'Titanic' director aims to sink Christianity with discovery of Jesus's tomb

Academy award–winning director of the movie 'Titanic' James Cameron is planning to sink Christianity, once and for all, or least shake the basic foundations of its beliefs.

On Monday, February 26, in New York, the Oscar–winning filmmaker and a team of scholars, including filmmaker archeologist Simcha Jacobovici, showed two stone ossuaries, or bone boxes, that Cameron said might have once contained the bones of Jesus and Mary Magdalene.

The findings are the subject of a documentary he produced called "The Lost Tomb of Jesus" and a book "The Jesus Family Tomb."

The evidence and interpretations of the artifacts would be presented in a documentary "The Lost Tomb of Jesus" on the Discovery Channel, March 4, at 9 p.m. ET/PT. The 90–minute documentary that would be aired is bound to outrage Christians and stir up a titanic debate between believers and skeptics.

According to a Discovery Channel press release, "scientific evidence, including DNA analysis conducted at one of the world's foremost molecular genetics laboratories, as well as studies by leading scholars, suggests a 2,000–year–old Jerusalem tomb could have once held the remains of Jesus of Nazareth and his family. The findings also suggest that Jesus and Mary Magdalene might have produced a son named Judah."

The two small caskets were part of 10 excavated in 1980 from the Talpiot Tomb during construction in South Jerusalem. The tomb was unearthed as construction crews blasted for new apartments in the town of Talpiot, a suburb south of Jerusalem.

In the demolition, children discovered a low door with a symbol over it, an inverted "V" with a circle at its base, which has been associated with early Christianity. Following the discovery of the tomb, archaeologists from the Israeli Antiquities Authority (IAA) excavated it. Archaeologist Shimon Gibson surveyed the site and drew a layout plan. Scholar L.Y. Rahmani later published "A Catalogue of Jewish Ossuaries" that described 10 ossuaries, or limestone bone boxes, found in the tomb.

Scholars know that from 30 B.C. to 70 A.D., many people in Jerusalem would first wrap bodies in shrouds after death. The bodies were then placed in carved rock tombs, where they decomposed for a year before the bones were placed in an ossuary.

"Such tombs are very typical for that region," Aaron Brody, associate professor of Bible and Archaeology at the Pacific School of Religion and director of California's Bade Museum told Discovery News.

But what is of signifiance, however, is that five of the 10 discovered boxes in the Talpiot tomb were inscribed with names, which took 20 years for experts to decipher, believed to be associated with key figures in the New Testament: Jesus, Mary, Matthew, Joseph and Mary Magdalene. A sixth inscription, written in Aramaic, translates to "Judah Son of Jesus."

At least four leading epigraphers have corroborated the ossuary inscriptions for the documentary, according to the Discovery Channel.

Frank Moore Cross, a Professor Emeritus in the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations at Harvard University, told Discovery News, "The inscriptions are from the Herodian Period (which occurred from around 1 B.C. to 1 A.D.). The use of limestone ossuaries and the varied script styles are characteristic of that time."

Jodi Magness, Associate Department Chair of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, told Discovery News that, based on the New Testament writings, "Jesus likely lived during the first century A.D."

In addition to the "Judah son of Jesus" inscription, which is written in Aramaic on one of the ossuaries, another limestone burial box is labeled in Aramaic with "Jesus Son of Joseph." Another bears the Hebrew inscription "Maria," a Latin version of "Miriam," or, in English, "Mary." Yet another ossuary inscription, written in Hebrew, reads "Matia," the original Hebrew word for "Matthew." Only one of the inscriptions is written in Greek. It reads, "Mariamene e Mara," which can be translated as, "Mary known as the master."

Francois Bovon, Professor of the History of Religion at Harvard University, told Discovery News, "Mariamene, or Mariamne, probably was the actual name given to Mary Magdalene."

Bovon explained that he and a colleague discovered a fourteenth century copy in Greek of a fourth century text that contains the most complete version of the "Acts of Philip" ever found. Although not included in the Bible, the "Acts of Philip" mentions the apostles and Mariamne, sister of the apostle Philip.

"When Philip is weak, she is strong," Bovon said. "She likely was a great teacher who even inspired her own sect of followers, called Mariamnists, who existed from around the 2nd to the 3rd century."

Cameron and colleague, Simcha Jacobovici, have used evidence from DNA tests, chemical analysis, archaeological surveys and biblical studies, to show that 10 stone coffins discovered in the Jerusalem suburb, belonged to Jesus and his family.

Jacobovici, director, producer and writer of "The Lost Tomb of Jesus," and his team obtained two sets of samples from the ossuaries for DNA and chemical analysis. The first set consisted of bits of matter taken from the "Jesus Son of Joseph" and "Mariamene e Mara" ossuaries. The second set consisted of patina — a chemical film encrustation on one of the limestone boxes.

The human remains were analyzed by Carney Matheson, a scientist at the Paleo–DNA Laboratory at Lakehead University in Ontario, Canada. Mitochondrial DNA examination determined the individual in the Jesus ossuary and the person in the ossuary linked to Mary Magdalene were not related.

Since tombs normally contain either blood relations or spouses, Jacobovici and his team have suggested it is possible Jesus and Mary Magdalene were a couple. "Judah," whom they indicate may have been their son, could have been the "lad" described in the Gospel of John as sleeping in Jesus' lap at the Last Supper, he said.

Robert Genna, director of the Suffolk County Crime Laboratory in New York, analyzed both the patina taken from the Talpiot Tomb and chemical residue obtained from the "James" ossuary, which was also found around 1980, but subsequently disappeared and resurfaced in the antiquities market. Although controversy surrounds this burial box, Genna found that the two patinas matched.

"The samples were consistent with each other," Genna told Discovery News.

Upon examining the tomb, the filmmakers determined a space exists that would have fit the "James" ossuary. Given the patina match and this observation, Jacobovici theorized the lost burial box could, in fact, be the "James" ossuary.

A possible argument against the Talpiot Tomb being the Jesus Family Tomb is that the collection of names on the ossuary inscriptions could be coincidental.

But Andrey Feuerverger, Professor of Statistics and Mathematics at the University of Toronto, recently conducted a study addressing the probabilities that would soon be published in a leading statistical journal.

Feuerverger multiplied the instances that each name appeared during the tomb's time period with the instances of every other name. He initially found "Jesus Son of Joseph" appeared once out of 190 times, Mariamne appeared once out of 160 times and so on.

To be conservative, he next divided the resulting numbers by 25 percent, a statistical standard, and further divided the results by 1,000 to attempt to account for all tombs — even those that have not been uncovered — that could have existed in first century Jerusalem.

The study concludes that the odds are at least 600 to 1 in favor of the Talpiot Tomb being the Jesus Family Tomb. In other words, the conclusion works 599 times out of 600.

Feuerverger calculated for Jacobovici that if James is added to the equation, there is a 30,000 to one chance that the Talpiot Tomb belonged to the holiest families in Christendom.

The documentary speculates that the James ossuary was stolen shortly after the tomb was found. The archaeologists examining the tomb 26 years ago found 10 ossuaries, but only nine are in storage at the IAA. In The Lost Tomb of Jesus, it is alleged that the James ossuary is that missing box.

But there is one question that has not been answered in the documentary, one that emerged in a Jerusalem courtroom just weeks ago at the fraud trial of James ossuary owner Oded Golan, charged with forging part of the inscription on the box.

Former FBI agent Gerald Richard testified that a photo of the James ossuary, showing it in Golan's home, was taken in the 1970s, based on tests done by the FBI photo lab.

Jacobovici conceded in an interview that if the ossuary was photographed in the 1970s, it could not then have been found in a tomb in 1980. But while he did not address the conundrum in the documentary, he said in an interview that it is possible Golan's photo was printed on old paper in the1980s.

Golan’s forgery trial in Israel is still going on. Golan denies the charges.

According to Discovery Channel, the researchers discovered a second, as–yet unexplored tomb about 65 1/2 feet from the Talpiot Tomb. During the documentary, they introduced a robotic camera into this second tomb, which captured the first–ever recorded footage of an undisturbed burial cave from Jesus' time. The team have speculated that this other tomb could contain the remains of additional family members, or even disciples, though further examination and analysis are needed.

In the meantime, Discovery has set up a special website – www.discovery.com/tomb – to provide related in–depth information and to allow viewers to come to their own conclusions about the entire matter.

"It doesn't get bigger than this. We've done our homework; we've made the case; and now it's time for the debate to begin," Cameron told a news conference at the New York Public Library surrounded by scholars and archeologists.

"It's mind boggling. It's an altered reality," Toronto documentary director Jacobovici said.

"You have to kind of pinch yourself," said Jacobovici, known as the Naked Archaeologist after a Vision TV series. "Are we really saying what we are saying?"

"This has been a three–year journey that seems more incredible than fiction," he said. "The idea of possibly finding the tomb of Jesus and several members of his family, with compelling scientific evidence, is beyond anything I could have imagined."

"People who believe in a physical ascension — that he took his body to heaven — those people obviously will say, wait a minute," he said, adding that he hopes the film sparks more scientific study of the tomb and the ossuaries found inside.

The Discovery Channel stated the evidence could be the "greatest archaeological find in history."

However, Cameron has disputed the claim that his film is a blow to two of the most important tenets of Christian faith – resurrection and ascension. As he explained on the Discovery Channel's website:

"Resurrection: It is a matter of Christian faith that Jesus of Nazareth was resurrected from the dead three days after his crucifixion circa 30 C.E. This is a central tenet of Christian theology, repeated in all four Gospels. The Lost Tomb of Jesus does not challenge this belief. In the Gospel of Matthew (28:12) it states that a rumor was circulating in Jerusalem at the time of Jesus' crucifixion. This story holds that Jesus' body was moved by his disciples from the tomb of Joseph of Arimathea, where he was temporarily buried. Ostensibly, his remains were taken to a permanent family tomb. Though Matthew calls this rumor a lie circulated by the high priests, it appears in his Gospel as one of the stories surrounding Jesus' disappearance from the initial tomb where he was buried. Even if Jesus' body was moved from one tomb to another, however, that does not mean that he could not have been resurrected from the second tomb. Belief in the resurrection is based not on which tomb he was buried in, but on alleged sightings of Jesus that occurred after his burial and documented in the Gospels.

Ascension: It is also a matter of Christian faith that after his resurrection, Jesus ascended to heaven. Some Christians believe that this was a spiritual ascension, i.e., his mortal remains were left behind. Other Christians believe that he ascended with his body to heaven. If Jesus' mortal remains have been found, this would contradict the idea of a physical ascension but not the idea of a spiritual ascension. The latter is consistent with Christian theology."

"This is the beginnings of an ongoing investigation," Cameron said. "If things come to light that erode this investigation, then so be it."

The filmmakers said that statistically there was a 1 in 600 chance that the names found on the inscriptions were not the family of Jesus.

They also argued that the name "Mariamene e Mara," the only inscription written in Greek, translated to Magdalene's real name.

If this was the tomb of Jesus, the revelations are likely to raise the ire of Christians because the discovery would challenge the belief that Jesus was resurrected and ascended to heaven.

The film and book follow years of growing interest in the private life of Jesus, fuelled by the 2003 Dan Brown novel The Da Vinci Code, made into a movie last year, in which Jesus is said to have married Mary Magdalene and had a daughter, sparking a centuries–long cover–up.

The novel, denounced by church groups around the world, spawned a mini–industry speculating about the historical Jesus, his relationship to Mary and his family life. Church leaders, including the Pope, dismissed the book and movie as pure fiction.

James Tabor, Chair of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina and an expert featured extensively in The Lost Tomb, said that as an academic he has seen enough to convince him of the evidence, but admitted to some trepidation about claiming that the tomb of Jesus has been found.

"There's a part of you that says, it's too amazing. How can this be true?" Tabor said. "It's an archaeological dream."

Tabor, whose book The Jesus Dynasty last year raised many of the same questions as the documentary, said the film could not be as easily dismissed as Brown's novel, even though it too suggested that Jesus had a child with Mary Magdalene.

"This is archaeology. We got the casket. We've got the bones," he said in an interview. "I think we can say, in all probability, Jesus had this son, Jude, presumably through Mary Magdalene."

"Perhaps Jesus and Mary Magdalene were married as the DNA results from the Talpiot ossuaries suggest and perhaps their union was kept secret to protect a potential dynasty — a secret hidden through the ages," narrator Ron White said over re–enacted scenes of a happy Jesus and Mary home life. "A secret we just may be able to uncover in the holy family tomb."

But Dr. Shimon Gibson, one of the archeologists who discovered the tomb, told Reuters at the news conference he had a "healthy skepticism" the tomb may have belonged to the family of Jesus.

In Jerusalem, the Israeli archeologist who also carried out excavations at the tomb on behalf of the IAA, disputed the documentary's conclusions.

The archeologist, Amos Kloner, said the 2,000–year–old cave contained coffins belonging to a Jewish family whose names were similar to those of Jesus and his relatives.

"It's a typical Jewish burial cave of a large size," he said. "The names on the ossuaries are very common names or derivatives of names." The echo of the names of the members of the Holy Family, he said, "is just a coincidence."

"I can say positively that I don't accept the identification (as)...belonging to the family of Jesus in Jerusalem," Kloner told Reuters. "I don't accept that the family of Miriam and Yosef (Mary and Joseph), the parents of Jesus, had a family tomb in Jerusalem."

"They were a very poor family. They resided in Nazareth, they came to Bethlehem in order to have the birth done there – so I don't accept it, not historically, not archeologically," said Kloner, a professor in the Department of Land of Israel Studies and Archeology at Bar–Ilan University near Tel Aviv, Israel.

"It's a beautiful story but without any proof whatsoever. It makes a great story for a TV film," the professor said. "But it's impossible. It's nonsense."

Kloner said Jesus's father, after all, was a humble carpenter who could not afford a luxury crypt for his family. All names on the caskets were common Jewish names, he added.

Kloner, who said he was interviewed for the new film but has not seen it, said the names found on the ossuaries were common, and the fact that such apparently resonant names had been found together was of no significance. He added that "Jesus son of Joseph" inscriptions had been found on several other ossuaries over the years.

"There is no likelihood that Jesus and his relatives had a family tomb," Kloner said. "They were a Galilee family with no ties in Jerusalem. The Talpiot tomb belonged to a middle–class family from the 1st century CE."

Kloner, in his comprehensive report on his excavations at the tomb, interestingly, mentioned that he found nothing remarkable in the discovery. The cave, the report said, was probably in use by three or four generations of Jews from the beginning of the Common Era. It was disturbed in antiquity, and vandalized. The names on the boxes were common in the first century (25 percent of women in Jerusalem, for example, were called Miriam or a derivative). The report did not speculate on family relationships, nor did it make any connection between the inscriptions and the figure countless Christians through two millennia believe physically rose from the dead and, according to tradition, "ascended into heaven."

According to Kloner, after the ossuaries were discovered, the bones were reburied according to Orthodox tradition, leaving just the boxes with inscriptions and human residue to be examined though DNA testing.

Professor L. Michael White, of the University of Texas, said he also doubted the claims were true.

"This is trying to sell documentaries," he said, adding a series of strict tests needed to be conducted before a bone box or inscription could be confirmed as ancient. "This is not archeologically sound, this is fanfare."

Christian clergy too have pooh–poohed the claims. "I think this is mere fanciful and absurd theorising. Every Christian knows that Jesus the son of God and man died and rose again on Easter Sunday," NY Archdiocese spokesman Joseph Zwilling was quoted in New York Post as saying.

Fanciful or not, one thing is certain – the discovery is going to revive greater interest in the life of the person, the one man, Jesus of Nazareth, who forever changed the course of history.