'Tomb of Jesus' debated

Published in Long Beach City College's Viking newspaper in 2007.

Jesus had sex.
According to the new documentary produced by James Cameron the idea may not be so far-fetched.
"The Lost Tomb of Jesus" aired Sunday, March 4 on the Discovery channel and discussed the possibility that the family tomb of Jesus was found in Talpiot, Jerusalem. In the beginning credits of the documentary, viewers were asked to judge the evidence for themselves and were informed nothing has really been agreed on.
The documentary opened with an opinionated explanation of the aftermath of Jesus' death. It reported that the dead body of Jesus was wrapped in a shroud and laid to rest inside a tomb. The tomb was sealed and Jesus' body was left to decompose. Later, disciples returned to place the bones in a limestone ossuary and then placed the ossuary into a niche. Finally, the tomb was sealed again.
In 1980, construction blasts revealed a tomb and construction halted until archaeologists came in and cleared the tomb of all historical artifacts. Ten ossuaries were found and carted off to the Rockefeller Archaeological Museum to be catalogued and the bones were prepared for reburial. Then they were placed in the Israel Antiquities Authority warehouse.
LBCC department head of Anthropology, Adrian Novotny said, "It's not a verification of Christianity. It's a 2000 year-old quest focused on discrediting Christianity."
According to writer and director Simcha Jacobovici, the 10 ossuaries were inspected and found to be about 2000 years old. Six ossuaries had inscriptions revealing the names of the owners. One ossuary was noticed in 1980 saying Yeshua bar Yosef, an Aramaic translation of Jesus son of Joseph. All the names found related to the gospels and although most of the names were common during that period, Jacobovici suggests all the names found in one tomb are strong evidence the tomb belongs to Jesus' family.
Jacobovici and his team found one Hebrew inscription reading Maria and suggested it belonged to Mary, Jesus' mother. A Greek inscription revealed the name Mariamene e Mara and this could be Mary Magdalene, Jesus' wife, according to a mitochondrial DNA test conducted at the Paleo-DNA lab at Lake Head University in Ontario Canada.
They also discovered a Hebrew inscription reading Matia, or Matthew; guessed to be related to the Virgin Mary. Another Hebrew inscription, Yose, was discovered and suggested to be one of four brothers of Jesus.
Finally, the sixth inscription in Aramaic read Yehuda bar Yeshua, or in English, Judah son of Jesus. The ossuary was small enough to house the bones of a child and is speculated to be the son of Jesus and Mary Magdalene.
According to the Web site www.jesusfamilytomb.com, the world's leading scholars in the field have authenticated every inscription and the inscriptions appear in L.Y. Rahmani's "A Catalogue of Jewish Ossuaries in the Collection of the State of Israel" published by the Israel Antiquities Authority.
On June 25, 2005 the tomb was rediscovered under an oddly placed slab of concrete on the grounds of an apartment building. After a brief investigation into the tomb by Jacobovici, the Antiquities Authority ordered it to be re-sealed.
A Republican from Florida and host of "Scarborough Country," Joe Scarborough said on "Real Time with Bill Maher," "Right now there is a lot of money in ticking off Christians. People are trying to ruin 2000 years of Christian doctrine."
Bar-Ilan University professor Amos Kloner told the Jerusalem Post on Feb. 25 he originally supervised the work in 1980 and published his findings. Kloner said the story is great for television, but it's impossible and it's nonsense. Kloner also explained the names were common and the fact they were found together has no significance. Also, Kloner said there is no likelihood Jesus and his relatives owned a family tomb.
They were a Galilee family with no ties in Jerusalem.