The Talpiot Tomb is a rock-cut tomb discovered in 1980 in the East Talpiot

East Talpiot

East Talpiot is a neighborhood in southeastern Jerusalem, established in 1973 in the upswing of building that followed the Six-Day War. The neighborhood is located in East Jerusalem, unilaterally annexed to Israel but internationally recognized as being a part of the West Bank...

 neighborhood, five kilometers south of the Old City in East Jerusalem

East Jerusalem

East Jerusalem or Eastern Jerusalem refer to the parts of Jerusalem captured and annexed by Jordan in the 1948 Arab-Israeli War and then captured and annexed by Israel in the 1967 Six-Day War...

. It contained ten ossuaries

Ossuary

An ossuary is a chest, building, well, or site made to serve as the final resting place of human skeletal remains. They are frequently used where burial space is scarce. A body is first buried in a temporary grave, then after some years the skeletal remains are removed and placed in an ossuary...

, six of them with epigraph

Epigraphy

Epigraphy Epigraphy Epigraphy (from the , literally "on-writing", is the study of inscriptions or epigraphs as writing; that is, the science of identifying the graphemes and of classifying their use as to cultural context and date, elucidating their meaning and assessing what conclusions can be...

s, including one with the inscription that has been interpreted as "Jesus, son of Joseph", though this text is disputed. The tomb also yielded various human remains and several carvings.

The Talpiot find was first published in 1994 in "Catalogue of Jewish Ossuaries in the Collections of the State of Israel" numbers 701-709, and first discussed in the media in Britain during March/April 1996. Later in 1996, an article describing the find was published in volume 29 of Atiqot, the journal of the Israel Antiquities Authority

Israel Antiquities Authority

The Israel Antiquities Authority is an independent Israeli governmental authority responsible for enforcing the 1978 Law of Antiquities. The IAA regulates excavation and conservation, and promotes research...

. A controversial 2007 documentary film produced by Canadian film director James Cameron

James Cameron

James Francis Cameron is a Canadian-American film director, film producer, screenwriter, editor, environmentalist and inventor...

 and investigative journalist Simcha Jacobovici

Simcha Jacobovici

Simcha Jacobovici is a Canadian film director, producer, free-lance journalist, and writer. He is a three-times Emmy winner for Outstanding Investigative Journalism....

 titled The Lost Tomb of Jesus

The Lost Tomb of Jesus

The Lost Tomb of Jesus is a documentary co-produced and first broadcast on the Discovery Channel and Vision TV in Canada on March 4, 2007, covering the discovery of the Talpiot Tomb. It was directed by Canadian documentary and film maker Simcha Jacobovici and produced by Felix Golubev and Ric...

and a book written by Jacobovici, together with Charles Pellegrino, The Jesus Family Tomb

The Jesus Family Tomb

The Jesus Family Tomb: The Discovery, the Investigation, and the Evidence That Could Change History is a controversial book by Simcha Jacobovici and Charles R. Pellegrino published in February 2007...

present findings that the authors believe prove that the Talpiot Tomb was the burial place of Jesus

Jesus

Jesus of Nazareth , commonly referred to as Jesus Christ or simply as Jesus or Christ, is the central figure of Christianity...

 of Nazareth

Nazareth

Nazareth is the largest city in the North District of Israel. Known as "the Arab capital of Israel," the population is made up predominantly of Palestinian Arab citizens of Israel...

, as well as several other figures from the New Testament

New Testament

The New Testament is the second major division of the Christian biblical canon, the first such division being the much longer Old Testament....

. This claim is disputed by many archaeologists and theologians, as well as language and biblical

Bible

The Bible refers to any one of the collections of the primary religious texts of Judaism and Christianity. There is no common version of the Bible, as the individual books , their contents and their order vary among denominations...

 scholars.

History

The archaeological team that excavated the tomb in 1980 determined it to be from the Second Temple

Second Temple

The Jewish Second Temple was an important shrine which stood on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem between 516 BCE and 70 CE. It replaced the First Temple which was destroyed in 586 BCE, when the Jewish nation was exiled to Babylon...

 period, which lasted from about 538 B.C. to A.D. 70. Typical of the area, a tomb of this type would be assumed to have belonged to a wealthy Jewish family. About 900 similar tombs have been unearthed in the same area.

Discovery and excavation

The tomb was discovered on March 28, 1980, by construction workers laying the foundations for an apartment complex, when preparatory demolition work accidentally uncovered the tomb's entrance. The site was visited the next day by Amos Kloner

Amos Kloner

Amos Kloner is an archaeologist and professor emeritusin the Martin Szusz Department of the Land of Israel Studies at the Bar Ilan University in Ramat Gan, Israel, where he teaches Hellenistic, Roman and Byzantine archaeology....

, the area supervisor for the Israel Department of Antiquities

Israel Antiquities Authority

The Israel Antiquities Authority is an independent Israeli governmental authority responsible for enforcing the 1978 Law of Antiquities. The IAA regulates excavation and conservation, and promotes research...

 (IDA, now the Israel Antiquities Authority, or IAA.) Kloner drew up a set of preliminary sketches and requested a permit for a salvage dig to be directed by Yosef Gath. The permit was issued Monday, March 31, but work actually began the day before. Although it has been said that the team was only given three days to complete the work, Gath's notes indicate that the work proceeded "intermittently" until its official end on April 11, with most of the work completed within the first two days.

Construction of the apartment buildings was completed in 1982. The children of Tova Bracha, a local resident, managed to get into the tomb and play inside. Bracha notified the authorities, who sealed the entrance for safety reasons. The children found some discarded Jewish religious texts that had been placed in the tomb, which was being used as a genizah

Genizah

A genizah is the store-room or depository in a Jewish synagogue , usually specifically for worn-out Hebrew-language books and papers on religious topics that were stored there before they could receive a proper cemetery burial, it being forbidden to throw away writings...

.

Jacobovici and his film crew opened the tomb again in 2005. Their footage was incorporated into the 2007 documentary The Lost Tomb of Jesus. As Jacobovici and his crew had neglected to obtain permission from the Antiques Authority, an official ordered that the tomb be resealed. The tomb, which is not open to the public, is located in a courtyard on Dov Gruner

Dov Gruner

Dov Gruner was a Jewish Zionist leader born in Kisvárda, Hungary on December 6, 1912. On April 19, 1947, he was executed by the British Mandatory authorities in Palestine on the charge of "firing on policemen, and setting explosive charges with the intent of killing personnel on His Majesty's...

 Street, down a flight of stairs at the corner of Olei Hagardom

Olei Hagardom

Olei Hagardom refers to members of the pre-state Jewish underground who were tried in British Mandate courts and sentenced to death by hanging, most of them in Acre prison...

 and Avshalom Haviv Streets. On January 17, 2008, Ruth Gat, the widow of the archaeologist who discovered the tomb in Talpiot, claimed that Yosef Gat had kept the discovery a secret until mid-1990s because he was afraid a wave of anti-Semitism would ensue if he didn't do so.

Layout

The tomb is carved from the solid limestone

Limestone

Limestone is a sedimentary rock composed largely of the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different crystal forms of calcium carbonate . Many limestones are composed from skeletal fragments of marine organisms such as coral or foraminifera....

 bedrock

Bedrock

In stratigraphy, bedrock is the native consolidated rock underlying the surface of a terrestrial planet, usually the Earth. Above the bedrock is usually an area of broken and weathered unconsolidated rock in the basal subsoil...

. Within are six kokhim

Kokhim

Kokh is a type of tomb complex characterized by a series of long narrow shafts, in which the deceased were placed for burial, radiating from a central chamber...

, or burial shafts and two arcosolia

Arcosolium

An arcosolium is an arched recess used as a place of entombment. The word is from Latin arcus, "arch", and solium, "sill" ....

, or arched shelves where a body could be laid out for entombment. The ossuaries were found within the shafts.

Ossuaries

Ten limestone ossuaries

Ossuary

An ossuary is a chest, building, well, or site made to serve as the final resting place of human skeletal remains. They are frequently used where burial space is scarce. A body is first buried in a temporary grave, then after some years the skeletal remains are removed and placed in an ossuary...

 were found, with six of them bearing epigraphs although only four of them were recognized as such in the field. The archaeological team determined the ossuaries to be of little note, and delivered them to the Rockefeller Museum

Rockefeller Museum

The Rockefeller Museum, formerly the Palestine Archaeological Museum, is an archaeological museum located in East Jerusalem that houses a large collection of artifacts unearthed in the excavations conducted in Ottoman Palestine beginning in the late 19th century.The museum is under the management...

 for analysis and storage.

According to Jacobovici, Cameron, and religious studies professor James Tabor, one of the unmarked ossuaries later disappeared when it was stored in a courtyard outside the museum. This claim has been criticized by both Joe Zias, former curator

Curator

A curator is a manager or overseer. Traditionally, a curator or keeper of a cultural heritage institution is a content specialist responsible for an institution's collections and involved with the interpretation of heritage material...

 of the museum, and Kloner.

Names said to have been on the ossuaries were:

• Yeshua bar Yehosef
• Maria
• Yose
  Jose
  Jose is the English transliteration of the Hebrew and Aramaic name Yose, which is etymologically linked to Yosef or Joseph. The name was popular during the Mishnaic and Talmudic periods.*Jose ben Jochanan*Jose the Galilean...
  
  
• Yehuda bar Yeshua
• Maramene e Mara
• Matya

Each of the ten ossuaries contained human remains, said to be in an "advanced state of deterioration" by Amos Kloner. The tomb may have been multigenerational, with several generations of bones stored in each ossuary, but no record was kept of their contents and no analysis appears to have been done to determine how many individuals were represented by the bones found. In addition, three skulls were found on the floor of the tomb below the 0.5 metre fill layer, and crushed bones were found in the fill upon the arcosolia. The scattering of these bones below the fill indicated that the tomb had been disturbed in antiquity. All the bones were eventually turned over to religious authorities for burial.

Symbols

Some of the walls have carvings on them, including several chevron symbols. A "chevron and circle" pattern is visible above the entrance of the tomb. Some believe this is a depiction of the Nicanor Gate of the Temple of Jerusalem, which appears on coins from this period. In the same way that the Nicanor gate marked the end of a pilgrimage

Pilgrimage

A pilgrimage is a journey or search of great moral or spiritual significance. Typically, it is a journey to a shrine or other location of importance to a person's beliefs and faith...

, the entrance to the tomb may have marked the end of a pilgrimage. Some have noted that the chevron and circle look like the Greek letters Lambda

Lambda

Lambda is the 11th letter of the Greek alphabet. In the system of Greek numerals lambda has a value of 30. Lambda is related to the Phoenician letter Lamed . Letters in other alphabets that stemmed from lambda include the Roman L and the Cyrillic letter El...

 and Omicron

Omicron

Omicron is the 15th letter of the Greek alphabet. In the system of Greek numerals it has a value of 70. It is rarely used in mathematics because it is indistinguishable from the Latin letter O and easily confused with the digit 0...

, respectively; others contend that the Paleo-Hebrew letters Daleth and Ayin

Ayin

' or ' is the sixteenth letter in many Semitic abjads, including Phoenician, Aramaic, Hebrew and Arabic . It is the twenty-first letter in the new Persian alphabet...

 would be more likely referents.

Media coverage

The BBC first aired a documentary

Documentary film

Documentary films constitute a broad category of nonfictional motion pictures intended to document some aspect of reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction or maintaining a historical record...

 on the Talpiot Tomb in 1996 as part of its Heart of the Matter news magazine. At that time, Amos Kloner, the first archaeologist to examine the site said the claims of a connection to Jesus did not hold up archaeologically, adding "They just want to get money for it." Others were similarly skeptical, though another of the archaeologists who discovered the tomb admitted "I'm willing to accept the possibility."

The tomb was featured on the Today Show on February 26, 2007, where it was mentioned that the ossuaries were sent to New York

New York City

New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

.

2008 Princeton Symposium

Following a symposium ("Third Princeton Theological Seminary Symposium on Jewish Views of the Afterlife and Burial Practices in Second Temple Judaism: Evaluating the Talpiot Tomb in Context") held in Jerusalem in January 2008, the media interest in the Talpiot tomb was reignited with most notably Time

Time (magazine)

Time is an American news magazine. A European edition is published from London. Time Europe covers the Middle East, Africa and, since 2003, Latin America. An Asian edition is based in Hong Kong...

and CNN

CNN

Cable News Network is a U.S. cable news channel founded in 1980 by Ted Turner. Upon its launch, CNN was the first channel to provide 24-hour television news coverage, and the first all-news television channel in the United States...

 devoting extensive coverage, hailing the case as being reopened. In particular Simcha Jacobovici is reported to have issued statements to the press saying the symposium has reopened the case and that he felt "totally vindicated". Jacobovici has denied making any such press release.

It was during this symposium that Ruth Gat, while accepting a posthumous award for Yosef Gat, announced: "My husband, the lead archaeologist of the East Talpiot tomb in southern Jerusalem, believed that the tomb he excavated in 1980 was, indeed, the tomb of Jesus of Nazareth and his family."

Following the media's portrayal scholars present at the symposium accused Simcha Jacobovici

Simcha Jacobovici

Simcha Jacobovici is a Canadian film director, producer, free-lance journalist, and writer. He is a three-times Emmy winner for Outstanding Investigative Journalism....

 and James Cameron

James Cameron

James Francis Cameron is a Canadian-American film director, film producer, screenwriter, editor, environmentalist and inventor...

 of misleading the media in claiming the symposium reopened their theory as viable. Several scholars, including significantly all of the archaeologists and epigraphers, who had delivered papers at the symposium issued an open letter of complaint claiming misrepresentation, saying that Jacobovici and Cameron's claims of support from the symposium are "nothing further from the truth".

The list of scholars who signed the open letter's criticism included:

• Professor Jodi Magness, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
• Professor Eric M. Meyers, Duke University
• Choon-Leon Seow, Princeton Theological Seminary
• F.W. Dobbs-Allsopp, Princeton Theological Seminary
• Lee McDonald, Princeton Theological Seminary, visiting
• Rachel Hachlili, Haifa University
• Motti Aviam, University of Rochester
• Amos Kloner, Bar Ilan University
• Christopher Rollston, Emmanuel School of Religion
• Shimon Gibson, University of North Carolina at Charlotte
• Joe Zias, Science and Antiquity Group, Jerusalem
• Jonathan Price, Tel Aviv University
• C.D. Elledge, Gutavus Adolphus College

Joe Zias, Senior Curator of Archaeology/Anthropology for the Israel Antiquities Authority 1972-1997, cited a leaked memo issued from James Tabor before the symposium as proof of "outside intervention by Simcha and Tabor in order to distort the agenda and skew the proceedings in a way that was favorable to their pre-conceived plan". Geza Vermes

Geza Vermes

Géza Vermes or Vermès is a British scholar of Jewish Hungarian origin and writer on religious history, particularly Jewish and Christian. He is a noted authority on the Dead Sea Scrolls and other ancient works in Aramaic, and on the life and religion of Jesus...

 issued a statement saying that the arguments for the Talpiot tomb are not "just unconvincing but insignificant". That "Discounting a handful, headed by James Tabor and Simcha Jacobovici, the maker of the documentary, The Lost Tomb of Jesus, most of the fifty or so participants shared this opinion".

Princeton Theological Seminary issued a letter following the controversy and reiterated concerns that:

"the press following the symposium gave almost the exact opposite impression (of the symposium's results), stating, instead, that the conference proceedings gave credence to the identification of the Talpiot tomb with a putative family tomb of Jesus of Nazareth. As is abundantly clear from the statements to the contrary that have been issued since the symposium by many of the participants, such representations are patently false and blatantly misrepresent the spirit and scholarly content of the deliberations."

The proceedings of the symposium will be edited by James Charlesworth and published.

A recent edition of the scientific journal Near Eastern Archaeology (Vol. 69, Iss. 3/4, Sep-Dec 2006), published by The American Schools of Oriental Research contains several articles concerning the Talpiot Tomb, including an overview over the controversy.

The Lost Tomb of Jesus and The Jesus Family Tomb

The Lost Tomb of Jesus premiered on The Discovery Channel

Discovery Channel

Discovery Channel is an American satellite and cable specialty channel , founded by John Hendricks and distributed by Discovery Communications. It is a publicly traded company run by CEO David Zaslav...

 on March 4, 2007, timed to coordinate with publication of Jacobovici's book The Jesus Family Tomb.

Jacobovici argues that the bones of Jesus

Jesus

Jesus of Nazareth , commonly referred to as Jesus Christ or simply as Jesus or Christ, is the central figure of Christianity...

, Mary

Mary (mother of Jesus)

Mary , commonly referred to as "Saint Mary", "Mother Mary", the "Virgin Mary", the "Blessed Virgin Mary", or "Mary, Mother of God", was a Jewish woman of Nazareth in Galilee...

 and Mary Magdalene

Mary Magdalene

Mary Magdalene was one of Jesus' most celebrated disciples, and the most important woman disciple in the movement of Jesus. Jesus cleansed her of "seven demons", conventionally interpreted as referring to complex illnesses...

, along with some of their relatives, were once entombed in this cave, working with statistician

Statistician

A statistician is someone who works with theoretical or applied statistics. The profession exists in both the private and public sectors. The core of that work is to measure, interpret, and describe the world and human activity patterns within it...

s, archaeologists, historians, DNA

DNA

Deoxyribonucleic acid is a nucleic acid that contains the genetic instructions used in the development and functioning of all known living organisms . The DNA segments that carry this genetic information are called genes, but other DNA sequences have structural purposes, or are involved in...

 experts, robot-camera technicians, epigraphers

Epigraphy

Epigraphy Epigraphy Epigraphy (from the , literally "on-writing", is the study of inscriptions or epigraphs as writing; that is, the science of identifying the graphemes and of classifying their use as to cultural context and date, elucidating their meaning and assessing what conclusions can be...

 and a forensic expert to argue his case. This claim is rejected by most biblical scholars of archaeology.

Israeli archaeologist Amos Kloner, who was among the first to examine the tomb when it was first discovered, said the names marked on the coffins were very common at the time. "I don't accept the news that it was used by Jesus or his family," he told the BBC News website. "The documentary filmmakers are using it to sell their film."

In 2011 Tabor and Jacobovici examined (although without fully excavating) the previously unexcavated 1st century Jewish tomb next to the alleged 'Jesus Family tomb'. The results of that examination have not yet been released. Tabor has indicated that they will be released at a press conference in November 2011, and in a forthcoming book.

Statistical analysis

A central question has regarded the probability that a tomb might contain the specific group of names as the Talpiot Tomb. Experts such as Richard Bauckham

Richard Bauckham

Richard Bauckham is a widely published scholar in theology, historical theology and New Testament. He is currently working on New Testament Christology and the Gospel of John as a Senior Scholar at Ridley Hall, Cambridge....

, David Mavorah and Amos Kloner have asserted the commonness of archaeological inscriptions bearing the name "Jesus." Paul Maier, professor of ancient history at Western Michigan University, notes that there were at least 21 "Yeshuas" or Jesuses famous enough to be included in the histories of Josephus

Josephus

Titus Flavius Josephus , also called Joseph ben Matityahu , was a 1st-century Romano-Jewish historian and hagiographer of priestly and royal ancestry who recorded Jewish history, with special emphasis on the 1st century AD and the First Jewish–Roman War, which resulted in the Destruction of...

.
For their part, the filmmakers present a statistical study conducted by Andrey Feuerverger, professor of statistics and mathematics at the University of Toronto

University of Toronto

The University of Toronto is a public research university in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, situated on the grounds that surround Queen's Park. It was founded by royal charter in 1827 as King's College, the first institution of higher learning in Upper Canada...

, which concluded that while the names are not uncommon, the conservative odds that such names would be found together in any one tomb around are (depending on variables) from 600 to 1 to 1,000,000 to 1 in favor of it being authentic.

However, Dr. Feuerverger later said, "It is not in the purview of statistics to conclude whether or not this tombsite is that of the New Testament family. Any such conclusion much more rightfully belongs to the purview of biblical historical scholars who are in a much better position to assess the assumptions entering into the computations. The role of statistics here is primarily to attempt to assess the odds of an equally (or more) 'compelling' cluster of names arising purely by chance under certain random sampling assumptions and under certain historical assumptions. In this respect I now believe that I should not assert any conclusions connecting this tomb with any hypothetical one of the NT family." Dr. Feuerverger's assessment was based on several assumptions:

• that the Maria on one of the ossuaries is the mother of the Jesus found on another box
• that Mariamne is his wife
• that Joseph (inscribed as the nickname Jose) is his brother

Support for these assumptions comes, according to the documentary, from the following claims:

• Mariamne is the Greek form of Marya and, according to Francois Bovon, the name describes Mary Magdelene in the Acts of Philip
• Mary Magdelene is believed to have spoken and preached in Greek
• Jose was the nickname used for Jesus' little brother
• The Talpiot Tomb is the only place where ossuaries have ever been found with the names Mariamne and Jose, even though the root forms of the name were very popular and thousands of ossuaries have been unearthed

Further information regarding the methodology of this study is due to be published soon.

On February 25, 2007, Andrey Feuerverger, professor of statistics and mathematics at the University of Toronto conducted a statistical calculation on the name cluster as part of The Lost Tomb of Jesus. He concluded that the odds are at least 600 to 1 that the combination of names appeared in the tomb by chance. The methodology of this study has been submitted to a journal, but in the meantime a summary can be found on the Discovery Channel and documentary websites. A more detailed explanation of the statistical approach can be found also on Feuerverger's website as well as in a recent interview given to Scientific American. The frequency distribution for names prevalent during the
period of time during which ossuary burials took place was inferred by studying two key sources:

• Rahmani's Catalogue of Jewish Ossuaries in the Collections of the State of Israel
• Tal Ilan's Lexicon of Jewish Names in Late Antiquity

According to Prof. Feuerverger, the goal of the statistical analysis is to assess the probability level of a null hypothesis

Null hypothesis

The practice of science involves formulating and testing hypotheses, assertions that are capable of being proven false using a test of observed data. The null hypothesis typically corresponds to a general or default position...

:

A 'null hypothesis' can be thought of here as asserting that this cluster of names arose purely by chance under random sampling from the onomasticon. The alternative hypothesis is the opposite of this, in some sense. It is not in the purview of statistics to conclude whether or not this tombsite is that of the New Testament family.

Feuerverger multiplied the instances that each name appeared during the tomb's time period with the instances of every other name. He initially found "Jesus Son of Joseph" appeared once out of 190 times, Mariamne appeared once out of 160 times and so on:

Jesus son of Joseph	Mariamne	Yosah	Maria	Product
1/190	1/160	1/20	1/4	date=1/2,432,000
0.53%	0.625%	5%	25%

He next divided 2,432,000 by 4 to account for bias in the historical record and further divided that result (608,000) by 1,000 to attempt to account for the number of explored tombs from first century Jerusalem.

Feuerverger's conclusions have been called into question:

• According to some, multiplying the individual name probabilities is wrong because many permutations of the same names are possible.
• The inclusion of Mariamne in the calculation is based on two assumptions:
  • Mary Magdelene in New Testament
    New Testament
    The New Testament is the second major division of the Christian biblical canon, the first such division being the much longer Old Testament....
    
     (NT) was Jesus’ wife. (There is no historical evidence for this.)
  • Mary Magdelene’s real name was Mariamne. (This assumption is disputed by some experts.)

• The calculation adjusts only for the 1,000 tombs found in Jerusalem instead of the whole Jewish populace that lived in the area. This effectively assumes that Jesus family in NT did indeed have a family tomb and it was among the 1000 tombs found in Jerusalem area. There is no historical evidence for this assumption. Some experts, including archaeologist Amos Kloner (the one who excavated the tombs) do not accept that the poor family from Nazareth had a family tomb in Jerusalem.

• The inscription “Judah son of Jesus” is ignored in the calculation. Since there is no historical evidence that Jesus had any children, some people believe this inscription should be included in the calculation to reduce the probability that the tomb belongs to the Jesus family.

Randy Ingermanson and Jay Cost did their own statistical analysis in which they looked at the probabilities given various assumptions.

• What they called a 'typical historian', they calculate, would odds of about 1 in 19,000 that this is the real tomb of Jesus.
• A historian who wanted it to be the real tomb very badly would make assumptions that would change the odds to about 1 in 18.
• A historian leaning towards it being the real tomb but "staying within the bounds of historical reasonableness" would make assumptions that would make the odds about 1 in 1,100.
• Another historian leaning against it being the real tomb, but also working within the same bounds, would estimate odds of about 1 in five million.
• And of course a Christian who insisted that Jesus ascended to Heaven would say it is impossible for this to be his tomb.

Stephan Pfann (president of Jerusalem's University of the Holy Land) points out that the commonality of these names suggests that the probability is much lower. "Remarkably, a mere 16 of the 72 personal names [found on ossuaries] account for 75% of the inscribed names." Among these "top 16" names are Mary, Joseph, Jesus, Matthew, and Judas.

Richard Bauckham

Richard Bauckham

Richard Bauckham is a widely published scholar in theology, historical theology and New Testament. He is currently working on New Testament Christology and the Gospel of John as a Senior Scholar at Ridley Hall, Cambridge....

 (Professor of New Testament Studies and Bishop Wardlaw Professor at St Andrews

St Andrews

St Andrews is a university town and former royal burgh on the east coast of Fife in Scotland. The town is named after Saint Andrew the Apostle.St Andrews has a population of 16,680, making this the fifth largest settlement in Fife....

) compiled the following data to show just how common the names on these ossuaries are:

"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 ossuaries."

Rank	Name	Total References	Found on Ossuaries	Percent of Total References (2625)
1	Simon/Simeon	243	59	9.3%
2	Joseph	218	45	8.3%
3	Eleazar	166	29	6.3%
4	Judah	164	44	6.2%
5	John/Yohanan	122	25	4.6%
6	Jesus	99	22	3.8%
7	Hananiah	82	18	3.1%
8	Jonathan	71	14	2.7%
9	Matthew	62	17	2.4%
10	Manaen/Menahem	42	4	1.6%

"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:"

Rank	Name	Total References	Found on Ossuaries	Percent of Total References (328)
1	Mary/Mariamne	70	42	21.3%
2	Salome	58	41	17.7%
3	Shelamzion	24	19	7.3%
4	Martha	20	17	6.1%

Colin Aitken, a professor of forensic statistics at Edinburgh University, stated that the study is based on a number of assumptions, and that, "even if we accept the assumptions, 600 to one is certainly not the odds in favour of this tomb being Jesus." meaning that even if it were true that to find this cluster of names is very unlikely it does not follow that therefore this is probably the tomb of the family of Jesus.

Further reading

• Eric M. Meyers: "The Jesus tomb controversy: an overview", Near Eastern Archaeology, Vol. 69, Iss. 3/4 (Sep-Dec 2006), pp. 116–118
• Charles Foster: The Jesus Inquest, Thomas Nelson, 2010

External links

• Re-opening the Tomb Controversy
• Official Site for the Lost Tomb of Jesus
• James Tabor's replies to all common criticisms and alleged errors
• Discovery channel news story
• Jesus Family Tomb Believed Found
• Family Tomb of Jesus story (Theopedia.com - conservative Christian viewpoint with MP3 resources)
• SourceFlix Productions Trailer for upcoming documentary challenging the "Lost Tomb" documentary
• "“Jesus Tomb” Controversy Erupts—Again" Biblical Archaeology Society
• Is the Talpiot Tomb the Family Tomb of Jesus of Nazareth? JTERP (Jesus Tomb Education and Research Project)