James Ossuary - Discovery Channel Documentaries

Discovery Channel Documentaries

On February 26, 2007 a news conference was held at the New York Public Library by director James Cameron and Simcha Jacobovici to discuss their documentary The Lost Tomb of Jesus, which discusses the 1980 finding of the Talpiot Tomb, which they claim is in fact Jesus' family tomb. In the film, they also suggest that the so-called James ossuary is actually the "missing link" from the tomb (at the original discovery of the Talpiot Tomb, there were ten ossuaries, however one has since been lost - Jacobovici suggests the James Ossuary could be the tenth from Talpiot). According to the film, "recent tests conducted at the CSI Suffolk Crime lab in New York demonstrate that the patina (a chemical film encrustation on the box) from the James ossuary matches the patina from the other ossuaries in the Talpiot tomb."

Following the 4 March 2007 airing of The Lost Tomb of Jesus on the Discovery Channel, Ted Koppel aired a program entitled 'The Lost Tomb of Jesus - A Critical Look', whose guests included the director Simcha Jacobovici, James Tabor (a consultant and advisor on the docudrama), Johnathan Reed, Professor of Religion at the University of LaVerne and co-author of 'Excavating Jesus Beneath the Stones, Behind the Text', and William Dever, an archaeologist with 40 plus years experience in Middle Eastern archaeological digs.

The Washington Post in an article of 28 February 2007 quotes Dever as saying, "I just think it's a shame the way this story is being hyped and manipulated" and "all of the names are common." In fact, two of the names found in the tomb are unique among known ossuaries, and Jacobovici's argument does not in any case rely on the commonness or uncommonness of individual names, but on the statistical probability of finding a set of names in a single tomb.

Alan Cooperman, writer of the Washington Post article also states:

"Similar assessments came yesterday from two Israeli scholars, Amos Kloner, who originally excavated the tomb, and Joe Zias, former curator of archaeology at the Israeli Antiquities Authority. Kloner told the Jerusalem Post that the documentary is "nonsense." Zias described it in an e-mail to The Washington Post as a "hyped up film which is intellectually and scientifically dishonest."

In the docudrama The Lost Tomb of Jesus, Simcha Jacobovici claims:

1. concerning the ossuary marked Jesus and the one believed to be that of Mary Magdalene: because "the DNA did not match, the forensic archaeologist concluded that they must be husband and wife";
2. that testing showed that there was a match between the patina on the James and Jesus ossuaries and refers to the James ossuary as a possible "missing link" from the tomb of Jesus;
3. and that an ossuary that became missing from the tomb of Jesus had actually been the infamous James ossuary.

During Ted Koppel's critique, 'The Lost Tomb of Jesus - A Critical Look', Koppel stated he had denials from three people Simcha Jacobovici had misquoted in the documentary.

1. Koppel had a written denial from the forensic archaeologist asserting that he had not concluded that the remains of Jesus and Miriamne showed they were husband and wife.
2. Koppel had a written denial from the Suffolk Crime Lab Director asserting that he had not stated the James ossuary patina "matched" that of the Jesus ossuary. Jacobovici had a written denial of Koppel's written denial saying that the term "match" had a legal meaning that could not be applied to the patina tests; however, the patinas corresponded closely enough to meet an evidentiary standard of admissibility.
3. Koppel had a verbal denial from Professor Amos Kloner, the archaeologist who had supervised the initial 1980 dig of the tomb of Jesus, with whom he spoke on 4 March 2007, asserting that the ossuary that later turned up missing from the tomb could not have been what is now known as the James ossuary because the ossuary he had seen and photographed and catalogued in 1980 had been totally unmarked, whereas the James ossuary is marked with the name of James and a rosette.

Additionally, Simcha Jacobovici's association of the ossuary with the 'Tomb of Jesus' seems to be excluded by the 1976 photograph of the ossuary presented at trial. The assertions of 'The Lost Tomb of Jesus' are not supported by the overwhelming majority of scholars.