The Jesus Tomb and Christian Apocrypha
It has been several weeks now since the release of Jacobovici and Pellegrino’s The Jesus Family Tomb and the airing of the companion documentary. Several scholars have weighed in on the evidence and several bloggers have devoted much time and energy to challenging or supporting J & P’s claims (see particularly Mark Goodacre’s NT Gateway, Darrell Bock’s Bock’s Blog, James Tabor’s Jesus Dynasty Blog, and the inappropriately named Jesus Tomb Hoax).
My aim here is not to address the likelihood or unlikelihood that the Talpiot tomb is indeed the last resting place of Jesus and his family but to look specifically at how various CA texts (and related issues) have been used to make arguments for its authenticity. The topic was raised here in brief before the release of the book and the documentary; I have since had the opportunity to read the book and find it interesting how much apocryphal texts figure in the argument.
The book begins with a foreword by James Cameron. Cameron’s role in this investigation has been a source of criticism and mockery, and his comments in the foreword certainly indicate that his knowledge of the CA and Early Christianity has been unduly influenced by a certain Mr. Brown. Cameron writes: “The Gospels as we know them today have been retranscribed and rewritten many times and translated from one language to another—from Aramaic to Greek to Coptic to Latin to various forms of English—with corresponding losses in nuanced meaning. They have …