Resumo de Findings On Jesus Tomb Unveiled

New York, Feb 27 (DPA) The findings of a controversial documentary claiming that a cave discovered 26 years ago in Jerusalem held the remains of Jesus Christ were unveiled in New York.

The documentary, titled "The Burial Cave of Jesus", follows years of research by world-renowned archaeologists and experts in ancient scripts, according to the film's producers Monday.

The 2,000-year-old cave was first discovered in 1980 in Jerusalem's Talpiyot neighbourhood. It contained 10 coffins, six of which bore inscriptions that - translated into English - included the names "Jesus, son of Joseph," twice "Maria" and "Judah, son of Jesus".

The second Maria is hypothesised to be Maria Magdalene, while the tomb bearing the name Judah suggests Jesus had a son. DNA has reportedly been extracted from remains found in two of the coffins.

"To a layman's eye, it seems pretty darn compelling," executive producer James Cameron, the Canadian director of the movie "Titanic", said at a press conference in New York. "This is the biggest archaeological story of the century," he added.

Cameron and Israel's Simcha Jacobovici, who directed the film, displayed two of the coffins - on loan from the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) - which, they said, may have contained the bones of Jesus and Mary Magdalene.

But the documentary, to be aired Sunday on the Discovery Channel, Britain's Channel 4, Canada's VisionTV and Israel's Channel 8, has sparked a swirl of debate in Israel and around the world.

A senior Israeli archaeologist who thoroughly researched the tomb after its discovery, and at the time deciphered the inscriptions, cast serious doubt on the documentary's claim.

"It's a beautiful story but without any proof whatsoever," said Professor Amos Kloner, who had published the findings of his research in the Israeli periodical Atiqot in 1996.

"The names that are found on the tombs are names that are similar to the names of the family of Jesus," he said.

Kloner dismissed the combination of names found in the cave as a "coincidence".

Professor Juergen Zangenberg, an expert on the New Testament at the Dutch University of Leiden, said the documentary's claim was unrealistic, and more likely "about money and headlines".

The Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA), which is keeping the caskets in its archive in the town of Beit Shemesh near Jerusalem, declined to comment on the documentary, saying it had not researched the caskets and that its duty was only to safeguard them.

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