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The Jesus Family Tomb: The Discovery, the Investigation, and the Evidence That Could Change History (ISBN 0061192023) is a controversial book by Simcha Jacobovici and Charles R. Pellegrino (with a Foreword by James Cameron) published in February 2007. It tells the story of the discovery of the Talpiot Tomb which it argues is the tomb of Jesus Christ and his family.

The book is an in-depth analysis of the movie The Lost Tomb of Jesus, which was released on the Discovery Channel in early March 2007.

The Names in the Tomb

The tomb in Talpiot, excavated in salvage archaeology, originally contained ten ossuaries - bone boxes for secondary burial. Of the ten, one disappeared - presumably stolen. Of the other nine, six were inscribed with names:

• Yeshua bar Yosef - inscription in Aramaic, meaning "Jesus son of Joseph." By itself, it does not constitute conclusive evidence, since there must have been over a thousand men named "Yeshua bar Yosef" in first-century Jerusalem. However, the other five names are all allegedly connected with the New Testament Jesus.
• "Mariamne, also known as Mara," an inscription in Greek. Mariamne is another name of Mary Magdalene according to the Acts of Phillip. "Mara" could be the Aramaic word for "Lord" or "Master," the Hebrew name meaning "Bitter" (found in Ruth 1:20), or a nickname, a shortened version of "Mariamne."
• Maria - a name apparently in Latin, but written in Hebrew letters.
• Yosa - believed to be the same as Ioses or Joses, the name of one of the brothers of Jesus listed in Mark 6:3.
• Yehuda bar Yeshua - "Judah, son of Jesus." (Inscription in Aramaic).Otherwise unknown.According to the authors,same as Jude, known also as Thomas, the "Twin." The theory presented in the book is that he was the son of Jesus, but was publicly presented as the brother of Jesus, in order to save him from being executed as a pretender to the throne of Israel. He was known as "Twin" (Thomas, Didymus, etc.) because he looked exactly like Jesus, presumed to be his brother but really his father.
• Matiah - a name in Hebrew, the original form of the names of the apostles Matthew and Matthias. His presence in the family tomb implies he was also a relative of Jesus, as were some of the other apostles.

The authenticity of the ossuaries, and of the names inscribed on them, is under no doubt or suspicion. However, the identities of these people are open to much controversy and debate. They are either six otherwise unknown Jewish people from first-century Jerusalem, or Jesus himself and five members of his family.

See also

• The Lost Tomb of Jesus
• Talpiot Tomb

External Links

• Official Site for the "Lost Tomb of Jesus": http://www.jesusfamilytomb.com
• Discovery channel aritcle: http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2007/02/25/tomb_arc_02.html?category=archaeology&guid=20070225073000

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