1. Jesus’ Tomb is not lost, just empty
READING:
Mark
David Instone-Brewer,

2. The world was taken by surprise a short time ago by a Discovery TV show - Simcha Jacobovici, the film’s director, claimed the family tomb of Jesus was found - archaeologists found ten ossuaries (ie bone boxes) named with Jesus' family

3. An ossuary is a box into which the bones were put about a year after death - it sounds rather gruesome to us, but it was normal for a short time in Jerusalem - when the flesh had fallen off, the bones were put into a smallish box  and kept safe

4. - names on these ossuaries included “Joseph”, “Mary” and “Jesus son of Joseph” - it also included “Judah son of Jesus” and “Miriam Mara” and “Jose” - Simcha Jacobovici, the film’s director, is very sure about what has been found - it is the tomb of Joseph and Mary and their children, including Jesus - he assumes that the tomb of “Jose” is Joseph, a brother of Jesus (Mk.6.3) - and says “Miriam Mara” is Mary Magdalene, who is buried there as Jesus’ wife

5. This sounds utterly convincing at first, but the archaeologists aren’t impressed - they have known about this tomb since 1980, and no-one thought it was special - lots of 1st C tombs have been excavated, and lots of ossuaries have been found - the most famous one is inscribed “James son of Joseph, brother of Jesus' - but that is only famous because it is a famous money-making forgery - a Jerusalem antiquities dealer bought a plain ossuary and carved the names - his forgery made the ossuary worth more than $1 million, but the experts spotted it

6. - the Chiaphas ossuary is also famous, but this time its fame is probably deserved - it is quite likely that this contained the bones of the High Priest who judged Jesus - though the experts are unsure, because the name was uncommon but not unique But the experts are fairly unanimous that we haven’t found the bones of Jesus - not because the experts are all Christians who believe in the resurrection - but because the experts are hard-headed sceptics who look at things objectively 

7. The problem with the so-called tomb of Jesus is the names on the ossuaries - the names look, at first glance, as if they are very significant - after all, what are the odds of finding a Mary and a Joseph in the same tomb? - well actually, it is extremely high, because these names are extremely common. - Joseph was so common that one in ten men were called Joseph - Mary was even more common – about a quarter of all women were called Mary [ - our reading in Mark names three women, and they are all called Mary! - so the chance of a Mary marrying a Joseph is 1/10  x  1/4 - ie 1/40th - every 40 pairs of tombs you come across will be a Mary and Joseph - though this tomb had 10 ossuaries, so one of them was almost certain to be Mary - and so there was a one in ten chance it would have both a Mary and Joseph - which means every tenth tomb like this they find will be another family of Jesus

8. More significantly, this tomb also had an ossuary labelled “Jesus son of Joseph” - but even Jesus was very common – about 1/25 of all males were called Jesus - so in a room of 100 people, four of them would be called Jesus - this sounds strange to us, because we avoid the name, but we see it in the NT - Pilate judged and sentenced two people called Jesus on the same day - Jesus of Nazareth, and Jesus bar Abbas (Mt.27.17) -  though later manuscripts understandably left out the “Jesus” in Bar Abbas’ name

9. - so what is the chance of finding a ossuary of “Jesus son of Joseph”
- so what is the chance of finding a ossuary of “Jesus son of Joseph”? - multiply 1/25 by 1/10 – about one in 250. And in a group of ten? – 1/50 - (you divide the number by five, not ten, because half on average are female) - and the chances of finding also finding a Mary in the tomb – virtually certain - a quarter of women were “Mary”, so any average group of ten would include one In other words, if we dig up lots of tombs, we’ll find more families of Jesus - on average, every 50th tomb will be a family of Jesus. How many can he have?

10. - how many tombs are there waiting to be found
- how many tombs are there waiting to be found? - the population of Jerusalem was probably about 5-10 thousand - though at the end of the siege of Jerusalem, the Romans captured 97 thousand (Josephus War VI, 420) - the number of people buried at Jerusalem was higher than you might expect - because the faithful came to the holy city of Jerusalem to retire or to die - so the number of people who died in the time of Jesus was tens of thousands - so there are one or two thousand tombs with ten ossuaries buried somewhere - so keep digging and we should find another 200 tombs containing Jesus’ family

11. It is silly of course. We can’t conclude anything from tombs with common names - imagine your parents were called John and Mary, and they lived in Cambridge (which is about the same size as Jerusalem in the time of Jesus) - but during the second world war the record of their grave was lost

12. - so you searched all the city graveyards till you found one marked “John and Mary” - and pretend that graves, like ossuaries, had only rough dates and no family names - so the names “John and Mary” were the only evidence you could find - would you celebrate and say: I’ve found the grave of my parents? - John and Mary were the most popular names for the war-time years - 1/16 of all men were called John and 1/16 of all women were called Mary - [see - so the likelihood of John marrying Mary was 1/16x16 ie 1/256

13. - so every 250th gravestone you look at will have “John & Mary” on it - whereas every 50th tomb of ossuaries will have the names of Jesus’ family - so your gravestone is more likely to be correct than the so-called tomb of Jesus. So have we found the tomb of Jesus. A Jesus - yes. The Jesus – no. - and is Jesus risen? Yes! Stones don’t prove it, but you can prove it - invite him to live in your heart. He lives, and he will give you life