Stonehenge

archeology of Jesus Christ, what really happened to Jesus after his death?, where are the bones of Jesus Christ?

http://www.beforeus.com/archeology-of-jesus-christ-2.html

Where are the bones
of Jesus Christ?

More explosive than The Da Vinci Code?

AMAZING DISCOVERIES

- order here

CLICK TO ORDER THESE EBOOKS:

Dead Men’s Secrets
Surprising Discoveries in Lost Cities of the
Dead. Seafloor, jungle and desert sands
give up a thousand forgotten secrets.
Technology that vanished! Could this lost
super race have beaten us to the moon, developed computers, and nuclear war?
Who mapped America thousands of years
before it was 'discovered'? Click here

The Bizarre Origin of Egypt's
Ancient Gods
A 4,000-year-old scandal that affects our
society today. Would you like to know why
the most popular man in the world was
executed? How a beautiful woman impersonated someone else, so as to be
queen? Discover the advanced technology
used by ancient Egyptians to make a
"dead" man come "alive". Click here

The Ark Conspiracy
Cover-ups, Betrayals and Miracles The
cloak-and-dagger story behind the discovery
of Noah's Ark and the attempts to suppress
the news. Why do some people say no, but
others that this is the 'real' Noah's Ark?
A true-life thriller - archaeology at its most
exciting. Click here

The Lost World of Giants
Were there really humans 12-15 feet tall?
Discovered! - tools, artifacts and houses of
ancient giants. 97 giant discoveries all over
the earth, and now ACTUAL
PHOTOGRAPHS! Also, long-lived humans.
"Killer" facts that challenge the evolution
theory! Click here

64 Secrets Ahead of Us
64 ways in which an earlier, forgotten
science and technology was superior to our
own. Learn of secret formulas that could
revolutionise modern aviation, construction
and medicine - advanced secrets we once
knew and have forgotten. Click here

Ark of the Covenant
The Shocking Truth, Hidden for 2,000
Years! - For some 800 years, the Ark of the
Covenant was the most sacred object in the
world. In 586 BC it vanished. 2,500 years
later, American amateur archaeologist Ron
Wyatt claims to have found the Ark of the
Covenant. He was promptly ordered by the
host government not to reveal certain
information. Jonathan Gray set out with a
briefcase full of objections against Wyatt's
claims. However, intense investigation,
repeated visits to dig sites, and privileged
viewing of evidence and artifacts astonished him. Click here

The Killing of Paradise Planet
Secrets of that forgotten world BEFORE
the Great Flood. Book 1 of a trilogy. What if
everything in YOUR life changed suddenly
in 24 hours? Astonishing city 6,000 feet
under the Pacific Ocean. Elephants and tropical palm trees suddenly entombed in
ice. Could you really live to be hundreds of
years older? Click here

Surprise Witness
What happened DURING the Great Flood,
step by step. Book 2 of a trilogy. Fossil
evidence of men, women, children and
animals FLEEING. 30,000 volcanoes erupt. Waves 700 feet higher than New York's
Empire State building sweep the globe.
What discovery has frightened
paleontologists out of their wits? Click here

The Corpse Came Back
Forgotten secrets of our earth SINCE the
Great Disaster. Book 3 of a trilogy. For the
first time, see world history knit together
in a way that makes sense. Mysterious civilizations in jungles and deserts. Boats
found inside mountains and other odd
discoveries. Do preserved racial
genealogies REALLY trace back to Noah? Click here

The Discovery That’s Toppling Evolution
The scientific bombshell that is set to
devastate evolution. You are about to
discover skeletons in locked cupboards,
bones in forbidden places and secrets
hidden under the carpet. You won't believe
in the immensity of the multi-million dollar
cover-up. Click here

UFO Aliens: The Deadly Secret
Are governments covering up hard core
evidence of "other world" visitors? What
about crashed UFOs and alien bodies?
Did aliens really bring civilization to Planet Earth? Or is there some other explanation?
Click here

Stolen Identity
The secret that could wreck the careers of
many high profile "professional" people. Did
Jesus Christ never really exist? Why are the
stories and teachings of Jesus Christ,
Krishna and Buddha so remarkably similar?
Click here

The Da Vinci Code Hoax
And the secret that men will kill to protect.
Was Jesus as "God" decided by a
church-and-state vote to consolidate power
in the 4th century? Were some "secret
books" left out of the Bible? Did Jesus
Christ marry Mary Magdalene and have
children? Click here

In Search of Lost Cities
This is the adventure of your life - perfectly preserved empty cities, totally abandoned ...and cities choked by jungle...swallowed by the desert... drowned by the sea ...incinerated by fire balls from the sky...and MORE!
Click here

MULTIPLE E-BOOK SHOPCART:
Click here

CLICK TO ORDER PHYSICAL BOOKS:
Click here

CLICK TO ORDER THESE DVDS:
To order the complete set of 8:
Click here

To order individually, just click on:
1. Secrets of the Lost Races
2. Has Noah’s Ark Been Found?
3. The Lost Cities of Sodom and Gomorrah
4. In Search of Pharaoh's Lost Army
5. Ark of the Covenant
6. Strange Signs in the Sky
7. Secrets of Ancient South America
8. In a Coffin in Egypt

CLICK TO OTHER DVDs:
Secrets of the Pyramids
Europe's Coming Collapse
UFO Aliens: The Deadly Secret
A Colossal City in Space?
Vanished City Under the Sea
Tsunamis, Terrorism: What's Coming?
What Really Happened to the Dinosaurs?
The Star Sign Prophecies
Atheism Beaten By a Prophecy
How to Tap Unlimited Spiritual Power
Are the Dead Really Dead?
The Hijack of America
The Mystery of King Solomon's Temple
The Da Vinci Code Hoax
Fingerprints of Creation
The Young Age of the Earth
Center of the Universes

Statistical analysis

Out of a total number of 2625 males, these are the figures for the ten most popular male names among Palestinioan 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 ossuraies.

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

CLICK TO ORDER PHYSICAL BOOKS:
Click here

CLICK TO ORDER THESE DVDS:
To order the complete set of 8:
Click here

Thursday, March 01, 2007
From Ben Witherington

THE SMOKING GUN---TENTH TALPIOT OSSUARY PROVED TO BE BLANK

Joe Zias is a fine archaeologist of long standing and good reputation. He is the person who catalogued the ten ossuaries from the Talpiot tomb, and personally catalogued the tenth ossuary. He worked with Amos Kloner as part of the team who made the original discovery. In two emails this morning to someone I have been talking to he made crystal clear that the tenth ossuary was blank, certainly was not the James ossuary at all despite the assertions
of those involved in making the Discovery Channel special. These emails have been sent along to me, and I will let them speak for themselves, except I have edited out the personal and extraneous stuff.

Joe Zias jezias@yahoo.comTo: Subject: Re: Jesus Tomb Sent: Thursday, March 1, 2007 6:02 AM
"Amos Kloner is right as I received and catalogued the objects, the 10th was plain and I put it out in the courtyard with all the rest of the plain ossuaries as was the standard procedure when one has little storage space available. Nothing was stolen nor missing and they were fully aware of this fact, just didn't fit in with their agenda." ShalomJoe

From: Joe Ziasjezias@yahoo.com To: Subject: Re: Jesus Tomb Sent: Thursday, March 1, 2007 4:31 PM
"There was no photo of the 10th ossuary as there was no reason to photograph it, plain white ossuaries, basically once you have seen one you have seen them all. time is money and it would be a waste of time to waste resources on something which was put out in the courtyard. Remember these are large, and heavy not to forget that Kloner has the measurements. They knows this from me personally. The conspiracy idea fits in well with their agenda of hyping the film as well as his/their book."
Joe

CLICK TO ORDER PHYSICAL BOOKS:
Click here

CLICK TO ORDER THESE DVDS:
To order the complete set of 8:
Click here

“Did you hear the news? They’ve found the bones of Jesus Christ!”

“WHAT?”

“Yes, it’s on the new Discovery TV documentary.”

“Tell me more.”

“Well, the documentary is produced by James Cameron, director of Titanic, and filmmaker Simcha Jacobovici. It is based on a new book, The Jesus Family Tomb, co-written by Jacobovici and Charles Pellegrino.

“You know, this is going to be a blast. It promises the inside story of ‘what may very well be the greatest archaeological find of all time’. It claims that Jesus’ burial cave and body were discovered near Jerusalem. It also claims that Jesus Christ sired a son with Mary Magdalene.

“The Discovery Channel is hyping it to the heavens... the archeology of Jesus Christ. Get out of the way Dan Brown---The Da Vinci Code hype will be nothing compared to this!”

[continued below]

Catch the JOY of Discovery!!!
Get FREE weekly emails
on lost wonders found, and forbidden secrets exposed
Amazing "believe it or not" facts about our past.
Come behind the locked doors and discover what is being hidden, denied and banned by an established elite!

(with amazing discoveries of lost civilizations,
unexplained anomalies and_forgotten technology)

Your Firstname:

Your E-mail Address:

This is a private mailing list and will never
be sold or given away for any reason

You can also un-subscribe if ever you want to.

CONTINUING "THE DISCOVERY"...

So where are the bones of Jesus Christ?
What really happened to Jesus after his death?

This is how the story goes. In March 1980, after bulldozers had uncovered a tomb in the Jerusalem suburb of Talpiot, Yosef Gat, an archaeologist employed by the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA), went in to survey the burial chamber.

It was a standard-looking first century Jewish tomb. Mr Gat found the main chamber had been silted up with soil and debris, with six "kokhim", coffin shaped spaces leading off the main chamber where human remains were housed.

It was Jewish practice to leave bodies for a year or so to decompose in the "kokhim". Later, relatives would come back to gather the bones and store them in ossuaries.

In the tomb were 10 ossuaries bearing inscriptions – one in ancient Greek and the others in Hebrew and Aramaic.

The six persons named in the ossuary inscriptions (Rahmani 701-706) are:
(1) Mariamenou-Mara ( the first name is a unique form of the name Mariam, Mary, and will be discussed separately below).
(2) Yehuda bar Yeshua (Judah son of Jesus)
(3) Matia (Matthew)
(4) Yeshua bar Yehosef (Jesus son of Joseph)
(5) Yose (a common abbreviated form of Yehosef)
(6) Merayah (or as was claimed, Maria – explained as a form of Mariam, Mary) But there will be a comment on that, later.
All the inscriptions are in Aramaic except the first, which is Greek.

The 10 bone boxes were removed from the tomb and taken to the Rockefeller Archaeological Museum in Jerusalem. Nine were catalogued and stored but the tenth was left outside in a courtyard. That ossuary, it was asserted, later went missing.

Nothing more was said, until two accounts of the discovery were published by Israeli academics in the mid 1990s. The second of these was by Professor Kloner in the IAA's in-house magazine Atiquot in 1996.

This generated some publicity, particularly in a BBC programme produced by Ray Bruce and shown that Easter, called The Body In Question.

The archeology of Jesus Christ:
“WHAT REALLY HAPPENED TO JESUS
AFTER HIS DEATH” – THE CLAIM

Cameron’s claim is based on six inscriptions having names similar to or the same as some of Jesus Christ’s family and disciples.

That these names would belong to any other family than that of Jesus Christ is statistically improbable, Cameron claims.

Mariamene e Mara could be translated, “Mary known as the master,” which Cameron thinks might be Mary of Magdalene.

Although the chamber has been closed for years due to a building having been constructed on top of it, the authors claim that they broke through a cement floor, into the tomb.

They claim to have found human material on which they performed DNA testing in a North American laboratory.

The pre-publication publicity for the book said, “Tests prove the names are genetically of the same family and statistically, there is a one in 10 million chance this is a family other than the Holy Family.”

It is further claimed that DNA analysis identifies that tissues from the ossuaries of Jesua and Mariamene e Mara were not related, raising the possibility they may have been married and had a child.

Thus, said Cameron, the boxes could have contained the bones of Jesus and Mary Magdalene.

So now the sensational inference is that Jesus Christ’s bodily resurrection and ascension was a hoax. This new book and documentary echoes the Da Vinci Code notion that Jesus may have been married to Mary Magdalene, and that the couple had a son. They claim the son was named Judah and that all three were buried together.

The archeology of Jesus Christ:
IMPLICATIONS FOR CHRISTIANITY

If these claims are true, then you can forget about Christianity.

Why? Because, according to the Bible, Jesus, the Son of God, rose physically from the dead and later ascended to heaven, so there can't be any remains of Jesus. There would be no bones left behind.

If Cameron’s film is true, then so much for Jesus’ resurrection. So much for the Bible. So much for the divinity of Jesus Christ. So much for Christianity. It is all fraud – if one is to believe the non-fiction of this Discovery Channel documentary.

Where are the bones of Jesus Christ?

Let me say it again: if Jesus Christ’s bones have really been discovered, then all of Christian history has been based upon a false claim---that Jesus physically rose from the dead, was seen alive by over 500 followers at once, spent 40 days teaching his disciples, and then ascended into heaven.

The archeology of Jesus Christ:
15 REASONS WHY THIS IS
NOT JESUS' FAMILY TOMB

An interesting story, but it is full of holes, conjectures, and problems. It will make good TV and involves a bad critical reading of history. Basically this is old news with a new interpretation. We have known about this tomb since it was discovered in 1980. There are all sorts of reasons to see this as much ado about nothing much:

1. MOST COMMON NAMES: COULD BE ANY TOMB

The entire theory is based upon the statistical improbability of these names belonging to another family from that of Jesus Christ.

From a statistical analysis, they state in publicity for the book that the chances of finding a tomb with the names of Mary, Yose, Yeshua son of Joseph, Mariamne e Mara (Mary Magdalene) together give 600 to 1 odds that this is the tomb of Jesus. If you include James into the calculations that would be 30,000 to 1 that this is the tomb of Jesus or 1 chance in 30,000 that it is not. If you now include the names Matia (Matthew) and Judah which were found but not included in the calculations, this would multiply these odds even greater.

Looks pretty impressive, doesn't it? So what is the truth?

Firstly, only 3 of the 6 named persons correspond to names of known members of the family of Jesus. These names are Yeshua son of Joseph, Maria and Yose (Joseph).

Secondly, all of the names on these ossuaries were extremely common names among Jews in Palestine at this period. We have a great deal of evidence about this (the data is collected in the enormously useful reference book by Tal Ilan, Lexicon of Jewish Names in Late Antiquity, part 1 [Mohr-Siebeck, 2002]

Joseph was the second-most popular name in first century Jewish history. (See analysis in left hand column.) And the name Jesus was also quite popular during this period. And about one in ten had the name, “Jesua”. The fact is that many Josephs of the time probably had sons named Jesus. In fact, three or four earlier discovered ossuaries have been found and been identified with a father named Joseph and a son named Jesus.

The name "Jesus" appears in at least 99 tombs and on 22 ossuaries. "Joseph" appears on 45 ossuaries.

The name Mary was the most common female name of the era. Every fourth person was a Mary at the time. Indeed, both mother and her sister were named Mary. This is the ancient equivalent of finding adjacent tombs with the names Smith and Jones. No big deal.

We have names like Matthew on another ossuary, which don't match up with the list of brothers' names, nor any other known member of Jesus' family.

In fact, each name except for Mariamene seemed common to their period.

As University of St. Andrews (Scotland) New Testament expert Richard Bauckham notes, the names with Biblical resonance are so common that even when you run the probabilities on the group, the odds of it being the famous Jesus’ family are “very low.”

Thirdly, we should note that the surviving six names are only six of many more who appear to have been buried in the various sections of this large family tomb. There may have been as many as 35. The six people whose names we have could have belonged to as many as four different generations. This is a large family tomb, which would certainly have been used for quite some time by the same family.

2. NO TOMB CONNECTION TO MARY MAGDALENE

Cameron and Jacobovici infer that Mariamene e Mara was Mary Magdalene.

However, there is a major problem with the analysis of the names on these ossuaries. By this I mean one has to explain why one is in Hebrew, several are in Aramaic, but the supposed Mary Magdalene ossuary is in Greek. This suggests a multi-generation tomb, not a single generation tomb.

We have absolutely no historical evidence to suggest Mary Magdalene would have been called by a Greek name before AD 70. She grew up in a Jewish fishing village called Migdal, not a Greek city at all. It makes no sense that her ossuary would have a Greek inscription and that of her alleged husband an Aramaic inscription (noting that Jesus was called Yeshua by his peers).

Mary Magdalene is called ‘Maria’ constantly in first century Christian literature, and indeed well into the second century as well. She is never called Mariamene or the like. It is anachronistic and inappropriate to bring in later Gnostic document evidence from the Acts of Philip or the Gospel of Mary, neither of which date before the end of the second century AD to make your case when you have perfectly good first century data to help you.

The second word on the Mariamene ossuary is Mara which is short for Martha another female name. It is not a reference to her being a master or teacher. All the ossuraries in this tomb have toe tag inscriptions scrawled hastily on the boxes as they are interred in order to distinguish the ossuaries. All that was required then was names, just names. No honorific additions like we find on monumental inscriptions would be used. So either we have two women in this ossuary, perhaps sisters, or we have one woman neither of which names match up with the first century naming of Mary Magdalene.

This ossuary simply has the name Mary - nothing more.

3. OTHER OSSUARY: NOT "MARY" AT ALL!

Oddly, Cameron’s documentary claimed that the name "Maria" מריה, written on one of the ossuaries in Hebrew characters, was “a rare Latinized version of Mary”. It stated that Yeshua's mother was named Miryam (MRYM מרים) but that she was called “Maria” by Jesus’ Latin-speaking followers. And so, it asserted, the Latin version of her name was written on her ossuary.

But please tell me, Why on earth would someone write a Latin form of the name Miryam in Hebrew characters on a ist century ossuary? If this is the Latinized form of the name shouldn't it appear in Latin letters?

And pardon me for asking another silly question: Why would Yeshua's followers who spoke Latin thousands of miles away influence the way his Hebrew mother's name appeared on her ossuary?

And here's my third question. If the name is in Hebrew characters, isn't it strange to assume it is a "Latinized form" - when it makes perfect sense as a native Hebrew name?

You want the truth? Here it is. Just ask any Hebrew scholar. The Hebrew letters MRYH would most naturally be read as Merayah, which appears as the name of a male priest in Nehemiah 12:12. A Latinized form of Maria. One would have to be kidding. Common sense would suggest that the ossuary in the "Talpiot Tomb" was probably from that of a man named Merayah.

4. JESUS NOT CALLED "SON OF JOSEPH" BY HIS FAMILY

The "Jesus" in the tomb was known as "Son of Joseph," but the earliest followers of the New Testament Jesus didn't call him that. In the New Testament, Jesus is never called ‘son of Joseph’ by anyone who knew him intimately.- not by his family members, and not by his disciples. It was outsiders who called him that.(John 6:42)

To Martha, a family friend, he was "the Son of God" (John 11:27). To John, his cousin, he was "the Son of God" (John 1:24). To Mary, his mother, he was "the Son of God" (Luke 1:32,35). And his disciples, in numerous conversations, recognised him as "the Son of God" (Matthew 14:33; John 1:49; 6:69; 20:31; Acts 8:37)

Indeed, to his close associates he was the Son of God, so would they put 'son of Joseph' on Jesus' tomb when they knew otherwise?

5. NO HISTORICAL EVIDENCE JESUS MARRIED AND HAD CHILDREN

We have no historical evidence he was ever married.

And note that an extra-marital affair, which some postulate, though again without evidence, would not qualify Mary Magdalene to be in the tomb of Jesus’ family.

One of the ossuaries has the name Jude son of Jesus. We have no historical evidence of such a son of Jesus Christ. (If he really had a son named Judah, would he not be mentioned somewhere in the ancient literary evidence? He would have been a useful figure for a Gnostic wishing to claim esoteric teaching of Jesus handed down from someone close to him, but he goes unmentioned in the Gnostic Gospels that do make such claims for other figures and unmentioned also in the church fathers who relay information about Gnostic claims.)

For further information on this, see The Da Vinco Code Hoax. Click here

6. INSCRIPTIONS SUBJECT TO GUESSWORK

Stephen Pfann, a biblical scholar at the University of the Holy Land in Jerusalem who was interviewed in the documentary, is even unsure that the name “Jesus” on the caskets was read correctly. He thinks it's more likely the name “Hanun”. Ancient Semitic script is notoriously difficult to decipher. Pfann claims that the actual inscriptions are “scratchy” and hard to read. For all we know, it’s Johnny, Mabel and Jerry.
7. WRONG LOCATION FOR FAMILY TOMB

It is unlikely that Jesus' family tomb would be in Jerusalem. You may well ask, Since the custom was to bury the dead in their home town, why would Mary and Joseph’s family tomb be in Jerusalem instead of Nazareth?

The ancestral home of Joseph was Bethlehem, and his adult home was Nazareth. The family was still in Nazareth after he was apparently dead and gone. Why in the world would he be buried (alone at this point) in Jerusalem? It’s unlikely.

Middle East researcher and archaeologist Joe Zias states, "It has nothing whatsoever to do with Jesus, he was known as Jesus of Nazareth, not Jesus of Jerusalem, and if the family was wealthy enough to afford a tomb, which they probably weren't, it would have been in Nazareth, not here in Jerusalem.” Zias dismisses Cameron's claims as "dishonest".

Professor Kloner added there was no way the tomb housed the family of Jesus Christ.

"It is just not possible that a family who came from Galilee, as the New Testament tells us of Joseph and Mary, would be buried over several generations in Jerusalem."

However, in this era of Dan Brown fantasy, we can't help wondering.

8. DNA ESTABLISHES NO POSITIVE LINKS

But what about the apparent DNA discoveries? Cameron's documentary goes to great lengths to compare the DNA from the Yeshua bar Yehoseph ossuary with the DNA from the ossuary bearing the name "Mariamne Mara". The argument is this: Mariamne was Mary Magdalene and the fact that the DNA did not match proves they must have been married.

Isn't this a strange conclusion? Just think about it.

Couldn't the Mary in the tomb just as easily have been an adopted daughter of the buried family (very common for the age), or a sister-in-law or even a beloved slave buried with the family. There are any number of possibilities.

There's no argument here at all.

In any event, it is too bad they did not also test the DNA from the Merayah ossuary and compare it with the Yeshua ossuary. According to the documentary Merayah (or as they read it, Maria) was the mother of Yeshua. This would have been very easy to prove through DNA tests but the test was never done on the Merayah ossuary.

There is no independent DNA control sample to compare to what was garnered from the bones in this tomb. By this I mean that the most the DNA evidence can show is that several of these folks are inter-related. Big deal. We would need an independent control sample from some member of Jesus' family to confirm that these were members of Jesus' family. We do not have that at all.

In addition mitacondrial DNA does not reveal genetic coding or XY chromosome make up anyway. They would need nuclear DNA for that in any case.

So the DNA stuff is probably thrown in to make this look more like a real scientific fact. Not so much.

9. STATISTICAL "EVIDENCE" SEVERELY FLAWED

The statistical analysis is of course only as good as the numbers that were provided to the statistician. He couldn’t run numbers he did not have. And when you try to run numbers on a combination name such as ‘Jesus son of Joseph’ you decrease the statistical sample dramatically. In fact, in the case of ‘Jesus son of Joseph’ you decrease it to a statistically insignificant number!

There are so many flaws in the analysis of the statistics themselves, that one must assume the statistician did not have the right or sufficient data to work with.

Cameron and Jacobovici used a combination of Mary, Joseph, Jesus son of Joseph, Matia, Mariamne e Mara, James and Judah, to produce their sensational 10 million to one odds that this is the family tomb of Jesus. However, only 3 of the 6 named persons correspond to names of known members of the family of Jesus. These names are Yeshua son of Joseph, Maria and Yose (Joseph).

The true odds are:
- for the tomb to contain a Joseph: 1 in 12
- for the tomb to contain a Jesus: 1 in 10
- for the tomb to contain a Mary: 1 in 4
Factor these in together. And the odds of the three names being found in the same tomb are 12 x 10 x 4 = one tomb in 480. In other words, pretty common.

9. JAMES OSSUARY NOT FROM THIS TOMB

Cameron and Jacobovici use the James Ossuary as one of the reasons for the Talpiot tomb‘s validity. They mention a tenth ossuary found in the tomb, which "went missing". They suggest that this ossuary is the one reported in 2003 as found, with an inscription reading, “James, son of Joseph, brother of Jesus”. So there you are - here is another evidence that this is Jesus Christ's tomb!

SO was there a conspiracy to cover this up? Not at all! And here are five reasons:

(a) The 10th Talpiot ossuary was not missing

Joe Zias is the person who catalogued the ten ossuaries from this Talpiot tomb. And he personally catalogued the so-called missing tenth ossuary. He reports that this tenth ossuary was blank - plain - so he put it out in the courtyard with all the other plain ossuraries, as was normal, due to lack of space inside. Nothing was lost or missing.
(See the report a little lower down in the panel to the left.)

(b) Soil from a different location

Something else. And this is important: The James ossuary, according to the report of the antiquities dealer that Oded Golan got the ossuary from, said that the ossuary came from Silwan, not Talpiot. And it had dirt in it that matched up with the soil in that particular spot. On the other hand, the ossuaries that came out of Talpiot came out of a rock cave from a different place, and without such soil in it.

Much is made of the fact that the chemical analysis of the patina on the James ossuary and some of the ossuaries in the Talpiot tomb match up. This is not actually surprising at all since you can find terra rosa in various locales in and around Jerusalem. This analysis cannot prove that these ossuaries all came from the same place or were interred in the same spot. Terra rosa is not a soil specific to the Talpiot region!

And why is nothing at all mentioned about the very different sort of soil found within the James ossuary and not in these others- namely soil from Silwan, which is where the James ossuary likely came out of the earth. Silwan is indeed within sight of the temple mount. Talpiot is not. It is miles away.

(c) James' tomb near Temple Mount, not Talpiot

Not only that, Eusebius the father of church history (4th century) reports that there had been since New Testament times a tomb of James the Just, the brother of Jesus, which was near the temple mount and had an honoric stele next to it, and that it was a pilgrimage spot for many Christians.

Eusebius reports that the tomb marker for James' burial was close to where James was martyred near the temple mount, indeed near the famous tombs in the Kidron valley such as the so-called tomb of Absalom. Talpiot is nowhere near this locale. It is miles away.

It was apparently a single tomb, with no other Holy family members mentioned nor any other ossuaries in that place. The locality and singularity of this tradition rules out a family tomb in Talpiot. Christians would not have been making pilgrimage to the tomb if they believed Jesus' bones were in it-- that would have contradicted and violated their faith, but the bones of holy James were another matter. They were considered sacred remains.

Here is part of the passage from Eusebius on Jesus' brother- James "was buried on the spot, by the Sanctuary, and his inscribed stone [stele] is still there by the sanctuary." (Hist. Eccles. 2.23.18). This is clearly not in Talpiot, and remember to claim there is a Talpiot family tomb means that Jesus would have been buried there long before James was martyred in AD 62. In other words, the James tradition contradicts the Talpiot tomb both in locale and in substance. James is buried alone, in another place.

(d) James ossuary found earlier than Talpiot tomb

Here is evidence presented in a Jerusalem courtroom early in 2007 at the fraud trial of James ossuary owner Oded Golan, charged with forging part of the inscription on the box.

Former FBI agent Gerald Richard testified that a photo of the James ossuary, showing it in Golan's home, was taken in the 1970s, based on tests done by the FBI photo lab.

Jacobovici conceded in an interview that if the ossuary was photographed in the 1970s, it could not then have been found in a tomb in 1980.

(e) Different classes of inscriptions - Talpiot boxes and James box

No explanation is given as to why we have a monumental or honorific inscription on the James ossuary, but not on these other ones. It may be seen that this makes clear that the James ossuary was not originally in the Talpiot tomb, indeed not likely there at any point.

10. NOT A ONE- GENERATION TOMB

The names on these ossuaries may be significant. One has to explain why one is in Hebrew, several are in Aramaic, but the supposed Mary Magdalene ossuary is in Greek. This suggests a multi-generation tomb, not a single generation tomb

11. JEWISH LEADERS WOULD CONFISCATE JESUS' BODY

Now, just think about this: The Jewish leaders of that time hated Jesus so much. And Jesus’ followers were claiming that Jesus was the Messiah and that he had risen from the dead.

WHAT WOULD HAVE BEEN ONE OF THE GREATEST PROOFS TO THE PEOPLE THAT JESUS WAS NOT THE MESSIAH and that he was still dead?

SURELY THE FINDING AND EXHIBITION OF HIS BODY!

Yes, indeed. Had the Jewish leaders, or any of the Jews of Jesus’ day, been able to find Jesus’ body, they would have PRODUCED that body! And if this was Jesus’ family tomb – right here in Jerusalem, under their noses - it would have been an easy matter to find it.

Just as the fickle Italian public dragged the body of Mussolini through the streets of Milan, to hang it ignominiously in a public square, upside down beside the body of his mistress, so would the Jews of Jesus’ day have paraded Jesus’ broken body through the streets of Jerusalem and all the other towns and villages around, and displayed it publicly as PROOF for all the world to see. You can count on it.

Do you see? All the Jewish leaders had to do to destroy Christianity was to DISCOVER AND PRODUCE THE BODY OF JESUS.

Such an event would have been the most important talking point for Jews from that day to this.

And this is why Jesus' body - were it in the Talpiot tomb - would not have remained there for long.

There is an interesting rosette or symbol over the Talpiot tomb, and from the pictures in the book inside the tomb as well. This is very interesting and it tells us one thing. This was a highly unusual and ornamental tomb meant to be recognized by the symbol.

It is not, and indeed was not a secret tomb where a despised split off sect of Jesus following Jews could have hidden the body of Jesus or James or other family members. The ornamental decoration is meant to attract attention and draw people to the tomb. Indeed it is meant to distinguish the tomb from others. This is the opposite of what we would expect if this is a pre-70 AD Jesus family tomb.

Remember we have clear historical evidence that Saul of Tarsus, from his own letters and from Acts was a persecutor of Christians. By the 40s this persecution got so bad that some Christians fled the city (see the sweep and trajectory of the story in Acts chapters 3-9).

Under no circumstances would these beleaguered early Jewish Christians have been advertising where the bones of Jesus laid, if they knew.

So, if this was Jesus’ family tomb, then why didn’t Jesus’ enemies, the Jewish leaders, expose the tomb? They searched unsuccessfully throughout Jerusalem for any evidence of Jesus’ body, claiming that Jesus’ disciples had stolen it. They hated Jesus enough to want him crucified, and would have been elated to discover his tomb, if it indeed existed.

The Jews are perhaps the most resourceful and untiring race on earth! They searched the whole world untiringly, unceasingly, until they discovered the whereabouts of Nazi war criminal Adolph Eichmann. They investigated, searched, scanned, scoured, until they found him.

They were able to find Eichmann, even though he was in South America... yet they were unable to produce the dead body of Yeshua - in tiny Judea!!!

Because there was no dead body.

12. ROMANS WOULD NOT LET IT REST

If this is the tomb of Jesus, then why didn’t the Romans expose the inscriptions as belonging to Jesus? Roman soldiers controlled the entire city of Jerusalem, and they knew his body was missing from a tomb they had been guarding.

13. JESUS' ENEMIES: HIS TOMB EMPTY

Jewish sources hostile to Christianity have from the earliest times acknowledged that Jesus' tomb was empty. But the story has been put out that this is because his body was stolen.

13. WOULD YOU DIE FOR A LIE? WOULD THEY?

Why would Jesus’ immediate disciples endure ridicule, torture and death, for claiming Jesus was resurrected, if they knew it was a hoax? Why would Jesus' family or followers bury his bones in a family plot and then turn around and preach that he had been physically raised from the dead?”

Would they perpetrate a fraudulent religion, for which they were prepared to die?

Unexplainable behaviour, unless…

The early disciples of Jesus report in their writings that their faith had collapsed after Jesus’ death on the cross.

Each was in abject fear for his own personal safety. At the trial, Peter cringed under the taunt of a maid.

They began their defection by denying Jesus, deserting him, flying in all directions, studiously concealing the fact of their former connection with him. They were not only moved by fear to conceal themselves, but by shame. They were sorely mortified at having been led astray by him. Because they were honest, plain, sensible men. They had originally followed him because they saw in him that moral purity and truth, which formed the elements of their own characters.

To them, the whole thing was now over. They thought it had been ‘nice’ while it lasted, but now their leader had been martyred. And they were about to go their own way, back to their respective jobs and positions of earlier days, and give up the whole thing.

Those disciples were very reluctant to believe he had risen again, according to the records. So they scattered to different areas to forget it, to fishing or some other humble way of life.

BUT... WHAT DO WE BEHOLD!!!

WITHIN JUST A WEEK AFTER THIS, THE RESURRECTION OF YESHUA IS MADE KNOWN BY THEM, THROUGH THE LENGTH AND BREADTH OF THE LAND! Those men who had cowered and hidden in dismay, now came boldly forth, full of confidence in Jesus... to follow him everywhere. Even back to Jerusalem they came - of all places! To the very place from which they had fled! Now they walked everywhere with ANIMATED STEPS AND HEADS HIGH, like men no longer serving a defeated convict, but like men whose Master was Lord of heaven and earth.

What had re-established their faith? What caused this virtually miraculous change?

These men - all cowards, timid and afraid of the Jews who had killed Jesus - how come they were suddenly so filled with power and conviction, that they went out enthusiastically announcing against all opposition, even at the risk of their lives, that Jesus (Yeshua) had risen?

Would numerous men be torn limb from limb, thrown to wild beasts, drawn and quartered, sawn in two, hung upside down, burnt at the stake - FOR SOMETHING THEY KNEW TO BE A DELIBERATE HOAX?

No one ever could have believed (or would have believed) upon the dead Yeshua as the Son of God, had he not had the evidence for the resurrection.

JESUS’ TOMB? OF COURSE NOT!

William Dever, an expert on Near Eastern archaeology and anthropology, who has worked with Israeli archaeologists for 50 years, said specialists have known about the ossuaries for years. “The fact that it's been ignored tells you something,” said Dever, professor emeritus at the University of Arizona. “It would be amusing if it didn't mislead so many people.”

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
The so-called Mary Magdalene Ossuary click here
The Tomb Claimants Defend Themselves click here
Other Tomb Sites Claimed click here
Click here to take a look at the evidence for the most fantastic
claim ever made---the resurrection of Jesus Christ!

Thursday, March 01, 2007 From Ben Witherington

THE SMOKING GUN---TENTH TALPIOT OSSUARY PROVED TO BE BLANK

Catch the JOY of Discovery!!!Get FREE weekly emailson lost wonders found, and forbidden secrets exposed Amazing "believe it or not" facts about our past. Come behind the locked doors and discover what is being hidden, denied and banned by an established elite!

(with amazing discoveries of lost civilizations, unexplained anomalies and_forgotten technology) Your Firstname: Your E-mail Address:

Thursday, March 01, 2007
From Ben Witherington

Catch the JOY of Discovery!!!
Get FREE weekly emails
on lost wonders found, and forbidden secrets exposed
Amazing "believe it or not" facts about our past.
Come behind the locked doors and discover what is being hidden, denied and banned by an established elite!

(with amazing discoveries of lost civilizations,
unexplained anomalies and_forgotten technology)

Your Firstname:

Your E-mail Address: