Dotcom 2: Was Jesus buried with his wife and son?

James Cameron, Hollywood producer, has claimed that some ossaries (boxes that once contained bones and were used in Israel to bury dead in about 2000 years ago) contained the remains of Jesus, of Mary of Magdalene (supposedly his wife) and of his son. He is claiming this is revolutionary. Here are some thoughts in response.

• The claimant is a Hollywood producer with a film ready for release from which he stands to make a great deal of money
• The film is coming out very shortly after the Da Vinci Code which was a runaway financial success based on the myth of Jesus' marriage
• The claimant is not an Archaeologist - rather the Archaeologist who first studied these artefacts says the claim is nonesense (and, being a Jew, would have reason to support the claim)
• The claim is made some 27 years after the discovery of the artefacts - why wait so long? ($?)
• Archaeologists who have studied the artefacts on are not sure about the names on the inscriptions. Even if they are Jesus, Joseph, Marie, these were common Jewish names 2000 years ago and appear on other similar ossaries
• The claimant has tried to suggest that he his claim (if true) does not destroy Christianity. He obviously fails to understand that without resurrection there is no hope and no Christianity.
• In order for him to make this suggestion he must dismiss the mountains of manuscript evidence from eyewitnesses and others as to Jesus life, death and resurrection. That is, he is saying that 3 boxes with barely decipherable scratches provide greater certainty than all the Biblical texts put together
• Furthermore, he is insinuating that the writers of the Gospels and NT letters where either lying about Jesus' resurrection or all mad. There is no evidence for either. Furthermore, they and many others were cruelly murdered for their belief in the death and resurrection of Jesus. An unlikely occurrence if they were lying (they had nothing to gain).
• He is also insinuating that the NT writers somehow "forgot" to mention Jesus' marriage, or deliberately and assiduously failed to mention it. There appears to be no ancient belief that Jesus was married ... in fact the first suggestion that he was appeared around the 12th century.