Jesus Family Tomb

You may have noticed that a certain bone box is all over the news this week. In their documentary (due to be released March 4), “Titanic” director James Cameron and Orthodox Jewish producer Simcha Jacobovici document their great archaeological find: the burial place of a certain “Mariamne,” “Judah, son of Jesus,” and “Jesus, son of Joseph,” What are the odds that all these names would appear together in one tomb? According to Cameron and Jacobovici, the statistics lean heavily (600 to 1) in their favor.

Or do they?

Actually, the news has broken before. Twenty years ago. And again, eleven years ago.

First of all, this is no carefully carved inscription. The names have been scratched into the soft stone in sprawling and careless handwriting.

The surface is further marred with slanting scratches that cross and blend in with the angular letters. It looks a piece of scrap paper would if you wrote one word, and rather than erasing it, you merely added a few strokes to change it to another word. Or like a battered surface with the
words partially obsured by scratches. Worst-preserved is the first word. Does it say “Yeshua” (Jesus)? Does it say “Chanun?” What in the world does it say?

Needless to say, there’s a little “healthy skepticism” to be applied to this particular documentary. If you’re curious, you can check out the name statistics here. If you’d like to watch an interview, you can visit here. And if you still want to read more, go here or here.