Is there any truth to the DaVinci code?

President of Jerusalem 's University of the Holy Land, who appeared in the movie. "Also, Jesus" ossuary was very plain compared to the others found in the cave. The idea that the originator of a religion would end up in such a plain ossuary as compared to the others found in the cave is kind of telling as to whether this is really potentially the tomb of Jesus of Nazareth or not." Further only 6 of the 10 ossuaries in the Talpiot tomb were inscribed - 4 were not. In addition, Mariamne is not part of Jesus' family in the New Testament, and we shall see there is no historical evidence equating Mariamne with Mary Magdalene. There is also not a shred of historical evidence that Jesus and Mary were married or had a son by the name of Judah. Finally, Jose is probably not Jesus' brother because then his ossuary would have read, "Jose, son of Joseph" just like Jesus'. [2]

The argument that Jesus was married or had a child comes solely from silence. No New Testament document speaks of such relationships, nor do Christian or secular writings from the early centuries of Christianity. The closest document is the apocryphal Gospel of Philip, written approximately 275 A.D., written neither by the apostle nor in the time period of the New Testament. As our book The Da Vinci Code Controversy [10] notes, even the passage used to suggest a married Jesus is used grossly out of context.

These researchers argue that 10 small caskets discovered in 1980 in a Jerusalem suburb may have held the bones of Jesus and his family. They even claim that one of the caskets bears the title,

“Judah, son of Jesus,” hinting that Jesus may have had a son. But what truth can be found in this story? This is not a question of what are the chances of finding another tomb in the Jerusalem area with these same names but what are the chances of the people in this tomb not being the biblical family of Jesus?

But in order to begin any true calculation, we need to know for sure the names mentioned are truly members of Jesus' family as described in the Gospels. In the end, the stats are only as good as the assumptions used to construct them.

“Implicitly you must accuse James, Peter and John (mentioned in Galatians 1-2 in our earliest New Testament document from 49 A.D.) of fraud and coverup. Are we really to believe that they knew Jesus didn't rise bodily from the dead but perpetrated a fraudulent religion, for which they and others were prepared to die? Did they really hide the body of Jesus in another tomb? We need to remember that the James in question is Jesus' brother, who certainly would have known about a family tomb. This frankly is impossible for me to believe.” [13]

For example, Matthew and Judah are not mentioned in the four Gospels as members of Jesus' family.

42 "Joseph." Under this name we have to distinguish (α) the husband of Mary, mother of the Lord, (β) one of the brethren of the Lord, introduced under the Greek form "Joses", (γ) a brother of James the Little; (δ) the disciple from Arimathea. Trench notes "John's veracity in recording Philip's imperfect knowledge" ("Studies," p. 68 f.). The Evangelist's admission to his record of such descriptions of our Lord (cf. 6:42) falls under what the late Dr. Salmon called John's "irony," as against the German suggestion that the Evangelist did not know of the Virgin Birth, or discredited it. This many-sidedness of John's narrative does but confirm the conviction of its never departing from, still less correcting, the common "historical" setting of the Synoptic Gospels. O. Holtzmann, whilst one of those lightly esteeming the historical value of the fourth Gospel (p. 108), hesitates not to appraise it highly, as occasion serves, like the present passage, for the belittling of the Synoptic narrative; here to support the idea of a human paternity of the Lord (see, further, on John 6:42).