ISRAEL/ JERUSALE: Israel unveils caskets claimed by New York filmmakers to belong to Jesus's relatives.

Israel unveils what "Titanic" film director James Cameron believes may be caskets of Jesus's relatives. Four ceramic caskets, or "ossuaries", two of which were inscribed, were displayed in Israel's Antiquities Authority's shelter in the suburban Israeli city of Beit Shemesh on Tuesday (February 27). "Yosef" and "Matiya" read the inscriptions on the dusty caskets that "Titanic" film director James Cameron claimed belonged to the key new Testament figures of Matthew and Joseph. Two other caskets were displayed but it was unknown whom they belonged to. The caskets were shown just a day after Cameron and a team of scholars held a news conference to reveal evidence that Jesus and his relatives were buried in Jerusalem. A plain limestone box, or "ossuary", filmmakers believe belonged to Jesus was displayed at the New York news conference that presented the discovery of 10 caskets found 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. The severely disintegrated bones found in the coffins were reburied according to tradition, but human matter collected by filmmakers has provided DNA profiles. Filmmakers say that the DNA results suggest that the couple were not related but that they may have been married. The find is naturally causing a deal of controversy around the world. A leader of a Lutheran Church in Jerusalem, Bishop Munib Younan, said no discovery would dispute the Christian belief that Jesus's tomb cannot be found because Christ was resurrected after his crucifixion. "When we come to these stories, I mean to these archaeological and documentaries where we are really having them, we just really look at them and we will read their arguments, but I think it will not change our faith that the tomb is empty," Bishop Younan said. "Our Christ is the living God, and he is living in every church where our people, where we, can experience his presence among us every day, every minute, that is my faith and it will never be shaken," Younan added. Cameron, a film director known world wide for his fiction thrillers like "Titanic" and "Alien", insisted that, Hollywood aside, he is a credible documentarian Filmmakers say statistical analysis shows the odds are 600-1 in favour of the tomb being that of Jesus's family. Though 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. Filmmakers believe that one of the 10 coffins which contain inscriptions may represent the son of Jesus and Mary Magdalene.

ITN Source | February 27, 2007

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