The Rest of the Story
January 8, 2014
Mountain Brook Baptist Church
Over the last few years, our news sources have reported on several
potentially important discoveries by scholars and/or achaeologists. We have looked at some of these on past
Wednesdays, but sometimes we forget
about these developing stories as they fade from the headlines. In some cases, dicoveries that were touted as
groundbreaking new insights into the Bible or the life of Jesus turn out to be
insignificant if not fraudulent. This
does not prevent them from continuing to circulate. In
this era of the internet, anything that is copied and forwarded to thousands of
others is assumed by the average person to be accurate, but in many cases
nothing could be further from the truth.
So it is helpful to look back at some of the things that made the news recently
and ask what ever became of them. In
this session we'll review two of these stories:
the bombshell announcement made by Karen
King of Harvard about the discovery of a Coptic fragment which contains a reference
to "the wife of Jesus;" and
the new developments announced by James
Tabor of North Carolina State University in the evaluation of a "tomb of
Jesus."
The "Wife of Jesus" Fragment
Here is some of what
I reported earlier about this manuscript fragment:
"On
Tuesday, September 18th, 2012, early Christianity scholar Karen L. King of the
Harvard Divinity School announced the discovery of a Coptic papyrus fragment
that includes the text “Jesus said to them, ‘My wife … .' ” Dr. King has called the tiny fragment “The Gospel of
Jesus’s Wife” although it is not a
complete manuscript and may not be a gospel.
Her announcement created a firestorm of media activity with the
New York Times and the Washington Post leading the way. Nervously, many of the religious blogs and
print media entered the fray to suggest that the finding was either a fraud or,
if authentic, not something we ought to worry about. While the fragment does have Jesus referring
to “My wife….” there is no context for the statement and conservative
Christians, as well as Dr. King herself,
hastened to add that this fragment only proved that someone in the second to
the fourth century after Jesus thought he was married. It is not evidence that Jesus was married. ...
"The
impression left by the newspaper articles is that “The Gospel of Jesus’s Wife”
has just been discovered, but this is
not so. The fragment of manuscript was
purchased by a private collector who has requested that he not be identified by
Dr. King whom he asked to help authenticate the document. The owner has written documentation that the
little piece of manuscript was in a group of second century manuscripts studied
by a professor at the University of Berlin in 1982. This professor is now dead, but in a
handwritten note from a colleague of his he is quoted as saying that this tiny
fragment “is the sole example of a text in which Jesus uses direct speech with
reference to having a wife.” Why this
discovery did not make the headlines in 1982 Is not known."
"Dr. King received the document
in December of 2011 and began the process of verifying its authenticity. She sent photographs of the document to
experts in the Coptic language and ancient manuscripts and got positive
reactions from both. She submitted an
article about the document to the Harvard Theological Review which followed
normal academic procedures by asking three experts in the field to comment on
the document. One of the reviewers
accepted the document as authentic but two others raised questions. One reviewer whose identity is not known to
Dr. King made extensive and substantive comments which she took into account in
the paper which she read in Rome when she made the document public. "
"Chemical testing of the ink
has not been done and when this is done it will determine if the writing on the
document is at least as old as the fourth century. The papyrus on which the words are written is
at least that old, but it is possible to write on old papyrus and make it look
like ancient writing."
What is "the rest
of the story" for this discovery?
What has transpired since September, 2012? Has it been proven to be a fraud or has
extensive scrutiny proven it to be a second century manuscript as
reported? Have we learned anything more
about where the manuscript originally was discovered?
One of the persons who has followed this story closely
since the day it broke is Hershel Shanks, the editor of Biblical Archaeology
Review (BAR). In the mid-summer issue
of his magazine, Shanks printed an exchange of emails with Kathryn Dodgson, Director of Communications at Harvard
University in which he asked for an update on the tests the university said
would be run on the manuscript. Ms. Dodgson
responded that testing was "still underway," but she declined to give
any specifics about which tests were being run or which scholar or laboratory
had been asked to do the testing. Then
in the January-February issue of the magazine which just recently came out,
Shanks wrote:
"After word got out that the fragment referred to Jesus’ wife, the Harvard Theological Review changed its mind about publishing King’s article. It had been scheduled for publication in January 2013. Under what pressure, we do not know, but the fact is that publication was postponed indefinitely—until the results of some unnamed tests by some unknown entities confirm the authenticity of the fragment. The magazine refused to divulge who would be conducting the tests or what they were. They referred to “various reports” that were expected, indicating that more than one test was to be made. The results of the tests, we were told, would be “ready for publication—hopefully early to mid-summer [2013].” As of this writing, [December, 2013] no information about these tests has been released, and the authorities still refuse to divulge who is doing the testing and what the tests are."
As
Shanks indicated, the paper which Dr.
King read in September, 2012 has never been published by Harvard. The full text of her original paper has been
available on the internet, but any revisions she has made to the manuscript
since then have not been published. [1]
Seldom has a paper which has not been published been so widely available. Dr. King herself has been silent. She has not provided any further information
about her work. This kind of reluctance
by a university and by an author raises questions. While it may be just a way of avoiding
premature judgments about a scholarly matter and a way of providing the
scholars involved time to do thorough testing without pressure from the news
media, it fuels speculation that Harvard University questions the authenticity
of the ancient manuscript.
So
the short answer to our questions about this discovery is that nothing has been
publicly announced in the last fifteen months about the process for testing the
Coptic manuscript fragment which has been called "The Gospel of Jesus's
Wife". While some are upset that
nothing has been announced, it is not unusual in academic circles for these
kinds of study to take months if not years.
In this case, since the subject matter involves Jesus, it is especially understandable
that scholars would want to be certain before they announced their
conclusions. Dr. King herself gave her
best judgment in the paper she read and doubtless will not say more until the
tests are completed.
The Jesus Tomb
In 2009
we used a Wednesday night to look at the "Top Ten Archaeological
Discoveries" of the last 100 years, and I began that session by describing
some discoveries that were not included in the list. Among those not included was the supposed
discovery of the family tomb of Jesus in a suburb of Jerusalem known as
Talpiot. Here is what I said in 2009
about the 2007 announcement of the discovery:
And lastly, then, there is the Tomb
of the Family of Jesus which the 2007
Discovery Channel documentary made so famous.
Known among archaeologist and epigraphers for years as the Talpiot tomb
because of its location, it would certainly belong in the list had the work of
the two authors involved been validated--but most scholars, even those involved
in the documentary quickly disavowed the conclusions of the authors. In that controversial 2007 documentary film produced by Canadian
film director James Cameron and investigative journalist Simcha Jacobovici
titled The Lost Tomb of Jesus and in a book written by Jacobovici and
Charles Pellegrino, The Jesus Family Tomb, it is alleged that
the Talpiot Tomb was the burial place of Jesus of Nazareth, as well as several
other figures from the New Testament such as Mary Magdalene. In 2008, Princeton Seminary held a symposium[2] to review this tomb which
resulted in a statement by scholars involved in the discovery and decipherment
of the writing on the ossuaries that the claims of Jacobovici and Pellegrino
were not supported by the evidence.
The general sermon to be preached from this list of discoveries that are
at least of dubious origin is that Christians should be very skeptical of new
discoveries until they have been studied carefully. Unfortunately, some good folks immediately
begin to circulate such stories as gospel truth and once the chains start it is
very difficult to stop them.
Since our original treatment was
four years ago it might be helpful to have a little review of the discovery of
the Talpiot tomb. The original excavator
of the tomb was an Israeli archaeologist named Joseph Gat. The tomb is in a residential neighbor of
Jerusalem that is about two miles from the traditional site of Jesus' burial in
the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. The
excavation of the tomb revealed several ossuaries ( bone boxes) that were
inscribed with names familiar to us from the Gospels. The names were: Jude, son of Jesus; Matthew, Jesus, son of
Joseph; Yose; Mary; and Mariamene.[3] The tomb was uncovered in the process of
constructing a condominium and was open when the authorities from the Israel
Antiquities Authority arrived. Of the
ten ossuaries found, six had names on them.
Two of these indicated the father of the individual: Jesus son of Joseph and Jude son of
Jesus. Bowing to the wishes of
ultra-orthodox Jews in the area, the bones in the ossuaries were reburied
without being studied and the tomb was resealed. However, drawings were made of the nine
shafts inside the tomb and the ossuaries in them. Noone at the time made any attempt publically
to connect this tomb with Jesus. Just
recently the widow of Joseph Gat who was in charge of the site said that her
husband thought he had found the tomb of Jesus but "was
afraid a wave of anti-Semitism would ensue" if he made this conclusion
public.[4] The possibility that this tomb was the family
tomb of Jesus became widely known among non-specialists when the Discovery
Channel made its 2007 documentary as noted above.
Since the documentary was aired and the Princeton-sponsored
conference was held in 2008, there has been an on-going acrimonious debate
within the academic community. Some of
the scholars who attended the Conference in Jerusalem were offended when the
makers of the documentary film seemed to claim that the result of the
conference was an affirmation of their film.
Eleven of these scholars publically announced that that was not the
case. Since that time discussion has
centered largely on the statistical probability that this grouping of names
would occur by chance with several different statisticians drawing quite
different conclusions.
It is clear that there is no direct evidence that the
names on the ossuaries are in any way connected to Jesus. Christians whose knowledge is restricted to
what the New Testament says might reasonably conclude that there was no body of
Jesus after the resurrection. Others
assume that Jesus was buried hastily before the Sabbath began in a tomb near
where he was crucified and that he was re-buried in the tomb owned by Joseph of
Arimathea. Thus the original tomb was
empty when Mary Magdalene arrived. They
point out that it is not likely that a wealthy man would have located his tomb
close to the spot where Romans executed those condemned to die.
The documentary not only assumed that Jesus was buried in
the Talpiot tomb but also that Mary Magdalene, his wife, and his son Jude were
also buried in the family tomb. It was
this speculation that caused many of the scholars originally associated with
the documentary to withdraw their support.
The name "Mariamene" on one of the ossuaries has been the topic
of intense debate. It is far from
certain that the name is that of Mary Magdalene, but it is a possibility.
Into this intense debate an archaeologist associated with
the University of North Carolina named James Tabor has inserted a further claim
that is generating a lot of discussion.
A second tomb just a few yards from the first tomb was also uncovered by
the construction of the condominium but after preliminary study it was covered
by the apartment building. Dr. Tabor got
permission to use remotely operated cameras inserted through a hole in the top
of the tomb to study the ossuaries inside.
His preliminary report is available on the internet and he has recently
published his position in a new book, The Jesus Discovery: The New Archaeological Find That Reveals the Birth
of Christianity (Simon and Schuster, 2012). Tabor and his co-author say that two finds in
the second tomb give us our first direct evidence of Christians in first
century Israel. On one ossuary there is
an inscription which Tabor reads as "Divine Jehovah
(Yahweh), lift up, lift up," or "The Divine Jehovah raises up from
[the dead]." He interprets this
inscription to document Christian belief in the resurrection. Supplementing this inscription is an image
scratched on one of the ossuaries that Tabor interprets to be a fish. He concludes that this is a Christian use of
Jonah to symbolize resurrection. Tabor
writes:
“This Jonah ossuary is
most fascinating, It seems to represent a pictorial story with the fish diving
under the water on one end, the bars or gates of death, the bones inside, and
the image of the great fish spitting out a man representing, based on the words
of Jesus, the ‘sign of Jonah’ – the ‘sign’ that he would escape the bonds of
death.”
Needless to say, while some scholars have been
sympathetic to Tabor's interpretation, most have not. They quickly point out that the drawing that
Tabor has labeled a fish is most likely a crude example of a symbol found on
many Jewish ossuaries known as a "nephesh
tower." And even if it is a symbol
of resurrection, others note, Pharisees believed in the resurrection of the
dead and the symbol is not clear evidence of Christian belief in the
resurrection. Others have concluded that
the key word in the inscription cannot be "Yahweh" as Tabor has read
it since the first letter is not a "Y" in their opinion. Tabor, in the meantime, is defending himself
on a blog that is open to the pubic to read for those who are interested.
Conclusion
Obviously, there is vast interest in
the general public about anything related to Jesus, and that is especially true
of his relationship to Mary Magdalene.
Dan Brown's book, The Da Vinci
Code, which made Mary Magdalene the wife of Jesus, stirred up enormous
interest in the subject. Now the
discovery of a fragment of a manuscript that has Jesus referring to "my
wife" and the recent book by Tabor which claims that the two ossuaries in
the same tomb link Jesus and Mary Magdalene as husband and wife have brought
the matter to the fore again.
It is fairly easy for one who is an
expert to weave together a scenario that is convincing to the non-expert. Tabor has done this just as convincingly as
Dan Brown did. While Dan Brown was
admittedly writing fiction, Tabor is presenting conclusions that he believes
are historical. For those of us looking
on, a word of caution is in order. Just because a dog has four legs and a cat
had four legs, it is not right to conclude that a dog is a cat. Just because some Christians in the fourth
century described Jesus as having a wife does not make it so. Just because names familiar to us from the
Gospels occur together in a tomb does not make it the tomb of Jesus, and it certainly does not prove that Jesus and
Mariamene were husband and wife. While
we must always be open to new truth and old doctrines must always yield to new
truth, new truths must be based on sound evidence and not coincidences. The tomb of Jesus materials will be much
debated in 2014. We will want to listen and then decide.
[1]
The draft of the paper which Dr. King presented in Rome is available on a
Harvard web site. While it is very
technical and contains Coptic words none of us can read, it is well worth
sampling by the average church-goer. The
section toward the end of the paper giving her conclusions is especially
readable and interesting. The web site can be found at: http://www.hds.harvard.edu/faculty-research/research-projects/the-gospel-of-jesuss-wife
[2]
In
regard to the length of time it takes
for scholarly results to be published, it should be noted that the printed
record of the symposium about the "Tomb of Jesus" discovery held in
2008 just appeared in print two weeks ago (mid-December, 2013)! This book makes public the actual
presentations made at a Jerusalem conference
sponsored by Princeton University.
[4]
http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/widow-archeologist-kept-jesus-tomb-discovery-secret-for-fear-of-anti-semitism-1.237411 (By Jonathan Lis
| Jan. 17, 2008).
