BTW -- I think this fellow made a number of good points in the first part of his review:
We surely live in interesting times.
With the initial airing of the Discovery Channel documentary “The Lost Tomb of Jesus” in the U.S., Canada, and Israel, and the publication of the book, The Jesus Family Tomb by Simcha Jacobovici and Charles Pelligrino, the Talpiot “Jesus tomb” has generated an avalanche of media coverage and Internet discussion. A simple Google search for the string “Jesus family tomb” generates a million and a half Web sites. The passions and emotions on this topic have been high, and correct and reliable information has been hard to come by. I have recently compiled a list of twenty positions divided into six categories regarding the Tomb, its discovery, and its investigation that are, to my knowledge, in error. I list them here without comment and invite interested readers to followup with my responses on the Jesus Dynasty Web site:
THEOLOGICAL AND FAITH ISSUES
1) Research and discussion of the Talpiot tomb as related to Jesus of Nazareth shows contempt for Christianity and is an attack on the faith of millions.
2) Belief in the literal “flesh and bones” resurrection of Jesus as a physical being is fundamental to all authentic versions of Christian faith, and accordingly, the discovery of Jesus’ empty tomb on Easter Sunday morning precludes the permanent burial of his body in a second tomb.
HISTORICAL BACKGROUND
3) Jesus and his family would not have a family tomb in Jerusalem. If there were a Jesus family tomb at all it would have been in Nazareth in the Galilee, which is the ancestral home of the family.
4) Jesus was a poor, illiterate, itinerant peasant, and neither he nor his followers would have been able to afford a burial cave such at the one found at Talpiot.
5) The Talpiot tomb held the remains of dozens, perhaps even hundreds of individuals, over several generations, so that the six names on the ossuaries are hardly representative of the Jewish family that used this tomb.
THE OSSUARY INSCRIPTIONS
6) The ossuary that supposedly has the Aramaic inscription “Jesus son of Joseph” might not even have the name “Jesus” at all, and its illegible scrawl, even if it does have the name “Jesus,” does not reflect the honor that Jesus’ followers would have had for him as their leader.
7) Jesus, or Yeshua, was an extremely common male name among 1st century Jews in Palestine. Many ossuaries have been found inscribed with the name and half a dozen with “Jesus son of Joseph.”
8) Jesus was never called “Jesus son of Joseph” by any of his followers and this is an entirely inappropriate name for Jesus of Nazareth. If this ossuary belonged to Jesus it would have likely said something like “Jesus of Nazareth,” or “Jesus the Lord.”
9) Rahmani’s reading of the ossuary inscription “Mariamene he Mara” has been corrected and actually should read “Mariame and Mara,” referring to two women, one named Mary and the other Martha. Since it is in Greek it is very unlikely that it belonged to anyone connected to Jesus or his family.
10) Yose is also a very common Jewish male name among 1st century Jews in Palestine and there is no reason to associate this form of the name with Jesus’ brother Joseph.
11) The name Matya or Matthew would not belong in a Jesus family tomb and counts as evidence against this tomb being that of Jesus of Nazareth.
12) The ossuary inscribed “Jude son of Jesus” provides definitive evidence that the Talpiot tomb could not be that of Jesus of Nazareth since we have no historical record that he had a son.
DNA TESTING
13) Only two ossuaries from the Talpiot tomb were tested for mitochondrial DNA because those conducting the research were only interested in proving a potential marital or sexual relationship between Yeshua and Mariamene. They were testing to prove a preconceived theory not to objectively determine historical data.
14) The DNA tests done on the Yeshua and Mariamene ossuary remains were sloppily done and the results are inconclusive and unreliable. Modern DNA may have contaminated them. Also, since the bones of more than one individual are often found in a single ossuary no one can label any results as belonging to the “Yeshua” or the “Mariamene” inscribed on the ossuary. The results could belong to any number of other unknown persons.
STATISTICAL STUDIES
15) The statistical work of Dr. Andrey Feuerverger and others was flawed from the beginning based on incorrect assumptions built into the calculations, i.e., that Mariamene was to be identified with Mary Magdalene, that Yose was the brother of Jesus, and so forth. It was a classic case of “garbage in, garbage out,” with no mathematical value.
17) The names found in the Talpiot tomb are common names used by countless Jews in 1st century Jewish Palestine, so their presence in this tomb means nothing. There would have been hundreds of tombs with just this combination of names so this particular “Jesus son of Joseph” is one of many and very unlikely connected with Jesus of Nazareth.
THE JAMES OSSUARY AND THE TALPIOT TOMB
18) The 10 ossuaries from the Talpiot tomb with their six inscriptions were catalogued and thoroughly examined in 1980 by Amos Kloner, supervisor of the excavation, Joseph Gath, the excavator, and Joe Zias, the curator of collections at the Rockefeller museum. They were judged at that time to be of no special significance or interest.
19) The ossuary inscribed “James son of Joseph, brother of Jesus,” cannot possibly be the so-called “10th missing ossuary” from the Talpiot tomb. That particular ossuary differs in size from the James ossuary, it was described as “plain,” and it had no inscription. It was put in the courtyard area behind the Rockefeller museum and subsequently discarded or lost.
20) The patina studies comparing the James ossuary with the other ossuaries from the Talpiot tomb are invalid and tell us nothing. The physical condition of the James ossuary, and the fact that Oded Golan, its owner, acquired it before 1980, show that it could not have come from the Talpiot tomb.
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