Jesus Tomb - Not Yet Dead And Buried by slaveofone
The name Mariamne for Mary Magdalen does not originate in gnostic texts 300 years or more after the time, but from an opponent of Gnosticism, Hippolytus, in his Refutation of All Heresies (230-ish AD). There, he uses two forms of the name for Mary: Mariamme and Mariamne. This is the first use of Mariamne for Mary Magdalen that we have on record…more than a century earlier than the gnostic Acts of Phillip and from the pen of a church father.
It is easy to explain the presence of a Matthew…because this tomb, according to the archaeological data, was used for between 3 and 4 generations, was home to upwards of about 35 individuals, and was open between the close of the first century BC and 70 AD (pot sherds being found in the tomb could date back as far as 30-ish BC). The ossuraries are not the only places where relatives would be buried…remains would also be kept on the shelves in the different rooms of the tomb…sometimes before being transfered to an ossurary. Bone residue/dust was found on tomb shelves (so there were at least more than 10 people). Therefore, it is possible that Matthew could be a brother, an uncle, or any of several other number of relatives of Maria
.
For those reasons above, it is also quite easy to explain why the other brothers of Yeshua of Nazareth (if this is his family’s tomb) are not mentioned: 1. because we have four bone boxes that are not inscribed, 2. because the sealing of the tomb by about 70 AD would keep any living relatives from being admitted, and 3. because not all family members are usually mentioned on ossuaries in family tombs (this tomb has more names than is usual).
There is a problem with identifying Jesus
in the Jesus son of Joseph
inscription. The first name is somewhat illegible. The problem can be cleared up archaeologically by the presence of the same name on another ossuary in the tomb, but we begin to see the conclusion softening and becoming questionable…especially since Jesus
was such a common name.
Since we have no other data linking a son named Judah to Yeshua of Nazareth, let’s set that aside from the discussion at present… First it should be shown why the family in the tomb is likely to be Yeshua of Nazareth’s, then it will make sense to argue that Judah
is his son.
Moving on, we come to Mariamne. Looking at the inscription, we find that the name is not Mariamne, but Mariamenou. This is the genitive of Mariamenon
. Mariamenou would mean belonging to
or of Mariamenon
. But since Mariamenon does not match up with any known Mary name, it is likely a derivative of Meriamene.
The claim of the film and book appears to be that Mariamne is a shortened form of Mariamene (stupid Es, always getting lost…). If we can eliminate Mary Magdalen as a possibility for Mariamene, then we are left with three names from record that identify us with the family of Yeshua of Nazareth: Mary, Joseph, and Jesus. If we can get to that point, the possibility of these three names occurring—not just in a family of two generations but perhaps of three or four—becomes nothing exceptional and takes away any power of statistics that hitherto have been the single greatest reason for linking Yeshua of Nazareth and his family to this tomb and its contents.