An Embarrassment of Jesuses

I made the point the other day that finding a tomb in Jerusalem with the name "Jesus" on it and concluding that it belonged to the Lord is a little like looking over a baseball roster and concluding that He has come back as a shortstop from the Dominican Republic. But you don't have to listen to me. Here's what real archaeologists have to say:

Archaeologist Amos Kloner, a professor at Israel's Bar-Ilan University, documented the tomb as the Jewish burial cave of a well-off family more than 10 years ago.

He says there is no evidence that it was the burial site of Jesus, and that that the names are a coincidence.

"I'm a scholar. I do scholarly work which has nothing to do with documentary film-making. There's no way to take a religious story and to turn it into something scientific," he says.

"Who says that 'Maria' is Magdalena and 'Judah' is the son of Jesus? It cannot be proved. These are very popular and common names from the first century BC."

Kloner says that of 900 burial caves found within 4 kilometres of Jerusalem's Old City and from the same era, the name Jesus or Yeshu was found 71 times, and that 'Jesus son of Joseph' has also been found.

Professor L Michael White, director of the Institute for the Study of Antiquity and Christian Origins at the the University of Texas, says he also doubts the claims are true.

"This is trying to sell documentaries," he says, adding a series of strict tests needed to be conducted before a bone box or inscription could be confirmed as ancient.

"This is not archaeologically sound, this is fanfare."

Comments

[Ana]

Just me, but I'd say an embarrassment of Jesi. If I had a blog that I maintained at all I'd say that. Yup.

[Rob B]

I know I'm repeating an observation that I made at other places but considering that the State of California couldn't put OJ behind bars with DNA and statistics, as well as other data, I don't have much faith in Cameron and pals. Of course, now that he's dead Jesus has Johnny Cochrane to call on if need be.

[JWebb]

Cameron has always been a master of the shallow plot.