Time has a follow-up on last year’s news about the alleged discovery of the ‘Tomb of Jesus’ (with movie director James Cameron backing the expedition). The story takes a look at a recent conference of Biblical scholars, organised by leading New Testament expert Prof. James Charlesworth, who gathered to discuss the finding/theory:
After three days of fierce debate, the experts remained deeply divided. Opinion among a panel of five experts ranged from “no way” to “very possible”. Charlesworth told TIME: “I have reservations, but I can’t dismiss the possibility that this tomb was related to the Jesus clan.” Weighing the evidence, says Charlesworth, “we can tell that this was the tomb of a Jewish family from the time of Jesus. And we know that the names on the ossuaries are expressed the correct way as ‘Jesus, son of Joseph.'” But the professor has a few doubts. “The name on Jesus’s ossuary was scrawled on, like graffiti. There was no ornamentation. And there should have been. After all, his followers believed he was the Son of God.”
There was at least one new revelation to come out of the conference: The widow of Joseph Gat, the chief archeologist of the 1980 excavation, told attendees “My husband believed that this was Jesus’s tomb, but because of his experiences as a Holocaust survivor, he was worried about a backlash of anti-Semitism and he didn’t think he could say this.”
