A devastating problem for DNA testing is that multiple skeletons were often placed in the same ossuary. For instance, Joe Zias published the results of one tomb he investigated where 15 ossuaries contained the remains of 88 people!43 More crucially for our purposes, in his original article, investigating archaeologist Amos Kloner estimated that there were 35 different people in the Talpiot Tomb—17 in the ossuaries and 18 outside the ossuaries.44 Tabor disputes the presence of 35 people in the Talpiot Tomb, arguing that in the original report by Joseph Gath, there were two or three people outside the ossuaries and “a dozen or so” inside the bone boxes.45 But even without arguing the specifics, Tabor's total of 14–18 people still makes the point sufficiently well. Thus, Christopher Rollston rightly notes that, “because of the numbers of burials in the tombs, the practice of interring the skeletal remains of multiple people in a single ossuary, and the possibility of contamination of laboratory data, the notion that decisive data can be produced seems to me to be most difficult.”46 Indeed, without knowing whose bones we are testing, what good is DNA?
Bones found in a ossuary. Photo: John Phillips//Time Life Pictures/Getty Images
Further, besides the presence of other persons in the same ossuaries, DNA testing could record the presence of anyone who came in contact with the bone boxes, including Joe Zias himself!47
“THE ONLY CONCLUSIONS WE MADE WAS THAT {SIC} THESE TWO SETS WERE NOT MATERNALLY RELATED. TO ME IT SOUNDS LIKE ABSOLUTELY NOTHING.”
CARNEY MATHESON
Witherington states that the lack of a DNA control sample is another huge issue—we need a sample from a member of Jesus' family. But without such, DNA may say that certain persons were related (although not this time!), but they could never say that they belonged to Jesus or anyone else in Jesus' family. But we do not have this family DNA evidence and never will.48 Even Tabor agrees here: “Such tests, no matter what the results, could not ‘prove’ that this particular Jesus was the one who became known as Christ” but can only show relations between the persons buried in the tomb.49
Carney Matheson, who performed the DNA test on the “Jesus” and “Mariamene” ossuaries, stated, “The only conclusions we made was [sic] that these two sets were not maternally related. To me it sounds like absolutely nothing.”50
A devastating problem for DNA testing is that multiple skeletons were often placed in the same ossuary. For instance, Joe Zias published the results of one tomb he investigated where 15 ossuaries contained the remains of 88 people!43 More crucially for our purposes, in his original article, investigating archaeologist Amos Kloner estimated that there were 35 different people in the Talpiot Tomb—17 in the ossuaries and 18 outside the ossuaries.44 Tabor disputes the presence of 35 people in the Talpiot Tomb, arguing that in the original report by Joseph Gath, there were two or three people outside the ossuaries and “a dozen or so” inside the bone boxes.45 But even without arguing the specifics, Tabor's total of 14–18 people still makes the point sufficiently well. Thus, Christopher Rollston rightly notes that, “because of the numbers of burials in the tombs, the practice of interring the skeletal remains of multiple people in a single ossuary, and the possibility of contamination of laboratory data, the notion that decisive data can be produced seems to me to be most difficult.”46 Indeed, without knowing whose bones we are testing, what good is DNA?