Paul KeenanThe ‘tomb of Jesus’ is back in the news, writes Paul Keenan
The timing of the story alone was enough to make the eyes roll.
During Easter week, news wires lit up with a report from the Holy Land of another ‘clue’ as to the final resting place of Jesus, with the inevitable challenge to belief in the resurrection of Christ.
The reports centred on the figure of Dr Aryeh Shimron, a geologist and retired member of Israel’s Antiquities Authority. Having led a research project on an ancient burial vessel, an ossuary, bearing the inscription ‘James, son of Joseph, brother of Jesus’, Dr Shimron went public to assert with near certainty that his geochemical testing of clay deposits on the vessel placed the ossuary in the famed Talpiot tomb of Jerusalem, a site previously championed as the burial site of the historical Jesus.
What, in effect, Dr Shimron was announcing in his findings, was a linking of the test ossuary to 10 other ossuaries from the Talpiot tomb (specifically Tomb A). Of those ossuaries, all bearing human remains and excavated from the site in 1980, six bear inscriptions of names such as ‘Jesus, son of Joseph’ ‘Mary’, ‘Joseph’, ‘Mariamne e Mara’ [Mary, known as the master], ‘Judah, son of Jesus’ and ‘Yose’.
“I think I’ve got really powerful, virtually unequivocal evidence that the James ossuary spent most of its lifetime, or death time, in the Talpiot Tomb,” Dr Shimron said in announcing his findings.
Thus, the name ‘James’, linked to ‘Jesus’, and with all its biblical connotations has been added to a roll call of names central to the New Testament story of Jesus contained within a subterranean crypt which has become a focal point for history sleuths.
Investigation
Readers of The Irish Catholic may recall the last time the Talpiot tomb appeared in these pages, when Titanic director James Cameron announced to a blaze of media coverage in 2007 his own investigation of the ‘Jesus tomb’ – just ahead of his Discovery Channel documentary on the subject which declared the tomb to be that of Jesus of Nazareth and his family. (Another member of that project was Simcha Jacobovici, a fellow film director whose name is now linked to backing for the Shimron research of the James ossuary.)
So far, so good for those who wish to believe that the burial place of Jesus has been further identified.
But not so fast.
The story of Talpiot and its ossuaries did not begin with James Cameron, but further back in time, and crucially, the tale of the James ossuary goes back further in living memory.
Talpiot first drew the eyes of the archaeological community in 1980 when construction workers uncovered it during preparatory work on new residences at East Talpiot’s Dov Gruner Street. Experts were called in and began the work of recording findings in an underground chamber which had clearly been overwhelmed by a landslide of clay (another key element).
The work was completed quickly amid the risk of offending Orthodox Jewish sensitivities around the sanctity of the dead and their resting places and the tomb resealed ahead of ongoing construction work. All ossuaries were, at that time, removed and taken for expert analysis while the human remains were given to religious authorities for reburial.
The story jumps forward then to 2002 when the James ossuary is revealed to the world for the first time. Bearing the ‘James, brother of Jesus’ inscription, that element alone was tantalising enough for scholars and media. However, it also became a subject for investigators who concluded that the owner of the vessel, Oded Golan, had forged the ‘brother of Jesus’ portion of the inscription and commenced a seven-year legal battle.
The case was eventually thrown out of court when, as part of his defence, Mr Golan produced a photograph dated to 1976 (the year of the ossuary’s purchase) showing the ossuary and its inscription on his shelf – the argument being why would he bother with such a forgery in the absence of any knowledge whatsoever of the existence of the Talpiot tomb at that point.
Allowing Dr Shimron some latitude at this point, the researcher bases his findings on the trace elements of a clay known as rendzina, the existence of which in Talpiot Tomb A makes the ossuaries linked to it ‘a community’ of vessels based on shared geochemical indicators. A number of other tested ossuaries, including those of Talpiot Tomb B, just metres away (discovered in 1981), do not share the same key indicators (measured amounts of silicon, aluminum, magnesium, potassium and iron).
But here’s the rub.
The very clay apparently linking the 10-plus-one ossuaries of Tomb A is present as a result of a landslide caused by a recorded earthquake of 363 AD, in which the body of the tomb filled up. We are now presented – by Jesus tomb supporters – with a scenario in which a flooded tomb is accessed by grave robbers who put in just enough effort to remove one ossuary and carry it away.
Cautious welcome
For the record, it must be pointed out that fellow archaeologists have offered a cautious welcome for Dr Shimron’s work, but insist on it being published in a peer-reviewed journal before giving a definitive answer on the matter.
In the meantime, old counter-arguments still stand on the ‘Jesus tomb’.
Quite aside from the challenge to prove beyond all doubt that the Jesus of Talpiot is one and the same as Jesus of Nazareth, numerous scholars have pointed out repeatedly that the names on the ossuaries were in no way uncommon in the region in the 1st Century. Ireland’s own expert of the time and region, the late Fr Jerome Murphy O’Connor, used these pages to argue as much. In addition to him, one of the original 1980 excavation team, Dr Shimon Gibson has stated, based on what he saw when working in Talpiot, that he does not believe the James ossuary is connected.
We are left, then, with a continuing mystery to engage believers and non-believers alike, one with gaps into which they pour their respective solutions.
This throws up an interesting footnote to the case. It is an oft-levelled accusation against people of faith that they don’t let facts get in the way of a good (biblical) story.
It would seem the Talpiot tomb has the same effect on the secular media.