Widow stirs Talpiot tomb tumult as scholars ponder Jesus family bone boxes

Jesus, Mother Mary, and Joseph... sounds rather like my great aunt sputtering in surprise on some April Fools' Day, but this is part of the litany of names scratched on ancient bone-boxes unearthed in a Jerusalem suburb back in 1980 which were at the center of an academic conference which concluded in Jerusalem this afternoon.

The Third Princeton Symposium on Judaism and Christian Origins was called to evaluate the Talpiot Jesus Family tomb in the academic context of Jewish burial (and reburial) practices in the Second Temple era and Jewish belief in the afterlife. You can already find the tomb on Google Earth and Wikipedia, even though it's been resealed: you'd think by popular demand the academics might give it the nod.

After days of sound and fury amongst preachers and professors, the jury still is out on whether these ossuaries-- labelled Jesus, son of Joseph; Maria (in Aramaic); Mariamne (in Greek); Matthew; Judas, son of Jesus; and Yose, a diminutive of Joseph-- might have anything to do with the remains of Jesus H. Christ. Two of the academicians said no way, two said the 'evidence' was encouraging, and one diffident scientist said more digging must be done, since there is not enough evidence one way or another to rule out a possible link with Jesus of Nazareth. An official report written by the Israeli archeologist Amos Kloner found nothing remarkable in the discovery. The cave, it said, was probably in use by three or four generations of Jews from the beginning of the Common Era.

(See the links at right in the sidebar "Gripes,Hypes & Bones to Pick" for earlier posts and articles about Talpiot.)

The real show-stopper happened when the widow of archaeologist Yosef Gath was called onstage to receive an award for her late husband, who had catalogued the bone boxes back in 1980. (The tomb already had been vandalized by latter-day Crusaders, so there was a limit to what a full-scale dig would have yielded.) She told the audience in Hebrew that her husband had always suspected that the cluster of famous names might be linked to THAT Jesus; but as a holocaust survivor, he was reluctant to unleash a possible backlash onto the Jews with his dramatic find. "The world has changed in our lifetime," she had said, accepting the honors.

Simcha Jacobovici, the Naked Archaeologist for Discovery Channel who'd resurrected the tomb controversy in a broadcast last year, attended the conference. "When she said that, I just started shaking," he confided to journalists. His speculations have not been vindicated yet, though, and some scholars propose reopening an archaeological dig in Talpiot to gain more information.

Some cynical conference-goers thought that the pro Talpiot-buffs had exploited the Israeli widow, and wondered why, if it's the one, not a single tradition or legend had flourished around this humble cave tomb in Jerusalem's 'burbs. "The hypothesis smells a bit bogus to me," sniffed one scholar over falafel and beer afterward.

New Scholarly Scrutiny for Jesus Tomb

Well, well, Jesus is under the scholarly spotlight again.
Biblical archaeologists converge this week in Jerusalem to examine Jewish burial (and reburial) practices in the Second Temple era, to weigh Jewish belief in the afterlife, and pointedly to evaluate the controversial Talpiot "Jesus Family tomb" within this academic context. Scripture and evidence will be pored over by all. Will this yield more heat or just dust?

Ossuaries are usually quite a dry academic subject, but conclusions about these ten bone boxes became a world-wide bone of contention last February when statistical analysis by non-specialists appeared to contradict the New Testament account of resurrection and years of Christian tradition. Why Jesus of Nazareth would be reburied in Jerusalem, not near his family home in Galilee, still is a puzzle, no bones about it. Devout believers cried heresy when scientists question the Bible's account. It's no cruci-fiction, most Christians insist, and suggest that Hollywood hyped a hypothesis to goose its box office and bestseller lists. It's not the money but the fame.

The big brouhaha that arose after last year's claims by Titanic producer James Cameron (a Mason?), the self-dubbed Naked Archaeologist Simcha Jacobovici (an Orthodox Jew), and potboiler author Charles Pellagrino that Jesus of Nazareth lived well past age 33, wed the former prostitute and latter-day Christian leader Mary Magdalene and sired a son named Yehudah may be set off again by this conference. It shines a light on Masonic plots, some suggest. Amos Kloner wrote about the 1980 salvage of a vandalized Talpiot tomb by the Israeli archaeologist Yosef Gath, who was alerted by complaints that boys were kicking ancient skulls in the East Talpiot construction site. Kloner shrugged off the cluster of famous names inscribed on half a dozen of the ossuaries, and took no special care to preserve bone matter, so some may feel obliged to salvage his academic reputation; James Tabor, a Christian scholar from North Carolina who has been touting the Talpiot tomb association with Jesus Christ since archaeologist Joe Zias questioned the Israeli archaeological establishment's dismissal of its importance back in 1996.
Whatever the outcome, the Third Princeton Symposium on Judaism and Christian Origins, funded in part by the communications tycoon George Blumenthal, will be worth watching. Izzy Bee will be there, recording all the thorny fallout. Israelity bites.

Pistol-pack the groceries, roll in the aisles

At a busy supermarket the other afternoon in Talpiot, a fellow customer left Izzy Bee reeling. This guy really put gross into grocery shopping for me.

At first, the man simply was nowhere to be seen, but an anonymous shopping cart heaped with soda pop, potato chips, canned goods, packaged fish and meats, laundry detergent, diapers, and toilet paper was blocking the checkout counter. With just four items in hand-- eggs, milk, tomato paste, and matches -- I made a beeline for the only cashier who was idle, and scooted around this abandoned cart. Not exactly chutzpah, but maybe this was a bit brazen. Within three seconds, a beefy fellow came hurtling back from the frozen food section and shoved me aside, gesturing wildly at his shopping cart.

Then came the coup de grace: he patted the pistol strapped in a holster on his hip. He wore an orange silicone band around his wrist, but I don't think it was a Lance Armstrong solidarity bracelet somehow. Better to grin and slink to the end of a line far, far away from him. Checkout rage is not worth bloodshed.

I got his point at gunpoint.
Now my neighbors tell me that this was an aberration--not a typical Israeli experience. "We don't behave like that here. Maybe it's a stereotype, but that boor sounds like some newly-arrived settler from America," Reena sniffed. "Most of them need to learn some manners. Oy vey." Well, it's one more reason to consider online grocery shopping. Israelity bites.

'Lost Tomb' Tumult at Easter

Judging from today’s throngs of worshipers, Easter rituals inside the Holy Land are as fervent as ever--despite claims by Hollywood’s Terminator Man, James Cameron, that a crypt unearthed in a Jerusalem suburb decades ago is the “Lost Tomb of Jesus” which once contained Christ, along with his clandestine wife and son, plus half a dozen more assorted relatives.

Worshipful crowds from at least six denominations, including Roman Catholics and Christian Orthodox, jostled inside the Church of the Holy Sepulcher to celebrate Christ’s Resurrection on the very spot believed to hold his abandoned tomb. Meanwhile three thousand protestants sang hymns at an ancient Garden Tomb nearby, where they reckon Jesus of Nazareth rose from the dead on the first Easter Sunday. Over yonder at Talpiyot apartments, where the sealed and disputed tomb was unveiled to 4 million tv viewers in March, there was only birdsong and barbecue smoke. Jewish Passover is winding up and local families seem to have scant interest in Christian conjecture. (see Time’s blog).

Simcha Jacobovici, lately a director sidekick to producer James Cameron, was so captivated by the ancient family crypt of a man called Jesus, he spent three years chasing up the Talpiyot discovery which he says Israeli archaeologists hushed-up. The lid had been kept on this information for at least 27 years. (Er, except for a BBC documentary 11 years ago and a scientific paper.) Now that the initial buzz about Talpiyot has been replaced by widespread derision, and the book has dropped off the bestsellers’ list, Simcha is grousing that his critics are out to crucify him! (See “His Cross to Bear”, a Jerusalem Post profile.

Simcha is an unbridled enthusiast, not a scholar, and his new bestseller was just reissued with a revamped cover of a rather zombie-like blue Christ that eliminates possibly gnostic symbols. “The Jesus Family Tomb: The Discovery, the Investigation, and the Evidence That Could Change History” by Simcha Jacobovici and Charles Pellegrino, was re-released this week. (Disingenuously, Pellegrino claimed that it was apt to be censored by a close-minded establishment. See his remarks here.

The controversial “Lost Tomb” program probably will be rerun after Easter to boost ratings and book sales, if the corporate sponsors don't lose their nerve. Note that Coca Cola has delayed the Good Friday release of an Italian feature film due to a potentially offensive scene where a hitch-hiking Jesus quaffs coke from the can. The director now must cut it out. No one wants to rile fundamentalist Christians-- America's biggest consumer base--by ill-considered product placement which might be deemed blasphemy.
This documentary project took off after an Israeli archaeologist, Amos Kloner, showed Simcha inscriptions on ancient ossuaries that had held the remains of a fellow labelled Jesus (or perhaps Joshua), the son of Joseph; Judah, son of Jesus; a couple of males named Jose and Mattieu, Maria (in Latin), and another female called Marianme e Mara (in Greek). The caskets spanned generations yet Simcha was intrigued. Could this mean another Bible-based Emmy in the offing?

The eager filmmaker went into overdrive. He called in experts, grilled the locals, located and mapped the crypt, gathered samples of remains, then co-wrote a book and filmed a rather hokey schlocku-drama for television which was rife with costumed recreations and foreboding music.

Now, after one broadcast of his 90-minute show, Simcha is reeling from scientists and Christian critics-- online, on air and in print-- going into instant attack mode. Castigated for “pimping the Bible” and producing “archaeo-porn”, Simcha seems wounded by personal insults to a baby-boomer who's a “humble father of five.” But since he christened himself the “Naked Archaeologist” in a nod to Jamie Oliver, a brazen British cooking personality with a huge following, Simcha has only himself to blame for lowering the tone. Rather like Mary Magdalene, the peripatetic missionary who the High Church discredited by labelling a whore, this Israeli-born Romanian-Canadian feels he is misunderstood. He has no axe to grind, he insists, but just lays out startling evidence. Marginal communities, like the earliest Christians who were persecuted as heretical Jews until the 4th century, fascinate him.

Izzy Bee met Simcha recently in Jerusalem, where he grumbled about his current woes. Both the scientific community and the church hierarchy have disparaged the shortcuts in his logic and far-fetched conjecture. The Vatican has just ignored it all. He clearly was on the defensive as an upstart outsider:"Look, this is inspirational. It could prove that Jesus wasn't a myth --he really existed. People have come up to me and said their faith has been reinforced," Simcha said plaintively. Most of these same practiced soundbites were recapped almost verbatim in the Jerusalem Post profile which ran a couple of weeks ago. Maddeningly, he wouldn’t discuss personal views on religion with israelity bites, and insisted that his faith was irrelevant to the project, because he is a professional investigative reporter. But to the Post journalist, he gave his take on the tomb as an Orthodox Jew, and even gave tips on keeping Kosher in Hollywood. It’s quite a bizarre read.
Pontormo's odd masterpiece. Click to enlarge

In the Discovery Channel documentary, some intriguing elements were skimmed over, although they do figure prominently in the book. The co-author Charles Pellegrino expounds on them here and here. Simcha was not the first tomb raider, nor was it the 1980 antiquities crew called in after builders blasted it open. Centuries ago, some Crusaders crept into this distant crypt and vandalized it, placing three skulls in an equilateral triangle. Some people read this as a kind of a Gnostic hex against the anti-Christ, especially when paired with the the stylized chevron and dot carved over the tomb’s entrance, just like a Freemason emblem. (Simcha said that reports of Cameron's links to the Freemason cult “were total nonsense”, and then giggled that the same ominous eyed- pyramid sign was visible from Cameron’s Hollywood office. New World Order--heavy,man. Next he flipped to a plate in his book -- the Jacopo Pontormo painting of the 'Supper at Emmaus', showing the resurrected Christ beneath a floating eyeball. "Get a load of this," he said, clearly titillated.)
Because the Templar marauders had handled the skulls and bones and may even have altered the casket inscriptions that puzzlingly were wrought in Greek, Aramaic, and Hebrew, it makes analysis even more iffy. The BBC crew who filmed “The Body in Question”, a sober 1996 precursor to the Cameron/Jacobovici remake, also had encountered an important inscription in a different venue from roughly the same era. “Jesus, son of Joseph” was scratched on a unimpressively small shard, beside a decorative fish sign; ultimately the BBC producers overlooked it and chose to feature the bone box for better visuals on television. So did Cameron and Jacobovici.

Questioning Simcha on the leaps of faith it took to reach his conclusion was a challenge. He shuffles legends, artifacts, gospel and Biblical-inspired legends like a latter-day card shark. “Just google it, there are thousands of references!”, he countered my queries about how he can equate Mariamne to Mary Magdalene, based on a single apocryphal document. When asked about testing the other ossuaries or the contents of the Virgin Mary’s traditional resting place near Gesthemane, he said “Limited budget : we don’t have the means to test every holy relic.” And he rolled his blue eyes impatiently when I voiced misgivings about obvious DNA test shortcomings: sequencing had ruled out maternal links between Marianme and Jesus, but paternal relationships might have existed - say, this Jesus might have fathered the Mary in the adjacent ossuary, or could have been her uncle or cousin or slave. “Could have been snatched away by aliens, too, but we try and go with the most likely scenarios,” he chuckled. Uh-huh.
Simcha invariably will hype the importance of his latest re-discovery for his upcoming book tour, and he is an engaging fellow with a fascinating spiel. Yet somehow, I get the feeling that with this latest bit of rushed research, he and James Cameron have really laid an egg. It’s a fanciful technicolor Easter egg, gift-wrapped for a gullible public.


Faberge egg image courtesy of Russianlegacy.com

Cherrypickers,Gnostic Nasties,Unholy hype

Here is Simcha, the self-dubbed Naked Archaeologist, who insists he found Jesus. Literally. Then got James Cameron in on the deal.

No bones about it, the most hits in the brief history of the Israelity Bites blog came this weekend after Izzy Bee posted that Discovery Channel docu-drama preview of the disputed “Lost Tomb of Jesus” on Friday. James Cameron and Simcha Jacobovici triggered a major cyber-spasm on this site with their claim that a suburban Jerusalem tomb had contained Jesus Christ & son, plus a clutch of other relatives. So the Holy Sepulcher’s not wholly holy? The implication made some clergymen get rather hot under the dog collar. Nuns were having none of it. After all, second Temple-era stone ossuaries, similar to the two caskets unveiled at the NYC public library this week, are so common that Israelis frequently use them as planters for begonias or geraniums. But when a Canadian journo and the Titanic showman teamed up to think outside the box, plenty of people got that sinking feeling.

Hey, I did not intend for my blog to be another conduit for the James Cameron publicity machine, but it turned out to be just the tip of the iceberg. The comments poured in for days and Izzy pored over them in fascination.

They ranged from testimonies of faith, rationalist discourse, gnostic nasties and Monty Python shtick, with some doubting Thomases and furtive freemasons weighing in, too. And all blasphemers were cursed in CAPS by a fire-and-brimstone believer in a vengeful deity. Izzy Bee hopes that after the controversial show runs on Sunday, sceptics and believers will resume their dialogue here. Time to curb your dogma, sharpen your tongue, and go at it with logic and vigor.

This afternoon, Izzy Bee followed the senior archaeologist Dan Bahat through a subterranean tunnel that skirts the sacrosanct Western Wall of the Temple Mount. An Al-Jazeera film crew came along too, trailing the heritage protection team from UNESCO, and after a few snarls from the Israeli security detail, all were allowed inside. Dr Bahat is both a scientist and a religious man, and besides teaching at Israel’s Bar-Ilan University, is on the theology faculty at the University of Toronto. Like most experts on Jerusalem’s past, the professor seemed to be bothered by the sketchy science behind the “Lost Tomb” program. The Talpiyot cave's 10 caskets were catalogued and the bones reburied 27 years ago, so this earth-shattering hypothesis is a non-starter in Israeli scientific circles. The video trailers suggest that evidence was cherrypicked to support the documentary’s premise that the body of Jesus, son of Joseph and worshipped as Christ, was stuffed in a box outside the walled city for 2000 years. This strikes Jerusalem-based scholars as pseudo-science based on conjecture. But interesting if true...

As our group walked past enormous Herodian stone blocks, where Jewish prayers on paper slips were tucked into some ancient crevices, then beside Byzantine arches, Umayyad masonry, old Roman toilets, moats, cisterns and the like, this unholy row over Cameron’s slight-of-hand documentary seemed carefully manipulated for maximum profit. Watch this space.

More on the Christ family's cryptic crypt

Is this Christian belief of Christ's empty tomb and an ascent to Heaven precluded by scientific evidence? Click here to view a video clip.


(this undated photo of Talpiyot tomb comes from Vision TV, Canada, and was tagged with the working title for the new docu-drama, "The Lost Tomb of Jesus.) The entrance is now sealed and lies between two apartment houses in a southern Jerusalem suburb.

AFP photo of press NY Press conference to kick off Discovery Channel's Sunday broadcast based on "The Jesus Family Tomb".

Out of all the news updates following Cameron's high profile press conference in New York's Public Library about the discovery of a Jesus Family Tomb, Time Magazine's seems to be the least hysterical, weighing up evidence as well as motive.

No librarian dared to shush James Cameron and his cohorts at the New York City Public Library on Monday when they unveiled two of their ancient ossuaries to a rapt crowd of mostly show-biz journalists, along with a few more staid religious reporters. The setting lent a rather academic feel to the presentation, which in a more standard press conference room would have been unmistakable as Hollywood heavy-hitting aimed for a ratings war. Cross CSI NY with Tomb Raider, Da Vinci Code, and a bit of 'Holy' Ghost, and you have a guaranteed audience of Bible belt viewers and cynics alike.
(Just a mention of Cameron's latest project on this Jerusalem-based blog sent hits skyrocketing to over 85,000 in a single day. The comments have been thoughtful, cynical, faithful, or playful. Izzy welcomes the extra voices.)

It is interesting to note that archaeologists in Jerusalem are rolling their eyes at the crypt craze just unleashed in the US, and even the British tabloid press has been rather lukewarm. After all, the same evidence was examined on the BBC eleven years ago. The hypothesis was dismissed as conjecture by Amos Kloner, a top Israeli scholar who pointed out that a poor family from Nazareth would be very unlikely to be buried in this style. These compelling New Testament names were so popular at the time of burial that the Israeli Antiquities Authority suggests that this cluster is only "coincidence", rather like finding Tom, Dick, and Harry together in an American family tomb of the 1940s. Cameron countered this assertion at his press conference by quipping: "If you found a John, a Paul and a George, you're not going to leap to any conclusions... unless you found a Ringo." The sticking point is whether this purported Mary Magdalene bone box is equivalent to finding a Ringo. The show will be broadcast on Sunday if you want to look at the "evidence" for yourself. The authorities in Jerusalem are mulling over opening the tomb up to visitors, according to the Jerusalem Post. Newsweek posts a preview clip from the show. Click here.