Sveti Ivan relics Middle Eastern, mid-1st century AD

Irrespective of one's religious beliefs, a genome from the mid-1st century AD would be interesting. I am personally in favor of the scientific study of saints' relics.

Bulgarian bones could be John the Baptist's, scientists say

So when Bulgarian archeologists announced in 2010 that they had found the bones of John the Baptist, Tom Higham was skeptical.

He got a surprise.

Higham, an Oxford University scientist and an atheist who doesn't believe in "any kind of religion or God or anything like that," was asked to test six small bone fragments found on an island named Sveti Ivan - St. John.

The bones turned out to be from a man who lived in the Middle East at the same time as Jesus, Higham said.

"We got a date that was exactly where it should be, right in the middle of the first century," said Higham, a radiocarbon dating expert.
...

DNA testing by colleagues at the University of Copenhagen suggested that the person was most likely to have been from the Middle East, he said.
"We have a complete genome. It's possible that we could step this a step further and see if there is any similarity," in the genetic material of all the relics.

St. John's father Zechariah belonged to to the Aaronic line of priests. While modern Jewish priests (Cohanim) belong to multiple Y-chromosomal lineages, I think it's a good bet that at least one or a few of these lineages could be traced to Jewish priests of 2,000 years ago (leaving the question of the ultimate Aaronic lineage open). If the remains from Sveti Ivan island match one of these lineages, then this would be a powerful piece of evidence in favor of their attribution to St. John the Baptist.

Merry Christmas

"James, brother of Jesus" ossuary a fraud

Exposing the 'Jesus' Brother' Fraud

The discovery of the ossuary was hailed in some quarters as a spectacular archeological find — solidly circumstantial proof, at last, of Christ's existence. For it would have held the remains of the Apostle James, who was killed in 62 A.D. and is described in the Bible as Jesus' brother.

When the James ossuary toured Canada in October 2002, it attracted thousands of the curious and faithful. Some visitors kneeled in quiet prayer. But back in Israel, police detectives, along with a growing posse of Biblical scholars, were growing skeptical of the ossuary's authenticity. After a two-year investigation, police in December 2004 charged the antiquities collector and four others of forgery, alleging that the James ossuary was a clever fake, and that Golan had masterminded an international ring of thieves that over the past 20 years had duped major museums and collectors out of millions. Put on trial, Golan denied the charges and some experts and the pious rallied to his side. Nevertheless, one of the detectives insisted: "Oded Golan played with our beliefs, the beliefs of Jews and Christians. That is why it's the fraud of the century."

Of course, this ossuary was never considered as proof of Jesus' existence by real Christians. According to the Antiquitates Judaicae, concerning the martyrdom of St. James:

But this younger Ananus, who, as we have told you already, took the high priesthood, was a bold man in his temper, and very insolent; he was also of the sect of the Sadducees, (23) who are very rigid in judging offenders, above all the rest of the Jews, as we have already observed; when, therefore, Ananus was of this disposition, he thought he had now a proper opportunity [to exercise his authority]. Festus was now dead, and Albinus was but upon the road; so he assembled the sanhedrim of judges, and brought before them the brother of Jesus, who was called Christ, whose name was James, and some others, [or, some of his companions]; and when he had formed an accusation against them as breakers of the law, he delivered them to be stoned.

and Hegesippus:

And, when many were fully convinced by these words, and offered praise for the testimony of James, and said, “Hosanna to the son of David,” then again the said Pharisees and scribes said to one another, “We have not done well in procuring this testimony to Jesus. But let us go up and throw him down, that they may be afraid, and not believe him.” And they cried aloud, and said: “Oh! oh! the just man himself is in error.” Thus they fulfilled the Scripture written in Isaiah: “Let us away with the just man, because he is troublesome to us: therefore shall they eat the fruit of their doings.” So they went up and threw down the just man, and said to one another: “Let us stone James the Just.” And they began to stone him: for he was not killed by the fall; but he turned, and kneeled down, and said: “I beseech Thee, Lord God our Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do.”

And, while they were thus stoning him to death, one of the priests, the sons of Rechab, the son of Rechabim, to whom testimony is borne by Jeremiah the prophet, began to cry aloud, saying: “Cease, what do ye? The just man is praying for us.” But one among them, one of the fullers, took the staff with which he was accustomed to wring out the garments he dyed, and hurled it at the head of the just man.
And so he suffered martyrdom; and they buried him on the spot, and the pillar erected to his memory still remains, close by the temple.

St. James the adelphotheos is celebrated on October 23.

Merry Christmas

Gospel of Judas revisited

April D. Deconick in the New York Times:

AMID much publicity last year, the National Geographic Society announced that a lost 3rd-century religious text had been found, the Gospel of Judas Iscariot. The shocker: Judas didn’t betray Jesus. Instead, Jesus asked Judas, his most trusted and beloved disciple, to hand him over to be killed. Judas’s reward? Ascent to heaven and exaltation above the other disciples.

It was a great story. Unfortunately, after re-translating the society’s transcription of the Coptic text, I have found that the actual meaning is vastly different. While National Geographic’s translation supported the provocative interpretation of Judas as a hero, a more careful reading makes clear that Judas is not only no hero, he is a demon.

...

So what does the Gospel of Judas really say? It says that Judas is a specific demon called the “Thirteenth.” In certain Gnostic traditions, this is the given name of the king of demons — an entity known as Ialdabaoth who lives in the 13th realm above the earth. Judas is his human alter ego, his undercover agent in the world. These Gnostics equated Ialdabaoth with the Hebrew Yahweh, whom they saw as a jealous and wrathful deity and an opponent of the supreme God whom Jesus came to earth to reveal.

...

I have wondered why so many scholars and writers have been inspired by the National Geographic version of the Gospel of Judas. I think it may stem from an understandable desire to reform the relationship between Jews and Christians. Judas is a frightening character. For Christians, he is the one who had it all and yet betrayed God to his death for a few coins. For Jews, he is the man whose story was used by Christians to persecute them for centuries. Although we should continue to work toward a reconciliation of this ancient schism, manufacturing a hero Judas is not the answer.

James Cameron and the "Lost Tomb of Jesus"

From a news story:

The Talpiot Tomb could be soon the most famous holy relic in the Christian empire. Canadian Titanic director James Cameron and filmmaker archeologist Simcha Jacobovici have set to prove that it once held the remains of Jesus of Nazareth and his family. The evidence and interpretations of the artifacts will be presented in a documentary “The Lost Tomb of Jesus” on the Discovery Channel March 4th on the Discovery Channel at 9 p.m. ET/PT. According to a Discovery Channel press release, “scientific evidence, including DNA analysis conducted at one of the world’s foremost molecular genetics laboratories, as well as studies by leading scholars, suggests a 2,000-year-old Jerusalem tomb could have once held the remains of Jesus of Nazareth and his family. The findings also suggest that Jesus and Mary Magdalene might have produced a son named Judah.”The tomb was unearthed for the third time in 1980 as construction crews blasted for new apartments in the town of Talpiot, a suburb south of Jerusalem.

I have no idea how the DNA analysis will support the claims of the documentary, but this will certainly be interesting, since it is the first, as far as I know, DNA analysis on ancient human remains from the region.

Cinemablend makes plain why DNA analysis is irrelevant for the authors' thesis.

Except the whole thing seems kind of pointless. DNA comparison only works if you have something to compare the bones to. Last I checked, no one had a Jesus hair follicle in their bathroom hair brush. Sure, someone might claim to have DNA that definitely belonged to the Christ, but there’s no way to prove it. And without absolutely proof positive Jesus DNA to compare those bones to, I don’t see how Cameron can prove anything.

I suspect that the DNA evidence could at most establish a genetic relationship between the individuals buried in the tomb, something which is not surprising, but does not connect the tomb to a particular person.

More interesting would be the correlation of the ancient DNA with types of DNA we suspect may have been present in ancient Israelites, but once again this would not tie the remains with a particular person.

The Discovery Channel article has more information.

The human remains were analyzed by Carney Matheson, a scientist at the Paleo-DNA Laboratory at Lakehead University in Ontario, Canada. Mitochondrial DNA examination determined the individual in the Jesus ossuary and the person in the ossuary linked to Mary Magdalene were not related.

Since tombs normally contain either blood relations or spouses, Jacobovici and his team suggest it is possible Jesus and Mary Magdalene were a couple. "Judah," whom they indicate may have been their son, could have been the "lad" described in the Gospel of John as sleeping in Jesus' lap at the Last Supper.

And more interestingly:

But Andrey Feuerverger, professor of statistics and mathematics at the University of Toronto, recently conducted a study addressing the probabilities that will soon be published in a leading statistical journal.

Feuerverger multiplied the instances that each name appeared during the tomb's time period with the instances of every other name. He initially found "Jesus Son of Joseph" appeared once out of 190 times, Mariamne appeared once out of 160 times and so on.

To be conservative, he next divided the resulting numbers by 25 percent, a statistical standard, and further divided the results by 1,000 to attempt to account for all tombs — even those that have not been uncovered — that could have existed in first century Jerusalem.

The study concludes that the odds are at least 600 to 1 in favor of the Talpiot Tomb being the Jesus Family Tomb. In other words, the conclusion works 599 times out of 600.

I suspect that this whole deal will inspire a new Da Vinci Code-style controversy. Unfortunately though, according to the Da Vinci Code Jesus and Mary Magdalene had a daughter and not a son, so it seems that the two theories are incompatible with each other.

In any case, it's nice to see a really interdisciplinary approach being applied to a concrete historical question, and I would bet that whatever the final scientific verdict, we'll soon see Mary mtDNA tests coming to market.