It's almost enough to make one believe in miracles! The series of events is uncanny. Consider all the facts that had to be discovered to make the case claimed in "The Jesus Family Tomb," by Simcha Jacobovici and Charles Pellegrino. This book, just published, could represent, as the authors claim, "The Discovery, the Investigation, and the Evidence That Could Change History," by proving that the burial place of Jesus of Nazareth and his family has actually been located. Only those with closed minds with no cracks for the light of reason to shine through can ignore such carefully gathered evidence!

The first miracle, as I see it, was that ossuaries (stone boxes containing bones of the deceased) were used ONLY in the first century. So there is no doubt about the period being investigated.

The second miracle is that this particular rock tomb was ever discovered. This happened while they were building suburbs in the Jerusalem area in 1980. As required by Israeli law, construction ceased while the Antiquities Authority carefully mapped the area, then removed the ten ossuaries found there, and resealed the tomb.

The next miracle was that one ossuary was stolen on its way to the holding area, and diverted to the antiquities black market. It was later featured in a documentary because its inscription read "James, son of Joseph, brother of Jesus."

Another miracle was that Simcha Jacobovici, after making that documentary, crossed paths with one of the archaeologists who had discovered this tomb, who told him the names on the six ossuaries that had inscriptions: Maria; Joseph; Mariamne; Matthew; Jesus, son of Joseph; and Judah, son of Jesus. Most were common names of that era so no great significance had been noted.

The recent discovery of a complete copy of the apocryphal book, "The Acts of Philip," constitutes the next miracle in our story, because it identifies Philip's sister Mariamne as Mary Magdalene, which now puts a different light on the names in the tomb. Statistics show the chance grouping of those particular names in the small population at that time were extremely low.

When the Antiquities Department collects ossuaries, it allows Rabbis to rebury the bones and the ossuaries are then cleaned for display. Luckily, (another miracle) there was enough residue remaining on the Mariamne and Jesus ossuaries to do some DNA analysis. Only the mitochondrial DNA could be recovered, but that was enough to prove that Marianmne and Jesus were not related. Since tombs normally contain either blood relations or spouses, it is likely that the two were married, and that Judah was their son.

Now the final miracle: the ossuary of "James, son of Joseph, brother of Jesus," was proven to have come from that same tomb, making the statistical chance that this was the family tomb of the Biblical Jesus absolutely compelling!

Each of these "miracles" was, of course, a natural event, resulting in a convergence of facts that suggest a completely different story of the life of Jesus and his fabled Resurrection from that preached by most Christian churches.

The REAL miracle will be if believers are open-minded enough to read this book (which provides much additional material) and then create a new, rational concept of Christianity focusing on what Jesus taught, not who they thought he was.