So, I watched it.
I would have to agree with the sentiment that there certainly is quite a bit of compelling evidence that the Jesus of Nazereth was, in fact, buried in that tomb.
However, I am not a scholor of religion or philosophy, so I am taking many of the assertions of the program as fact - ie, that the Gospel of Phillip exists, or that Jose is a nickname for Jesus' brother.
**For those of you that haven't watched it yet and would prefer not to learn the details of the program - stop here. I'll try and summarize the main points for those that missed it and want to jump in the debate**
There are a great number of assertions that are given by the "documentary" - of which, like I said, I have no idea whether or not they are valid. However, from what I saw of the show following it (there was an after-documentary show debating the science, assumptions, conclusions, and impact on beliefs) there weren't any challenges to the information that was given to the viewer, so if I had to guess, I would say that at the very least the assumptions are somewhat credible....
Here is some of the information from the documentary - this is from only memory, so please excuse me if I am incorrect. Also, forgive my spelling in advance
The tomb was discovered initially by a construction crew building an apartment complex. Due to pressure from various agencies, archeologists only had three days to study the inside of the tomb, which included an inventory and a diagram.
One thing to note, however, is that there was a specific symbol carved above the entrance to the tomb - picture an inverted V with a circle in the center of the bottom.
Now, without going to explicit detail, from my understanding it was customary for the time to have a temporary tomb, then be transfered to the family tomb wrapped in a shroud. One year later, after only there are only skeletal remains, they place the bones inside a small coffin.
In the tomb, there were 10 small limestone coffins initially found. I believe that at least six of them were labeled with names, something that isn't all that unusual. However, one went missing shortly after the tomb was discovered....
The names, as far as I can remember, were translated literally into:
Jesus, son of Joseph
Maria
Mariamnde
Jose
Matthew
Judah - Son of Jesus
and one controversial one - James, son of Joseph, Brother of Jesus.
The film examines the names initially -
Jose is a "nickname" that was given to Jesus' brother Joseph - a very rare name at the time.
Mariamnde could definately has "maria" in it - the equivalent of Mary, but it is suggested that the whole word means Master Mary, which is a relatively common term for religious leaders in that time period. What also lends credence to this is that this is actually a latin word, and Mary Magdalene reportedly went to France - where her name was latinized.
According to what is commonly believed of the ancestry of Jesus, all of the names not only fit and would likely be buried in the same tomb, the Jose and Mariamnde are incredibly rare - the only coffins to have been found inscribed with those names.
It is important to understand that many of these names are very common - for instance, I believe it said 25% of women at the time were named Maria
4% of men were Jesus.. well, you get the point. However, the probability of all these names being buried together and it just being a coincidence - not including the controversial coffin - is 600:1. With the controversial one included - and there is evidence that links it to the same tomb, potentially the one that went missing - it is 30,000:1 that this is, in fact, Jesus' tomb.
As far as the scientific evidence that leads one to believe that James' coffin was in the same tomb, the filmmaker had the residue on the coffins tested and compared them with a number of other samples - including some of the coffins from inside the tomb in question. Although I hesitate to use the word, the coffin in question matched the other coffins located in that same tomb, while none of the others did. Other circumstantial evidence includes that the inital map of the tomb that was sketched by the archeologists who first documented it showed 10 coffins, only 9 were cataloged. The dimensions of the coffin in question matched the sketched one, and the private collector who purchsae the coffin purchased it in the very same time frame that the tomb was discovered, admittedly, though - he wasn't sure of the exact year.
As far as the DNA evidence is concerned, I was unimpressed. They tested only Jesus' and Mary Magdalene's coffins, and there was obviously not a match. From this, the concluded that for a woman to be buried in the same tomb as another family that wasn't blood related, that she was likely someone's wife. Judah, the possible son of Jesus, was not matched. The reasoning given after the film for only testing those two was due to the fact that the others did not have easily accesible DNA - which, from what they showed, the two that they tested did have bone fragments on the bottom - you didn't really get a good look at the others. However, they were unable to obtain nuclear DNA, so it was mitochondrial DNA testing, proving only no maternal link.
Throughout the documentary, there were a number of additional coincinces that, at least in my opinion, build a relatively strong circumstantial case that it is Jesus of Nazereth's tomb.
One thing that struck home with me was towards the end. According to the bible, Mary and a "beloved disciple" (unnamed thoughout the bible) are at the cross moments before he dies. His finals words were "Woman, behold your son" - throughout all my years of Catholic School, we were told he was talking about Mary, his mother. However, it would make a lot more sense to me if he was in fact talking to the mother of his child, and the beloved disciple was his son - kept secret to keep him safe from further persecution.
However, I think I hit on the main points....
I'm interested to see where this discussion leads