The resurrection of Jesus is the Christian belief that God raised Jesus from the dead on the third day after his crucifixion, starting – or restoring – his exalted life as Christ and Lord. According to the New Testament writing, Jesus was firstborn from the dead, ushering in the Kingdom of God. He appeared to his disciples, calling the apostles to the Great Commission of forgiving sin and baptizing repenters, and ascended to Heaven.
Yeshua was a common alternative form of the name Yehoshua in later books of the Hebrew Bible and among Jews of the Second Temple period. The name corresponds to the Greek spelling Iesous (Ἰησοῦς), from which, through the Latin IESVS/Iesus, comes the English spelling Jesus.
The empty tomb is the Christian tradition that the tomb of Jesus was found empty after his crucifixion. The canonical gospels each describe the visit of women to Jesus' tomb. Although Jesus' body had been laid out in the tomb after crucifixion and death, the tomb is found to be empty, the body gone, and the women are told by angels that he has risen.
The James Ossuary is a 1st-century limestone box that was used for containing the bones of the dead. An Aramaic inscription meaning "Jacob (James), son of Joseph, brother of Yeshua" is cut into one side of the box. The ossuary attracted scholarly attention due to its apparent association with the Christian holy family.
The tomb of Jesus is the place where Jesus was entombed after his death. According to the gospel accounts, the tomb originally belonged to Joseph of Arimathea, a wealthy man who, believing Jesus was the Messiah, offered his own sepulcher for the burial of Jesus.
John 20:16 is the sixteenth verse in the twentieth chapter of the Gospel of John in the New Testament of the Bible. The verse describes the moment that Mary Magdalene realizes that Jesus has returned from the dead, when she recognizes his voice calling her name.
The Greek Acts of Philip is an episodic gnostic apocryphal book of acts from the mid-to-late fourth century, originally in fifteen separate acta, that gives an accounting of the miraculous acts performed by the Apostle Philip, with overtones of the heroic romance.
Géza Vermes, was a British academic, Biblical scholar, and Judaist of Jewish–Hungarian descent—one who also served as a Roman Catholic priest in his youth—and scholar specialized in the field of the history of religion, particularly ancient Judaism and early Christianity. He is best known for his complete translation of the Dead Sea Scrolls into English; his research focused on the Dead Sea Scrolls and other Ancient Hebrew writings in Aramaic such as the Targumim, and on the life and religion of Jesus. Vermes was one of the most important voices in contemporary Jesus research, and he has been described as the greatest Jesus scholar of his time. Vermes' written work on Jesus focuses principally on the Jewishness of the historical Jesus, as seen in the broader context of the narrative scope of Jewish history and theology, while questioning and challenging the basis of the Christian doctrine on Jesus.
Mariamne is a name frequently used in the Herodian royal house. In Greek it is spelled Μαριάμη (Mariame) by Josephus; in some editions of his work the second m is doubled (Mariamme). In later copies of those editions the spelling was dissimilated to its now most common form, Mariamne. In Hebrew, Mariamne is known as מִרְיָם, (Miriam), as in the Biblical name ; Mariamne is the Hellenized version of the Hebrew, as Koine Greek was a common language in the late Hasmonean era in Judea, where both Mariamnes lived.
The Jesus bloodline refers to the proposition that a lineal sequence of the historical Jesus has persisted, possibly to the present time.
Simcha Jacobovici is a Canadian-Israeli journalist, documentary filmmaker and pseudoarcheologist.
The Census of Quirinius was a census of the Roman province of Judaea taken in 6 CE, upon its formation, by the governor of Roman Syria, Publius Sulpicius Quirinius. The census triggered a revolt of Jewish extremists led by Judas of Galilee.
James Daniel Tabor is an American Biblical scholar and retired Professor of Ancient Judaism and Early Christianity in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, where he taught from 1989 until 2022 and served as chair from 2004 to 2014. He previously held positions at Ambassador College, the University of Notre Dame (1979–85), and the College of William and Mary (1985–89). Tabor is the founder and director of the Original Bible Project, a non-profit organisation aimed to produce a re-ordered new translation of the Bible in English.
The Talpiot Tomb is a rock-cut tomb discovered in 1980 in the East Talpiot neighborhood, five kilometers south of the Old City in East Jerusalem. It contained ten ossuaries, six inscribed with epigraphs, including one interpreted as "Yeshua bar Yehosef", though the inscription is partially illegible, and its translation and interpretation is widely disputed. The tomb also yielded various human remains and several carvings.
The Lost Tomb of Jesus is a pseudoarchaeological docudrama co-produced and first broadcast on the Discovery Channel and Vision TV in Canada on March 4, 2007, covering the discovery of the Talpiot Tomb. It was directed by Canadian documentary and film maker Simcha Jacobovici and produced by Felix Golubev and Ric Esther Bienstock, while James Cameron served as executive producer. The film was released in conjunction with a book about the same subject, The Jesus Family Tomb, issued in late February 2007 and co-authored by Jacobovici and Charles R. Pellegrino. The documentary and the book's claims have been rejected by the overwhelming majority of leading experts within the archaeological and theological fields, as well as among linguistic and biblical scholars.
Jodi Magness is an archaeologist, orientalist and scholar of religion. She serves as the Kenan Distinguished Professor for Teaching Excellence in Early Judaism at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She previously taught at Tufts University.
The historical reliability of the Gospels is evaluated by experts who have not reached complete consensus. While all four canonical gospels contain some sayings and events that may meet at least one of the five criteria for historical reliability used in biblical studies, the assessment and evaluation of these elements is a matter of ongoing debate.
The Caiaphas ossuary is one of twelve ossuaries or bone boxes, discovered in a burial cave in south Jerusalem in November 1990, two of which featured the name "Caiaphas".
Joseph E. Zias, most commonly cited as Joe Zias, was the Curator of Archaeology and Anthropology for the Israel Antiquities Authority from 1972 until his retirement in 1997, with responsibility for items such as the Dead Sea Scrolls, pre-historic human skeletal remains, and artifacts from archaeological sites such as Jericho, Megiddo, and Gezer. He has appeared often in film and television documentaries regarding such artifacts and the subject of the Historical Jesus, including The Mysterious Man of the Shroud for CBS, Who Killed Jesus on BBC in 1997 and Son of God on BBC in 2001, and is a frequent lecturer.
The Lost Gospel: Decoding the Ancient Text that Reveals Jesus' Marriage to Mary the Magdalene is a book published by investigative journalist Simcha Jacobovici and Religious Studies historian Barrie Wilson in 2014. It contends that the 6th century manuscript -- by Pseudo-Zacharias Rhetor now British Library Add MS 17202 -- commonly referred to as "Joseph and Aseneth" is really a disguised history. The book's assertions are not supported by mainstream Biblical scholarship.
