People often ask if science and religion are compatible. This is a reasonable question given that science is based on verifiable fact while most religions require blind acceptance of dogma based on faith. In this regard science and religion would seem to be continuously at odds. Science says, "show me the evidence or I will not believe." Religion says, "Just believe, faith is belief without evidence." However, science and religion do not always have to work in opposition to each other, they can work together. One of the most remarkable examples of this synergistic interaction can be found in the New York Times best seller The Jesus Family Tomb, by Simcha Jacobovici and Charles Pellegrino.
This remarkable story began on Thursday March 27, 1980 when a bulldozer, clearing the foundation of a new apartment house in the Talpoit region of Jerusalem, opened up a tomb. Rivka Maoz, a recent emigrant to Jerusalem and a student of archeology living nearby, sensed that because of some unusual sculpturing this tomb might be different from the numerous other ancient tombs unearthed by bulldozers. She and Efraim Shochat, an orthodox Jew who was directing the apartment house project, called the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) to send archeologists to investigate the tomb before its contents were looted and destroyed. Three archeologists were sent. They logged in ten ossuaries, officially known as IAA80/500-509. The tomb thus became known as the Tomb of the Ten Ossuaries. All ten were to be removed and stored in the IAA warehouse for safekeeping, but only nine the made it to the warehouse. One went missing.
One of the aspects of the Tomb of the Ten Ossuaries was the fact that it contained ossuaries. Ossuaries are bone boxes. They were a Jewish custom in use for only about 100 years around the time Jesus lived. Jesus was crucified about 30 CE and ossuaries ceased to be used from 70 CE on, after the Romans destroyed Jerusalem and the Temple. Thus ossuaries are as accurate or even more accurate than radioisotope dating for determining the age of a tomb, and they are precise marker of the time Jesus lived.
Ossuaries are like miniature stone coffins far too small to hold a whole body. During the time ossuaries were used after a person died they were placed in a cave and the entrance was blocked with a rolling stone. One year later the bones were collected and placed in an ossuary.
In addition to the fact that the Talpoit tomb had ossuaries, thus dating it to the approximate time of the death of Jesus, the most riveting aspect of this tomb was the names on the ossuaries. Of the nine ossuaries in the IAA warehouse, six had inscriptions on them. These inscriptions were: MARIA (Mary); JOSEPH; JESUS, SON OF JOSEPH; JUDAH, SON OF JESUS; MARIAMNE (initially considered another Mary); AND MATTHEW. This Matthew could be the Matthew of the gospels and he could have been a relative of Jesus.
After the ossuaries were removed the tomb was sealed in a shell of concrete, seemingly never to be seen again, and the ossuaries collected dust in a warehouse, also seemly forgotten. The curators of the collection ignored the seemingly remarkable collection of names of these ossuaries as simply being common names in that era. It took application of science and the investigations of Charles Pellegrino, a Ph.D. in paleobiology and author of the best selling book, Titanic, and Simcha Jacobovici, Emmy-winning producer of documentaries, to show that the Tomb of the Ten Ossuaries was, to a high decree of probability, the Jesus Family Tomb.
An important fact that the team uncovered was that according to modern scholarship, Mary Magdalene's real name was MARIAMNE. The first example of the application of scientific principles to the tomb involved the science of statistics. In statistics there what is termed the Law of Multiplication. It works as follows. Suppose we are asking what proportion of the U.S. population was left handed and had blue eyes. If 10% (1/10) were left handed and 20% (1/20) had blue eyes, the two fractions would multiplied together giving a frequency of 1/200 left-handed people with blue eyes. Based on all of the known ossuaries with inscriptions, the team was able to determine what proportion of the Jewish population living at the time of ossuaries had the different names noted in the Tomb of Ten Ossuaries. The calculations indicated the random chance of such a collection of names was 1 in 2.4 million. Some considerations increased this number still further. One noted statistician suggested that to be totally rigorous, the above number should be adjusted for those known members of Jesus's family that were not in the tomb. When this was done the probability dropped to 1/600 that this cluster of Jesus related names could occur by chance. However, it was possible that one or more of the 'missing' persons were in four ossuaries without names.
In the fall of 2002 Simcha heard of an article about to break on the cover of Biblical Archeology Review concerning the discovery of an ossuary with the inscription JAMES, SON OF JOSEPH BROTHER OF JESUS. Oded Golan, a well-known collector of biblical antiquities, owned the ossuary. Where he obtained it is not clear. After the story broke, on October 31, 2002, a picture of the ossuary appeared on the cover of the New York Times. While some declared it a forgery, again science proved otherwise. It was one of the most tested archeological artifacts in history and when tested with long-wave UV light it passed every test with flying colors.
A further application of science involved the testing of the patinas covering the ossuaries. Each ossuary is covered with many centuries of dust and debris. The patina on the ossuaries in a given tomb contain unique amounts of elements such a aluminum, calcium, iron, titanium, and others. Elemental analysis can distinguish the patinas of even neighboring tombs. These analyses showed that as expected, all of the nine ossuaries of the Tomb of Ten Ossuaries stored in the IAA warehouse were indeed from the same tomb. What they also showed was that the JAMES, SON OF JOSEPH BROTHER OF JESUS ossuary also came from this tomb and was the missing tenth ossuary. Adding this ossuary further decreased the odds of this combination of names occurring by chance.
a virgin and even if Jesus was not physically resurrected and was not born free of Sin and was not the literal "son of God." This form of rational Christianity requires that a metaphorical Jesus, performing metaphorical miracles, can provide the basis of a Christian religion just as well as the much less scientifically reasonable Jesus of church dogma. This metaphorical Jesus can form the basis of a rational Christianity and of a rational spirituality where reason and religion are not in conflict.
David Comings
Author Bio
Dr. Comings, author of Did Man Create God? Is Your Spiritual Brain at Peace with Your Thinking Brain? is a physician, neuroscientist, behavioral and molecular geneticist. Dr. Comings held the position of Director of the Department of Medical Genetics at the City of Hope National Medical Center for thirty-seven years before retiring in 2002. This internationally known scientist-physician has written over four hundred fifty scientific articles and three books, including Tourette Syndrome and Human Behavior. His research areas included cytogenetics, human behavioral and molecular genetics. He ran a large behavioral medicine clinic specializing in Tourette Syndrome, ADHD and oppositional defiant behavior in children. Dr. Comings is past editor of the American Journal of Human Genetics and past president of the American Society of Human Genetics. www.didmancreategod.com He also has a blog entitled The Blog for Science and Religion http://blog.didmancreategod.com
