Definitive Rebuttal to “Jesus’ Family Tomb” Claims Now Available

Spring 2007 saw the sensational claims by a new book and a Discovery Channel broadcast that the family tomb of Jesus had been discovered in the south Jerusalem Talpiot neighborhood.  The Ted Koppel special aired immediately afterwards pitted one of the book’s authors and a maverick scholar who supported him against a team of four biblical scholars, theologians and archeologists from evangelical, mainline Protestant and Catholic perspectives.  Now an outstanding anthology of scholarly responses to the claims about Jesus’ family tomb is available: Charles Quarles’ edited volume entitled Buried Hope or Risen Savior? The Search for the Jesus Tomb (Nashville: B & H, 2008). 

Quarles’ introduction tells the story of the book’s and documentary’s claims and the succession of responses it triggered in 2007.  Archaeologist Steven Ortiz then contrasts responsible analysis of material sources with the kinds of unsubstantiated claims made in this instance.  He notes that a pattern of pseudo-scholarship can often be detected by the recurring elements of a new writer who is not a trained archaeologist claiming to overturn all previous views on a subject by a “new find,” complete with a detective-like movie made by a crew conveniently present for the “discovery,” which has actually been known about for some time, already discussed in the standard scholarly circles, and not found to be significant in the way the new claim insists that it is.  This is the exact pattern that occurred in the case of the Talpiot tomb story.

Craig Evans proceeds to highlight three key features of the Talpiot tomb that make it unlikely to have included Christ’s gravesite.  First, the inscription on the ossuary supposedly of Jesus is very difficult to read precisely at the point where it is said to have the Hebrew "Yeshua."  Second, the decorative symbols on the ossuaries and above the tomb’s entrance are not Christian but standard Jewish symbols used already well before the time of Christ.  Finally, the missing ossuary supposed to be that of James cannot be because the space does not match the dimensions of the so-called James ossuary, which itself created quite a stir just a few years ago.  What is more, the tomb itself is shaped like a mausoleum, and the ossuaries are “fancy” enough that the tomb must have belonged to a wealthy family.  Even if subsequent generations descended from Joseph and Mary came into such wealth (and we have no evidence that they did), they would not have exhumed the remains of earlier generations merely to rebury them.  Descendants were laid to rest with their ancestors, not vice-versa.  And Jesus’ family members at the time of his death can scarcely be said to have been better off than what we would call lower middle-class.

More to come. . .