Examining the Christian Arguments Against Cameron's Claims

**UPDATE: Looks like I was right to be skeptical.**

So now the book is coming out, which will detail the claims and the evidence, along with the movie, which I have embedded the trailer of below. The book should help us to know how likely this tomb really is to be that of Jesus of the Bible.

As I said, I'm not convinced about Cameron's claims; time will give me more evidence to know one way or the other. However, since I was pointed to a few Christian responses to the new claims about the tomb of Jesus being Jesus of the Bible, I want to examine them for their merits, in order to help me decide if Cameron's claims are more likely or less likely. The first is Stands to Reason, who forwards a correspondence from Paul L. Maier, Ph.D., Litt.D, History Dept. of WMU:

1) Nothing is new here: scholars have known about the ossuaries ever since March of 1980. The general public learned when the BBC filmed a documentary on them in 1996. James Tabor’s book, The Jesus Dynasty, also made a big fuss over the Talpiot tombs more recently, and now James Cameron (The Titanic) and Simcha Jacobovici have climbed aboard the sensationalist bandwagon as well. He [sic]

No one is claiming that the find is new, so I don't see how this is highly relevant. The reason this movie and documentary are coming out now, they claim, is that the DNA work has been completed, and the names on the ossuaries have all [finally] been translated. Point 1 is weak.

2) All the names – Yeshua, Joseph, Maria, Mariamene, Matia, Judah, and Jose -- are extremely frequent Jewish names for that time and place, and thus most schol-ars consider this merely coincidental, as they did from the start. One-quarter of Jewish women at that time, for example, were named Maria.

This seems to be the best question to ask, "How likely is it that there is another family, of the same relational status (with the same names and same DNA heredity) as that claimed for Jesus of the Bible, in Jerusalem in the 1st CE?" Well...so far, Christians have admitted the numbers, while claiming that it isn't very likely:

Here are the details on names provided to me by Prof Richard Bauckham of St. Andrews and sourced in a famous catalogue of ossuary names that has been out since 2002 with the information known about this locale since c. 1980.:

“Out of a total number of 2625 males, these are the figures for the ten most popular male names among Palestinian Jews. The first figure is the total number of occurrences (from this number, with 2625 as the total for all names, you could calculate percentages), while the second is the number of occurrences specifically on ossuraries.

1 Simon/Simeon 243 59
2 Joseph 218 45
3 Eleazar 166 29
4 Judah 164 44
5 John/Yohanan 122 25
6 Jesus 99 22
7 Hananiah 82 18
8 Jonathan 71 14
9 Matthew 62 17
10 Manaen/Menahem 42 4

For women, we have a total of 328 occurrences (women's names are much less often recorded than men's), and figures for the 4 most popular names are thus:

Mary/Mariamne 70 42
Salome 58 41
Shelamzion 24 19
Martha 20 17

You can see at once that all the names you're interested were extremely popular. 21% of Jewish women were called Mariamne (Mary). The chances of the people in the ossuaries being the Jesus and Mary Magdalene of the New Testament must be very small indeed.”

Once I saw these numbers, I was a bit surprised that the Christians tried to spin them as they did. Simply put, if only 218 and 99 out of 2625 males [8.30%, 3.77%] and 70 out of 328 females [21.3%] have these names, then a basic probability calculation based on randomness, determining the probability that Joseph, Jesus, Mary and Mary would be buried together, would tell you that: (218/2625) * (99/2625) * (70/328) * (70/328) is the probability that these would all occur in an interdependent fashion, assuming random distribution and based on the sample sizes for the population in general. That number is: 105,751,800/741,321,000,000, or 0.00014265, or .0143 out of 100.

I don't know how safe it is to assume a random distribution, but any way you spin this, the numbers don't make your case extremely strong. Furthermore, this is ignoring the familial relationship, which would, indeed make these odds even more staggering given extra probability factors for the likelihood that a man named Joseph and a woman named Mary would sire a man named Jesus, who would be buried with a wife named Mary Magdalene. Those odds would become astronomical.

If you took any one, or two of these admittedly common names and threw them together, then sure, no big deal. But in doing a careful statistical analysis, I don't think that Christians have a strong case here. Ancient Palestine was not nearly so large as we would think, with both Shiloh and Broshi estimating the region's maximum urban population during the Roman-Byzantine era at 372,000, and Palestine's entire maximal population at a million. Broshi estimates this maximum occurring at about 600 CE, but the socio-economic conditions he uses provide an upper limit for any point during the entire period. It is likely that 1st CE Palestine had less than did 7th CE, but let's be generous.

If we assume half are men, half women, then apply the percentages above, we see that there are likely to be about 15,440 people named Joseph, 7,010 named Jesus and 39,620 named Mary in urban areas at that time, and 2.688 times each of those for the entire population of Palestine (rural+urban). It seems reasonable to limit the possibilities of interest here to the urban population, given that neither Jesus nor his family are peasants, but instead are able to travel freely and practice a skilled trade.

Thus, at the end of the day, the probabilities of finding a tomb with one or two or three of these names is not conclusive, but finding the hereditary relationship and the four names is quite significant, whether Christians like it or not. Point 2 is what I think this all hangs on.

3) There is no reason whatever to equate “Mary Magdalene” with “Mariamene,” as Jacobovici claims.

Having no knowledge of languages, I will leave this one alone, but it seems odd, given that the inscription is plainly available for view, that a major claim would be this wrong. Anyone can view and translate it. Hmmm...

4) So what if her DNA is different from that of “Yeshua” ? That particular "Mariamme” (as it is usually spelled today) could indeed have been the wife of that particular “Yeshua.”

Again, it isn't really about one relationship, it's the question of how likely this entire family is to be the family of interest, based on several criteria.

5) What in the world is the “Jesus Family” doing, having a burial plot in Jerusalem, of all places, the very city that crucified Jesus? Galilee was their home. In Galilee they could have had such a family plot, not Judea. Besides all of which, church tradition – and Eusebius – are unanimous in reporting that Mary died in Ephesus, where the apostle John, faithful to his commission from Jesus on the cross, had accompanied Mary.

This may or may not be a strong point, but I don't see how one couldn't reconcile the notion that Eusebius had reliable information with this finding, if it is true. Moving bones from one place to another is hardly unheard of in those times. Especially if another part of the family is buried elsewhere.

6) If this were Jesus’ family burial, what is Matthew doing there – if indeed “Ma-tia” is thus to be translated?

I don't know if this does anything to detract from it. This doesn't have to be the Matthew of the Bible, first and foremost. Second, the last biblical mention of Matthew is in Acts, in Jerusalem. Third, Matthew could very well have requested to have been buried with his teacher, or perhaps he was the one who moved all their remains to his tomb and thus was buried there himself.

7) How come there is no tradition whatever – Christian, Jewish, or secular -- that any part of the Holy Family was buried at Jerusalem?

This is an argument from silence, which suits Christians well here, but suits them very poorly in defense of the life of Jesus from contemporary secular sources. Christians do believe that Jesus was buried here, they just don't believe he stayed buried here. So far as I know, Christians don't have a reliable source to point to where Jesus' family was buried, although of course Catholics believe Mary ascended. Further, I don't know how to even analyze this claim at all, since I'm not familiar with how early these traditions are, aside from Josephus, and given that we all know that he never mentioned Jesus' tomb one way or the other. It seems quite reasonable that if Jesus was crucified in Jerusalem that he would've been buried there. Then, it seems reasonable to assume that his family would've wanted to have been buried with him if they could've been. This point is weak, as it hinges on the argument from silence and turns on an assumption that is unfounded.

8) Please note the extreme bias of the director and narrator, Simcha Jacobovici. The man is an Indiana-Jones-wannabe, who oversensationalizes anything he touches. You may have caught him on his TV special regarding The Exodus, in which the man “explained” just everything that still needed proving or explaining in the Exodus account in the Old Testament! It finally became ludicrous, and now he’s doing it again. – As for James Cameron, how do you follow The Titanic? Well, with an even more “titanic” story. He should have known better.

Argumentum ad hominem -- attacking the character of the person presenting evidence, rather than addressing the evidence itself. Either the evidence stands or falls, the person who found it doesn't matter. Point 8 is pitiful.

I think the 2nd point -- about statistical likelihood, is what all of this is contingent upon. There is, really, no way to prove any particular Jesus that one digs up from the 1st CE is the Jesus of the Bible, aside from the other things found in the tomb with that Jesus. In this case, I think the names of the family, and the correct hereditary relationships, is the crux of the issue. Simply not knowing how he got there, or pointing to a lack of tradition, doesn't present any serious refutation to the claims. I will reserve personal judgment until I see more data on the statistics and perhaps read the book.
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