Jesus’ burial site found - film claims

http://www.ynetnews.com ^ | 2/23/07 | Ariella Ringel-Hoffman

[Rb ver. 2.0]

The cave in which Jesus Christ was buried has been found in Jerusalem, claim the makers of a new documentary film.

If it proves true, the discovery, which will be revealed at a press conference in New York Monday, could shake up the Christian world as one of the most significant archeological finds in history.

The coffins which, according to the filmmakers held the remains of Jesus of Nazareth, his mother Mary and Mary Magdalene will be displayed for the first time on Monday in New York.

Jointly produced by Emmy award-winning documentary filmmaker Simcha Jacobovici and Oscar winning director James Cameron, the film tells the exciting and tortuous story of the archaeological discovery.

The story starts in 1980 in Jerusalem’s Talpiyot neighborhood, with the discovery of a 2,000 year old cave containing ten coffins. Six of the ten coffins were carved with inscriptions reading the names: Jesua son of Joseph, Mary, Mary, Matthew, Jofa (Joseph, identified as Jesus’ brother), Judah son of Jesua (Jesus’ son - the filmmakers claim).

Decades of research

The findings in the cave, including the decipherment of the inscriptions, were first revealed about ten years ago by internationally renowned Israeli archeologist Professor Amos Kloner.

Since their discovery, the caskets were kept in the Israeli Antiquities Authority archive in Beit Shemesh, but now two have been sent to New York for their first public exhibition.

Although the cave was discovered nearly 30 years ago and the casket inscriptions decoded ten years ago, the filmmakers are the first to establish that the cave was in fact the burial site of Jesus and his family.

The film, which documents the stages of the discovery, is the result of three years labor and research. It will be broadcast on the international Discovery Channel, Britain's Channel 4, Canada’s Vision and Israel’s Channel 8, which also took part in the film's production.

According to the filmmakers, the film’s claim is based on close work with world-famous scientists, archeologists, statisticians, DNA specialists and antiquities experts.

[cgk]

The Body again, ping.

[happygrl]

Jesus = Joshua, same name.

Whether it made the Top Ten List of Boys Names at the time, I don't know.

[timer]

The devil keeps trying doesn't he? Only suckers buy it of course. Like the carbon dating "proof" that the shroud of turin dates from the 1500s. What they DIDN'T tell you was that the tiny piece tested was from the PATCH that was sewn on by nuns after the church fire melted the casket silver hinges and damaged part of the shroud.

We had a microscopist from John Jackson's team give our church a lecture on the MANY facts that PROVED it's Jesus shroud. I can tell you even more.

[ARCADIA]

From the little I know, here's my take:

1)Everything we know of Christ, from extra biblical, sources indicate that he was poor, from a poor family. I find it hard to believe he had such a grand set up as a crypt for himself and his family.

2)The most important other member of the family (also from extra biblical sources) was his brother James, who was the head of the Christian church in Jerusalem for about 30 years after Christ's death. Yet, he's not buried there.

3)It was uncommon - if not totally unknown - for Jews to be buried in coffins. They were laid out in the tombs - on a shelf carved out from the rock and allowed to decomposed naturally. A year later, the tomb was reopened and the bones gathered an put in a small box (ossuary).

As far as DNA is concerned, I suppose that they can link it to DNA from Jewish stock, maybe even ID it as from the House of David. But, that doesn't prove anything.

My feeling - this is the burial crypt of Romanized Jews (maybe from the House of David), who were relatively wealthy and had names similar to Jesus' family.

Finally, the story of the empty tomb has been documented as far back the first century AD. About 30 years after Christ's death. (There are many explanations for an empty that do not include resurrection, so let's argue about what an empty tomb means.) But, I find it strange that the story could persist with such a grand crypt in the neighborhood.

[Swordmaker]

As I recollect, the "brother of Jesus" part was added in the 4th century as part of a flurry of fraudulence that was associated with the Official Government Acceptance of Christianity.

Nope. The "brother of Jesus" part was added in the workshops of Oded Golan, the guy who owned it and kept the ossuary on top of a toilet.

The Israeli authorities raided the owner's place of business and home and seized hundreds of blatant forgeries including many still in the process of being forged or awaiting sale.

"Israeli police arrest owner of the James ossuary and Joash tablet

After a six-month investigation, Israeli police on Monday arrested antiques collector Oded Golan on charges of fraud, forgery, using forged documents, and perverting the course of justice. In recent days, investigators searched Golan's home and storerooms, including a workroom on his roof where they say he forged antiquities. "A number of other 'antiques' in various stages of production were uncovered," reports the Tel Aviv newspaper Ha'aretz." - Source

The addition is very new, poorly done, and the forger used chemicals to make the engravings appear old. The final phrase is done in an entirely different style, which is strange considering they had the initial phrases style right in front of them.

"The inscription on the “James” ossuary is anomalous. First, it was written by two different people. Second, the scripts are from two different social strata. Third, the first script is a formal inscriptional cursive with added wedges; the second script is partly a commercial cursive and partly archaic cursive. Fourth, it has been gone over by two different carvers of two different levels of competence. - By Dr. Rochelle I. Altman , The Official Report on the James Ossuary

[Lynne]

"Like the ossuary that supposedly had "so-and-so, son of Jesus" on it, that turned out to be a forgery."

Actually, I read a theory somewhere recently (can't remember where though) that speculated the ossuary actually came from this family tomb.

[FourtySeven]

Thanks for posting this, bump!

[Reform4Bush]

Cool article.

Rather than make some silly knee jerk proclamation like 'It's the work of the Devil, don't believe this lie!', I'm interested in watching this and drawing my own conclusions based on their findings and the historical record, rather than rely on some hand picked selection of writings of imperfect men as the ultimate and absolute truth.

[Lancey Howard]

If it proves true

Huh?

[af_vet_rr]

Other than the press conference pushing the film, I don't know why this is being treated as news - we've known about these for at least a decade. There's been several articles at FR about these ossuaries over the past few years, and it was bandied about on usenet for at least a decade. This Jerusalem Post article has a lot more info and is a lot more skeptical.

[Coma toes]

I sure would like to go through that pile of socks

[L.N. Smithee]

The MSM and the Left will get ahold of this one to prove that Jesus died and was buried like everyone else...no resurrection, etc. Oh, and that he also had a family and he was just this regular guy...what's the big deal about Jesus?

They tried with that "Judas' Gospel" nonsense. Thank goodness that didn't take.

[Sans-Culotte]

Actually, the Paul's writings can be read (I do not say, must be read) with the ressurection taking place out of time, rather like the beginning of John (In the Beginning was the Word,...).

Can you give some examples of this? Have you personally read the Pauline epistles in this way? Or has one of the other books you have read made this assertion which you then accepted without checking up on it?

Many books which debunk Christianity will make an assertion which the reader accepts, and passes on to others which may not be true. For example, people will read a novel like The Da Vinci Code in which a character will state things like "well, everyone knows the Jews originally practiced human sacrifice, and worshipped many gods"; or "no one regarded Jesus as divine until a decree from the emperor Constantine officially made Jesus divine". One would only have to do a little reading in the New Testament to see that Jesus was regarded as divine by believers well before the emperor Constantine came along.

So, this is why I ask if you have actually read Paul's letters in a way which it seems that Paul is describing a "philosophical" Jesus, or have you merely accepted a factoid that you read elsewhere? If you can find examples of this in Paul's writings, please share them with me.

[Lucky2]

The only proof here is that Satan is alive and well and he's using James Cameron and Time Magazine to do his dirty work.

[49th]

The speed of light only changes when moving through a medium other than vacum. In vacum the speed of light is constant. In a vacum, you will observe the same speed of light whether you are moving or not and whether the object emitting the light is moving or not.

[lastchance]

Consider this. The tomb of Jesus was very well guarded.
How did someone get the bones and hide them away? Did the Roman guards even knowing the penalty for this, conspire with Jesus' followers to remove the bones from the tomb?
Did the Jewish and Roman authorities who had much at stake in proving that Jesus was just another sect leader decide not to expose this theft? If the ressurection never happened what harm would there have been in Jesus' followers simply saying He was a wise teacher meant to show how to live in perfect accord with God's word? Would that view not have lead to a pilgrimages to the tomb of this great man?

The bones of Christ are not here. The resurrection is True. From that Truth the apostles were able to take hope and spread the faith. Defeated, demoralized,scattered, it was their witnessing of the Risen Christ that breathed new life into them. No mere vision or expression of their desire that He was still with them. They really saw, heard, touched the Savior.

So these liars can mutter their foolishness quite frankly they are farting in the wind. Making a big stink that soon gets blown away.

[Vicomte13]

"The speed of light only changes when moving through a medium other than vacum."

That "only" pretty much embraces the field of human experience, doesn't it? Only the tiniest sliver of light seen in human experience is seen passing through a vacuum. All of the other light we see...99.9999% of it...it at a speed slower than that of light in vacuum. The speed of light on Earth is not "C vacuum", because there is no vacuum to speak of on Earth.

[donmeaker]

As I recall, the Romans refused to put guards on the tomb, rather suggesting that the Sanhedrin put their own security on the job (rather like having Pinkertons or Brinks do the job today.)

[donmeaker]

Buddhists use cremation. The bones of Buddha are also not here.

In fact, most of the pharohs are not available to us because of the salubrious practice of the British, who burned mummies to fuel their locomotives.

Mark Twain recounted an train engineer calling for more power:

"These plebians don't burn worth a cent! Throw on a king!"

[49th]

Well, I guess it depends on your perspective. Considering that the maximum extent of the Earth's atmosphere is around 120 kilometers and that light, upon reaching it, is traveling at around 1,079,252,848.8 km/h, I don't think the 3.088556x10(-7) seconds that it spends passing through the atmosphere is going to have much of an appreciable effect.

Absolutely, there is some slowing going on, but it's so little as to be effectively zero.