Incidence of Ossuary Names and DNA Testing
Incidence of Ossuary Names and DNA Testing
From the very beginning, one of the most confusing aspects of the Talpiot Tomb story was that the names on the six ossuaries looked different from each other. The chief reason is that the names appeared in three different languages: Aramaic, Hebrew, and Greek.
As listed by Kloner, the names are as follows:
A rare variation of Miriam, Maryam or Marya (written in Greek)
Judah son of Jesus
(written in Hebrew)
Matthew (written in Hebrew)
Yeshua son of Yehosef (“Jesus, son of Joseph” written in Aramaic)
A contraction of Yehosef (Joseph) (written in Aramaic)
Mary (written in Hebrew)2
Since the Talpiot Tomb, like other rock tombs in Jerusalem, is that of an extended family, DNA analysis would seem to be a natural test. But ossuaries are usually cleaned after discovery, with the contents being reburied. So most of the stone boxes did not have enough material in them to do any DNA testing. As Tabor reported, “the other four inscribed ossuaries had been cleaned/vacuumed and presently have no visible or significant materials that can be tested.”3 This finding was repeated during the Discovery Channel scholarly discussion, hosted by Ted Koppel, with Jacobovici and Tabor both reiterating that only two ossuaries contained enough material to test.4
The two ossuaries that still contained material were those of Jesus son of Joseph and Mariamene. These contents were tested in a laboratory at Lakehead University in Ontario, Canada, where researchers were looking for a mitochondrial DNA match-up that would potentially have linked these individuals through a common mother. However, the DNA test came back with negative results.
Arguing that the absence of a DNA match was significant, Jacobovici and Pellegrino concluded that, “Jesus and Mary Magdalene, if their DNA could be read, would be two individuals who had no family ties. But what are the alternatives? People buried in the same tomb were related by either blood or marriage.” Thus, since they were not related by blood, they concluded that, most likely, they would have been married.5