The Jesus Family Tomb–The Book
I want to recommend the book, The Jesus Family Tomb by Simcha Jacobovici and Charles Pellegrino with a forward by James Cameron (HarperSanFrancisco, 2007). It is essentially a narrative of an investigative reporter’s experience in researching the topic of the Talpiot tomb. It is well written, moves along with suspense and interest, and in the course of the story it offers a great deal of information that was not presented in the Discovery TV documentary. In this regard I quote Dr. Randy Ingermanson, Ph.D. in physics at U.C. Berkeley, who has done work on the statistics related to the Talpiot tomb:
It’s a fascinating book. I grabbed it as soon as I could and read it carefully to see what the case is. I’ll say right away that I came to like Simcha Jacobovici very much while reading the book. His intellectual curiosity launched this investigation, and he clearly loves a great puzzle. There are folks who want to make Simcha the bad guy here, as if he somehow set out to demolish Christianity by cooking up some evidence. I don’t get that impression from reading his story or watching him on video. He’s clearly passionate about this story and interested in getting at the truth.
Dr. Ingermanson does not agree with the basic thesis of the book, i.e., that the evidence links this tomb to that of Jesus and his family, but as an author of both fiction and non-fiction books himself he clearly recognizes a good book. And this is a good book. It not only relates the unfolding story of the Talpiot tomb investigation but along the way lots of other topics related to early Christianity, ancient Judaism, burial practices, and even Crusader Templar traditions are explored. It also contains photographs of the ossuaries, good shots inside the tomb, and graphs showing the results of the patina tests that were mentioned in the film.
I have come to know the primary author, Simcha Jacobovici, very well over the past few years. My experience echoes precisely Dr. Ingermanson’s impressions. Jacobovici has won several Emmys and his most coveted honor was to receive the Columbia Broadcasters Award. He is dogged, determined, but also as bright as he is soft hearted and good natured. Co-author Dr. Pellegrino, with a Ph.D. in paleo-biology, has one of of the most amazing minds I have ever encountered, a true polymath, whose part in the story is as fascinating as it is important. And then there is the involvement of James Cameron whom I have come to admire and respect for his courage to stand behind this film and the book. I knew little about him other than his films, but have since learned of his part in designing the landing system for a Mars probe, his work on the Europa space probe, and a bit about his amazing deep-ocean scientific experiments. With the overwhelming commercial succcess of his film the Titanic, he has been freed to turn his attention to scientific exploration projects over the past few years. The way he was brought into the Talpiot tomb project is related in this book and I think it will surprise many readers.
My only real caveat regarding the book is that some readers might take the dramatized version of the discovery and excavation of the Talpiot tomb in 1980 related in chapter 1 as literal “history,” which it is not. The evidence I have been able to put together suggests that neither the excavator, Joseph Gath, nor the surveyor Shimon Gibson, who were on the scene during the emergency excavation the first two days gave any special note to the names coming out of the tomb on those six ossuaries, including the one labeled “Yeshua bar Yehosef.” Also, Kloner is imagined in that chapter as inside the tomb, helping to take out the ossuaries side by side with Gath and Gibson, engaged in conversation about the names. That apparently is not accurate in that Kloner was the area supervisor, not the hands on excavator, and hired workers were the ones that really did the work of removing the ossuaries and the soil that had filled the tomb according to Gibson who was there. Any special attention to the names was to wait sixteen years, in 1996, when Ray Bruce, Chris Mann, and the BBC team first noticed the “Yeshua bar Yehosef” ossuary and the names on the other five. Ray Bruce told me just this week that Zias, who was with the film crew when they made their “discovery,” was as surprised as they were to see the assembledge of names. He commented on the spot that the cluster was quite significant, even unprecedented, and deserved further investigation. Later that day when Kloner was interviewed he did not recall the tomb specifically, but when told of the names he expressed a view he still holds today, that the names are common and accordingly are unworthy of any special attention or investigation.
Readers will also learn that contrary to what one might have assumed, Simcha Jacobovici did not learn about the Talpiot tomb from the 1996 BBC report. In 1996 he was deeply involved in other film projects and does not recall hearing about the story. Biblical archaeology was not on his radar screen in those days. It was not until the James ossuary surfaced in 2002 that Hershel Shanks explained to Simcha even what an ossuary was. In the course of making his documentary on the James ossuary it was none other than Amos Kloner who clued him on the interesting cluster of names in the Talpiot tomb. Simcha was instantly intrigued and filed the information away for further reflection. That story alone is worth the price of the book.