t agree with the statement “Others insist that neither Jesus’ followers nor his family would have thought of Jesus as the son of Joseph and used that inscription.”
If Jesus wasn’t really the son of God, but rather some religious hypocrite, crackpot claiming to be the son of God, then the why NOT bury them together & use that inscription? People who believe are retards.
To those who say God doesn’t exist:
I guess we’ll all find out when we die.
To those who say, “My God wouldn’t require me to..X Y Z” :
God doesn’t require the unsaved to do anything but accept His FREE gift of salvation.. Jesus Christ. The reason you don’t is because you’re prideful. Not just you though. Lucifer was prideful..
“How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! how art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations! For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north:” – Isaiah 14:12-13
After you are saved, any good works you may do are because of the Love you have for God who gave you this free gift.
It amazes me that people think they are so powerful as to be able to control their afterlife when when can’t even control their existing life. Pride will not get you anywhere, and you cannot stand before a Holy, Righteous God and tell him that the death of His Son is of no consequence, and is not good enough.
The Gospel is simple (Gospel means “Good News”) — Good news! You can be saved, and become a Joint Arie with Christ! Requirements?? Nothing! Just accept the Free Gift!…
“For it is by grace that you have been saved, though faith-and this is not from yourselves,
it is the GIFT of God-not by works, so that no one can boast.” (Eph. 2:8-9)
But oh, no.. YOU want to have a part.. You want CONTROL.. Ok.. Die and come back to life.. What? You cant do that? I thought you knew more than God… Or at least as much..
….
Never mind.. Continue to believe that all you see around you came from a random explosion in space.. On the face of it, its ridiculous.. ENTROPY, the 2nd law of Thermodynamics precludes this. Until someone can demonstrate the explosion of gold, glass, steel and the other raw materials of a watch, and hand me a ROLEX, I’m not going to believe you can get order from chaos. Sorry. Ok.. Time to flame me.. Doesn’t matter..
We’ll see if you are right when you die.. The best you can hope for is to be dead like a dog, because the other is unthinkable..
… Let the flames begin baby!! Burn baby Burn! ~ 🙂
#10 … did you think about that before you said it? He would have been put there by people who believed his divinity, not by people who thought he was a fraud. THAT is why NOT to use that inscription.
#11 – Here is the problem with your arguement:
Science acknowledges that all the answers haven’t been found. Science strives to find the answer with verifiable and repeatable methods. If a previous answer is found to be incorrect, science reevaluates and continues to try and find the correct answer.
Religion believes the Big Spaghetti Monster created everything.
Take your argument back 6000 years. Sickness was the will of the Gods and you deserved to die for some mysterious transgression against all that was holy. Now we know about viruses and bacteria through science. Your argument 6000 years ago would have been:
“Only the Gods can strike down a man and make him cough blood. You shall forever be banished to Kurnugia (a Babylonian hell) for even questioning this wisdom!”
Through science we know about tuberculosis.
Do I know what happens after death? Nope…but inevitably, I am going to find out.
Only one way to find out if it is jesus!!! get a dna sample from god!!!
being an atheist myself, i always find these type of stories hysterical!
Some poor sap says he has scientific proof that god exists, completely opposite of the concept of faith…
Oy.
I work with someone who is Catholic, and he really got his back up when I mentioned this story. He said his priest discussed this in his sermon last Sunday, so the Vatican is most likely in crisis management, much like they were when Moro was found hanging under a bridge in Italy. I was a little surprised that he took this so seriously, but I suppose finding the bones of Jesus would blow the entire tenet upon which the Church is based right out of the freaking water, not to mention the rest of the Christian world. Considering the Catholic Church is responsible for more murder, torture and mayhem than any other entity that ever existed on the planet, I hope it’s true. It’s time to stifle the hungry greedy pedophile bitch in Vatican City.
The real question is how will the christians spin this in their favor?
#19,
All the historical evidence suggests that Paul simply stole the Hercules myth (son of a god and mortal, did good deeds etc) when he arrived in Greece. I don’t see why the Christians would be afraid of this, here finally is some archaeological evidence that Jesus even existed, beyond the single documented person in the bible who knew him.
To me this implies there is some historical basis in Christian mythology, rather than the raving fantasy of a known charlatan and huckster.