Dr. Bock

Speaking solely about the statistical analysis, I think you're vastly oversimplifying. You wrote above "The chances of the people in the ossuaries being the Jesus and Mary Magdalene of the New Testament must be very small indeed", citing that 21% of Jewish women were called Mary, etc.

However if you have taken any mathematical statistics classes, or are familiar with card-game odds calculations, you would know that the important thing is the odds of the combination of items, not the odds of any one item.

For example, using the name frequency numbers you provided, the name Jesus occurs 1 in 12.8, Joseph occurs 1 in 5.8, and Mary occurs 1 in 5. Since there are two Marys, the combined probability is 1/12.8 x 1/5.8 x 1/5 x 1/5 which is around 1 in 1856 (1/1856), which is a very rare event.

Of course there are other names involved in the tomb, which complicate the statistics even further, but I would suggest that you be aware that the odds of drawing a royal flush (1 in 649739) are much, much greater than the odds of drawing an ace itself, or the king, or queen, etc.