Canadian Mennonite
Volume 11, No. 13
June 25, 2007
Documentary challenges Jesus’ bodily resurrection
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The Lost Tomb of Jesus. Directed, produced and written by Simcha Jacobovici; co-produced by James Cameron and Felix Golubev.
If you passed quickly over the recent “discovery” of Jesus’ ossuary—essentially a small box used to store the bones of the deceased—along with those purportedly of his mother Mary, his wife “Mary Magdalene” and their son Judah in a family tomb in Jerusalem, you’re probably not alone.
The claim comes in The Lost Tomb of Jesus (now available on DVD, and in print as The Jesus Family Tomb: The Discovery, the Investigation, and the Evidence That Could Change History (published by HarperCollins), but for all the publicity the announcement is not particularly new. It seems that Jesus as husband and father is a necessary ingredient in any revision of Christian origins and the recent “discovery” is actually the reinterpretation of an archaeological excavation carried out already in 1980. Not surprisingly, the documentary has been roundly condemned as fanciful and irresponsible. And it is clearly more “info-tainment” than scholarly investigation. To walk beside Jacobovici as he doggedly pursues his thesis is certainly entertaining.
But I’m not sure that such dismissal addresses either the significance of the “find” or the popular interest in Christian conspiracy theories that The Lost Tomb of Jesus seems to represent.
The documentary’s claims are based on the recovery of 10 bone boxes from a first century family tomb in Jerusalem. Of the 10, six bear the names of their occupants—Jesus son of Joseph, Mary, Mariamene Mara, Judah son of Jesus, Matthew and Jose. This cluster of names is thought so close to the recollection of the gospels that the documentary decides the tomb must be the family tomb of Jesus of Nazareth.
To secure the fit, “Mariamene Mara” is identified as Mary Magdalene, Matthew is located in Joseph’s bloodline as Jesus’ great-grandfather (Luke 3:23-38) and Jose is identified as one of Jesus’ brothers (Mark 6:3). Judah, “son of Jesus,” is nowhere in the gospels, but in one of its more reckless moments the documentary identifies him as the disciple “whom Jesus loved” (John 19:26-27).
Individually, these names are among the most common in first century Palestine, but it is their combination that supposedly confirms the match. The documentary goes still further. DNA analysis of bone fragments in the boxes belonging to Jesus and Mariamene Mara suggest that their occupants were not related and thus were buried together as husband and wife. The theory is almost always speculative, but here it borders on misrepresentation.
Despite its obvious sensationalism, The Lost Tomb of Jesus—and in particular the quick response it has occasioned—offers a fascinating glimpse into the interaction of faith and historical inquiry. It calls for a closer articulation of the place of the bodily resurrection in the biblical tradition, and challenges the church to consider again its response to the recent surge of revisionist “history” of Christianity popularized by Dan Brown’s Da Vinci Code. If it does little else, The Lost Tomb of Jesus can make for worthwhile discussion, despite itself.