I found a breakdown of what the evidence is:
Although the evidence contained in the film and book is hardly definitive, it is compelling. Inscribed in Hebrew, Latin or Greek, six boxes — taken from a 2,000-year-old cave discovered in March, 1980, during excavation for a housing project in Talpiyot, south of Jerusalem — bear the names: Yeshua (Jesus) bar Yosef (son of Joseph); Maria (the Latin version of Miriam, which is the English Mary); Matia (the Hebrew equivalent of Matthew, a name common in the lineage of both Mary and Joseph); Yose; (the Gospel of Mark refers to Yose as a brother of Jesus); Yehuda bar Yeshua, or Judah, son of Jesus; and in Greek, Mariamne e mara — meaning 'Mariamne, known as the master.' According to Harvard professor Francois Bovon, interviewed in the film, Mariamne was Mary Magdalene's real name.
The bones once contained in the boxes have long since been reburied, according to Jewish custom — in unmarked graves in Israel.
If the evidence adduced is correct, the bone boxes — and microscopic remains of DNA still contained inside — would constitute the first archaeological evidence of the existence of the Christian saviour and his family.
Tests on mitochondrial DNA obtained from the Jesus and Mariamne boxes and conducted at Lakehead University's Paleo-DNA laboratory, in Thunder Bay, Ont., show conclusively that the two individuals were not maternally related. According to Dr. Carney Matheson, the lab's head, this likely means they were related by marriage.
Thus, the book and film raise seminal questions, not only about the early movement of Judeo-Christians that Jesus led, but about whether, as some scholars believe, he might have been married to Mary Magdalene and fathered a family.
Nothing in the film or book challenges traditional Christian dogma regarding the resurrection. But it could pose a problem for those that believe Jesus' ascension, 40 days after the resurrection, was both physical and spiritual. And, if further DNA testing were to link Jesus and Yose with Mary, it would call into question the entire doctrine of the Virgin Birth.
The $4-million documentary is the work two Canadians — Emmy-award winner director Simcha Jacobovici and his executive producer, Oscar-award winning filmmaker James Cameron. It will air on Canada's Vision TV on March 6th and later next month on Discovery US and Britain's Channel 4. A companion book, The Jesus Family Tomb, by Mr. Jacobovici and Dr. Charles Pellegrino, has just been released (Harper Collins).
Mr. Jacobovici and Mr. Cameron are scheduled to hold a press conference Monday morning at the New York Public Library, with the Jesus and Mary Magdelene ossuaries, flown in from Israel, on display.
Meanwhile, security agents have been hired to stand guard outside the Talpiyot apartments beneath which the tomb lies, covered by a large cement plate.
"I don't think this changes the fundamentals of faith," Mr. Cameron said in an interview this week. "But the evidence is pretty darn compelling and it definitely bears further study."
Not everyone agrees. "It's a beautiful story, but without any proof whatsoever," archaeologist Dr. Amos Kloner, who wrote the original report on the Talpiyot cave findings, told an Israeli reporter last week. "The names...found on the tombs are names that are similar to the names of the family of Jesus. But those were the most common names found among Jews in the first centuries BCE and CE."
Yet if the individual names were common, the film and book ask: what is the likelihood that this particular group of names, so resonant of the Jesus story, would appear together, contained in the same family tomb?
"There are really only two possibilities," says director Jacobovici. "Either this cluster of names represents the tomb of Jesus of Nazareth and his family. Or some other family, with this very same constellation of names, existed at precisely the same time in history in Jerusalem."
To calculate the odds, Mr. Jacobovici took the data to University of Toronto mathematician Dr. Andrey Feuerverger. Factoring in the commonality of these names in first-Century Israel, Dr. Feuerverger puts the odds of this tomb not belonging to Jesus and his family at one in 600.
Another estimate, commissioned by Dr. James Tabor, chair of the department of religion studies at the University of North Carolina, puts the odds at one in 42 million. "If you took the entire population of Jerusalem at the time," says Dr. Taber, "and put it in a stadium, and asked everyone named Jesus to stand up, you'd have about 2,700 men. Then you'd ask only those with a father named Joseph and a mother named Mary to remain standing. And then those with a brother named Yose and a brother named James. Statistically, you end up with one person."
The James reference is significant because of the 10 ossuaries found at Talpiyot, one later disappeared. Many experts believe that coffin is the now infamous 'James, son of Joseph, brother of Jesus' ossuary that turned up a few years ago and was put on public display at the Royal Ontario Museum.
Although many scholars have called the inscription 'brother of Jesus' a modern-day forgery, at least as many academics continue to believe in its authenticity.
Moreover, tests conducted for The Lost Tomb of Jesus show that the patina encrusted on the James ossuary bears precisely the same chemical thumbprint as the other ossuaries found at Talpiyot.
Neither the provenance nor the age of the ossuaries is not in dispute. The boxes, never out of the control of professional archaeologists, are effectively self-dating, since the practice of re-interring the bones of the dead in limestone boxes a year after death was conducted by Jews in the Holy Land for a period of only 100 years. Prominent families stored the boxes in family tombs.
Moreover, all the inscriptions have been corroborated by some of the world's leading epigraphers, including Harvard's Frank Moore Cross.
The 'Jesus, son of Joseph' marking is considered rare; of thousands of inscriptions so far catalogued, only one other bone coffin contained the same construction.
No Christian tradition suggests that Jesus had a son, but the Gospel of John does refer to "the beloved disciple" who rests on Jesus' lap at the last supper.
And perhaps, says Mr. Jacobovici, "although this is pure speculation, when Jesus on the cross says 'mother, behold thy son,' he's not referring to himself or to his mother, but to his son, who is there with Mary Magdalene".
The book of Mark, he adds, also contains a passage that might allude to a son — a reference to a young man, wearing nothing but linen who follows Jesus after his arrest and, when guards try to apprehend him, slips out of his clothes and escapes naked.
"That's a very odd story," says Mr. Jacobovici. "There's no name is given for the young lad, but the gospel writer obviously thought it was important to tell it."
"None of us," maintains Dr. Tabor, "are gleefully presenting this as though we've trumped Christianity. If anything, it might help clarify and refine it a bit. Some people will immediately say this is sensationalism. I don't agree with that. I know enough about it to say this is a subject that deserves serious and continued investigation."
Indeed, it's likely that there will be sequel to The Lost Tomb of Jesus. While searching for the original Talpiyot cave, the filmmakers stumbled upon a second crypt, only 20 meters away that has never been explored by archaeologists. A miniature camera inserted into the tomb revealed three ossuaries.
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So the DNA testing proves that those in the coffins are from marriage or family. The missing ossuary evidence is also pretty compelling.
