The Lost Tomb of Jesus at Talpiot

[mistermack]

Anybody have opinions of the Talpiot Tomb? Here is my summary :

Christianity is the worlds biggest religion, with 2.1 billion christians. They all believe Jesus was the son of god. (more or less).

At the time of Jesus, it was normal for bodies to be left to rot in a cave, and after a year, the bones were cleaned, and put in stone boxes. This custom lasted for about 100 years, ending around 70 AD.

So when a box of bones was found in 1980, in a cave about three miles from the reported scene of Jesus' crucifiction, with the inscription 'Jesus-son-of-Joseph', you would think the best brains in the world of archeology would be assigned to the case. But no, it was kept fairly quiet, the box was kept in the back of a warehouse for fifteen years.
The argument has been made since that these are common names at the time ( true ) but this is the ONLY box found in situ with Jesus-son-of-joseph inscribed. ( out of about 1000 ). So I find the dismissal of it quite incredible.

But it's far worse than that. Also found in the same cave was a box with MARIAH written on it, and this is the rare romanised form of Mary that is used in the bible to refer to Jesus's mother.
And it's far worse than THAT. Also found was another box with Jose inscribed, which is a rare form of Joseph, and is exactly the name of one of Jesus's brothers, as written in the gospels.
And it's worse than THAT. There is also a box with 'Juda-son-of-Jesus',
and Jesus had another brother named Juda, so this would have been a very logical name for a son of the Biblical Jesus.

There were also a Matthew, and a Mariamne-Mara, which are not recorded as close family members of Jesus, although some try to make the connection of Mariamne-Mara to Mary Magdelene, although it's very tenuous.
The argument was made at the time that all of these were common names, so this was nothing unusual. ( even though nothing remotely similar has ever been found ).

Here is a smattering of the figures for the population of Jerusalem at the time, and the relative abundance of people with these names:


Figures for Population Jerusalem.

1) Generally accepted population size 25 to 80 thousand. Ave: 50,000.
2) Best guess, this is 20,000 adults, 30,000 juveniles
3) That gives 10,000 adult men.
4) Over 100 year period, this gives about 30,000 adult male deaths.
5) 4% were named Jesus, this gives 1,200 deaths of a Jesus
6) 8% of these would have had a father called Joseph, gives 100 burials of men who were Jesus-son-of-Joseph approx.

This is where it gets interesting. Mary was the most common woman's name at the time. About 25% of women were called some form of Mary. But it came in many forms. By far the most common were Mariam and Miriam, but there were many others, including Mariamene and Mariamne.
One of the rarest was Maria, and Mariah was extremely rare.

This box had Mariah inscribed, but the detractors of this find choose to treat it as any old version of Mary, with an overall frequency of one-in-four women. This I find suspiciously ludicrous. Mariah was a very rare version of Mary, and if you are generous, and say that 1% of Marys were Mariahs, then the frequency of the name Maria is about one in 400, not one in four.

So if you are generous, and infer that the chance of having a mother or wife called Mariah was 1 in 100, and apply that to the 100 burials of men called Jesus-son-of-Joseph, the chances are that only one of them would be buried alongside a Mariah. So just with these three names being found together, statistically it is likely that they ARE the family from the gospels.

If you add the fact that Jose was found too, and that this is an extremly rare name that matches the gospels for the brother of Jesus, it becomes heavily odds-on that this is the real deal.
Also, the Judah-son-of-Jesus shortens the odds still further, with Judah being the name of another brother of Jesus.

It's clear I'm sure that I'm no expert on statistics, so I'm sure that more refined methods can be applied, but there is no reason why they would produce hugely different results.

So why was this rubbished, and kept quiet?
Well, ask yourself, who would want it publicised? Not the Chrisian establishment, for obvious reasons. The Chrisian religion relies on Jesus rising from the dead.
Not the Jewish establishment. They've had more than their share of hate down the years, for killing Jesus. What would happen if they promoted a find that could kill Christianity?
So why didn't they just destroy the whole thing? That could also have unforseen consequences in the future, when word leaked out.
So the only sensible thing was to do what they did, dismiss it, store the boxes in the back of a warehouse, and hope the story would go away. And it has worked, pretty well.

I'm a convinced atheist, but I do believe that there was a real Jesus, and that he was executed as it's told in the bible. I'm convinced by the evidence of the letters of St. Paul.
I'm also close to being convinced that this find is what's left of the 'Holy Family', I cannot see how this collection of people could just be another family that accidentally had the same names. It's just far too much of a coincidence.
Especially as the tomb was about three miles from the scene of Cruxifiction, and about the same distance from Bethlehem, where Jesus is supposed to have been born, and where his father is said to be from.

It's probably less than an hours walk to take the body that far, probably on the back of an ass. There is nothing in this find that doesn't fit, which in itself is amazing.

The Talpiot Tomb on Wikipedia : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talpiot_tomb

"The lost tomb of Jesus" on Youtube :

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[Robert_S]

Those are probably the bones of that Apollonius guy.

But seriously, I think it would be great fun if they turned out to be the bones of a famous Jewish reformer.

[Feck]

Those are probably the bones of that Apollonius guy.

But seriously, I think it would be great fun if they turned out to be the bones of a famous Jewish reformer.

It would make no difference truth has had little to do with any of the faiths .....

[Robert_S]

Those are probably the bones of that Apollonius guy.

But seriously, I think it would be great fun if they turned out to be the bones of a famous Jewish reformer.

It would make no difference truth has had little to do with any of the faiths .....

It'll make little difference to the wilfully stupid ones, but there is the sweet guilty pleasure of watching the thinking Christians squirm.

[Ayaan]

Wasn't that thing proved to be a fake?

[colubridae]

Wasn't that thing proved to be a fake?

They also foud hitler's diaries in the same cave. Spooky.

[mistermack]

Wasn't that thing proved to be a fake?

No, it's widely accepted as authentic.
There was one box originally taken from the cave that mysteriously went missing, and wasn't examined or recorded. There was an attempt to claim that this had turned up with an inscription which read "James-brother-of-Jesus", but it was concluded that the brother-of-Jesus part had been added later. ( not necessarily forged ).
There is no proof anyway that this is the box that went missing.
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[Mysturji]

[mistermack]

The duck said it all.
I'm amazed that a site for atheists showed so little interest in this tomb.
I can see why the Christian and Jewish establishment want it to go away, but I would have thought atheists would have shown an interest.
Is it because we would rather believe that there was no such person as Jesus? That's not what the evidence suggests.
Personally, I like to follow the evidence, whatever it leads to.
I think there was a man called Jesus, he did have a following, and he was dead and buried in Talpiot for two thousand years.
That's where the evidence leads.
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[Pappa]

Is it because we would rather believe that there was no such person as Jesus?

I don't know any atheists who think that way.

For me it's just a matter of not caring if he was ever a real person or not. I suspect he did exist, but that's not actually relevant at all. The historical Jesus (if there was one) is incredibly unlikely to have much in common with the Jesus of the bible. Those stories are just stories, few if any are likely to be historically accurate.

[mistermack]

Is it because we would rather believe that there was no such person as Jesus?

I don't know any atheists who think that way.

For me it's just a matter of not caring if he was ever a real person or not. I suspect he did exist, but that's not actually relevant at all. The historical Jesus (if there was one) is incredibly unlikely to have much in common with the Jesus of the bible. Those stories are just stories, few if any are likely to be historically accurate.

Oh, I've seen the comment written many times, that there is no real evidence that Jesus actually lived. ( obviously by atheists ).
I do care, because the rest of my family are Christian, as are 2.1 billion people on the planet, including the most powerful nation on earth.
I agree the gospels are mostly legends that built up over time, but the letters of St. Paul were written pretty soon after Jesus died, while most of the eywitnesses were still alive, so he wouldn't have had much scope for invention on his part. (Apart from his repeating the obvious inventions of rising from the dead etc. )
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[Pappa]

Is it because we would rather believe that there was no such person as Jesus?

I don't know any atheists who think that way.

For me it's just a matter of not caring if he was ever a real person or not. I suspect he did exist, but that's not actually relevant at all. The historical Jesus (if there was one) is incredibly unlikely to have much in common with the Jesus of the bible. Those stories are just stories, few if any are likely to be historically accurate.

Oh, I've seen the comment written many times, that there is no real evidence that Jesus actually lived. ( obviously by atheists ).
I do care, because the rest of my family are Christian, as are 2.1 billion people on the planet, including the most powerful nation on earth.
I agree the gospels are mostly legends that built up over time, but the letters of St. Paul were written pretty soon after Jesus died, while most of the eywitnesses were still alive, so he wouldn't have had much scope for invention on his part. (Apart from his repeating the obvious inventions of rising from the dead etc. )
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Why does it matter though? If it's very important to prove the historicity of Jesus (to bolster belief) then presumably it would be important to tease out which events in the Bible are historically accurate and which aren't. The implication being, if you could prove Jesus did some of them, then they would be more valid than the 'legends'. But that would devalue the legends as non-factual stories unconnected with the real Jesus.

The concept of following Jesus' teachings (by Christians) is usually taken as following the whole package (not down to the specific detail, but the general thread of his teachings)... if you just followed ones that you were confident were accurate, you'd be following a different form of Christianity to the vast majority of Christians.

Besides, there really isn't any verifiable evidence that any of the stories about Jesus actually happened.

[colubridae]

Oh, I've seen the comment written many times, that there is no real evidence that Jesus actually lived. ( obviously by atheists ).
I do care, because the rest of my family are Christian, as are 2.1 billion people on the planet, including the most powerful nation on earth.
I agree the gospels are mostly legends that built up over time, but the letters of St. Paul were written pretty soon after Jesus died, while most of the eywitnesses were still alive, so he wouldn't have had much scope for invention on his part. (Apart from his repeating the obvious inventions of rising from the dead etc. )
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Are you a JC believer?

[mistermack]

I'm not a Christian, I'm a fully convinced atheist. I'm just interested in facts, and given that 2.1 billion people follow Christianity, and have most of the power, I think it's all pretty relevant.
That's why I find this tomb incredibly relevant. Christianity relies on the resurrection of Jesus from the dead. And yet in all probablility, here were his bones in a box, three miles from the reported scene of the cruxifiction.
How can that not be of interest to people who profess to be atheists, and conduct debates with Christians?
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[Pappa]

I'm not a Christian, I'm a fully convinced atheist. I'm just interested in facts, and given that 2.1 billion people follow Christianity, and have most of the power, I think it's all pretty relevant.
That's why I find this tomb incredibly relevant. Christianity relies on the resurrection of Jesus from the dead. And yet in all probablility, here were his bones in a box, three miles from the reported scene of the cruxifiction.
How can that not be of interest to people who profess to be atheists, and conduct debates with Christians?
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Because the 'facts' seem pretty poor.