The mystery of Jesus' tomb

Along with the lights and open markets, even the world of entertainment archaeology is reminding us that Christmas is approaching. 

Along with the holiday packages, a “new discovery” is being boxed for retail, destined to show us how things really went in the life of the one called Jesus.

 

All it takes is a visit to the website of the large American publishing house Simon & Schuster, to discover that on 3 January  The Jesus Discovery will hit the shelves, the new bestseller by Simcha Jacobovici and James Tabor. 

The “discovery of Jesus”, in the sense that these two archaeologists  have allegedly found, the oldest tale of the resurrection, in a tomb in Jerusalem that has been sealed until today. According to them, the text predates even the Gospel narratives. One might note that 3 January  is after Christmas. 

But never fear: Simon & Schuster have announced that the book will be on shelves only after the National Geographic TV Channel has broadcast the first episode of a documentary put together by the same archaeologists. 

Preceded, obviously, by the inevitable press conference, in which the two will reveal the details of this discovery which – and we quote – “is destined to revolutionize what we know about Jesus and about the origins of Christianity.” Do the math and you'll find the story of operation published in half the world's newspapers, with more precision than a Swiss clock.

 

The protagonist of this story is an old acquaintance: Simcha Jacobovici is in fact the same Israeli-Canadian archaeologist who – on the eve of Easter 2007 – rocked the world with another documentary that went on air on the Discovery Channel: he claimed to have found the true tomb of “Jesus son of Joseph”, in the Talpiot quarter of Jerusalem. 

An occupied tomb, moreover. Jesus is allegedly still there, a theory which would make the resurrection be a myth. The icing on the cake, in perfect Da Vinci Code style, is that he is supposedly not alone: his mother Mary, his wife Mary Magdalen, and a son named James are also supposed to exist the ossuaries of the family tomb. 

The “exceptional discovery” opened the floodgates to an avalanche of articles, made possible by another deft move: the documentary went online unseen and without  any scientific analysis by other archaeologists regarding the proofs offered. Otherwise it would have been revealed that that tomb, in reality, had already been discovered 25 years prior to this, and no one had interpreted it in the way described above. 

And that Yehoshua and Yoseph – the names found on the ossuary – were very common in the Jerusalem of two millenia ago and therefore the mere fact of finding them together on a family tomb proved absolutely nothing. 

The little game was thus able to take advantage of an audience of four million spectators and garnered an Emmy Award for Jacobovici, known to a wide audience for The naked archaeologist television show (also on air on the History Channel).

 

Now he is trying again with another tomb discovered in the same area of Talpiot. As usual, for the moment we know very little about this first narrative of the resurrection of Jesus: the announcement of the book only mentions two ossuaries bearing an image and a Greek inscription. 

One detail, however, is clear: the Israeli-Canadian archaeologist is still of the opinion that the story we are dealing with is a myth. Because Simon & Schuster hastens to specify that the new bestseller “relaunches” the credibility of the “tomb of the family of Jesus,” since the new discovery occurred only 200 feet (60 meters) from that which leapt into the spotlight in 2007.

 

We should note that lately, Jacobovici has become a real factory for this kind of operation. Last Easter, in fact, he came up with another shock discovery : the nails of the cross of Christ, found in the tomb of a certain Caiaphas, which for him beyond the shadow of a doubt was that of the high priest mentioned in the Passion narratives.

Realizing the importance of the condemned man – and his claim – he would have preserved that heirloom.

Needless to say, in that case, too, other archaeologists have shown this kind of tomb to be incompatible with the prestige of that priestly man; and that the nails shown in the inevitable press conference were too short to be those commonly used by the Romans in crucifixions.