The Talpiot Tomb versus Jesus' Traditional Burial and Empty Tomb
The Talpiot Tomb versus Jesus' Traditional Burial and Empty Tomb
According to the Talpiot Hypothesis, Jesus of Nazareth died by crucifixion and was buried initially in a tomb, for perhaps a year, waiting for His flesh to rot. Then later, His bones would have been reburied in the Talpiot family tomb, in the ossuary that bears His name.
According to James Tabor, a likely scenario would involve Jesus' original but temporary burial in a private tomb by Joseph of Arimathea, basically as the Gospels teach. But then someone, likely Joseph himself, would have moved the body quite soon afterward. It should be carefully noted that this has nothing to do with “stealing” the body of Jesus. According to this view, Jesus' body was simply moved to a different tomb in an orderly fashion. Then after the flesh had decayed, His bones would have been placed in the Talpiot ossuary.6
But this appears to involve a rather bizarre sequence of events that never would have been concocted unless one were trying specifically to bridge the two stories and make the Talpiot Tomb the burial place of Jesus of Nazareth. It certainly does not make the best sense of what we know about Jesus' burial.
To begin, why would Joseph rebury the body in the same sort of tomb that Jesus' body had already been placed in? One could postulate that he simply wanted to keep the first one open for his own family or for other personal reasons. At this point, however, we should hark back to our earlier commitment to work with the data widely recognized by scholars, unless we have strong reasons for doing otherwise. Clearly we have no good reasons to think that Jesus' body was reburied within a day or so after His death, and later given a third burial in the ossuary, unless the entire point is to get Jesus' bones into the Talpiot Tomb! There is simply no data that would support this scenario.
Before moving on, one other issue needs to be mentioned. Biblical archaeologist Jodi Magness concludes that one can accept the explanation that Jesus was raised from the dead, or one can postulate that Jesus' body was reburied the most common way that it was done in first-century Israel—in a trench grave. This would involve placing the shrouded body in a rectangular opening in the earth. But, “Whatever explanation one prefers … His bones could not have been collected in an ossuary, at least not if we follow the Gospel accounts.”7
Tabor is not sure whether or not Joseph would have told others about His reburial.8 But would Joseph, an honorable man who was just trying to do the best thing for Jesus, never have informed anyone of his decision? At the very least, it is highly unlikely that he moved Jesus' body by himself. And no one witnessed the removal, especially when Joseph was not even trying to be secretive about it? Assuming that he got help, perhaps from more than one other person, what prevented them from sharing that incredibly important information? If everyone kept it hidden for some reason, especially if they never told anyone including Jesus' mother and family, now the hypothesis seems to have migrated into some form of conspiracy and fraud. It becomes reminiscent of the old Egyptian stories that those who buried the Pharaohs had to be killed so as not to divulge the whereabouts of the tomb!
So because of these as well as other serious problems, let's suppose that Joseph told Jesus' family that he had moved the body. This seems most natural, after all, or even required, since if Jesus' bones showed up later in the family tomb, with His name scratched on the outside of the ossuary, we can assume that many family members were quite aware of it!
It makes the most sense that Joseph would have informed them before he actually moved the body. After all, in any culture and time, would a man who appears to be virtually unknown to a family simply move their son's or brother's body and not tell them beforehand? To fail to do so would be outrageously disrespectful!
But now we are left in a quandary. Why would the women, including Jesus' mother Mary, go to the vacated tomb on Sunday morning and think it significant that Jesus' body was no longer there! And even if Joseph straightened out the matter upon hearing of their mistake, how can we account for the rise of even their initial faith in the resurrection? But we must move on.
The empty tomb is such a problem for Tabor, that when he gets to some of the sticky questions he simply “punts” and says that we can say no more because of the theological nature of the Gospels. No only is this assertion problematic in terms of the most recent New Testament studies, but by this time in the discussion, Tabor has already borrowed from the Gospels whenever he wants to make the points he needs. For example, he assumes the general crucifixion and burial scenarios, the person of Joseph of Arimathea, the time of the day and the hasty nature of Jesus' burial, the nature of the rock tomb and the stone rolled in front, and on and on.9 But when these exact same sources destroy one's hypothesis, he opts out of the process!
Perhaps the greatest problem so far for the Talpiot Reburial Hypothesis is that the evidence for the empty tomb is so strong. Indeed, Tabor concedes it, saying that it is too difficult to make sense of the data without this truth.10 But as we have seen, the empty tomb alone plays havoc with the Talpiot thesis. The following problems have to be solved, without any evidence on their behalf:
There is no known reason why Joseph had to rebury the body of Jesus within 24 hours.
“IT IS VERY UNLIKELY THAT THE EARLIEST PALESTINIAN CHRISTIANS COULD CONCEIVE OF ANY DISTINCTION BETWEEN RESURRECTION AND PHYSICAL, ‘GRAVE EMPTYING’ RESURRECTION. TO THEM AN ANASTASIS WITHOUT AN EMPTY GRAVE WOULD HAVE BEEN ABOUT AS MEANINGFUL AS A SQUARE CIRCLE.”
E. EARLE ELLIS 11