"The Jesus Discovery"

(The New Archaeological Find that Reveals the Birth of Christianity)
-by james d. tabor and simcha jacobovici
2012
Jesus bones! Getcher jesus bones here!!
No, really. We've got 'em.
Okay, not all of them. But fragments. Most of the big pieces disappeared soon after his family tomb was cracked opened four decades ago in Jerusalem, before the authorities had any idea what they were dealing with. So presumably his mostly-complete skeleton is in the private display of some creepy millionaire, next to joan of arc's hymen. Or maybe the damn masons have it. Whatever.
But we've got fragments. Enough to get a DNA sampling.
Don't get overexcited, the DNA isn't high-density enough for anything like cloning, you sick sycophant. Still, i've got to say i'm impressed with how unimpressed i am by all this. It didn't occur to me until weeks after i finished this book that anyone might wonder whether jesus had "abnormal" DNA. The question didn't even pop into my mind until an idle moment a month or two later. Sometimes i forget the insanity of this world, and can't imagine why anyone would think he wasn't a normal human.
But this is all kind of exciting, especially within the context of the bureaucratic restrictions regarding access to the garden and patio tombs at the center of the story. Even without the added pressure of reactionary fundamentalists who are allowed to hold positions of authority, exploring ancient tombs (especially sealed ones) in Israel is well-nigh impossible.
The book is a follow-up to tabor's "The Jesus Dynasty" (http://nakedmeadow.blogspot.com/2009/01/jesus-dynasty.html), and jacobovici's "The Jesus Family Tomb". Tabor had to pull some punches in his first book, as some evidence was still missing; for instance a cellular analysis of the james ossuary ("james brother of jesus son of joseph)", which confirms its originating in the jesus family tomb. Early on, critics (and morons who couldn't handle the idea of jesus leaving behind a skeleton) scrambled to deny these findings, claiming that the names from the tomb was common in 1st-century Israel...an assessment that doesn't stand up to scrutiny, given the presence of rare nicknames, honorifics, and early christian imagery. As it turns out, mary magdalene was jesus' wife, a primary leader of the movement, and the mother of jesus' child judah.
Early critics also protested that jesus' humble origins meant he would never be found in a rich family tomb such as these, but the movement had patrons - specifically joseph of aramathea, who was loaded. The Bible places him at the scene of the crucifixion, taking charge, and the evidence points to the patio tomb being his family tomb.
Do we know with absolute certainty that these are the bones of the jesus of the Bible? Of course not, it was 2000 years ago. But if you process the data through academically rigorous statistical probability, correlating them with historical texts, the notion that these are NOT jesus' bones would never occur to an unbiased academic.
Fascinating. And a fantastic read...not just for the sensational aspect, but for how tabor sheds light on the long-hidden story of what happened in the decades before (and after) jesus' death. Except in bits and pieces, this is not the jesus you know. But being a real human, this one's more compelling.