The Talpiot tomb
GradeDisputed
In 2007 a documentary by Jacobovici and Cameron presented a Jerusalem tomb as the family grave of Jesus, which would contradict the Christian belief that he rose bodily from the dead. The tomb, found in 1980 and excavated by Yosef Gat under Amos Kloner, is a genuine Second Temple-period family tomb, with ossuaries bearing names including "Yeshua son of Yehosef" and "Mariamene". Christians point out that the identification is rejected by the overwhelming majority of archaeologists, Christian theologians, linguists and biblical scholars, and that Kloner, the archaeologist responsible for the excavation, said the names were very common at the time.
Disputed as an identification, and in practice rejected. The tomb is authentic, but nothing in it bears on Jesus.
Explore the counterarguments
The documentary's case rests on the cluster of names, argued statistically. Those statistics depend on contested assumptions, and the names were common, so the cluster does not single out Jesus' family.