The new finds from the Patio tomb offer a dramatic new context for the Talpiot Garden tomb and increase the likelihood that this latter tomb may be the burial tomb of Jesus of Nazareth and his family.
That a tomb contains an ossuary inscribed in Aramaic Yeshua bar Yehosef—“Jesus son of Joseph”—is not in dispute. The question is whether this particular Jesus can be reliably identified with Jesus of Nazareth—or was an otherwise unknown Jesus who lived in the 1st century.
The major objection of those who have disputed connecting this tomb to Jesus of Nazareth is that the six names inscribed on the ossuaries from the Garden tomb are extremely common among Jews in this period. Shimon Gibson and Amos Kloner, the excavators of the tomb, in their recent comprehensive article on the subject, conclude: “We are simply left with a group of ossuaries bearing common Jewish names of the first century CE . . . As a result, there is nothing to commend the Talpiot tomb as the family tomb of Jesus.”1 This objection has been repeated so often—spread over the Internet, in the media, and in books on the subject of the Talpiot tomb—that many who have not had the opportunity to review the evidence take it as a truism.
We strongly disagree that such is the case. Let’s imagine a future archaeologist finding a burial plot from our own generation with a John, a Paul, and a George—common names in the English language, far too common to attempt any specific identification even though a certain British musical group comes to mind. Then we find out that the John was the son of an Alfred. With a bit of research we learn that John Lennon’s father was named Alfred. Could this possibly be the burial plot of the famed musical quartet known as the Beatles? It seems possible but there is still not enough evidence. Then a fourth grave turns up with the name Ringo. Finally, not two hundred feet away we find a burial monument dedicated to the memory of the Beatles and all they contributed to pop music in their long career together. We believe that this is essentially what we have in the case of the two Talpiot tombs. We in fact have our “Ringo” in the Jesus tomb, as we will see—and what’s more, we believe that we have a “Yoko” as well—and the Patio tomb now provides us with a new context in which we can better understand the resurrection faith of Jesus’ first followers.
Far from being extremely common, several of the names in the Jesus tomb exhibit unique markers that tie them specifically to Jesus and his family. The six names, five in Aramaic and one in Greek, are the following.2
1. Yeshua bar Yehosef (Aramaic)—Jesus son of Joseph
2. Yoseh (Aramaic)—Joses
3. Mariamene Mara (Greek)—Miriam [also known as the] Lady
4. Yehuda bar Yeshua (Aramaic)—Judah son of Jesus
6. Matya (Aramaic)—Matthew
Maria or its variant Mariam—the English name Mary—was the second most common women’s name of this era after Salome.3 It makes up about 21.9 percent of known female names from the period. Judah and its variations (Jude, Judas) account for approximately 6.5 percent of known male names. Matthew, in its various forms, is less common and accounts for only 2.4 percent of the total. There is no disagreement that Mary is common and so is Judah. The addition of Matthew is still not distinctive enough to strengthen the odds that this is the tomb of Jesus. Although we have no record of anyone named Matthew being part of Jesus’ immediate family, the name occurs five times in Jesus’ mother’s genealogy so it seems to have a strong link to his family (Luke 3:23, 24, 26, 29, 31). He might be a son of one of Jesus’ brothers. We just can’t know.
It is the other three names—Jesus son of Joseph, Joses, and Mariamene Mara—that make the cluster of six names far from common.
“Jesus son of Joseph” is precisely the ossuary inscription we would expect for Jesus. Individuals are usually identified by their names alone, but sometimes one’s parents or, in the case of a wife, the name of one’s husband, is included, or more rarely, one’s brother.4 Jesus is legally known as the “son of Joseph” in our New Testament gospels (Luke 3:23; 4:22; Matthew 13:55; John 1:46; 6:42). Based on the Jewish tradition, ancient and modern, of designating the father to identify an individual, this is the name we would expect to see for him.5
Some have argued that for this to be the New Testament Jesus we would more likely have an ossuary inscription reading “Jesus of Nazareth,” or perhaps “Jesus the Messiah” or at least “Jesus our Lord.” This is not the case. Names on ossuaries are not intended as public proclamations, but rather as private, intimate identification “tags” to help the family who is burying their dead over several generations keep straight which loved one’s bones were put in which ossuary. This point is further reinforced by the informal cursive style of this inscription. It was not formally carved by a stonemason but instead was scratched on the end of the ossuary by a family member. This custom is well illustrated by the inscription on the ossuary of Caiaphas, the high priest in the time of Jesus who delivered him to Pontius Pilate to be crucified. As we noted in chapter 1, Caiaphas’s name is written in a similar informal cursive script without any title indicating that he was the high priest of the nation.
In the New Testament gospels Jesus is referred to as “Jesus of Nazareth” only ten times, out of six hundred references. He is called Jesus Christ (that is, Messiah) just four times, and only in Matthew and John, who want to make a theological, not a historical statement. So far as expecting the town Nazareth to be named, a survey of ossuary inscriptions indicates that towns of origin are rarely given at all unless one is from outside the land of Israel, and titles or other such designations are exceptionally rare.6 So “Jesus son of Joseph” is just what we would expect to find if an ossuary had been prepared for Jesus of Nazareth.
We can confidently say that 3.9 percent of males had the name Yeshua (Jesus) and that it occurs, as we saw in the last chapter, on 18 other inscribed ossuaries out of approximately 600 that have been discovered. So far as males named Jesus with a father named Joseph, however, we have evidence of only two—the one in the Talpiot tomb and another on the ossuary that Sukenik discovered in 1931.7 We have already seen in chapter 3 that even if we consider all nineteen of the “Jesus” inscriptions ever found on ossuaries, excluding the two in the Talpiot tomb, up to half a dozen might, ironically, refer to Jesus of Nazareth—rather than to some other male named Jesus. As we pointed out in the previous chapter, these factors have to be considered when one evaluates the assertion that Jesus is a common name that could be expected in many tombs.
What about the remaining two inscriptions, Yoseh and Mariamene Mara? Understanding these special names requires a bit of homework, and the evidence can get a bit technical, but the results are essential for a proper evaluation of these ossuary inscriptions.
Yoseh is a shortened form, or nickname, of the more popular name Joseph (Yehosef in Hebrew). While the name Joseph is the second most common male name in the period, after Simon, this nickname Yoseh is rare.8 The common name Joseph accounts for 8.6 percent of male names while Yoseh occurs only seven times on ossuary inscriptions and only once in Aramaic—here in the Talpiot Jesus tomb.9 The remaining six ossuaries have the name in Greek, written as Ioses or Iose—translated in English Joses or Jose. That means Yoseh represents only .003 percent of male names, making it exceedingly rare. As we will see, this name alone drives the statistics on the probabilities of the cluster of these names occurring together in a single tomb off the charts.
The obvious question in considering whether this Talpiot tomb might be that of Jesus and his family is to ask whether there is anything in the New Testament gospels about someone with this rare nickname Yoseh.
Everyone familiar with the New Testament gospels knows of two Josephs—Joseph the husband of Mary, and Joseph of Arimathea, who took charge of Jesus’ burial. They both go by the common full name Joseph.
Few people are aware that Jesus had four brothers. Their names are listed twice in the gospels—James, Joseph, Simon, and Judas. This gives us a third New Testament Joseph. James was the eldest and the second of the four was Joseph. We know nothing about him other than his name, whereas we have an abundance of historical sources on Jesus’ oldest brother, James, who assumed leadership of the Jesus movement following Jesus’ death.10
Levi Rahmani was the first to publish the Garden or Jesus tomb inscriptions, in his 1994 catalogue of ossuaries. He suggested that the Yoseh in the tomb was most likely the father of the Jesus buried there since the Jesus inscription says “Jesus son of Joseph.” That is certainly possible, but then one would expect that the ossuary would have the name Joseph—not the rare nickname Yoseh. We have a different explanation for the Yoseh in the Jesus tomb.
James ran a computer search of the Greek texts of the New Testament for the name Ioses, the Greek form of Yoseh. To his surprise it did show up, but only in the gospel of Mark. According to Mark, Joses, or as some manuscripts have it, Yoseh, was the rare nickname of Jesus’ second brother, Joseph (Mark 6:3).11 Apparently this nickname was something Mark knew since Matthew, in listing the four brothers, seems to know only the full formal name Joseph (Matthew 13:55), though a few manuscript copies of Matthew also preserve the nickname Joses.
For our research this was a major milestone and so far as we know no one had noticed or pointed it out before. Thus we now have a significant linguistic link between the earliest New Testament gospel tradition about the brothers of Jesus and their names—or in this case, a nickname—and this rare form of the name Joseph on an ossuary from the Talpiot tomb. One of the things one tries to do in archaeology, when possible, is combine textual or literary evidence with the material archaeological evidence. One is always cautious that the text not be used to overinterpret the archaeological evidence or vice versa. In this case, where there appears to be a complete “fit” between text and artifact, we are in a good position to draw some reasonable conclusions. As we will see, when we explore why it is highly likely that Jesus’ second brother, Joses, would be buried in the same tomb with him, our conclusions are further supported.
Of course it is hypothetically possible that there was another Yoseh in Jerusalem at the time of Jesus, and that he was related to some other Jesus with a father named Joseph. As we will see below, when you run the statistics on that possibility, it is extremely unlikely. But these are not the only factors that influence the probability.
The inscription Mariamene Mara is even more fascinating with regard to the mistaken assertion that the names in the Jesus tomb are common. Clearly it is some form of the common name Mary or Mariam/Mariame in Hebrew—but what about its strange ending? And what is the significance of Mara?
Of the six inscriptions from the tomb this is the only one in Greek. In contrast to the ossuaries of Jesus, Maria, and Yoseh, which are plain, this woman was buried in a beautifully decorated ossuary. Levi Rahmani deciphered her inscription in his Catalogue of Jewish Ossuaries published in 1994. For most of us Rahmani is the chief authority for the study of ossuaries and their inscriptions. His keen eye and uncanny ability to decipher some of the most obscure inscriptions are legendary.
Rahmani read the inscription as Mariamene Mara. No one questioned his judgment for thirteen years—until the story about the Talpiot “Jesus tomb” made headlines. Suddenly everyone was scrambling, it seemed, to come up with arguments against those Simcha had put forth for the first time in his 2007 Discovery Channel documentary The Lost Tomb of Jesus. There he had presented evidence that Mariamene was a unique form of the name Mary that was used by Jesus’ first followers when referring to Mary Magdalene.
Several scholars have suggested that Rahmani misread the Greek, and that it should read Mariame kai Mara—Mary and Martha, referring to two individuals, perhaps even two sisters buried together in this one ossuary.12 Since Mariame (without the final stem ending “n,” or nu in Greek) is the most common form of the name Mary in Greek, any argument about uniqueness would thus evaporate. The Mary in the tomb might have been any Mary of the time and she would be almost impossible to identify further. And her sister Martha would be equally unknown.13
We find this new reading unconvincing and remain impressed with Rahmani’s original transcription. The inscription itself appears to be from a single hand, written in a smooth-flowing style, with a decorative flourish around both names—pointing to a single individual who died and was placed in this inscribed ossuary. According to Rahmani, Mariamene is a diminutive or endearing variant of the common name Mariame or Mary.14 Mariamene, spelled with the letter “n” or nu in Greek, is quite rare: only one other example is found on an ossuary—the one with the three fish on the front mentioned previously.15 There are no other examples from this period—or as we were soon to discover, only two, in the entirety of Greek literature down through the late Middle Ages.
James ran an exhaustive computer search of the Thesaurus Linguae Graecae, a comprehensive digital database of Greek literature from Homer through 1453 CE. To his surprise he only found two ancient works that use Mariamn—with this rare “n” stem ending. Both texts specifically referred to Mary Magdalene!
The first text is a quotation from Hippolytus, a 3rd century Christian writer who records that James, the brother of Jesus, passed on secret teachings of Jesus to “Mariamene,” that is Mary Magdalene.16 There it was, in plain Greek—this unusual spelling of the name Miriame or Mary, precisely like the spelling on the ossuary. According to tradition Hippolytus was a disciple of Irenaeus, who was a disciple of Polycarp, who was a disciple of the apostle John—who of course knew both Mary Magdalene and Jesus. Perhaps it is this link of oral teaching, through three generations, that somehow had preserved this special name for Mary Magdalene. Its diminutive ending makes it a term of endearment—like calling someone named James “Jimmy,” or an Elizabeth “Betty.”
The second text that had the name Mariamene was a rare 4th century CE Greek manuscript of the Acts of Philip, dated to the 3rd or 4th century CE. Throughout the text Mary Magdalene is called Mariamene—again the precise form of the name found on the Talpiot tomb ossuary.
Some critics have questioned why one has to jump to the 3rd or 4th century to find a parallel to a 1st century name on an ossuary in order to argue that this name belongs to Mary Magdalene. Quite the opposite is the case. What the ossuary preserves is a rare endearing form of the common name Mariame. What should surprise us is that it shows up, out of the blue, in Hippolytus and the Acts of Philip—two centuries later, when referring to Mary Magdalene. They could not know anything about the ossuary or these inscriptions—so where did they get this tradition of the rare form of the name? That this rare form appears in these later sources strengthens rather than diminishes the argument in favor of associating this name with Mary Magdalene. If Mariamene is a late form of the name, found only in these 3rd and 4th century texts, as some have asserted, what is it doing on the Talpiot tomb ossuary?
It strains credibility to imagine that Rahmani, who was unaware of any association between his transcription of this ossuary inscription and identifications with Mary Magdalene in these later texts, would have mistakenly and accidentally come up with this exceedingly rare form of the common name Mary. Nor does it make any sense to think a misreading of the name in this inscription would end up producing two other instances for Mary Magdalene. The force of this evidence is so strong that a few scholars have even suggested that the text in Hippolytus somehow became corrupted. Again, it strains all credulity to maintain that mistakes, misreadings, and scribal errors would just happen to produce a match for an ossuary inscription in a 1st century Jerusalem tomb. What are the odds?
What about the second word in the inscription—Mara? Rahmani understood this as an alternative form of the more common name Martha and many scholars apparently agree.17 He translated the full inscription: “[the ossuary] of Mariamene also known as Mara.” His understanding was that this Mariamene was also called Mara—a kind of nickname equivalent to the more popular form Martha.
Readers will recall that one of the inscriptions we found on one of the ossuaries in the nearby Patio tomb also read “Mara.” Is it just another form of the name Martha? In looking through all 600 ossuary inscriptions that are extant we discover that Mara is also quite rare, with only five examples other than the two in the Talpiot tombs.18
As explained before, we are convinced that Mara is an honorific title, not a proper name.19 Mara and Martha are related; they both come from the Aramaic masculine word Mar, which means “Master” or “Lord” in English.20 This is true still in modern Hebrew today. One can address a man formally as “Mar,” meaning “Sir” or “Mister.” It is a title not a name. If you add the feminine ending to Mar you get Mara. But English simply has no good translation for the feminine, while we use the masculine constantly. The followers of Jesus called him “Lord” or “Master,” but how would we translate that title for a woman in English—perhaps one they also honored as his companion, partner, and wife? Probably our best equivalent in English is “Lady,” the formal feminine form of the masculine Lord. When Catholics speak of “Our Lady,” referring to Mary the mother of Jesus, they are preserving and echoing this very honorific title but they don’t use it for Mary Magdalene. As we shall see she was vilified as a whore, as mentally unstable, or as both, and was written out of the dominant version of the rise and development of Christianity.
There are two other ossuary inscriptions discovered in Jerusalem that are relevant to a proper understanding of the Mariamene Mara inscription. The first refers to two males, a Matthew and a Simon, who are called “masters” of their tomb—meaning they own it. The word there for master is the plural of Mar. It is obvious that when it comes to males there is no hesitation to read Mar as a title. As mentioned, Jesus was referred to as Mar in the New Testament, in the early Christian Aramaic prayer “Mar-na-tha,” meaning “our Lord come” (1 Corinthians 16:22).21 The second inscription names a woman named Alexa, who is called Mara—just as in the Mariamene inscription. Rather than a second name, we take it as a title, so the inscription would read: “this is the ossuary of Alexa, [the] Lady.” It is a title of honor.
The assertion that the names in the Jesus tomb are common simply does not stand up to scrutiny. Two of the inscriptions turn out to be quite rare (Yoseh) and unique (Mariamene Mara), and they both appear to have linguistic links with the names of individuals close to Jesus, his brother Joseph and Mary Magdalene.
We have looked at the names individually, but what about this particular cluster of names taken together? There have been some sophisticated attempts to do statistical analysis on the cluster of names, asking the question of the likelihood, given the frequencies of occurrence of each of these names, that they would appear in a tomb together. It is one thing to ask what are the odds of finding a “Jesus” in a tomb of this period, but quite another to ask, what about a “Jesus son of Joseph”? Each time we add a name, or a relationship, the odds change, based on how rare or common a particular name might be. Even fairly common names, as in our example above of the Beatles, carry a different statistical weight in a cluster.
The most formidable study is the peer-reviewed paper by Professor Andrey Feuerverger of the University of Toronto with a set of six responses. Since that paper there has been a series of further papers and responses with wildly differing results.22 It has become clear that statistical results will differ according to the assumptions one uses in running the numbers. We have the data regarding the name frequencies of both males and females during the time of Jesus. What is impressive about this database is that a wider sample by Professor Tal Ilan, which includes all references, literary and inscriptional, from 200 BCE to 200 CE in the land of Israel, compares favorably with the name frequencies we find on the much smaller random sample of 600 inscribed ossuaries from tombs around Jerusalem in this period. In other words the tomb names are an accurate sampling of the larger society of the time. Based on this data, we can say with confidence that 3.9 percent of males had the name Jesus, 21.9 percent were called Mary, 6.5 percent were named Judah, and so forth. These numbers include all the forms of the names lumped together. For example, the count for Mary would include all Greek and Hebrew variants such as Mariame, Maria, Mariam, Marias, and so forth. The count for Jesus would include Yeshua, Yehoshua, Yeshu, Iesous, and other minor variants.
Some have questioned the statistical calculations of Feuerverger but his basic data and methods have been validated by subsequent studies.23 The most impressive summary of the various studies, their variables, and the main issues at stake is the work of statistician Jerry Lutgen. His two papers, “The Talpiot Tomb: What Are the Odds?” and “Did the Set of Names from the Talpiot Tomb Arise by Chance?” set all the statistical studies in their proper context.24
The statistical studies ask how often this set of names would occur by chance if they were drawn randomly from the entire set of names in use during the period of time in question. As the probability of this set of names occurring by chance goes down, the probability that this is the family tomb of the New Testament Jesus goes up.
What Lutgen shows is that the numbers will vary significantly depending on how the names Jesus son of Joseph, Mariamene, and Yoseh are treated. If the latter two are taken as generic names for Mary and Joseph, two of the most frequent male and female names of the period, then the probability that this is the tomb of the family of Jesus comes out quite low.
For example, if Yoseh is taken as just another generic Joseph, you get a probability of only 3 percent, but if it is taken as the rare form discussed above, the probability rises to 47 percent. If you add a rare Mariamene with a generic Joseph you get 81 percent. But if you count both names as rare—which we believe they are—factoring in their rarity, the probability rises to 99.2 percent. This high percentage might not be intuitive, but it is mathematically sound, given the data we have on name frequencies.
We do not believe that statistics alone prove one way or the other that the Talpiot Jesus tomb is that of Jesus of Nazareth but the statistics do show that the oft-repeated assertion that lots of tombs in Jerusalem would likely have a similar set of names is false.
We have spent countless hours studying every entry in the ossuary inscription catalogues of Levi Rahmani and Hannah Cotton, the two major catalogues of ossuary inscriptions. We began to realize, after looking at tomb after tomb represented by all 600 inscriptions that have been found, that of the thousand or more known tombs that have been opened and examined in Jerusalem over the past hundred years there is not a single one other than this Talpiot tomb for which one could even make an argument that it might be the family tomb of Jesus. It is not as though there are a half-dozen or so other possible tombs that might fit Jesus and his family, and we have chosen to focus on this one. There are no others. The other tombs that have a Jesus inscription of any kind are clustered with names like Shelamzion, Chananiya, Shapira, Dositheos, Daniel, Menachem, or Sara, names that have no known association with Jesus of Nazareth or his family in our texts.
In trying to match the Talpiot Garden tomb with the historical record, we begin with what we know about the burial of Jesus of Nazareth from our earliest sources—the New Testament gospels. Although the apostle Paul (whose letters are even older than the gospels) knows the tradition that Jesus was “buried,” he provides no narrative details that we might analyze historically (1 Corinthians 15:4). It is often assumed that the gospels report that Joseph of Arimathea took the corpse of Jesus and laid it in his own new tomb late Friday night, but a careful reading of our gospel accounts indicates that the tomb into which Jesus was temporarily placed did not belong to Joseph of Arimathea—as we discussed in chapter 1.
Mark implies that it was the pressing necessity of a quick temporary burial brought on by the nearness of the Sabbath that prompted Joseph of Arimathea to act in haste and approach the Roman governor Pontius Pilate for permission to bury Jesus’ corpse (Mark 15:42–47). The gospel of John makes this point even more explicitly, stating plainly, “Now in the place he was crucified was a garden, and in the garden a new tomb . . . so because of the Jewish day of Preparation, since the tomb was close at hand, they laid Jesus there” (John 19:38–42).
This initial burial of Jesus by Joseph of Arimathea was a temporary measure because the Passover Sabbath was hours away. It was a burial of necessity and opportunity. This particular tomb was chosen because it was unused and happened to be near the place of crucifixion. The idea that this first tomb belonged to Joseph of Arimathea makes no sense. What are the chances that Joseph of Arimathea would just happen to have his own new family tomb conveniently located near the Place of the Skull, or Golgotha, where the Romans regularly crucified their victims?25 Amos Kloner, who supervised the excavation of the Talpiot Jesus tomb, offers the following analysis:
I would go one step further and suggest that Jesus’ tomb was what the sages refer to as a “borrowed (or temporary) tomb.” During the Second Temple period and later, Jews often practiced temporary burial . . . A borrowed or temporary cave was used for a limited time, and the occupation of the cave by the corpse conferred no rights of ownership upon the family . . . Jesus’ interment was probably of this nature.26
Mark indicates that the intention of Joseph was to complete the full and proper rites of Jewish burial after Passover. Given these circumstances, one would expect the body of Jesus to be placed in a second tomb as a permanent resting place. This second tomb would presumably be one that either belonged to, or was provided by, Joseph of Arimathea, who had both the means and the formal responsibility to honor Jesus and his family in this way. Accordingly, one would not expect the permanent tomb of Jesus, and subsequently his family, to be near Golgotha, just outside the main gates of the city, but in a rock-hewn tomb elsewhere in the Jerusalem area, most likely where Joseph of Arimathea would have had a burial cave on his own estate.
James the brother of Jesus became leader of the Jesus movement following Jesus’ death in 30 CE. Our evidence indicates that the movement was headquartered in Jerusalem until 70 CE when the Romans destroyed Jerusalem. The core group of followers banded around Jesus’ family and the twelve apostles, who took up residence there as well, even though most of them were from Galilee.27 This evidence points strongly toward the possibility of a Jesus family tomb in Jerusalem.
Based on our earliest textual sources we propose the following list of individuals as potential candidates for burial in a hypothetical Jesus family tomb:
Jesus
Joseph his father
Mary his mother
His brothers, James, Joses, Simon, and Judas, and any of their wives or children
His sisters: Salome and Mary (if unmarried)
Any wife or children of Jesus (if he was married with children)
There are other names we simply do not know, such as the names of Jesus’ brothers’ wives or any of their children. These possibilities are based on our understanding of how family burial caves were populated in the period. If a woman was married, she would be in her husband’s tomb, if not, she would be in her father’s. A widow might be in her son’s tomb.28
If we next ask which of these individuals might hypothetically be buried in a pre–70 CE Jesus family tomb in Jerusalem after the year 30 CE when Jesus was crucified, we have a specific chronological framework in which to test our hypothesis. Seventy CE is the year the Romans devastated Jerusalem and exiled much of the Jewish population. Normal Jewish life, including the common use of burial caves around the city, diminished.29 Taking this date we come up with a more chronologically restricted list of potential candidates, since we would only include those in the family that we can assume might have died between 30 and 70 CE:
Jesus
Mary his mother
Any wives and children of his dead brothers
Any wife and children of Jesus who died before 70 CE
We would eliminate Jesus’ father, Joseph, because he seems to have died decades earlier, probably in Galilee, and we have no record of him in Jerusalem in this period (see Acts 1:14). Jesus’ mother, Mary, given her age, could likely have died before 70 CE, and as a widow, according to Jewish custom, she could have been put in the tomb of her oldest son. Jesus’ brothers Simon and Jude apparently lived past 70 CE, according to our records, so they should be eliminated from our list.30 Jesus’ brother Joses is a strong candidate for inclusion since he is the “missing brother” in our historical records. When James is murdered in 62 CE, it is Simon, the third brother, not Joses, the second, who takes over leadership of the movement—indicating that Joses had most likely died by that time. The New Testament letters of James and Jude testify to their influence, and we even have an account of the death of Simon by crucifixion, but nothing survives whatsoever regarding Joses. Given the culture it is likely that Jesus’ sisters would have been married, and thus buried in the tombs of their husbands, so they are not prime candidates for the Jesus tomb. Since we have no textual record of wives and children of either Jesus or his two brothers who died before 70 CE we can only say hypothetically that if such people existed they might have been included.
As for the two Marys in the Talpiot tomb, there were three intimate “Marys” in Jesus’ life: his mother, a sister, and Mary Magdalene. Indeed, it was Mary Magdalene, his mother, and his other sister, Salome, who attended to his burial rites (Mark 16:1). Family intimates carried out this important rite of washing and anointing the naked corpse for burial. As we will discuss later, our DNA tests on the bones from the Mariamene ossuary indicate the woman buried inside was not Jesus’ sister or mother. It seems a logical possibility that she could be the “third” Mary, namely Mary Magdalene, his follower and close companion, based on her inclusion as a named intimate in our earliest records.
We find it striking that five of the six inscriptions correspond so closely to a hypothetical pre–70 CE family tomb of Jesus in Jerusalem as we might imagine it based on historical evidence—Jesus son of Joseph, Maria, Mariamene, Yoseh, and Judah the son of Jesus. The one inscription we can’t account for in terms of what might be expected in our hypothetical Jesus family tomb is Matya or Matthew. The name is relatively rare, just 2.4 percent of males, as we have seen. We have noted that the name Matthew occurs more frequently than any other name in the family genealogy of Jesus (Luke 3:23–31), so it is quite possible that such a name would be given to a close relative. Although we might not be able to identify who this Matthew was, or his familial relationship to Jesus, it is a name that fits comfortably in the cluster.
We find this hypothetical “fit” between the intimate pre–70 CE family of Jesus of Nazareth and the names found in this tomb quite impressive and it argues strongly against an out-of-hand dismissal of the tomb as possibly, or even likely, associated with Jesus of Nazareth.
There have been five major objections put forth against the hypothesis that the Talpiot Jesus tomb is likely the family tomb of Jesus of Nazareth:
1. The names in the tomb are common.
2. Jesus had no wife or children.
3. Jesus and his family were too poor to have afforded a cave burial tomb.
4. Jesus would have been buried in Nazareth, not in Jerusalem.
5. Jesus’ body was resurrected and taken up to heaven.
Each of these objections is in our view invalid. We have discussed the first and have shown that quite the opposite is the case. We will address the second in the following chapter. One major scholar has argued the third and we will consider it below. The fourth is simply not the case. All our textual evidence places the death and burial of Jesus in Jerusalem, not in Galilee. Since it was forbidden in Jewish law and custom to transport a corpse, the idea that Jesus’ body would have been taken to a family tomb in Galilee is without any basis.31 The final objection is theological, not historical, but since the Patio tomb shows evidence for faith in Jesus’ resurrection by his earliest followers, adjacent to the Talpiot Jesus tomb, these original disciples obviously had a different understanding of the resurrection of Jesus from those who imagine it involved reviving a corpse and transporting it to heaven.
Were Jesus and his family—or even his group of close followers—too small, insignificant, and poor to have a family burial cave in Jerusalem?32 The argument is made that whoever took the body from the initial cave burial would have buried him in a simple trench grave with no marker since the family was too poor to have afforded a rock-hewn tomb. This objection overlooks the fact that at least one follower of influence and means, Joseph of Arimathea, did in fact see to the initial burial in a rock-hewn tomb. Why would one assume that either Joseph, or other followers of means who were devoted to Jesus’ messianic program, would not be able to provide a permanent tomb? We also have evidence that a group of wealthy and influential women, including Mary Magdalene, were supporting Jesus’ movement financially, had followed him from Galilee, and were involved in the preparation of spices and ointments for his proper burial (Luke 8:1–3). The descriptions and circumstances all fit well with the idea of a body prepared for burial in a rock-hewn tomb with ossuaries.33
The Jesus movement, led by James his brother following his crucifixion, was headquartered in Jerusalem for the next forty years and its numbers and influence were sufficient to be noted by Josephus in the Antiquities.34
On more general grounds, this objection overlooks the extraordinary devotion that followers exhibit toward their spiritual and messianic leaders. Mark tells us that the followers of John the Baptizer went to collect his body and that they placed him in a tomb (Mark 6:29). The Syriac Ascents of James recounts how devout followers of James buried another murdered leader, known in some traditions as Stephen, in a tomb close to Jericho to which they made an annual pilgrimage.35 The study of apocalyptic and messianic movements, both ancient and modern, makes clear that devoted groups have the collective means to support their leaders. It is an open and debated question in the field of Christian origins as to whether Jesus was poor and without means of any sort, but even if that were true, to rule out the likelihood that devoted followers of means would have provided him and his family with a place of burial is unwarranted.
The Talpiot tomb is quite modest in size and arrangement, measuring under three by three meters and less than two meters high. It is nothing like the more monumental decorated tombs closer to the city. Also, of the six inscribed ossuaries, four are “plain,” and only two are “decorated” (Mariamene Mara and Yehuda bar Yeshua). We do not believe that the mere existence of a modest rock-hewn tomb of this type indicates high status and wealth. The comprehensive Kloner and Zissu survey of Jewish burial in and around Jerusalem in the period indicates little evidence of trench burials. Instead rock-hewn burial tombs were the norm for most of the population. As one moves away from the “front-row” seats near the Old City, the tombs south of Akeldama, around the Mount of Offense, and south into Talpiot are often more modest in form and size.36
The recent discoveries in the Patio tomb, which was likely located on a wealthy estate with two other tombs, one now destroyed, the other the Jesus family tomb, provides a completely new context for interpreting and understanding both the site and its possible connection to Jesus and his family. The latest advances in archaeological methodology have stressed that context is everything; nothing should be interpreted in isolation. Scholars call this method “landscape archaeology.” What one attempts to do is re-create the larger context for a given archaeological site. For a cluster of tombs just outside an urban area this is particularly important. We have already stated that the original excavator of both tombs, Joseph Gath, notes in his reports that in the immediate vicinity of the tombs was an oil press, cisterns, the remains of a plastered installation that might have been a ritual bath, stone boundary walls, and terraces. Although some of these installations showed evidence of a later date, in the Byzantine period (4–5th centuries CE), Gath’s descriptions indicate that they had been reused in later times. His conclusion was that these tombs in the time of Jesus were part of a large farm or wealthy settlement.37
Joseph of Arimathea was a wealthy Jewish leader, a member of the Sanhedrin, the highest Jewish court of the nation, who had enough status and influence to request Jesus’ body from Pontius Pilate, the governor of Judea. Because the temporary tomb near the site of the crucifixion was found empty on Sunday morning, it is easy to miss the obvious point. Joseph of Arimathea was given charge of the proper burial of Jesus according to Jewish law and custom. Such a burial involved much more than temporary protection of the corpse from violation through the Passover festival and the Sabbath day. He had taken on the obligation to give Jesus a proper burial, a sacred responsibility in the Jewish tradition. The most likely hypothesis is that he would have provided a permanent place on his own land.
So far we have not found an inscription inside the Patio tomb linking Joseph of Arimathea to the site. But circumstantial evidence points in that direction. The designation Arimathaia in Greek (Mark 15:43) comes from the Hebrew word rama, meaning the “height.” The Greek form Arimathaia seems to represent the Hebrew Ramathaim—meaning the “two heights.” Everyone assumes this reference is to a city, based on Luke 23:51, but it more likely referred to a location with two prominent “heights.”38 Jerusalemites today refer to the Talpiot tomb area as Armon Hanatziv—the “Place of the High Commissioner,” referring to the high ridge overlooking Jerusalem where the British high commissioner once had offices and today the United Nations has its headquarters. It is hard to imagine the area two thousand years ago as it is so built up with modern construction, but looking south from Jerusalem toward Talpiot, two prominent ridges are clearly visible.
The Jesus tomb is modest and quite small, with four plain ossuaries. The Patio tomb is clearly the more important tomb on the estate. It is much larger and the niches are nicely carved and gabled. Of the eight ossuaries originally in the tomb, only two are plain, the rest highly ornamented. One of the plain ones is the one with Jonah and the great fish. Since we now know it was first on the right, as one entered the tomb, it might well have been that of the master of the estate as we have noted. The obvious question is, why would a wealthy landowner with money to provide such ornate ossuaries choose such a plain one for himself and his family, fill it with bones, and have the “sign of Jonah” carved on the front? And why would someone of the family, whether the original master or not, incise a four-line testimony to God “lifting up” the dead? And who would write “Mara” on an ossuary, over a still unfinished rosette? Was it a female of the family named Mara, or was it someone wanting to honor the “Lady,” perhaps even the one in the Jesus tomb nearby? Finally, writing the Divine Name—Jehovah, once in Greek, another time in Hebrew—on an ossuary, is not only unusual, it would be considered heretical by Jews of that time.
These are the sorts of anomalies that archaeologists look for. It is when we find the unexpected that we are able to advance and broaden our understanding of the culture and its diverse population. Most experts in the field see the followers of Jesus as Jews living like other Jews, and therefore leaving nothing behind that is distinctive or identifiable in the archaeological record. This might be true when it comes to food and drink, clothing, houses and ceramics, ritual baths, and most items of daily life, but we should not assume it is true in the case of burying the dead. Jesus’ first followers were thoroughly Jewish, but they believed in a resurrection faith centered in their crucified Messiah that we should not assume went unmarked.
The Patio tomb seems to be Exhibit A in that regard. The two tombs mutually interpret one another. Taken in isolation each has its own fascinating tale, its anomalies to consider. Taken together we believe they tell a compelling and moving story, one of the most dramatic in history, of the tragic murder of Jesus, his burial and that of his family, and the developing resurrection faith of those who followed him. It is not hard or even overly speculative for us, to posit that the Talpiot tombs are a tiny but amazing glimpse into the life of Joseph of Arimathea, who makes his entrance and exit in the New Testament on a single page of the text.
We now turn to what is perhaps one of the most significant and far-reaching implications of these tombs, and particularly the Jesus family tomb: the question of whether Jesus was married and had a child. If the Talpiot tomb is indeed that of Jesus of Nazareth, it has already answered our question in the affirmative. But what else can be known or said about this subject that might help us understand what we find in the tomb?
