Jesus Dynasty Blog

Imagining A Hypothetical Jesus Family Tomb
05/26/2007

By Dr. James. D. Tabor
May 26, 2007, @ 8:37 am

The first time the Talpiot “Jesus” tomb received any public attention was sixteen years after its excavation when a BBC produced documentary titled “The Body in Question” aired in the UK on Easter 1996. The London Sunday Times ran a feature story titled “The Tomb that Dare Not Speak Its Name,” based on that documentary. Both the documentary and the newspaper article called attention to the interesting cluster of names inscribed on six ossuaries found in the tomb: Jesus son of Joseph, two Marys, a Joseph, a Matthew, and a Jude son of Jesus. A flurry of wire stories followed with headlines that the “tomb of Jesus” had perhaps been found. Archaeologists, officials from the Israel Antiquities Authority, and biblical scholars quickly weighed in, assuring the public that “the names were common.”

One lone voice, Joe Zias, an anthropologist with the IAA at the Rockefeller at that time, demurred, stating that the cluster of names considered together was so significant that had he not known they were from a provenanced IAA excavation he would have been certain they were forged. Zias called for further investigation. Within a short time the press dropped the story and no one in the academy other than Zias saw any reason for more to be done. It was in response to that 1996 story, and the attention that it drew, that Amir Drori, director of the IAA, asked Amos Kloner to write up an official report on the tomb, published later that year in ‘Atiquot’.

The current 2007 discussion of the tomb, also prompted by a TV documentary, though heated and passionate in some quarters, has also prompted a few academic responses, though most all who have written on the subject have found the evidence lacking for identifying this particular “Jesus” tomb with that of the historical Jesus of Nazareth and his family, and most consider the hypothesis overly speculative or even academically irresponsible.

My view is quite the opposite. I am convinced that there is a surprisingly close fit between what we might postulate as a hypothetical pre-70 CE Jesus family tomb based on our textual records, and this particular tomb with its contents. Rather than starting with the tomb and its six inscribed ossuaries, and exploring all the alternative possibilities, which given the scarcity of data, are endless, I take different approach. It is true, for example, that a name like Yose, appearing alone without patronym, could be any male of a Jewish clan, whether father, brother, son, nephew, or uncle. But if we begin with our historical records asking a different question—who was the “Yose” in Jesus’ life and is there any reason we might expect him to be in a hypothetical pre-70 CE Jesus tomb?—the answer is specific and singular. Rather than starting with an endlessly open and undetermined set of “unknowns,” my approach, in terms of method, is to begin with the specific “knowns.” Essentially what I want to do is test a hypothesis, something we constantly do when we seek to correlate the material evidence of archaeology within our known textual and chronological “horizons.” It is obvious, no matter what one’s theory might be, that one can always posit other possibilities and alternatives. That is why some can still not agree on whether or not there is a “fit” between the sect described in the Dead Sea Scrolls and the site of Qumran. In terms of method I think what I suggest here can turn out to be quite enlightening and I hope it will contribute to the discussion in a positive way.

What I want to ask here is what one might imagine for a hypothetical, pre-70 CE, Jerusalem tomb of Jesus and his family? Given our textual evidence, what might we reasonably construct in terms of likelihood?

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