Jerusalem

Israeli Experts Debunk Jesus Tomb Documentary

By Chris Mitchell
CBN News

CWNews.com –JERUSALEM – A controversial documentary claims to have found the burial cave of Jesus Christ along with the coffins of his wife and child.

But some of Israel's leading archaeologists are saying the movie's claims are more fiction than fact.

Their story starts here in Talpiot, a residential neighborhood on the outskirts of Jerusalem. Twenty seven years ago, contractors uncovered an ancient burial cave while digging the foundations for a new building here. The cave contained ten small stone boxes known as ossuaries.

Two thousand years ago, ossuaries were used to contain the bones of the dead. Like some ossuaries, the names of the dead were written on the box.

It's the names where the film's claims are controversial and startling. According to the Discovery Channel, Israeli archeologists identified six of the ten inscriptions as:

• Jesus, son of Joseph
• Mary
• Matthew
• Joseph
• Mary Magdalene and
• Judah, son of Jesus.

The film claims the names on the ossuaries contain the bones of Jesus Christ, his mother Mary and Joseph, his father. It even suggests Jesus and Mary Magdalene were a couple and that Judah may have been their son.

So by suggesting they have found the bones from the dead body of Jesus, this film challenges the bedrock of the Christian faith: that Jesus Christ died on the cross, was buried and rose again on the third day.

Some people are already challenging the conclusions in the documentary. They argue that Talpiot is located about five miles outside the old city of Jerusalem and away the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, considered by many the traditional burial site Jesus Christ.

Stephen Pfann, the founder of the Holy Land University in Jerusalem examined the ossuaries and was even interviewed for the new documentary. He disputes the film's conclusion that these are the remains of what many people refer to as the holy family.

"These are really common names and it's really a long shot to try and connect this to Jesus’s family at all, especially since Jesus's family is from the Galilee," he said.

Pfann also examined the ossuary that the film says reads "Jesua."

"It's really full of scratches and people are interpreting scratches that don't belong as part of the name of Yeshua, Jesus, as to really mean Jesus,” Pfann said. “I don't see it there. I see the name Hanoun, some other name. But I think these other people are going a little far to try to say that Jesus's name is on this bone box."
"I think it's great that this tomb has been discovered, but it's not the tomb of a Galilean family with Jesus is,” he said. “You expect to find the ossuaries of His family up in a tomb in Nazareth, in the Galilee."

Leading archeologist Professor Amos Kloner worked on the original excavation 27 years ago. He dismisses the film's claims.

“It makes a great story for a TV film, but it's impossible. It's nonsense," he told the Jerusalem Post.

His view is a view likely to be shared by a wide range of scholars.

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