The Family Tomb of Jesus

Today I went to the Explorations In Antiquity Center here in LaGrange, GA. Recent findings have been publicized that a tomb has been found and believed to be the tomb of Jesus' family. I went to this antiquity place to seek knowledge and to get the story behind this new find.

First of all I will give you a background of Dr. James W. "Jim" Fleming. He is full of knowledge related to the Bible, and the biblical times of the Bible. Dr. Fleming is the founder of Explorations in Antiquity and has spent half his life living in Israel, learning and teaching. He is director of the Biblical Resource Study Center, with offices in Israel and the United States, which he founded in 1980. Through the years he has organized a variety of archaeological digs and made surprising discoveries. Some of these discoveries have been noted in the Biblical Archaeology Review.

Dr. Fleming was born in Portland, Oregon and earned a doctor of education degree at Southwestern Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas, in 1970. He has taught at the Institute of Holy Land Studies in Jerusalem, at Hebrew University in Israel and at the Israeli Ministry of Tourism, teaching Christianity to Arab and Hebrew tour guides. Dr. Fleming continues to teach an annual refresher course there.

In light of the recent finds of the new tomb believed to be Jesus and his family, I wanted to get his thoughts on this. He didn't want anyone to take this program seriously. He told me that an Israeli scholar and friend published an article 15 years ago about this very tomb. There was also a documentary on BBC about this tomb as well. Nothing is new in this program except the sensationalism. Here are the actual facts I was given by Dr. Fleming today:

1. A burial tomb was discovered from the first Century. It is located south of Jerusalem with 10 ossuaries; these are burial boxes.
2. There are names on the ossuaries that include Jesus son of Joseph, Judah, two women, one named Mary and the other Mary of Mariame.
3. There could be possible DNA used within the teeth or possible marrow.

These are all facts that are being told about this tomb. Now here is the problems that lie with this find in which Dr. Fleming discussed with me:

1. The names in the tombs are some of the most common names of Jews in the First Century. It is known that back in that time there were at least 21,000 men named Joseph and 60,000 women named Mary.
2. The names are the wrong names for the Gospel texts for Jesus and his family.
3. The normal tombs in Judea for Judean family members simply say "x son of y," such as Jesus son of Joseph. If the burial is of someone not from Judea it would be more normal to say "Jesus of Nazareth," "Saul of Tarsus," "Simon of Cyrenia," "Mary of Magdala," and so forth.

In conclusion its safe to say that this discovery has nothing to do with Jesus of Nazareth or early Christianity. The names are coincidence and the program is a sensationalist program scripted by the film makers out to make money.