After reading that page, I strongly suspect that’s not him. It’s all based on statistical modeling, and it’s been heavily massaged. Even with that, they give it 1/600 odds (on the low end) of it being random chance, which those aren’t bad odds.
Apparently the inscriptions are partially illegible, so assuming it’s even correct their statistical model is based on the name Mariamne being Mary Magdelene (which is clearly not the name we remember her by) and being Jesus’s wife, Maria being the mother, and Jesus having a son, which we didn’t know about, named Judah, as well as a few other assumption that really do not feel like they should be making.
Even making a ton of assumptions, the odds are still not particularly convincing. It feels like something that can increase someone’s faith if they don’t question it, but if you examine it at all reveals how much people are reaching to prove what they already want to believe.
fine_sandy_bottom@discuss.tchncs.de 2 months ago
There’s a bunch of references for archaeologists debunking it.
I know you said “it might not be him” but I feel like that understates the weight of evidence against that possibility.
dudinax@programming.dev 2 months ago
The respectable probability estimates range from astronomically unlikely to merely unlikely. In other words, we don’t have incontrovertible ways of calculating the probability.
While it’s not great or convincing evidence, it’s the only physical evidence I know about.
fine_sandy_bottom@discuss.tchncs.de 2 months ago
We might not be able to calculate the probability but we can conclude that the chances that this tomb is that of Jesus is infinitesimal.
dudinax@programming.dev 2 months ago
If you can’t calculate the probability, then you can’t rationally reach the conclusion that the probability is very low.