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The latest book by James D. Tabor<\/strong> is titled “The Lost Mary”<\/i>. After the Talpiot tomb<\/strong> attributed to Jesus, the author embarks on a psycho-historical reconstruction<\/strong> of the \u201clost\u201d Virgin Mary.<\/i><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Finally, is the \u201clost Virgin Mary<\/strong>\u201d revealed?<\/p>\n Another sensationalistic claim<\/strong> comes from someone well known<\/strong> in the academic field of Christian origins research.<\/p>\n His name is James D. Tabor<\/strong><\/mark>, a retired scholar who long taught Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina.<\/p>\n A few weeks ago his latest book was released, “The Lost Mary: Rediscovering the Mother of Jesus”<\/a><\/i><\/strong> (Penguin Random House 2025), a retrospective investigation into the figure of the Mother of Jesus that claims to restore a \u201chistorical Mary\u201d<\/strong> through psychological and archaeological reconstructions.<\/p>\n Why \u201crestore\u201d? Because, according to the author, the true identity of Mary has been lost<\/strong> through centuries of Christian attempts to \u201cdepict her as a virgin and almost divine woman.\u201d<\/i> We shall see how utopian his idea is.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n As we said, the author is not an unknown figure.<\/p>\n James D. Tabor<\/strong> is known for promoting the idea of the so-called \u201ctomb of Jesus\u201d<\/strong>, discovered in 1980 in the Talpiot neighborhood of Jerusalem.<\/p>\n It is a rock-cut tomb containing ten ossuaries with inscriptions that were translated as “Mary”<\/strong>, “Yose”, “Mariamene and Mara”<\/strong> and “Matya”. Tabor himself claimed to interpret the few letters of another almost illegible inscription as “Yeshua bar Yosef”<\/i><\/strong> (\u201cJesus, son of Joseph\u201d).<\/p>\n The scholar, together with Jewish journalist Simcha Jacobovici<\/strong> and filmmaker James Cameron<\/strong>, argued that the combination of these names matched those of Jesus\u2019 family<\/strong> and hypothesized that “Mariamene and Mara” could refer to Mary Magdalene<\/strong>, based on two deuterocanonical passages and a (forced) interpretation of some Gnostic texts<\/strong> where Mary Magdalene is sometimes called “Mariamne”.<\/p>\n From this came a series of deductions<\/strong> published in “The Jesus Dynasty”<\/em> (2006) and “The Jesus Discovery”<\/em> (2012): if<\/strong> the ossuary contains the family of Jesus, if<\/strong> \u201cYeshua bar Yosef\u201d (“Jesus son of Joseph”) and that of \u201cMariamene and Mara\u201d are in the same tomb, and if<\/strong> “Mariamene” is Mary Magdalene, then they might have been a betrothed\/lovers couple<\/strong> and together had a son, identified in another ossuary.<\/p>\n This is very close to Dan Brown\u2019s “The Da Vinci Code”<\/strong>. It is no surprise that James D. Tabor<\/strong> has become something of a laughingstock<\/strong> in the field of Christian origins studies.<\/p>\n On the other hand:<\/p>\n According to onomastic records<\/strong> of the 1st century, about a quarter of women were named “Mary” and a significant percentage of men “Joseph” or “Jesus”, so the coincidence<\/strong> had no evidential value;<\/p>\n<\/li>\n Nothing in the inscriptions linked the individuals through family relationships<\/strong>, no title of \u201cNazareth\u201d or \u201cMessiah\u201d appeared;<\/p>\n<\/li>\n The probabilistic analysis claiming that the combination of names was \u201c1 in 600,000\u201d<\/strong> was dismantled by statistics experts such as Camil Fuchs<\/strong>1<\/a><\/sup>C. Fuchs<\/b>, The Statistics Are Not \u201cNil\u201d<\/i>, Biblical Archaeology Society 01\/02\/2008<\/span> and Randy Ingermanson<\/strong>2<\/a><\/sup>R. Ingermanson<\/b>, \u201cJesus Family Tomb: A Statistical Analysis of the \u2018Jesus Equation\u2019\u201d<\/i>, 03\/2007<\/span>, who showed that the calculations were based on arbitrary and unscientific assumptions;<\/p>\n<\/li>\n Archaeologist Amos Kloner<\/strong>, who supervised the discovery in 1980, stated that there was nothing extraordinary about the tomb, that it \u201chas no connection whatsoever with Jesus<\/strong> of Nazareth\u201d<\/i>, and that Tabor\u2019s identification is \u201cpure fantasy\u201d<\/i>3<\/a><\/sup>A. Kloner<\/b>, \u201cA Tomb with Inscribed Ossuaries in East Talpiot, Jerusalem\u201d<\/i>, Atiqot 1996, pp. 15\u201322<\/span>. In 2007<\/a><\/em><\/strong> he explicitly called it a \u201cfraud.\u201d<\/i><\/p>\n<\/li>\n The (atheist) archaeologist William Dever<\/strong> called it<\/a><\/em><\/strong> \u201ca typical example of a shameful publicity stunt.\u201d<\/i><\/p>\n<\/li>\n The Archaeological Institute of America<\/strong> stated<\/a><\/em><\/strong> that it was \u201ca set of problematic and unfounded claims […], inconsistent with all available historical and archaeological information […] sensationalistic and lacking any basis or scientific support.\u201d<\/i><\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n <\/p>\n After nearly twenty years, James D. Tabor<\/strong> seems to try again, this time placing the Virgin Mary at the center.<\/p>\n The book does not deviate from the controversial methods of the author and appears as a biographical-psychological investigation<\/strong> that claims to reconstruct historical contexts and family dynamics concerning the mother of Jesus.<\/p>\n
\nWho is James D. Tabor and the tomb of Jesus<\/h2>\n
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The “Lost” Virgin Mary?<\/h2>\n