James H. Charlesworth

An ossuary (that is, a limestone box used in ancient Judea to collect the bones of decomposed bodies) turns up labeled “Jesus, son of Joseph” (in Aramaic, Yeshua bar Yehoseph). Was the cave in which it was found the burial place of Jesus of Nazareth? The mere possibility is sensational. This volume collects more than 25 papers presented at a symposium held in Jerusalem to explore the discovery from a variety of perspectives. The disciplines represented include burial customs in the Second Temple Era, inscriptions, ancient DNA, and statistics. This last approach was used because the cave yielded ossuaries with inscriptions of other individuals as well, and the names of some of them also appear in the New Testament associated with the family of Jesus. Is their occurrence in the same cave significant or not?
On this, as in other questions, there was no consensus. One of the most controversial allegations was that the inscription on one of the boxes (the only inscription in Greek) should be read as “Mariamene [also known as] Mara,” and understood as referring to Mary Magdalene and designating her as “master.” Others demur and say the inscription refers to two women, Mariam and Mara (in this case, a short form of Martha). Not only that, but another of the boxes bears the inscription Yehudah son of Yeshua. For some of the participants, this is a clear indication that Mary was the wife or partner of Jesus and that she bore him a son.
Traditionally, the resurrection of Jesus within days of his crucifixion was held to have involved a transformation of his body (therefore, the empty tomb). So there would have been nothing to decompose and no bones to gather. This belief has been the core teaching of Christianity since its first proclamation. Therefore, many would reason that, whoever was buried in that ossuary, it could not have been Jesus of Nazareth or that, if it were, then the belief in his resurrection would have to be abandoned. One presenter, however, Petr Pokorný, rejects this. He argues that the biblical proclamation of Jesus’ resurrection can be understood in various ways, as he puts it “viewed through various anthropological interpretive frames,” including one that allows that his physical body may not have been transformed to create his resurrection body.
Clearly, there is emotion riding on the outcome of the question. I came away with a sense of how difficult it is to assess these finds dispassionately. Some presenters feel that this cave uncovered in East Jerusalem was the final resting place of Jesus and his family, others say no. It seems to me that all agree, however, that the matter is not proven, nor is it likely to be. But the mere possibility made it fascinating to learn things I never knew before about the topics addressed. More importantly, it also made me ask myself how I understand the accounts of Jesus’s burial and the reports of his followers that they had seen him.
In other words, it’s easily said that the Talpiot tomb was a significant find. But just what does it signify?… (mere)