Name:Coriolan •
Title: Find and test the full set of bones. •
Date posted: 03/06/07 18:30
Q: To my understanding in 1980 when the tomb was first discovered, the bones contained by the ossuaries were buried properly as requested by the local religious authorities and the empty 9 ossuaries were stored while the 10th (James’) went missing.
Why not dig out the remains and do comprehensive DNA tests as well as criminal forensics on the full skeletons?
By doing this we could get answers to the following questions, adding crucial evidence pro or against the entire theory:
- DNA all remains and see the relations in between everyone in the tomb (or the lack of). Also when having plenty of material to sample do more than just the Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) , also do the Y-line tests which would provide more information than just the maternal relationship.Very important to see if Jesus was related to everyone in the tomb but Mariamne or if Judas (the child) was the son of Jesus and Mariamne.
- Identify the approximate age at the death of each individual. We already know the age Jesus or James should have been when they died. Finding out that the Jesus buried here was 80 years old would discredit the theory greatly.
- Identify the cause of death where possible of each individual. Through fairly trivial forensics tests nowadays we would be able to tell if Jesus was crucified by the damage done to the carpal bones or if he was stabbed by eventual damage done to the ribs. James also was said to be stoned to death. Such a death would leave unmistakable marks on the skeleton.
- Identify whether Mariamne had a child by looking at the cervical bones. (not so relevant especially if the item in the first bullet is verified)
- Identify the remaining 4 bodies, or at least their gender/age/relationship to the known individuals. See if they fit with anything we know from the New Testament or other writings from the same time.
Also here are some other tests or questions that could be done/answered at the moment without having the bones.
- Take more patina random samples and compare the signatures with the one on James’ ossuary. I don’t know much about what affects the patina composition and I am sure that I am not the only one so to me it is unclear if the signature is very specific to a particular tomb, or a particular area/era etc. So for example I would like to see a comparison in between the signatures from Jesus’ ossuary , James’ one and a sample taken from the tomb from across the street that was first thought to be our tomb in the documentary. If signatures from Jesus’ osuarry and James’ match but they do not match the one across the street, this would enforce the hypothesis that we have the right ossuary. If they all match it meas we need more tests and what we have is not relevant because the patina is consistent with a relative area not tomb.
- Draft or publish Jesus’ family tree. Find out if there are members that would be expected to be in the tomb and they are not. Find out theories on why they are not there or if they are maybe one of the 4 unidentified/unmarked ossuaries. Find out if any of their burial places are known and see if samples can be taken to compare the DNA with the one from our tomb. For example I believe that Mary’s father (Jesus’ grandfather from mother side) is known under the name of Nabi Imran and his tomb is allegedly located in the al-Quaf district of the Omani town of Salalah.
- Decrypt the inscriptions on the cave. Further investigate the tomb. (of course with the approval of the local authorities/IAA)
- Find local folklore information about the tomb.
If this ideas crossed my untrained bystander mind I am sure there are people already working on it so I am confident that soon we will hear some answers to the above questions or maybe simply arguments why the questions are not worth asking.
I am wondering though why nobody mentioned anything yet about some of them. It could be simply because not enough information was yet gathered since I see the means to get the bones can become seriously more laborious right now since the documentary got enough attention to awake the bureaucratical monster that slows everything down. It could be because the information found is in the hands of the producers but if completely discredits the theory so it’s release is being slowed down allowing the spotlight to last a little bit longer. Or it could be that the information proves too much for the comfort of our Christian Conservatives to release it. To many sand castles would crumble.
Either way, please follow up on this great documentary and don’t let any conclusions get lost in the fog of ambiguity. I disagree with Ted Koppel’s attitude as well as with that of the two other individuals whose names are not worth my time researching right now. Instead of approaching the issue with a scientifical angle like expected from such elevated scholars like they pretend to be, they simply play a ridiculous devil’s advocate role which not necessarily unhelpful, definitely comic and somewhat “sour-grapish”.
Mr. Jakobovici gets my full respect and compliments for both the documentary as well as for his attitude when faced with the “Knights that say ney”. The message that he clearly puts out is “We have a beautifully realized and depicted theory, we placed the cards on the table and we are welcoming a debate and investigations to be done”. I do suggest though to be a little bit more careful with some statements that could just feed the trolls and give them discrediting silver bullets (Ex.” Mariamne is not maternally related to Jesus therefore she must be his wife”).
While a Christian myself by babtism and education, personally I always believed that Jesus was just a human being like everybody else but a prophet none the less, much like Mohammad or Buddha or Mosses and that Christianity is a little bit over inflated. And think about all the issues in the world that could potentially go away if we all are at list partially on the same page religiously, if a church tries to see how all of our beliefs fit together rather than create a segregation that costed and still costs million of lifes. Why give power to an institution that uses it for the purpose of making people feel different from each other then showing how they are the same? Why look for light to a beacon that only spreads shadow and confusion? So I welcome and support the idea of proving that Jesus is one of us, A son of God like everyone else but not “the” son of God. A good man with good teachings and with eye opening ideals but not a divine entity with superhuman powers.
Thank you for this documentary. Please follow through with it.
Name:NormDoering •
Date: 03/06/07 18:36
A: I would like to see all those things done.
http://normdoering.blogspot.com/
Name:shofyke •
Date: 03/06/07 19:14
A: i dont think that the jewish religion would allow digging up corpses on purpose to do all these tests
Name:Coriolan •
Date: 03/06/07 19:24
A: They should. The results could make them very happy if it is proven that Jesus was just a mortal and nothing more.
