USA / FILE: Titanic director James Cameron and a team of filmmakers unveil what they believe may be the coffin Jesus was buried in

Record ID: 725940

  • Title: USA / FILE: Titanic director James Cameron and a team of filmmakers unveil what they believe may be the coffin Jesus was buried in
  • Date: 28th February 2007
  • Summary: JERUSALEM, ISRAEL (FILE) (REUTERS) VIEW OF JERUSALEM VIEW OF THE TALPIOT NEIGHBOURHOOD WHERE THE CAVE WAS FOUND THE CEMENT SQUARE WHERE NEIGHBOURS CLAIM THE CAVE IS UNDER AMOS KLOUNER, ARCHAEOLOGIST WHO DOCUMENTED THE CAVE, SPEAKING TO REPORTERS (SOUNDBITE) (English) PROFESSOR AMOS KLOUNER SAYING: "I don't accept that the family of Miriam and Yosef, the parents of Jesus had a family tomb in Jerusalem, they were a poor family, they resided in Nazareth, they came to Bethlehem in order to have the birth done there, so I don't accept it."
  • Embargoed: 15th March 2007 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Topics: Entertainment
  • Reuters ID: LVA1NY54TFVEJCJABPM1QXBEWDV1
  • Story Text: Titanic director James Cameron unveiled what he believes may be Jesus's coffin on Monday (February 26), calling it possibly the first physical evidence of Christ's life of earth.
    The plain limestone box, or "ossuary", was one of 10 discovered in a cave tomb stumbled on by builders in Jerusalem in 1980. Measuring just over a metre in length and around 30cm high, the ossuary inscribed with 'Jesus son of Joseph' took centre stage alongside one the team believed once contained Mary Magdalene's remains.
    "This film and the investigation that the film shows is able to bring to light is for the first time tangible physical archaeological and in some cases, forensic evidence, that can be analysed scientifically in the same manner that one would in a criminal investigation," said Cameron.
    The severely disintegrated bones found in the coffins were reburied according to tradition, but human matter collected by film-makers has provided DNA profiles. Filmmakers say that the DNA results suggest that the couple were not related at that they may have been married.
    The find is naturally causing a deal of controversy around the world; especially Cameron's role as producer, a man known world-wide for his fiction thrillers like "Titanic" and "Alien."
    Although the coffins were found 27 years ago, the boxes merely gathered dust on storage shelves, because the names on the inscriptions on six of them were so common that they did not excite those who first catalogued them.
    Chair of Religious Studies at University of North Carolina, James Tabor, is convinced that these are the coffins of Jesus and Mary Magdalene.
    But one of the three archaeologists who excavated the site, Professor Amos Klouner disagreed.
    The film-makers believe that five of the coffins which contain inscriptions represent the key New Testament figures not only of Jesus and Mary Magdalene, but also Mary, Matthew and Joseph, while a sixth could be a son of Jesus and Mary Magdalene.
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