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March 14, 2007
Yielding to Temptation Once Again
I thought I was done with the Jesus Family Tomb but I can't seem avoid temptation.
In a letter to Rick Brannan of ricoblog, Mike Heiser reports on finding an online report with references to another set of inscribed ossuaries, these found at Dominus Flevit on the Mount of Olives, that have lots of names found in the Christian New Testament: Mary, Martha, Matthew, Joseph, Jesus. Nearly every living person who has ever visited Jerusalem has a picture of the Dome of the Rock taken across the Kidron valley through the window of the Dominus Flevit chapel. Heiser, whose letter you should read, plans to use this material in a study of the whole issue of the first century BCE tomb at Talpiyot, Jerusalem. But I just couldn't wait. So I ran down to my locale library and checked out Bagatti and Milik's report on the Dominus Flevit ossuary finds.
Sure enough, there they all are and more; some in Greek, some in Aramaic and some in Hebrew; all written on ossuaries and all nicely explained in Italian(!). Well that last part is a downer but not a surprise. Forty-three inscriptions where found. I'll share a couple of examples that I culled from the autographs and transcriptions. You won't find any translations from the Italian text here.
Ossuary 27 (Bagatti and Milik, 77, fig 19, 3, 4 ,5) has Martha and Miriam (מרתה ומריה in one case) inscribed on it three times. The order of the names varies and in two cases the final ה is missing from מרתה and the י is missing from מריה. They look like three different hands to me. I'm not sure what Bagatti and Milik think.
Ossuary 93 (Bagatti and Milik, 94, Fol. 86): Because Bagatti and Milik do not show an autograph, I offer my tracing from their photograph. This is the name "Jesus." And like the Martha and Miriam inscriptions, it is little more than graffito. The name also occurs twice on Ossuary 120 (Bagatti and Milik, 99, fig 23, 2) where it is written with even less care. But some of the inscriptions are well executed.
Ossuary 61 (Bagatti and Milik, 99, fig 23, 7) reads in Greek,
Μαρα
Στοργή
Χρήσιμος
πατήρ
Δημαρχ(ια)ς
Which I guess means something like "Mary, Storgè, (and) Cresimos father of Demarchias."
Ossuary 59: (Bagatti and Milik, 93-94, fig 20, 8) The inscription reads in Hebrew (?)מתיה בר הקוה, "Matthew son of Haqiwwah (the weaver). I'm not completely sure that the last letter of the second word is ר; it might be a ן. Is Haqiwwah to be understood as a title, the Weaver, or as the name of Matthew's father?
Ossuary 75: (Bagatti and Milik, 89, fig 21, 4). This inscription is broken and hard to read but it fairly clearly refers to "Joseph son of" someone or other. Here the word for "son" is more clearly Aramaic than is the case in the Ossuary 59 inscription above.
There are many other names on these ossuaries: Simon shows up, as does Salome ("Salome the proselyte [הגירת]" Ossuary 97, Bagatti and Milik, 95, fig 21, 6).
What are the odds that the names Mary, Martha, Matthew, Joseph, Jesus, Simon and Salome being known from the same tomb complex? 100%. They are known from this Dominus Flevit tomb complex. What more can be said? Not as much as one might think. The names from this complex contribute to the data set of first century BCE names. So do the ones from Talpiyot. Despite the fact or perhaps because of the fact that there are at least two Jesuses known from the Dominus Flevit tomb complex it is not a candidate for the family tomb of the New Testament Jesus. One course even the New Testament refers to more than one Jesus: the one you are thinking of, the "Jesus who is also called Justin" in Colossians 4:11 and, perhaps, Jesus Barabbas. On Jesus Barabbas see Matthew 27:16; Θ, f1, 700, Ormss, Sinai Syrer. For those who may not know, the strange stuff after "Matthew 27:16" is a list of abbreviations for the various manuscripts, manuscript families, versions and sources where the text reads "Jesus Barabbas" or "Jesus bar Abba." Be that as it may. The only thing one can say is that common names commonly appear with other common names.
Reference:
Posted by Duane Smith at March 14, 2007 2:28 PM | Read more on Archaeology |
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