WWJB? (Where Would Jesus be Buried?)

Jay Cost of RealClearPolitics fame has weighed in on the "Jesus Tomb" debate on the side of the skeptics. His principal target is the argument from statistics and probability. It differs from Randy Ingermanson's argument in significant respects (I like Randy's better) but others will have to assess its merits. His case includes, however, some historical claims that I think are problematic. Like,

Few scholars - including those who think Jesus was not bodily resurrected - believe that he was buried at all.

Actually, almost all scholars think he was buried. A few (e.g., J. D. Crossan) suggest the Romans might have denied Jesus' body a proper burial, but most believe his body was buried either in a shallow trench grave or (more likely) in a tomb, as indicated by the Gospels.

Even if we assume that Jesus was buried, it is exceedingly unlikely that he would be buried in or around Jerusalem. . . . One would expect the Jesus family tomb, if it did exist, to be either in the north (the family's first century A.D. home), or in the south (the family's ancestral home). There is no reason to expect it to be in or near Jerusalem.

First, all four N.T. Gospels agree that Jesus was buried immediately just outside of Jerusalem. John (19:41) adds that the tomb was near the place of execution. The Gospels give no indication that Jesus' family and friends intended to move his body, certainly not to Galilee or down to Bethlehem. I can picture a regal procession bearing Herod the Great's body south to the Herodion (near Bethlehem), but surely his was the exception to the rule that people in Jesus' day were buried more or less where they died. (I'll happily stand corrected on this one.)

Second, the N. T. (Acts 12:17; 15:13; 21:18; Gal 1:19) seems to indicate that James, Jesus' brother, remained in Jerusalem after Jesus' death. It seems quite plausible that others in Jesus family would have settled there as well. The "Jesus tomb" folks like to point out that there is no ossuary for Joseph in the Talpiot tomb--only one for Jesus-son-of-Joseph. So, the theory goes, Joseph died earlier in Galilee and was buried there. Thereafter the clan moved south.

Everybody had an interest in finding his body. It would have been a prize "get" for early Christian opponents - who were of course centered in Jerusalem - to produce it. How did they miss it when it was so close by?

This may well be right (cf. Mt 27:64; 28:11-15). Charlesworth makes a similar point. But we need to keep in mind that the "Jesus tomb" hypothesis proceeds by challenging the reliability of the Gospels' testimony. That is, the Gospels preserve later traditions and pious embellishments rather than (or mixed with) authentic history. In the aftermath of Jesus' death, says Tabor, none of Jesus' followers was claiming that Jesus' physical body had risen. That all came later, after 70, when the whereabouts of the Jesus family tomb were unknown. So the important historical question is: how soon after the crucifixion were Jesus' followers publicly proclaiming his resurrection?

Jesus' was a lower-class family from Galilee. Where did they acquire the resources to purchase what the original investigators call a tomb for a middle-class family?

The claim that Jesus' family could not have owned the Talpiot tomb may well be correct, though two of James Tabor's claims (here or here) weigh against it: (a) that the tomb itself is rather plain and (b) that Jesus had friends and supporters whose means could have made up for his lack (cf. Luke 8:3; 23:50; John 11:38; ).

Jay Cost's statistical argument may ultimately be persuasive, but some of its historical pillars need shoring up.

Charlesworth: Jesus' bones? No. Jesus' family tomb? Maybe.

Perhaps to qualify or clarify his earlier statements that seemed to validate Jacobovici's claims, James H. Charlesworth, George L. Collord Professor of New Testament Language and Literature at Princeton Theological Seminary has posted a statement on the seminary webpage that includes seven observations about the "Jesus, son of Joseph" ossuary. I like them because they span the disciplines from epigraphy to archaeology to social science to history to biblical studies. Here they are, as they appear on Deinde:

1. The scribbling is not an inscription, it is a sloppy graffiti.
2. The name "Jesus" before "son of Joseph" is the most difficult name to read among all the names in the tomb.
   
3. All archaeologists and historians know that the names "Jesus" and "Joseph" are two of the most common names in first-century Jerusalem.
   
4. The ossuary is remarkably ordinary without any ornamentation; this may indicate that the remains placed inside belonged to someone rather common.
   
5. After Jesus' crucifixion as a common criminal, some priests wanted to stop (even kill) those who were claiming that Jesus was the Son of God because God had raised him from the dead. They could have produced the bones of Jesus rather easily and thus thwarted those who claimed that God had raised Jesus from the dead.
   
6. The so-called "Jesus tomb" is not far from the place where Caiaphas's ossuary was recovered. The "Jesus tomb" is decorated and elegant and would have been clearly visible before 70 CE when Roman soldiers destroyed the area. The priests who sought to stop the Palestinian Jesus Movement would have known about this tomb, regardless of who was placed inside.
7. The authors of the Gospels report that Jesus was placed in a tomb prepared for the family of Joseph of Arimathea; there is no New Testament evidence that Jesus' family had a tomb.

Points 1, 2, 4 & 6 are more substantive together than separately. For the Jacobovici hypothesis to be true, we would have to imagine that although the family tomb was "decorated and elegant," Jesus' clan did almost nothing to honor the bones of their most honorable member. Indeed, his ossuary was more hastily and less carefully "inscribed" than any of the others, including the one belonging to little "brother" Jose.

Points 5, 6 & 7, in combination, amount to a historical argument that Jesus' enemies would likely have known where his family tomb was. This has not, to my knowledge, received an adequate response from the documentary's proponents. To be fair, though, the claim that the tomb's location and association with Jesus would have been public knowledge involves a measure of speculation.

Point number 3 (the commonness of two names) is not in disupte but carries little weight if the issue is the statistical probability of a cluster of names.

Two additional thoughts relate to other remarks by Charlesworth. First, about Jesus' "clan":

a good case has been made for the possibility that the tomb of Jesus' "clan" may have been discovered. By "clan" I mean "extended family group". This possibility needs to be researched and debated in a scholarly symposium.

This puzzles me. If Charlesworth doesn't think the "Jesus, son of Joseph" bone box held the bones of Jesus of Nazareth, how would the Talpiot ossuary evidence amount to a "good case" that this particular tomb belonged to Jesus' "clan"? Perhaps he doesn't view his seven observations as ultimately decisive.

Second, about his closing word:

There is nothing that archaeology can provide that can be damaging to Christian faith. Archaeology cannot form faith; it can only inform faith.

This notion that nothing unearthed by archaeology can be damaging to Christian faith is entirely unpersuasive to me. If Christianity is a fundamentally historical faith--a faith that rests on claims about events that really happened--and if archaeology sometimes overturns the way we understand history, shouldn't we be open in principle to archaeological discoveries that undermine faith? What if the Talpiot tomb had been found, intact and undisturbed, with ossuaries inscribed with the names of all known members of Jesus' family (but no one else), each one containing bones (one with nail holes in all the right places)? And what if the same tomb held jars containing previously unknown scrolls (whose authenticity and dates could not be denied) that offered a narrative that completely challenged the Gospels credibility? Would Charlesworth's faith still come through unscathed? It's a crazy hypothetical, of course, so maybe it doesn't help. But I still have to wonder.