James Cameron: maker of the movie 'The Titanic'

[Kid Cid]

monemakers, let me get this straight. Humans are not supposed to investigate any evidence found which may directly or indirectly refute the divinity of Jesus Christ because a couple of people 2000 years ago claimed he was divine? In fact, we must never, ever question his divinity at all? Or can we question things only if the final answer supports the notion of divinity? Or do we just say frack it, it doesn't matter what the evidence says, we've created an entire culture around him being divine, it doesn't matter what evidence turns up for or against, that's our story and we're sticking to it?

[muck]

Any idea on the odds for "these two people aren't related by blood, therefore they are married"?

 

That seems like the biggest leap to me ... followed closely with "Judah must be the son of these two-non-blood related people that we believe were married".

[isleseeya]

Jesus was crucified in Golgotha ....spiritually and historically , the tomb's location does not add up

[Kid Cid]

Any idea on the odds for "these two people aren't related by blood, therefore they are married"?

 

 

From my perspective any odds are at best a swag. But, I would suggest that the odds are considerably smaller finding them in the same grave or burial chamber than if they were found seperately. I'm guessing that the instances of non-related people being burried in the same tomb (mass graves not withstanding) are pretty scarce.

[Azazello1313]

is anyone familiar with the nuts and bolts of the statistical argument cameron and co. are putting forth?

[Savage Beatings]

Jesus was crucified in Golgotha ....spiritually and historically , the tomb's location does not add up

 

 

Golgotha, the place of the skulls, is commonly thought to have beena hill located just outside the city walls of Jerusalem. The people that died there were not necessarily entombed there. Also, after the crucifixion, they requested to take down and care for the body of Jesus before placing him in the tomb.

[Azazello1313]

ok, i found the statistical argument, from the one "scholar" who is involved with the project:

Although the names are “common” (9%, 2%, 14%, 25% depending on which name) as many have pointed out, it does indeed seem to be the case that the statistical grouping of these particular names in this particular tomb is far from common, in fact it is so rare that the conclusion that this particular “Jesus son of Joseph” is indeed, most likely, the figure we know as Jesus of Nazareth becomes highly probable. Statisticians often point out that “common sense” when it comes to probability theory, is often quite misleading. What we have to ask is what are the probabilities of these six names occurring together in a 1st century Jewish family tomb, namely: Mary, a second Mary, Jesus son of Joseph, Jude son of Jesus, Joseph, and Matthew. Experts I am working with tell me that assuming a family size of six, the probability of these six names in these relationships occurring together in one family is: 1/253,403.Therefore, out of 253,403 families (a population of 1,520,418), this particular combination of names would occur only once. Obviously the population of late 2nd Temple Jerusalem was nothing of that sort, but perhaps only 25,000 (Jeremias) to 50,000. Further, two of the names, particularly, Mariamene and Jose, appear to be rare forms of names we know associated with Mary Magdalene and with Jesus’ brother Joseph, which further indicates a significant statistical uniqueness, and a correlation with what we know of the Jesus family. A third name, Maria, is that form known to us in the New Testament for Jesus’ mother Miriam, and perhaps his sister Mary as well. It is a relatively rare form of the name.

 

cute, but i see the hugh error right off the bat. there are really only three relevant names here that would tie it back in to everything else we know about Jesus -- Jesus, Mary, and Joseph (as father of Jesus) -- not 6. the other names correspond to people named in the biblical (and extra-biblical) record, but not with any uniqueness. there was someone with virtually EVERY name common in first century judea appearing somewhere close to jesus in the new testament. 25% of the women were named "mary", and if you the most common male names -- simon, joseph, eleazar, judas, john, jesus, hananiah, jonathan, matthew -- the only one who doesn't correspond to at least one major new testament figure. so the fact that there is a second joseph, a matthew, a jude, these add absolutely nothing to the "uniqueness" of the arrangement.

 

so what you're left with is a male name (joseph) shared by 15% of the population, another male name (jesus) shared by 9%, and female name that was shared by 25% of the population. by comparison, the most common name in america today is james, at a mere 3% of the population; the most common last name is smith, at 1%. the combination of those three names is not remote AT ALL.

[Yukon Cornelius]

monemakers, let me get this straight. Humans are not supposed to investigate any evidence found which may directly or indirectly refute the divinity of Jesus Christ because a couple of people 2000 years ago claimed he was divine? In fact, we must never, ever question his divinity at all? Or can we question things only if the final answer supports the notion of divinity? Or do we just say frack it, it doesn't matter what the evidence says, we've created an entire culture around him being divine, it doesn't matter what evidence turns up for or against, that's our story and we're sticking to it?

 

yup

[muck]

...so what you're left with is a male name (joseph) shared by 15% of the population, another male name (jesus) shared by 9%, and female name that was shared by 25% of the population...

 

FWIW, 15% * 9% * 25% = 0.3375% = the probability of any random grave having those three coffins in it given those distributions of names

[Yukon Cornelius]

FWIW, 15% * 9% * 25% = 0.3375% = the probability of any random grave having those three coffins in it given those distributions of names

 

looks like fuzzy math

[Azazello1313]

FWIW, 15% * 9% * 25% = 0.3375% = the probability of any random grave having those three coffins in it given those distributions of names

 

 

or, approximately 1 out of 300. out of how many families who lived in died in palestine in the first century?

[skins]

so is the hypothesis that after jesus was murdered up on a cross for running afoul of both the roman and jewish power structures in jerusalem, his wife, kid and everybody in his entourage just decided to hang out there until they died too? doesn't really seem like the most obvious course of action, does it?

 

i'm sorry, the whole notion just runs contrary to all the best information about jesus that is available. it doesn't offend me religiously, it offends what i know about the history of the time and place. this is a cooked up story to make money, just like the stream of people through the ages who have said they found noah's ark, gone around hocking relics, supposed pieces of the cross, jesus' burial shroud, and on and on and on. every generation for 2000 years there've been people like skins all too willing to lap it up.

 

 

Yer normally ok on this stuff. The Bible tells us that James the brother of Jesus lead the Jerusalem community of Jesus followers for decades after his death. You really want to keep arguing that it is unlikely that the family and entourage of Jesus "obviously" wouldnt want to hang out in Jerusalem?

 

By the way, I have no idea what that tomb holds, nor do you, nor does Cameron, nor does the archaeologist you think knows so much who claims absolutely that the family of Jesus did not have a tomb in Jerusalem.

 

But it is certainly an interesting grouping of names. And yer arguments about the names are off as all of the names but the second Mary (the one not genetically connected to the Jesus) and Jonah (supposed son of Jesus) are members of the immediate family of Jesus as recorded in biblical and extra biblical records. I find that fascinating and feel no need to kneejerk respond as defensively as you do when yer little security bubble is challenged. You are reminding me a lot of the bombastic Catholic League President William Donahue lately.

 

Yer the most tight hyperliteral anal dude here and it is awesome. I told you to turn coal into a diamond in yer aynoos in another post and invite you to do the same here.

 

Go.

Edited February 27, 2007 by skins

[Yukon Cornelius]

or, approximately 1 out of 300. out of how many families who lived in died in palestine in the first century?

 

wheel who knows... kinda like who knows who wrote the bible or i should say rewrote.. its all speculation.

 

just like global warming

[untateve]

Where was Jesus crucified?

 

 

 

In the hands and the feet. Was that some kind of trick question?

[Big Country]

FWIW, 15% * 9% * 25% = 0.3375% = the probability of any random grave having those three coffins in it given those distributions of names

 

 

But, it appears one of them is names, Jesus, Son of Joseph, so, while this math takes into account any combination of those names, we must delve further to determine how many of those combinations would have the unique combination of Jesus being the son of Joseph (not father of, brother of, etc.)

 

I would reckon this drives down the possibilities significantly.

[Azazello1313]

And yer arguments about the names are off as all of the names but the second Mary (the one not genetically connected to the Jesus) and Jonah (supposed son of Jesus) are members of the immediate family of Jesus as recorded in biblical and extra biblical records.

 

the guy defending the argument lists 6 names on the ossuaries:

- Jesus son of Joseph

- Mary

- a second Mary

- Judas son of Jesus

- Joseph

- Matthew

 

now according to their theory, the two marys are jesus' wife and mother, judas' is jesus' son...so that leaves joseph and matthew. jesus' brothers were james, judas, and joses/joseph. so yeah, there was a joseph grave there, and jesus had a brother named joseph. joseph was also the single most popular male name in that time and place. and what about matthew, who was he? and where are james and judas (the brother)? sorry, those last 3 names add absolutely nothing to their statistical argument whatsoever.

[MojoMan]

I know how it is supposed to be spelled in real life, I was just using the huddle version of the spelling.

 

 

 

 

weigie,

 

Nice application of Huddle spelling rule conventions. It was crystal clear to me.

[MojoMan]

First the queer priests feeling up little boys and now Jesus is a fake, he's one of us with remains in a grave?!!?? That's it I'm converting!!! I'm now a Jew, watch out I'm coming for the left-overs with my tupperware!!

 

 

Why do you want to remind us of your terrible thread?

[Azazello1313]

this is a pretty solid summation of the arguments against authenticity here:

 

Filmmaker Simcha Jacobovici and director James Cameron claim in a TV documentary that a burial cave uncovered 27 years ago in Talpiot, Jerusalem, is the tomb of Jesus of Nazareth and his family.

 

The crypt, discovered in 1980, contained ten ossuaries, or bone boxes. Most were apparently empty. Of the ten, six bear inscriptions with names found in the Bible, including the names Jesus, Mary, a second Mary, Matthew and Josa.

 

While Jacobovici's claims do not precisely contradict Christian belief in the resurrection of Jesus (even if the family of the biblical Jesus had prepared a set of ossuaries, we will never be able to tell if Jesus was actually interred there), here's why I think these are unlikely to be the ossuaries of the Jesus of the Bible and his family:

 

1. The opinion of the archaeological expert who knows these ossuaries best

According to The Jerusalem Post, Amos Kloner, the archeologist who officially oversaw the work at the tomb starting in 1980 and has published detailed findings on its contents, dismissed the claims: It makes a great story for a TV film, but it's impossible... There is no likelihood that Jesus and his relatives had a family tomb. They were a Galilee family with no ties in Jerusalem. The Talpiot tomb belonged to a middle-class family from the 1st century CE.

 

2. The names are common

Despite the arguments of the filmmakers that this was an unusual set of names, these names were extremely common — then and now. The name combination "Jesus son of Joseph" was so widespread that it has in fact been already discovered on other first-century ossuaries over the years. Archaeologist Kloner told the Jerusalem Post, Those were the most common names found among Jews in the first centuries BCE and CE. At least three other ossuaries have been found inscribed with the name Jesus and countless others with Joseph and Mary. There are at least two other "Jesus" characters in the New Testament alone. There are at least six distinct "Marys" in the New Testament: The mother of Jesus, Mary Magdalene, the sister of Lazarus, the wife of Cleopas, the mother of John Mark, and a Christian in Rome. So these ossuaries could belong to any of them — or none of them. What we know for certain is that there were many first-century families with these exact same names.

 

3. The likelihood that these names would be found together in a first-century family is in fact high

Archaeologist Kloner says the names "Jesus", "Mary", "Joseph", and "Judah", found on the ossuaries were the most common names of their era. In an article on the demographics of first-century C.E. Judea, Shmuel Katz writes: When Jewish independence came to an end in the year 70, the population numbered, at a conservative estimate, some 5 million people (By Josephus' figures, there were nearer 7 million.). So imagine visiting a city of five million, and finding a group of people who had the most popular names of the day. This would not be a statistically amazing feat. Or imagine someone finding tombs in England with the names "George", "William", and "Mary" and claiming they were the tombs of British royalty. They might be, but there have been many other people in Britain with those popular names too.

 

Incidentally, the filmmakers also make another unwarranted assumption: That the "Mariamne" ossuary inscription must mean "Mary Magdalene". In fact, the word "Magdalene" appears nowhere. Mariamne is simply the Greek form for Mary. There were several other women named Mary in the New Testament to whom Jesus was not related.

 

4. The ossuary of the "son of Jesus"

One of the ossuaries is that of the son of the "Jesus" in this family: it bears the inscription "Yehuda bar Yeshua", or Judah, son of Jesus. This is a problem for the filmmakers. Not one ancient document, either by Christians, their opponents, Gnostic Christians, or others, purports that the Jesus of the Bible had a son. We're told of his brothers, his mother, his cousin, his aunt, but never a son. Popular Da Vinci Code-inspired beliefs aside, it would not have been impossible, in Christian theology, for Christ to have married and fathered children; Christians have always believed him to be fully man as well as divine. But there is simply no ancient evidence that he did. The obvious conclusion is that this ossuary tabs this to have been a family other than the family of the Jesus of the Bible.

5. The mistaken identification of the James ossuary as being from the tomb of Jesus

In order to strengthen their case, the filmmakers make the contention that the famous ossuary reading "James, the brother of Jesus" was stolen from the group of ten shortly after the tomb was found. The archaeologists examining the tomb 26 years ago found 10 ossuaries, but only nine remain. In "The Lost Tomb...", it is alleged that the James ossuary is that missing box. But as Stephen Goranson points out, the original documentation of the ossuaries, A Tomb with Inscribed Ossuaries in East Talpiot, 'Atiqot 29 (1996) plainly lists that (#10) ossuary as having "No Inscription." If it had no inscription in 1980 how can it be the anciently-inscribed "James" ossuary today? Recently an Israeli police officer testified in court that he saw the James ossuary in the 1970s. His recollection is backed up by a photograph of the James ossuary from that time period. Clearly, then, an ossuary found in 1980 could not be this same James ossuary. This is merely one of the items in the documentary that do not add up. To add further doubt, many scholars have already called the ossuary inscription 'brother of Jesus' a modern-day forgery.

 

6. First-century foes of Christianity apparently did not consider these to be the ossuaries of Jesus' family

The surest way to squelch a movement based on belief in a resurrected man would have been for authorities to point to these ossuaries while they still contained remains, thus quickly disproving the resurrection They didn't, either because it was apparently known that this was not the family of THAT Jesus, or because the ossuary was empty even then.

 

7. The opinions of other experts

Stephen Pfann, a biblical scholar at the University of the Holy Land in Jerusalem who was interviewed in the documentary, told the Associated Press that the film's hypothesis holds little weight. Skeptics, in general, would like to see something that pokes holes into the story that so many people hold dear. But how possible is it? On a scale of one through 10 — 10 being completely possible — it's probably a one, maybe a one and a half. Pfann is even unsure that the name "Jesus" on the caskets was read correctly. He thinks it's more likely the name "Hanun." William Dever, an expert on near eastern archaeology and anthropology, who has worked with Israeli archeologists for five decades, 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.

 

8. The track record of these filmmakers in biblical documentaries

Jacobovici and Cameron earlier made Exodus Decoded, which claimed to have found new evidence that the ten plagues of the Exodus were caused by a volcanic eruption on a Greek island that occurred 3,500 years ago. None of the relics — or arguments — cited in the made-for-TV film has been accepted by archeologists or any prominent archeological institution as proof for the theory, and their interpretation of Egyptian hieroglyphics was ripped apart by experts in Biblical Archaeology Review.

 

Here are more critical reviews from scholars about Jacobovici's previous work:

 

» Article from Biblical Archaeology Review

» Debunking "The Exodus Decoded" • Bryant G. Wood, Ph.D.

» Professional Criticisms by Chris Heard, Associate Professor of Religion at Pepperdine University

The documentary will get headlines; it's best to see past the hype and think clearly. Whether you're a Christian or not, an honest look at the evidence will lead to the conclusion that these are not likely to be the ossuaries of the Bible characters.

 

[wiegie]

If there were a chance in hell that this was THE Jesus's grave, it would have been published in a peer-reviewed Archeology journals years ago.

[isleseeya]

Golgotha, the place of the skulls, is commonly thought to have beena hill located just outside the city walls of Jerusalem. The people that died there were not necessarily entombed there. Also, after the crucifixion, they requested to take down and care for the body of Jesus before placing him in the tomb.

 

 

 

Understood ...but again many people who did die their were entombed very closely geographically ...so it would be clear we are not sure exactly where jesus was entombed for 100 percent certainty ....cameron's claims and all the threads ad posts with excerpts listed and other pieces of updated info , do not convince me that this is jesus tomb they found ...

 

What I am more interested in , is what people feel about all of this ? What I mean is those who do believe in Jesus and his divinity and for those who are practicing christians , was there a moment when this story broke , that your faith was shaken and where you said " uh oh " ...for me personally this did not occur and for which I am glad

[skins]

If there were a chance in hell that this was THE Jesus's grave, it would have been published in a peer-reviewed Archeology journals years ago.

 

 

Not necessarily. As Asz pointed out, there have been other ossuaries found with the name jesus on them, even Jesus son of Joseph. This one has been written about in the past, but not hyped like this before.

 

Why would publication in a peer reviewed journal mean this was more or less likely the actual tomb of the family of Jesus?

[Jimmy Neutron]

Not necessarily. As Asz pointed out, there have been other ossuaries found with the name jesus on them, even Jesus son of Joseph. This one has been written about in the past, but not hyped like this before.

 

Why would publication in a peer reviewed journal mean this was more or less likely the actual tomb of the family of Jesus?

 

 

Because it would be nice to see 4 or 5 respected archeologists say, "yeah, this could be real."

 

If for real, you'd think it would have received more press previous to a Hollywood kook making a film about it.

[wiegie]

Not necessarily. As Asz pointed out, there have been other ossuaries found with the name jesus on them, even Jesus son of Joseph. This one has been written about in the past, but not hyped like this before.

 

Why would publication in a peer reviewed journal mean this was more or less likely the actual tomb of the family of Jesus?

 

Are you being serious?

 

Assuming that you are, I will answer the question.

 

In order to get published in a peer-reviewed journal, the evidence and assumptions that support the hypothesis must be able to withstand a rigorous examination by other experts in the field. Any jackass can propose some crazy-ass hypothesis and find "evidence" to support it, but that doesn't mean such hypotheses are valid. The way to tell if a hypothesis should be given serious consideration is to see if other independent experts in the field say that the evidence truly does support the hypothesis.

[skins]

Are you being serious?

 

Assuming that you are, I will answer the question.

 

In order to get published in a peer-reviewed journal, the evidence and assumptions that support the hypothesis must be able to withstand a rigorous examination by other experts in the field. Any jackass can propose some crazy-ass hypothesis and find "evidence" to support it, but that doesn't mean such hypotheses are valid. The way to tell if a hypothesis should be given serious consideration is to see if other independent experts in the field say that the evidence truly does support the hypothesis.

 

 

I know about peer review journals. My point is that lots of ossuaries are found by Israeli archeologists and stored away with probably little consideration given to Christian issues or significance. Whether their "theory" has been peer reviewed means little to me given the circumstances. Their theory is completely farfetched albeit interesting to think about. But whether it has been peer reviewed doesnt add or detract from its possible validity to me (which is impossible to prove anyway).